Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
After she left the building, Robin quickly called her mother’s cell phone. “Oh hi, honey,” she said. “I can’t really talk. I’m on my way to the doctor.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Robin said, thinking of her mother’s home, her empty house. “I was just calling to see how the appointment went.”
“I’ll let you know,” Mom said, and before long Robin was pulling into her mother’s driveway, barreling up the walkway, through the front door and up the stairs and into her parents’ bedroom where she rooted once again through her mother’s sock drawer. She was slipping the box out of the back of the drawer, her mother’s secret box. And she was pulling out the seashells and plastic mementos and tiny pieces of costume jewelry until she found what she wanted: the souvenir penny pressed into an oval and embossed with a star, the word Corsica. That had been the name of the movie theater on Quentin’s ticket stub. The Corsica. Easter Parade. 6/24/76. On the movie stub, there had been an identical star logo.
“My God,” she whispered.
“Robin?”
She whirled around and saw her standing in the doorway. “Hi Nikki,” Robin said, calm as she could, the penny burning in her hand.
Thirty-Seven
June 20, 1976
11:00 P.M.
Dear Aurora Grace,
We’re going to Death Valley. Elizabeth and me. Gabriel is in the back seat sleeping. But we’re not going to keep him around for long.
We are in Elizabeth’s car, driving to the Gideon compound, where there is no phone and no TV and no helicopter surveillance. No cops. If we make it all the way there, Elizabeth says, I will be free. Elizabeth and I look so much alike, we could be sisters. Twins, even. She says I’ll fit right in with the other Gideons because they’re all blond like us. She says they will give me a place to hide without asking questions. And she’ll like it better there, with another girl to hang out with. Elizabeth says the Gideons hate the government, and therefore they will love anyone who is on the run from the law.
Once we get to the Gideon compound, I will kill Gabriel and bury him in the desert.
Aurora Grace, I hope there never comes a time in your life when circumstances force you to escape your own body. When you feel so powerless that your soul acts on its own and pushes out through your skin, just to get away from YOU. That was what happened to me at the Arco station. I told Elizabeth about it, and she understood. She said, “I have felt that exact thing.” But I think that in her case, it was for physical reasons.