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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

Lena shook her head. “I mean, they could have changed them to that,” she said. “I’d sure as hell change my name if I were a Gideon.”

“What were their names when they lived with the Grumleys?”

Lena smiled, the memory so clearly alive and glittering in her mind. When she spoke, she sounded like a grade-school kid, thrilled with herself for knowing the right answer. “The big one was named Elizabeth,” she said. “And the little girl was named Jenny.”

ONCE SHE WAS back on the 405 and she had service again, Summer’s phone began buzzing wildly with voice mails. She listened to them over her Bluetooth—five messages from Dean, almost all of them repeating the same information: Quentin hadn’t killed himself. And most likely, his confession for Mitchell Bloom’s death had been coerced.

She stared through his sunglasses and smiled. I knew it, she thought. I knew that wasn’t you.

Summer called Dean from home and updated him on all the information she’d learned. When she was through, he said, “So you’re doing this right? You’re continuing with Closure?”

“Do you think I should?” she asked. Because honestly, that had been her reason for calling. To get his permission to go ahead with this podcast, in spite of everything it had caused.

“I think Quentin would have wanted you to,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Summer said, relief sweeping through her. Then she hung up, climbed into bed, and slept for twelve solid hours.

Forty

June 23, 1976

12:00 Noon

Dear Aurora Grace,

I haven’t been able to write for days. I haven’t been able to speak or do anything other than walk. Stick my thumb out. Jump in the back of trucks. None of the truck drivers bother me because I look like shit and I smell of smoke. And when the few pervs who stop for me try to talk me into a trade, I start crying like a crazy person and they drive away.

Whenever I close my eyes, I see Elizabeth—my last glimpse of her. I see the tents burning and I hear the screams, and Elizabeth in the middle of all of it, her beautiful hair on fire, waving her arms at me, yelling at me to run. Sometimes, in my imaginings, she turns into Papa Pete or Officer Nelligan or Ed Hart. Sometimes Brian Griggs or Carrie Masters, who I know must have met a terrible fate. Worst of all is when she turns into Jenny.