Never Let You Go(41)

“Are you going to be okay? If he realizes you helped—”

“He’s not going to find out anything. I’m going to be as shocked as him when he tells me you ran away.” He looked over at me. “I’ve got this, okay? I can handle him. Just get off the island and as far away as you can. Start over and don’t look back.” I saw the shimmer in his eyes, how hard he was trying not to cry. “I’ll never say a word.”

I knew he was remembering the time I caught him trying to put out the fire in the shop. He’d stolen our dad’s cigarettes and was practicing blowing smoke rings, until he dropped one into a pile of sawdust. I grabbed a water bucket and helped him put out the flames, then bandaged his arm where he’d burned it. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ll never say a word.”

But this was different. This was so much more real and dangerous than two kids covering up a small fire. I had a flash of a thought, an image. The cotton from the pill bottle sitting on the bathroom counter. I couldn’t remember if I put it in the trash. I must have. I still had the bottle with Chris’s name on the label. I’d get rid of it in a Dumpster somewhere far away. It’s the only way, I’d whispered. Chris had offered to help without a moment’s hesitation. Since he was a baby I’d been taking care of him, protecting him, but now the tables had turned.

You’re my sister, he said. We’re in this together.



I’d been awake for an hour already, peeking through the curtains. I didn’t want the hotel’s housekeeping staff or anyone at the front desk to see us. We had to run for the truck quickly. Sophie was also awake now, grimly chewing on a granola bar and watching cartoons.

“Jackson will be here soon,” I said.

She didn’t answer. She’d barely spoken all morning, but I saw her eying the phone and had a terrifying thought that she might call her father. When she caught me looking, she said, “I was thinking about Grandma and Grandpa. I didn’t get to say good-bye.”

“We’ll call them when we get to Vancouver, okay?”

“Can we call Daddy?”

“He’s going to be working all day.”

My new cell phone rang and we both stared at it. “It’s Daddy!” she said.

“It’s Uncle Chris,” I said as I picked it up, relieved but also nervous when I saw his number.

“Something happened.” Chris’s voice was wild and high. I’d never heard him sound like this and I sat down on the side of the bed. Sophie was watching, her face intent.

“Good morning, Chris.” I kept my voice calm, hoped Chris would understand that I couldn’t talk freely in front of Sophie. “Is Jackson on his way?”

“Andrew was in an accident. I just heard about it this morning. He wasn’t at the job site.”

I snuck a glance at Sophie. She was watching cartoons now, her feet kicking up in the air, her hands under her chin. I walked toward the window and lowered my voice. “Is he all right?”

“He’s in the hospital—he totaled his truck—but he’s okay.” There was something more. He sounded too shook up.

“When did it happen?”

“Last night—a couple of hours after you and Sophie left, I think.”

“I don’t understand how he could have been driving.” Two pills. It should have been enough, but he must have woken up somehow and realized we were gone.

“I don’t know either.” He paused. “It’s really bad, Lindsey. He ran through some red lights, hit a parked car, flipped the truck, then crashed into someone head-on.”

“Are they okay?”

“It was a woman. His truck landed right on top of her and crushed her inside her car. She’s dead.”

“Oh, no, no.” I had to sit down. I tried to get back to the bed, but the room tilted. I grabbed at the side table, knocking the lamp to the floor and shattering the bulb into tiny fragments. Sophie would step on them. I bent down and frantically gathered the pieces, and sliced my finger. I stared at the wound, my mind filling with images of mangled metal and blood in the snow. A woman. He’d killed a woman.

Sophie was clutching at my arm. “Mommy, Mommy!” she was saying, but I couldn’t answer. I could only sob. On the other end of the phone I heard my brother crying too.

I’d drugged my husband and run away with his daughter, knowing he would chase after me. Now someone was dead. I would never be free.





PART TWO





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


DECEMBER 2016



Sophie catches an errant string of melted cheese on her finger and sucks it into her mouth, laughs as some gets on her chin. I smile, glad for this moment. When she was a child, Andrew never let us eat in the living room, and there’s no way he’d let me order takeout.

I’d picked up a vegetarian pizza from our favorite place for our Thursday night tradition of watching The Bachelorette together. We talk about the guys, the dresses, who we’d pick. She’s been at Delaney’s all day, while I cleaned the house, trying to erase Andrew’s touch, his lingering essence, and rehearsed twenty different ways to have this conversation.

Sophie glances at me with a cheeky smile. “I saw the stew in the garbage. Were you trying to burn the house down?”