might not like Rebecca, and she sure as hell didn’t want to turn back now, but she didn’t see that she had much of a choice. Their lives were in danger. The protocol was spelled out in the training manual: “Sisters of Service holds the right to terminate a drive at any point if the client’s safety or the driver’s safety is in immediate danger.”
She should have turned back a long time ago. She had held out hope that the dangers and setbacks they’d faced might still somehow end up just a series of misunderstandings, or unfortunate coincidences, and the trip would go back to normal, or as normal as any of these trips could be.
Cait was as upset about calling off the trip as Rebecca. The truth was, if she turned back now, she’d have nothing. She’d end up back on shift at the Dark Horse on Tuesday, slinging Bud drafts to Ken and Nick and a bunch of drunk college guys wearing backward baseball caps and popped collars, and maybe she’d finally ask about management, now that Stacy had moved on to that wine bar on Second Street. Finally stop wearing those dumb Daisy Dukes. She was going to be twenty-six next year. How long could she keep pretending this wasn’t her real life?
Ten hours back the way they came and she’d be back in her apartment in Austin. Back in her tiny yellow kitchen, making herself a good cup of coffee and watching Adam tug the garbage bins onto the street. Back wondering if today was the day someone was going to slip a death threat under her door, or sneak up behind her while she was pumping gas, or lie in wait for her in a darkened parking lot. Back searching her name on the Internet and seeing strangers say the worst things imaginable about her, all because she happened to write an article and a politician she’d never met had turned her into a national symbol worthy of being hated and reviled.
Rebecca shook her head. “Please. If the police get involved, they’ll have to make a formal report, and those reports are searchable. If my name gets out there—”
Cait looked at her. This was it. This was the revelation she’d been waiting for. “You’re scared of your husband.”
Rebecca reeled back, shocked. “No! God, no. It’s just . . . it’s complicated. Please. I’m begging you. No police. I have to get to Albuquerque by the morning. If I don’t . . .” She shook her head and began to cry.
Cait had never seen her look this upset, not even when a homicidal maniac was threatening to run them off the road. There was something going on here, something Cait wasn’t seeing.
Something, Cait realized, that was bigger than any story she could ever hope to write. “Rebecca,” she said gently. “What’s really going on here?”
The woman shook her head and wiped her eyes. “It’s just . . . I need to get there, that’s all. You have to take me there. Please. I know I’m asking a lot from you—I know I am—but . . . I don’t have a choice. You have to help me. You have to get me to Albuquerque tomorrow. It’s my only chance.”
For the first time, Cait saw Rebecca not as some stuck-up politician’s wife, or the subject of an explosive story, or even a client she was ferrying around. She saw her for what she was: a scared, desperate woman who needed her help. She took a deep breath. “Fine. No police. We’ll keep going to Albuquerque.”
Two Weeks Earlier
The doctor’s face was carefully arranged. “I’m afraid we’ve had some bad news,” he said, perching on the edge of the stool.
Rebecca sat up and pulled the paper dressing gown around her. She wished they’d let her get dressed after the scan. She felt exposed sitting on the table half naked, her stomach still slicked with gel, her socked feet dangling over the edge. Like a child.
“The scan shows that the fetus has some . . . abnormalities.”
Her head snapped up, alert. He’d been calling it a baby before. Now it was a fetus. Something inside her wrenched and soured. “What kind of abnormalities?”
He looked at her over tented fingers. “Rebecca, are you familiar with a condition called anencephaly?”
She shook her head. She should know this. She should know everything that could possibly happen to her baby. Why didn’t she know?
His frown deepened. “It’s when the brain of the fetus fails to