by Haylen Beck
“That’s it,” the security guard says. “Just come back a little more. You’re scaring me, you know? I’m not a young man anymore, I can’t take the—”
Something stops the words from leaving his mouth. Anna sees him wave at somebody, his teeth bared. He’s telling them to stay back, stay back, stay back.
“Let me talk to her,” Libby Reese says.
Anna turns her head. “Why would I talk to you?”
“You don’t have to. Just listen.”
She draws closer. Anna wraps her arms tight around Ethan.
“There’s not a word you could say that I’d want to hear.”
Libby stops ten feet away, her hands up, as if surrendering. She trembles. Anna can smell the fear. Taste it. It brings her a savage pleasure.
Libby gets down on her knees, hands still raised, her surrender near complete. “I think you need to hear me say it. Please, just listen.”
“You took everything from me,” Anna says, spitting the words, feeling them raw in her throat. “You took it just because you could, because you had the money and you thought you could buy anything you wanted. Even my son.”
“He’s not your son,” Libby says. “I told you. That is not your child. Ethan was taken from a couple in New York, meth addicts, and my husband and I adopted him. He is not your child, Anna, I swear to God, please don’t take him from me.”
Anna turns toward her, feels the edge of the wall as she does so, people gasp all around.
“Take him from you? He was never yours. You stole him from me.”
Libby clasps her hands together as if in prayer. She closes her eyes, her face contorting as if in terrible pain. A high whine comes from her, then a gasping inhalation.
“I killed your baby,” Libby says.
The words pierce Anna’s consciousness and she becomes quite still.
“I killed your baby,” Libby says again, her eyes opening. “In the trailer. When I shot at you I hit him. I killed him. He’s gone. It was me. It was always me. Don’t take Ethan. He doesn’t deserve to die for what I did. Look at him. Please, look at him. Look how beautiful he is. Please don’t take him.”
Anna looks down at the child in her arms. He is very still and quiet, his eyes distant, as if his soul has left his body. But he is beautiful, just like her L’il B was. She feels something tear inside of her, something comes loose, and she cries out, deep sobs that burst from the center of her.
“I wish I could take it back,” Libby says. “I wish I could go back to that morning and pull the gun out of my hand. I wish I could give you back your baby. But I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to put it right, I know that. But please, don’t take Ethan. He didn’t do anything. Please let him go.”
“Why couldn’t you let me have him?” Anna shouts, her voice scorching her throat.
“I’m sorry,” Libby says.
“Why didn’t you just walk away? You saw me there with him. You saw he was mine. Why couldn’t you walk away and let me have him?”
Libby has no reply. She slumps down, weighted by her sins, her eyes fixed on Anna’s.
“Goddamn you to hell,” Anna says.
She opens her arms and lets Ethan fall to the gravel roof. He lands hard but doesn’t make a sound, his soul still absent. A policeman dives in, grabs the child, whisks him away.
“I’m coming, L’il B,” Anna says.
She leans back, sees heaven and all its wonders.
Gravity takes her.
59
SOMEDAY
ETHAN PLAYS ON THE RUG on the living-room floor, but he isn’t really thinking about the building blocks and cars all around him. He is too excited. Tomorrow is his birthday. There won’t be a party tomorrow. Daddy and Tanya will have a party with him today instead with a cake and presents and everything. There won’t be a party tomorrow because tomorrow Daddy and Ethan are going to wake up early and get on an airplane and fly away. When they land, they will go to a special place and visit Mommy. Ethan hasn’t seen Mommy for a long time.
Daddy has warned Ethan that he might not like the place where Mommy lives now, but he shouldn’t be scared. Ethan doesn’t care about that. He just wants to see Mommy. Ethan likes living with Daddy and Tanya, but he misses Mommy. Sometimes he misses her so bad that it makes him hurt inside and he cries.
Tanya has a baby in her belly. Ethan is going to be a big brother. Tanya showed him a picture. It was all fuzzy and it didn’t look like a baby at all.
A few days ago, Ethan called Tanya Mommy by mistake. That made Ethan feel bad, and he hid under the kitchen table and cried. He told Dr. Sarah about it yesterday. Daddy takes Ethan to see Dr. Sarah sometimes. They sit on the floor and play with toys while they talk. Dr. Sarah said it was okay to call Tanya Mommy, even if she wasn’t his real mommy. It wouldn’t mean he stopped loving his real mommy. Ethan likes Dr. Sarah even though they sometimes talk about things that make him sad. Daddy says it’s good to talk about those things.
Yesterday, they talked about the night Ethan got lost. He doesn’t remember it very well. He remembers being scared, and the strange lady who took his hand and brought him to the room to watch cartoons. The lady fell. Ethan remembers that. He remembers the sound of it.
Sometimes Ethan has a dream. In his dream, he is way up high in the sky. It is nighttime and the sky is dark and there are stars. He is flying in the sky and he can see the moon, big and bright and fat. It hangs over the sea, reflected on the waves, and the sea stretches on and on. Ethan is so high up it makes him dizzy.
But Ethan never falls.
