Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

CHAPTER 1

She was a dead woman.

He would kill her. Kill her.

She glanced down at the wand from the pregnancy test kit and saw once again that yes, she was pregnant. Then she looked into the mirror over the sink of the public bathroom at the local Walgreens and stared at her reflection. Wide, scared blue eyes peered back at her beneath a fringe of pale bangs.

You. A mother. At seventeen . . . well, eighteen by the time the baby gets here.

Her throat grew thick and she blinked back tears. She couldn’t cry, not now. There was plenty of time for that later. She slapped the tears away, sniffed, then stuffed the wand into her purse and stuffed the packaging deep into the trash bin beneath a wad of paper towels. Not that it mattered, she told herself. No one knew her here. She’d driven to Missoula for the test, taken it here in the restroom, and now had to drive home.

What was she going to do?

Oh. Dear. God.

Cheeks flaming, feeling as if everyone in the aisles of the store knew her secret, she hurried to the front door and nearly tripped over a boy stocking shelves with cans of hair spray and sticks of deodorant in an overflowing metal cart.

“Hey!” he said sharply, and she mumbled a hasty, “Sorry,” on her way past the counter, where pharmacists in lab coats were filling prescriptions and two people waited near the register to pick up their meds.

Through the glass doors and into the August sunshine she flew, then found her way to the car, her mother’s ancient Ford Taurus, and hopped into the sweltering interior. She switched on the ignition, threw the car into reverse, and as she hit the gas, she heard a sharp beep and stood on the brakes, just in time before she nearly clipped the fender of a Honda cutting through the lot. The driver, a brunette woman in sunglasses and a baseball cap, flipped up her middle finger as she swept by.

Destiny didn’t care.

Let the girl flip her off.

She had more important issues to deal with.

Pregnant. You’re pregnant.

Oh. No.

A baby? She couldn’t handle a baby. No way, and it’s not as if the father would be any help. Oh, Lord . . . the father. He would be pissed.

She took three deep breaths, rolled down the window as the for-crap air conditioner wasn’t working, eased out of the parking space more carefully, managed not to scrape a fender or crumple a bumper, and wended the old Taurus out of the crowded lot.

Maybe she wouldn’t tell him. Just have the baby by herself . . . but how? She couldn’t tell Mom and Dad, and she couldn’t just wish the baby away.

The thought of abortion skated on sharp wheels through her mind, cutting deep. But only for a brief moment and she banished it. No—her cousin had an abortion once and never forgave herself. And then there was Mom. How many times had she admitted that Destiny was not only a happy surprise, but a “miracle baby,” whom she’d christened with her name for that very reason? It had been the only instance Helene Montclaire had ever gotten pregnant in some twenty-odd years of marriage. Despite the fact that she and Destiny’s father, Glenn, had hoped and prayed for a sibling for their only daughter, it had never happened. Helene had even broken down once, tears of anguish filling her eyes with the frustration of not being able to bear another child.

So the thought of terminating this tiny little life was out of the question. There had to be a better option, she decided, as she hit the gas and made it through an amber light, then started south on the highway out of town.

She could give it up for adoption, she thought, squinting against the glare. She fished in the glove box for a pair of sunglasses with one hand while she drove, sliding the Ray-Bans onto her nose. She came up too fast on a hay truck, so she eased off the accelerator.

That’s what she would do, right? Go to a lawyer and set up a . . . oh, crap, that’s what would happen after she had the baby. What about before? When she was hugely pregnant? She wouldn’t be able to hide it for too many months. She was slim and a baby bump would be noticeable and . . .

And there was the baby’s father to deal with.

“Damn it.” He would be a problem.

Or . . . would he? There was a chance . . . oh, dear Lord, no . . . She swallowed back a new fear. Wouldn’t let her mind travel down that dark, insidious path.

If only this were a dream. A really bad nightmare.

After turning on the radio, she played with the stations, heard bits of songs she didn’t recognize, then clicked it off, all the while staring through the bug-splattered windshield, wondering what the hell she was going to do.

She glanced at her worried eyes in the rearview, but wasn’t sure. Shouldn’t she keep it? What was it the reverend had always told her in one of their counseling sessions? When she had a problem? To think about it. Yes. And pray. Talk it over with God.

“You’re stronger than you know, Destiny,” he’d said in his smooth voice, then gently touched her hair, letting his fingers slide down to the back of her neck before withdrawing his hand quickly. As if she’d burned him. Or as if he’d had a sudden attack of conscience. Or as if someone was coming up the stairs to this, his private office, located under the sharply pitched roof near the bell tower. And the stairs had squeaked, announcing the arrival of his wife.

As if she’d known.

Destiny took a breath. She would take his advice, talk things over with God and then decide how to handle the problem. No, not a problem. A baby wasn’t a problem. This was just a situation. A “mere stumbling block in the road of life” was how the reverend would put it.

The fifty miles or so to Grizzly Falls went by in a blur of western Montana farmland, fences, grazing cattle and horses. She drove straight down the valley, turned toward the mountains, and didn’t even remember crossing the bridge that spanned the Grizzly River.

She managed to make it home and avoid too many questions from her mother, who was canning peaches in the kitchen, before holing up in her bedroom. The house was hot and smelled of sugar, and Destiny flopped on her bed and tuned in to her private thoughts, talking with God a bit but still coming up with no answer.

She did arrive at a plan of action, however, so after a dinner of cold ham and potato salad, fresh peaches and cream, she told her folks she was going for a walk.

Her mother seemed worried, but didn’t argue, just fanned herself with a leaflet the Jehovah’s Witnesses had dropped by earlier in the week and sat in “her” recliner. Destiny’s father was already tuned in to the television, the footrest of his La-Z-Boy already elevated, his reading glasses on the tip of his nose, newspapers spread on the table next to his chair and spilling onto the sculpted carpet Mom had picked out a year or so after Destiny had been born.

Another typical night at the Montclaire home.

Except that their only daughter was, as near as she could figure, about eight weeks pregnant. She wondered if there was some kind of app on her phone that would tell her precisely when she’d gotten pregnant.

That would help a lot.

By the time she set out, her parents barely looked up. The house was surrounded by the fields of neighboring spreads, and she set out across the Jones’s south pasture. Until a few weeks earlier, the fenced acres had been covered with lush hay, green stalks that had shimmered silver in the breeze, but the crop had been harvested. Now, she trod across the sun-bleached stubble that remained.

At the far side of the field, she slipped through the sagging barbed wire, then headed into the woods. Familiar woods, a place she’d always thought of as a sanctuary. In the shade, the temperature dropped a bit, but the air was still warm. Dry. Smelling of pine and dust.

Out of sight of the windows of her parents’ home, she studied the screen on her cell phone, sent out three texts, and called Donny.