I don’t eavesdrop, not per se, and yet standing within hearing range, I gather this. After Genevieve locked Esther inside the storage facility, she sought their mother out. Esther’s mother and Genevieve’s mother. She threatened her; she told her Esther was dead. A boy from the neighborhood saved her, giving his own life for hers. “Alex Gallo,” she says. “Do you remember him?” Esther shakes her head; she doesn’t remember him. “He’s a hero—” I hear Esther’s mother’s voice through the phone, along with these conclusive words “—he saved me. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.”
And then there’s an interlude—a brief interlude which is full of sobbing and grief—before she decisively says, “Genevieve will never bother us again,” for as it turns out, Genevieve will spend the rest of her life behind bars for a murder charge.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” the EMT says, and I nod my head okay. I pull the phone from Esther’s ear and tell the woman on the other end of the line that Esther will call her back just as soon as she can. I promise Esther that I will be there; I’m following right behind. She doesn’t have to do this alone. I’m here.
I return to Ben just as his cell phone begins to ring. It’s Priya. He draws the phone from his pocket and excuses himself to drift away to a quiet space where they can speak. Ben will soon leave, and when the police say that I can go, I’ll go, too. To the hospital to be with Esther.
I watch as Ben and Priya talk, feeling more alone than I’ve felt before, though I’m surrounded by all these people.
When Ben returns, I say to him, “You don’t need to stay with me,” and, while pointing at the phone in his hand, I say, “I’m sure Priya is expecting you.” His nod is slothful and listless.
Priya is indeed expecting him.
“Yeah,” he says, and again, a mundane, “Yeah. I should go,” he decides.
Priya has made dinner, he tells me. She’s waiting. But I don’t want him to leave. I want him to stay. Stay, I silently beg.
But Ben doesn’t stay.
He embraces me in a final hug, wrapping those snug arms around me in a way that swallows me whole, that warms me from the outside in. And then he stands just inches away and says to me, “Goodbye,” while I stare into his magnificent eyes, the five-o’clock shadow that now decorates his chin, the arresting smile.
But I wonder: Is it more of a Goodbye, my love, or a See ya later, pal?
Only time will tell, I suppose, as I say goodbye and watch as he goes, turning on his heels and drifting off toward the intersecting street.
But then just like that, he turns and comes back again and there—on the corner of the city street, surrounded by men and women in uniform, the gridlock of afternoon traffic, newscasters with cameras filming for the evening news—we kiss for the very first time.
Or maybe it’s the second.
*
Keep reading for an excerpt from PRETTY BABY by Mary Kubica.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the brilliant editorial team of Erika Imranyi and Natalie Hallak, whose diligence and sage advice helped make this novel shine, and to my agent, Rachael Dillon Fried, whose tireless emotional support and encouragement kept me going.
Thank you to the dedicated Harlequin Books and HarperCollins teams for helping bring my novel out into the world, with special thanks to Emer Flounders for the incredible publicity, and to the wonderful people of Sanford Greenburger Associates.
Many thanks to the entire Kubica, Kyrychenko, Shemanek and Kahlenberg families, and to dear friends for all the support and constant reassurance: for helping care for my family when I couldn’t be there; for being the happy, smiling faces at my signing events; for driving hundreds of miles to hear me say the same thing again and again; for delivering bottles of wine when I needed them most; and for putting up with my forgetfulness and constant shortage of time. I can’t thank you enough for your love, your support and your patience.
And finally, to my husband, Pete, and my children, my very own Quinn and Alex, who inspire me every day. I couldn’t have done it without you.
“Thrilling and illuminating...[Pretty Baby] raises the ante on the genre and announces the welcome second coming of a talent well worth watching.”
—LA Times
If you enjoyed reading Don’t You Cry, then you’ll love these riveting and nail-biting thrillers by New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica:
Pretty Baby The Good Girl
“This isn’t your typical thriller… [It] practically has you
holding your breath for all 300 pages.”
—Bustle on The Good Girl
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Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra
The Undoing by Averil Dean
Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf
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Pretty Baby
by Mary Kubica
Heidi
The first time I see her, she is standing at the Fullerton Station, on the train platform, clutching an infant in her arms. She braces herself and the baby as the purple line express soars past and out to Linden. It’s the 8th of April, forty-eight degrees and raining. The rain lurches down from the sky, here, there and everywhere, the wind untamed and angry. A bad day for hair.
The girl is dressed in a pair of jeans, torn at the knee. Her coat is thin and nylon, an army green. She has no hood, no umbrella. She tucks her chin into the coat and stares straight ahead while the rain saturates her. Those around her cower beneath umbrellas, no one offering to share. The baby is quiet, stuffed inside the mother’s coat like a joey in a kangaroo pouch. Tufts of slimy pink fleece sneak out from the coat and I convince myself that the baby, sound asleep in what feels to me like utter bedlam—chilled to the bone, the thunderous sound of the “L” soaring past—is a girl.
There’s a suitcase beside her feet, vintage leather, brown and worn, beside a pair of lace-up boots, soaked thoroughly through.
She can’t be older than sixteen.
She’s thin. Malnourished, I tell myself, but maybe she’s just thin. Her clothes droop. Her jeans are baggy, her coat too big.
A CTA announcement signals a train approaching, and the brown line pulls into the station. A cluster of morning rush hour commuters crowd into the warmer, drier train, but the girl does not move. I hesitate for a moment—feeling the need to do something—but then board the train like the other do-nothings and, slinking into a seat, watch out the window as the doors close and we slide away, leaving the girl and her baby in the rain.
But she stays with me all day.