He never, ever falls.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Lost You is a work of fiction. It should not in any way be perceived as an attack on the idea of surrogacy. While the story presents some questions about the commercial exploitation of women and those people who have no other path to parenthood, and the legal uncertainty they often face, the author fully recognizes the good done by surrogate mothers around the world.
For my fellow Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, Chris, Doug, Luca, Mark, and Val
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As ever, I owe my gratitude to a number of people who have helped get this book over the finish line.
Nat Sobel, my agent for the last decade, has steered me through some stormy waters, along with Judith Weber, and everyone at Sobel Weber. Likewise, Caspian Dennis and everyone at Abner Stein.
Nate Roberson, Molly Stern, and everyone at Crown; Jade Chandler, Geoff Mulligan, Liz Foley, Faye Brewster, and everyone at Harvill Secker; thank you for your patience and understanding.
I owe Joe Long thanks for his expertise in the workings of elevators, but also for his continued friendship, support, advocacy, and occasional care packages. Joe, I owe you a beer. Maybe two.
I continue to depend on the friendship of too many fellow crime writers to list here, but you know who you are, and I thank you.
And Jo, Issy, and Ezra, who make it all worthwhile.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HAYLEN BECK is the pseudonym of acclaimed Edgar Award–nominated author Stuart Neville, whose crime fiction has won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and made the best-of-year lists of numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. His first Haylen Beck novel was Here and Gone.
Read on for an excerpt of Haylen Beck’s gripping thriller Here and Gone
Broadway Books
Available wherever books are sold
CHAPTER 1
The road swayed left then right, the rhythm of it making Audra Kinney’s eyelids grow heavier as each mile marker passed. She had given up counting them; it only made the journey slower. Her knuckles complained as she flexed her fingers on the wheel, palms greasy with sweat.
Thank God she’d had the eight-year-old station wagon’s AC serviced earlier in the year. New York summers might be hot, but not lik
e this. Not like Arizona-hot. It’s a dry heat, people said. Yeah, dry like the face of the sun, she thought. Even at five-thirty in the evening, even as the vents blew air cold enough to make goose pimples on her forearms, if she put her fingers to the window, her hand would recoil as if from a boiling kettle.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” Sean said from the backseat. That mewling voice that said he was tired and grumpy and liable to get difficult. Louise dozed beside him in her booster chair, her mouth open, blonde sweat-damp hair stuck to her forehead. She held Gogo in her lap, the ragged remains of the stuffed bunny she’d had since she was a baby.
Sean was a good boy. Everyone who knew him said so. But it had never been so clear as these last few days. So much had been asked of him, and he had endured. She looked at him in the mirror. His father’s sharp features and fair hair, but his mother’s long limbs. They had lengthened in recent months, reminding her that her son, now almost eleven, was approaching puberty. He had complained little since they left New York, considering, and he had been a help with his little sister. If not for him, Audra might have lost her sanity out here.
Lost her sanity?
There was nothing sane about this.
“There’s a town a few miles up ahead,” Audra said. “We can get something to eat. Maybe they’ll have a place we can stay.”
“I hope they do,” Sean said. “I don’t want to sleep in the car again.”
“Me neither.”
As if on cue, that pain between her shoulder blades, like the muscles back there coming unstitched. Like she was coming apart, and the stuffing would soon billow out of her seams.
“How you doing for water back there?” she asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror. She saw him glance down, heard water slosh in a plastic bottle.
“I got a little left. Louise drank hers already.”
“All right. We’ll get some more when we stop.”
Sean returned his attention to the world passing his window. Rocky hills covered in scrub sloping away from the road, cacti standing sentry, arms reaching skyward like surrendering soldiers. Above them, a sheet of deep blue, faint smears of white, a yellowing as the sun traveled west to the horizon. Beautiful country, in its way. Audra would have drunk it in, savored the landscape, had things been different.
If she hadn’t had to run.
But she didn’t really have to run, not truly. She could have waited to let events take their course, but the waiting had been torture, the seconds upon minutes upon hours of just not knowing. So she had packed everything and run. Like a coward, Patrick would say. He’d always said she was weak. Even if he said he loved her with his next breath.
Audra remembered a moment, in their bed, her husband’s chest against her back, his hand cupping her breast. Patrick saying he loved her. In spite of everything, he loved her. As if she didn’t deserve his love, not a woman like her. His tongue always the gentle blade with which to stab at her, so gentle she wouldn’t know she’d been cut until long after, when she would lie awake with his words still rolling in her mind. Rolling like stones in a glass jar, rattling like—
“Mom!”
Her head jerked up and she saw the truck coming at them, lights flashing. She pulled the wheel to the right, back onto her own side of the road, and the truck passed, the driver giving her a dirty look. Audra shook her head, blinked away the grimy dryness from her eyes, breathed in hard through her nose.
Not that close. But still too close. She cursed under her breath.
“You all right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Sean said, his voice coming from deep in his throat, the way it did when he didn’t want her to know he was scared. “Maybe we should pull over soon.”
Louise spoke now, her words thick with sleep. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Sean said. “Go back to sleep.”
