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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

I’m changing. Faster than I ever imagined I could. Three days ago, I would have felt nothing but relief at the sight of the flashing lights. I would have opened the car door and run for those police cars with everything I had. But now I’m telling Gabriel to drive away faster, faster. My voice is hoarse from screaming. “Fast as you can,” I tell him. “Don’t look back.”

We are close to the freeway now. My heart is pounding so hard I feel like I may pass out from it, but I know Gabriel is more nervous than me. I can’t see his eyes behind the mirrored aviator sunglasses and baseball cap, but his skin is a deep red and there are sweat rings on the collar of his T-shirt and under the arms and he keeps saying “Oh shit,” over and over again.

I just told him we’ll be okay. I said it in a calm, steady voice. He asked me what I was writing in this notebook. I told him it’s lyrics to a song about the two of us and that I’ll show him later. He believes me. He asks me what the song is called. I tell him “Outlaws.” “I like that,” he says. It seems to calm him, and I need him to be calm. I wish I could drive.

Now we are on the freeway, the 134. I think we are safe, but Gabriel is still driving superfast just to make sure.

“We’ll have to buy new clothes and shit,” Gabriel says. It makes me think of everything we left behind. All the clues and evidence. Gabriel’s marked-up map. Papa Pete’s wallet, his driver’s license in the little plastic window, clear as day. That damn Starsky and Hutch mug. And buried deep at the bottom of my suitcase, between the pages of Once Is Not Enough, the knife I’d planned to kill Gabriel with.

A scene runs through my mind: Gabriel has been arrested. He’s in one of those brightly lit interrogation rooms, like on the cop shows Papa Pete and I used to watch. There is nothing in this room but a table and some chairs, two mean and angry detectives on one side, Gabriel on the other. One of the detectives takes out a plastic evidence bag. He shows it to Gabriel. “Do you know anything about this?” He smirks when he says it. Inside the bag is my knife. “Your girlfriend had it hidden away in her things. What do you suppose she intended to do with it?”

Oh, Aurora Grace, if we are caught, I will lose Gabriel. They’ll show him the knife. They may even show him my letters to you. He will no longer stick up for me. He will never let me know where Jenny is. I’ll have no one and I will die alone.