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Back Never Look Back Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
  48. About the Author
  49. About the Book
  50. Also by Alison Gaylin
  51. About the Publisher

She squeezed her eyes shut and she was a kid again, at her family’s summer rental in Sarasota, Florida, Mom tanned and strong and smiling, handing her a conch shell she’d found on the beach. Put the shell up to your ear, Robbie. It wants to tell you about its home.

Robin opened her eyes. She kept Renee’s cool, limp hand in her own like a gift she didn’t want to part with. “Tell me about your home, Mom,” she whispered, in a voice too low for the police guards to hear. “Tell me who you are.”

THIS MORNING, AFTER hanging up with Quentin Garrison, Robin had washed her face, changed into a cleaner T-shirt, another pair of yoga pants. She’d brushed her teeth and pulled her hair back, put on her sneakers, and she’d driven again to her parents’ house—a repeat performance of the previous night. This time, though, she’d gone inside. Robin hadn’t thought about it first, not enough to prepare herself for what she might see. She was simply drawn in through the back door, into the kitchen as though by a magnet, then through the living room, where the shooting had taken place. The cops had removed everything they needed to, but they’d done a terrible job of cleaning up afterward, and so Robin had to make herself turn away from the chalk marks and the tape, the pushed-around furniture. The throw rug—a bright, handwoven thing her parents had picked up on a trip to India—was no longer there. She didn’t want to think about why.

She’d hurried upstairs and into her parents’ bedroom, which she’d found nearly as hard to look at as the wreck downstairs. It was untouched, the bed still neatly made. Her parents had never gone to sleep that night, which of course she had known. But to see the bed like that. To see the drawers closed, the closets shut, the reading material on the two nightstands—a Lincoln biography for him, a stack of New Yorkers for her—as though the room still hadn’t heard what had happened, as though it were patiently waiting for the two of them to come to bed . . .

It had been so much harder than she’d imagined it would be. But she’d gone there with a purpose, and so she’d headed straight for it—the top right-hand drawer in her mother’s dresser.