“But I’m not sleepy,” she said. Then she gave a cough, a rattle beneath it. She’d been doing that since early this morning, the cough becoming more persistent through the day.
Audra watched her daughter in the mirror. Louise getting sick was the last thing she needed. She’d always been more prone to illness than her brother, was small for her age, and skinny. She hugged Gogo, her head rocked back, and her eyes closed again.
The car rose onto an expanse of flat land, desert stretching out all around, mountains to the north. Were they the San Francisco Peaks? Or the Superstitions? Audra didn’t know, she’d have to check a map to remind herself of the geography. It didn’t matter. All that mattered right this second was the small general store off the road up ahead.
“Mom, look.”
“Yeah, I see it.”
“Can we pull in?”
“Yeah.”
Maybe they’d have coffee. One good strong cup would get her through the next few miles. Audra turned the blinker on to signal a right turn, eased onto the side road, then left across a cattle grid and onto the sandy expanse of forecourt. The sign above the store read GROCERIES AND ENGRAVING, red block lettering on a white board. The low building was constructed of wood, a porch with benches running along its length, the windows dark, points of artificial light barely visible beyond the dusty glass.
Too late, she realized the only car parked in front was a police cruiser. State highway patrol or county sheriff, she couldn’t tell from here.
“Shit,” she said.
“You said a curse, Mom.”
“I know. Sorry.”
Audra slowed the station wagon, its tires crunching grit and stones. Should she turn around, get back on the road? No. The sheriff or patrolman or whoever sat in that car, he’d have noticed her by now. Turning around would arouse suspicion. The cop would start paying attention.
She pulled the car up in front of the store, as far away from the cruiser as she could manage without looking like she was keeping her distance. The engine rattled as it died, and she pressed the key to her lips as she thought. Get out, get what you need. Nothing wrong with that. I’m just someone who needed a coffee, maybe a couple of sodas, some potato chips.
For the last few days Audra had been aware of every law-enforcement vehicle she saw. Would they be looking for her? Common sense told her no, they almost certainly weren’t. It wasn’t like she was a fugitive, was it? But still, that small and terrified part of her brain wouldn’t let go of the fear, wouldn’t quit telling her they were watching, searching for her. Hunting her, even.
But if they were looking for anyone, it’d be the kids.
“Wait here with Louise,” she said.
“But I want to come too,” Sean said.
“I need you to look after your sister. Don’t argue.”
“Aw, man.”
“Good boy.”
She lifted her purse from the passenger seat, her sunglasses from the cup holder. Heat screamed in as she opened the driver’s door. She climbed out as quickly as she could, closed the door to keep the cool air in, the hot air out. Her cheeks and forearms took the force of the sun, her pale freckled skin unaccustomed to the sheer ferocity of it. She had used the little sunscreen she had for the kids; she would take the burn and save the money.
Audra allowed herself a brief study of the cruiser as she slipped on her shades: one person in the driver’s seat, male or female, she couldn’t tell. The insignia read: ELDER COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. She turned in a circle, stretched her limbs as she did so, saw the hills that climbed above and behind the store, the quiet road, the tumbling rolls of desert scrub on the other side. As she completed the circle, she took one more look at the sheriff’s car. The driver took a drink of something, appeared to be paying her no attention.
She stepped onto the concrete porch, walked toward the door, felt the wash of cool air as she opened it. Despite the chill, stale odors rode the current out into the heat. Inside, the dimness forced her to lift her shades onto her forehead
, though she would rather have kept them on. Better to risk being remembered for buying water than for tripping over boxes, she thought.
An elderly lady with dyed black hair sat behind the counter at the far end of the store, a pen in one hand, a puzzle book in the other. She did not look up from it to acknowledge the customer’s presence, which suited Audra well enough.
A cooler full of water and soda hummed against the wall. Audra took three bottles of water and a Coke.
“Excuse me,” she called to the elderly woman.
Without lifting her head, the woman said, “Mm-hm?”
“You got a coffee machine?”
“No, ma’am.” The woman pointed her pen to the west. “Silver Water, about five miles that way, they got a diner. Their coffee’s pretty good.”
Audra approached the counter. “Okay. Just these, then.”
As she placed the four plastic bottles on the counter, Audra noticed the glass cabinet mounted on the wall. A dozen pistols of different shapes and sizes, revolvers, semi-automatics, at least as far as she could tell. She’d lived on the East Coast all her life, and even knowing Arizona was gun country, she still found the sight of the weapons startling. A soda and a gun, please, she thought, and the idea almost made her laugh out loud.
The woman rang up the drinks, and Audra dug inside her purse, fearing for a moment that she had run out of cash. There, she found a ten folded inside a drugstore receipt, and handed it over, waited for her change.
“Thank you,” she said, lifting the bottles.
“Mm-hm.”
The woman had hardly glanced at her through the whole exchange, and Audra was glad of it. Maybe she would remember a tall auburn-haired lady, if anyone asked. Maybe she wouldn’t. Audra went to the door and out into the wall of heat. Sean watched her from the back of the station wagon, Louise still dozing beside him. She turned her head toward the cruiser.