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
I tried to ask where Jenny was, but I was crying so hard I couldn’t get the words out. Jenny is my baby sister. Your future aunt, Aurora Grace. She’s only three years old. I don’t know what he’s done with her.
When I was still crying, Gabriel put the gun in my hand. He wrapped himself around me, the same way he had done back in January, when he taught me how to hit a golf ball at the driving range near his house. He aimed the barrel on Papa Pete and pressed his fingers against mine and made me pull the trigger. Papa Pete’s body shook. Mine too. My throat was raw from screaming, but I couldn’t hear my own voice.
Hours later now, and my ears are still ringing. Gabriel is asleep, but in my head, he is still saying it, over and over: Now you’ve done it too. You’ve shot him too. Your prints are on the gun. We’re in this together. He is so close, his lips brush the back of my neck. “We’re in this together,” Gabriel whispers. “We’ll always be together.”
When someone is that close, you don’t just hear a whisper. You feel it.
It’s 1:00 A.M. A half hour ago, I sneaked out of my room and tried to call the police, but the line had been cut. I felt someone watching me. It was Gabriel, awake and standing right behind me. He pressed the gun between my shoulder blades. I felt it so clearly—the full circle of the barrel on the part of my back that leads directly to my heart. It felt heavy and cold and I was scared beyond breathing. Gabriel spoke very quietly. “Jenny is in a safe place,” he said. “She’s being cared for. Things will stay that way unless I say the word. And I’ll never say the word, as long as you are good to me.”
Gabriel has the keys to Papa Pete’s Cavalier, the money from Papa Pete’s wallet, and of course, he has the gun. He says he’s leaving, and if I’m good, he’ll take me with him, alive. I don’t want to ask him where the gun came from, or how he got to my house in the first place with no car. But I’m guessing that it has to do with the people watching Jenny, and so I’m going to try and be good, even though I feel as though my whole life has been pulled out from under me and I can’t close my eyes without seeing Papa Pete—the shell of him on our living room floor, blood pooling all around.
I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. Please help me to be good.