head: why had Rebecca been arrested while Cait was still free?
Yoakum County Jail, Plains, Texas—72 Miles from Lubbock
Rebecca stared at the man’s head through the screen. It was her first time riding in a police car, and she was struck by the smell: Armor All mixed with sweat.
She knew she should be more frightened, but it all seemed so inevitable. This was what Rich had warned her about when he’d come to the house that morning. It was what Patrick had hinted at, too, though he hadn’t had the guts to say it outright. As soon as the man had dropped the summons into her hands, she’d known the clock was ticking. Now it looked like she’d run out of time. If she’d been the type to find irony funny, the fact that she was being arrested for making a decision that was supposed to be legal when she’d helped commit a murder not even twelve hours earlier would be enough to make her laugh. As it was, all she felt was a dull sort of anger.
It all felt like such a waste. Rebecca and Cait nearly dying, all the miles they had driven together, all the plans she had made for her baby. It had all come down to this: a man in a uniform driving her through a one-horse town on the way to the county jail. And her baby still alive inside her, inching toward inevitable suffering.
The jail was a two-story brick box lined with rows of tiny, darkened windows, brutal and austere. A lick of fear went up her spine as the officer came around the side of the cruiser and opened the door. He held out a hand and she took it, making sure to look him in the eye and smile. She wanted him to like her. She needed all the friends she could get.
He caught her elbow when she stumbled slightly on the lip of the curb, her hair blowing across her face. “Careful, now,” he said, and steered her gently through the glass double doors of the jail. He nodded to a man behind a large wooden desk. “Hey, Bill,” the officer said. “Can you process her for me?”
Bill looked up and gave her a long, cold once-over. She knew at once that she wouldn’t be able to get him on her side, no matter how many smiles she offered. “Bring her out back,” he grumbled.
The officer led her down a long corridor to a windowless room at the end. There was nothing there but an ancient Formica table and a few folding chairs. “Do you want water or anything?” he asked before closing the door behind him, but she declined. She didn’t want to waste a favor on a glass of water.
She sat down on one of the chairs and stared up at the flickering fluorescent light. She wondered if Cait had arrived yet. If she had, she was probably giving the gruff man behind the desk an earful. That thought was enough to make her smile, if only for a moment.
The officer came back into the room, joined by a second officer, who introduced himself as Lieutenant Walker. “You’ve already met my colleague Sergeant Bakerson,” he said, nodding toward the officer who’d brought her in.
She smiled at them both. The lieutenant was older than Sergeant Bakerson—she guessed mid-fifties—with a head of close-cropped gray hair. He didn’t smile back.
“Mrs. McRae—”
“Please, call me Rebecca.”
“Mrs. McRae, do you understand why you’ve been arrested?”
She widened her eyes. “No, I don’t.”
“You were served a summons to appear in Lubbock County Court. Is that correct?”
She was silent.
“And you understand that the hearing went ahead this morning at eleven a.m. in your absence?”
Silence.
“Ma’am, do you understand that failure to appear in court following an official summons is a criminal offense?” She said nothing. The officer shifted his weight onto his other foot. “Mrs. McRae, can you tell us what you were doing in New Mexico?”
“I was on a trip with a friend.”
“Yes, we’ve had the pleasure of meeting your friend.” The two men exchanged glances. So Cait had arrived. “Was your husband aware of your trip?”
She shook her head. “It was a last-minute thing. He was away on business, so I didn’t want to bother him.”
“Mrs. McRae, I understand that you’re with child. Is that correct?”
“I’m pregnant, yes.”
“Mrs. McRae”—she wished to God he would stop saying her name like that—“your husband has filed an injunction preventing you from crossing state lines with his unborn child. That was