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Back Don't Look for Me Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-one
  25. Chapter Twenty-two
  26. Chapter Twenty-three
  27. Chapter Twenty-four
  28. Chapter Twenty-five
  29. Chapter Twenty-six
  30. Chapter Twenty-seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-one
  35. Chapter Thirty-two
  36. Chapter Thirty-three
  37. Chapter Thirty-four
  38. Chapter Thirty-five
  39. Chapter Thirty-six
  40. Chapter Thirty-seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-one
  45. Chapter Forty-two
  46. Chapter Forty-three
  47. Chapter Forty-four
  48. Chapter Forty-five
  49. Chapter Forty-six
  50. Chapter Forty-seven
  51. Chapter Forty-eight
  52. Chapter Forty-nine
  53. Chapter Fifty
  54. Chapter Fifty-one
  55. Chapter Fifty-two
  56. Chapter Fifty-three
  57. Chapter Fifty-four
  58. Chapter Fifty-five
  59. Chapter Fifty-six
  60. Chapter Fifty-seven
  61. Acknowledgments [TK]
  62. Also by Wendy Walker

I will use this. I will use the cameras. I don’t know how.

But I will find a way.

Chapter Eighteen

Day fourteen

It was an accident.

Those words had never left Nic’s mouth. She’d heard them used by everyone in her life. Her father. The grief counselor. Teachers, before she got expelled.

She’d thought of it the way she’d thought of the words died unexpectedly when someone committed suicide. Or overdosed.

No sense adding to the pain of the survivors by saying what really happened.

But now, for the very first time, she felt the words differently. It was an accident. Her mother hadn’t killed Annie. Nic hadn’t killed Annie. Annie had run into the road. Nic had called after her, tried to stop her. Her mother had been coming around a blind corner, she’d slowed down, ready to turn into the driveway. It was a confluence of circumstances, of small decisions and actions that on any other occasion would have left their minds. They were devoid of moral underpinnings, no matter how desperately anyone wanted to believe otherwise.

And when a series of actions come together to create a tragedy, that’s what it’s called—an accident.

She wondered how her mother thought of it. If she still said those words inside her head.

I killed my child.

She wondered if all those conversations with her support group had fueled the fire. No matter how hard people pretended, it would have been difficult to hide their judgment of her. Nic had felt it sprinkled over their kind words in the emails. Even her father—the way he spoke of it, of his wife behind the wheel of that car. It was so much easier to believe that it could never happen to them.

* * *

The casino was half an hour from Hastings. Back onto Route 7. Fifteen miles south. Left on Laguna Drive, then another five miles into the alternating woods and fields. Her father had not wanted her to come here when they’d done the canvas. He’d wanted her to go home.

Kurt had been right about Thursday nights. The lot was nearly full. Nic parked in the back.

Through the front doors, across worn, turquoise tile that matched some kind of island-themed decor, she made her way in the crowd past the registration desk to the casino. The bar was at the far wall, after rows of slot machines with people gathered around each one, playing, watching. Loud bursts of cheers came from a craps table through an archway to the right. The noise was oppressive. The air thick with cigarette smoke. Nic could not imagine her mother here. Not for an hour, let alone four days. Or a week. Or longer.