Don't Turn Around
Page 26
The Jeep was in the shop—the repairs the mechanic had made back in New Mexico turned out to be a temporary fix—so she was in a loaner. A little hatchback, low to the ground and with a transmission that took its sweet time changing gears. It made her miss the Jeep.
She glanced over at Adam’s apartment. The windows were dark, and his Corolla was parked out front. She hadn’t seen anyone go inside since she’d been back, and the yellow police tape she’d expected to see cordoning off the area never materialized. No one knocked on her door asking questions. It was almost as if he’d never existed. She figured at some point the landlord would get wind that the place was empty and rent it out to someone else, though considering she’d never met the landlord herself and the monthly rent flew directly from her account to some anonymous property management company based in Cedar Park, it might be a long time before anyone learned that Adam wasn’t living there anymore. Wasn’t living, period. She wondered if his body was visible out on that mesa or if the birds had picked his bones clean.
She checked the time again. Getting close now. Another five minutes and she’d go inside and get Rebecca.
After they’d left the courthouse, Cait had driven her back to the house in the Lubbock suburbs and sat outside while Rebecca ran in and packed a bag. They’d been staying together in Cait’s apartment since, Rebecca taking the bed while Cait slept on the couch in the living room. Cait had insisted on that. She wanted her to be as comfortable as possible, and anyway, Cait wasn’t sleeping that much at the minute.
She blamed herself, if she was being honest. She knew deep down it wasn’t her fault that Adam had come after them, but there was a little persistent niggle at the back of her mind that said it had been punishment for what she’d intended to do on the trip. Rebecca kept saying that she’d forgiven her, and part of Cait believed her, but she chalked that up more to Rebecca’s good character than having atoned for her own sins. She had a ways to go on that front.
This was a start, at least. Giving Rebecca a home and a bed and a clean set of sheets. Giving her a ride to the clinic. Cait would look after her once it was over, too: she already had a stack of magazines and a stocked refrigerator. She was starting to find she liked taking care of her. Was maybe even good at it.
Her front door opened, and Rebecca emerged. To the average pair of eyes, she looked the same as she had the night Cait picked her up a week ago, all blond hair and patrician beauty. With the exception of the cut healing above her eyebrow, you would never know she’d just been through something like she had. Was still going through, really. But Cait could see the difference. The past week had toughened her up, hardened her to the world. A fact that made Cait both proud and deeply sad.
Rebecca slid into the passenger seat without a word.
“Ready?” Cait asked, but she was already pulling away from the curb. She knew Rebecca was ready for this.
The two women drove in silence for a while, lost in their own thoughts but comforted by the other’s presence.
Eventually, Rebecca turned to her. “I’ve been thinking,” she said quietly. “Do you still have your notes for the story you were going to write about me?”
Cait felt the familiar heat of shame flood over her. “No! I mean, yes, I do, but I’m going to get rid of them, burn them. I just haven’t had the chance. I promise you I will, though. I’m still so sorry about—”
Rebecca held up a hand to stop her. “I don’t want you to destroy them. I want you to use them. I want you to write my story. All of it.”
Cait raised an eyebrow. “All of it?”
They were both thinking about Adam’s body lying in the desert.
One corner of Rebecca’s mouth twisted up. “Maybe not all of it.” She looked at Cait and held her gaze. “I want people to know what happened to me. I think maybe it could help other women. Let them know that they’re not alone. Would you do that for me?”
“Of course. I’d be honored.”
There were armed policemen stationed at the clinic gates, a temporary measure due to the heightened risk. Lisa said that they’d be gone by next week and it would be back to business as usual, with volunteers in high-vis vests to guide patients past the protestors and shield them from harm.
Rebecca tugged on a baseball cap, and together they made their way through the throng of protesters. Cait held her breath and waited for one of them to recognize Rebecca from the news, to say something particularly personal and cruel, but they just shouted their usual slogans and waved their usual signs.
They reached the clinic door, and Rebecca paused on the threshold.
Cait looked at her. “You okay? We can take a minute if you want . . .”
Rebecca shook her head and touched a hand to her stomach. There it was, the tiny flutter of butterfly wings. She closed her eyes.
I hope you know I love you. I hope you know that I’m doing what I think is right, and that it’s breaking my heart to do it.
She opened them and nodded. “I’m ready.”
Cait reached out and took her hand. “I’ll be here when you get out,” she said as she led Rebecca through the sliding doors. “I’ll be waiting. We’ll get through this together.”
Rebecca squeezed Cait’s hand and smiled. “I know we will.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you, as ever, to my brilliant agent and friend, Felicity Blunt, for her constant support and guidance, and for not firing me when I refused to set up my voicemail. Thanks, too, to the wonderful Alexandra Machinist at ICM, and to Katie McGowan, Cal Mollison, Rosie Pierce, Luke Speed, and everyone at Curtis Brown.
Thank you to my US editor, Sara Nelson at HarperCollins, who didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when I told her the idea for this book, and whose confidence and enthusiasm has been so helpful along the way. Thanks also to Heather Drucker, Katie O’Callaghan, Mary Gaule, and Lisa Erickson. Thanks to my UK editor, Jade Chandler at Harvill Secker, for her invaluable notes and feedback, and to Sara Adams, Sophie Painter, and Jasmine Marsh. Thanks to KM, for finding the heart of the story and for giving me the push I needed to dig it out.
This book wouldn’t have made it out of the gate without the steady wisdom and encouragement of two people: Simon Robertson and Katie Cunningham. I love you both so very much.
I researched a lot of dark corners of the internet for this book, and while much of what I was found was maddening, sobering, infuriating, and terrifying, I also found countless instances of sacrifice and support, bravery and defiance, of women holding each other up and protecting each other, both online and out there in the real world. I’ll carry these moments with me.
About the Author
Jessica Barry is a pseudonym for an American author who grew up in a small town in Massachusetts and was raised on a steady diet of library books and PBS. She attended Boston University, where she majored in English and art history, before moving to London in 2004 to pursue an MA from University College London. She lives with her husband, Simon, and their two cats, Roger Livesey and BoJack Horseman.
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Also by Jessica Barry
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
don’t turn around. Copyright © 2020 by Hudson & Guide Post Limited. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express writte
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first edition
Cover design by Caroline Johnson
Cover photographs © RZCREATIVE/Stocksy United (face); © Marcel/Stocksy United (red lights); © Henrik Trygg/Getty Images (headlights)
Title page image © Shutterstock, Pictures_for_You
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition JUNE 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-287488-7
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-287486-3
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