Kristin Hannah - Night Road

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to Amanda DuBois, family lawyer extraordinaire. Your help in maneuvering through the maze of legal issues in this novel was invaluable. Any mistakes are most certainly mine.

Also by Kristin Hannah

Winter Garden

True Colors

Firefly Lane

Magic Hour

Comfort and Joy

The Things We Do for Love

Between Sisters

Distant Shores

Summer Island

Angel Falls

On Mystic Lake

Home Again

Waiting for the Moon

When Lightning Strikes

If You Believe

Once in Every Life

The Enchantment

A Handful of Heaven

One

2000

Lexi Baill studied a Washington State map until the tiny red geographical markings shimmied in front of her tired eyes. There was a vaguely magical air about the place names; they hinted at a landscape she could hardly imagine, of snow-draped mountains that came right down to the waters edge, of trees as tall and straight as church steeples, of an endless, smogless blue sky. She pictured eagles perched on telephone poles and stars that seemed close enough to grasp. Bears probably crept through the quiet subdivisions at night, looking for places that not long ago had been theirs.

Her new home.

She wanted to think that her life would be different there. But how could she believe that, really? At fourteen, she might not know much, but she knew this: kids in the system were returnable, like old soda bottles and shoes that pinched your toes.

Yesterday, shed been wakened early by her caseworker and told to pack her things. Again.

I have good news, Ms. Watters had said.

Even half-asleep, Lexi knew what that meant. Another family. Thats great. Thanks, Ms. Watters.

Not just a family. Your family.

Right. Of course. My new family. Itll be great.

Ms. Watters made that disappointed sound, a soft exhalation of breath that wasnt quite a sigh. Youve been strong, Lexi. For so long.

Lexi tried to smile. Dont feel bad, Ms. W. I know how hard it is to place older kids. And the Rexler family was cool. If my mom hadnt come back, I think that one would have worked out.

None of it was your fault, you know.

Yeah, Lexi said. On good days she could make herself believe that the people who returned her had their own problems. On bad daysand they were coming more often latelyshe wondered what was wrong with her, why she was so easy to leave.

You have relatives, Lexi. I found your great-aunt. Her name is Eva Lange. Shes sixty-six years old and she lives in Port George, Washington.

Lexi sat up. What? My mom said I had no relatives.

Your mother was mistaken. You do have family.

Lexi had spent a lifetime waiting for those few precious words. Her world had always been dangerous, uncertain, a ship heading for the shoals. She had grown up mostly alone, among strangers, a modern-day feral child fighting for scraps of food and attention, never receiving enough of either. Most of it shed blocked out entirely, but when she triedwhen one of the State shrinks made her tryshe could remember being hungry, wet, reaching out for a mother who was too high to hear her or too strung out to care. She remembered sitting for days in a dirty playpen, crying, waiting for someone to remember her existence.

Now, she stared out the dirty window of a Greyhound bus. Her caseworker sat beside her, reading a romance novel.

After more than twenty-six hours en route, they were finally nearing their destination. Outside, a steel-wool sky swallowed the treetops. Rain made squiggling patterns on the window, blurring the view. It was like another planet here in Washington; gone were the sun-scorched bread-crust-colored hills of Southern California and the gray crisscross of traffic-clogged freeways. The trees were steroid-big; so were the mountains. Everything seemed overgrown and wild.

The bus pulled up to a squat, cement-colored terminal and came to a wheezing, jerking stop. A cloud of black smoke wafted across her window, obscuring the parking lot for a moment; then the rain pounded it away. The bus doors whooshed open.

Lexi?

She heard Ms. Watterss voice and thought move, Lexi, but she couldnt do it. She looked up at the woman who had been the only steady presence in her life for the last six years. Every time a foster family had given up on Lexi, returned her like a piece of fruit gone bad, Ms. Watters had been there, waiting with a sad little smile. It wasnt much to return to, maybe, but it was all Lexi knew, and suddenly she was afraid to lose even that small familiarity.

What if she doesnt come? Lexi asked.

Ms. Watters held out her hand, with its veiny, twiglike fingers and big knuckles. She will.

Lexi took a deep breath. She could do this. Of course she could. She had moved into seven foster homes in the past five years, and gone to six different schools in the same amount of time. She could handle this.

She reached out for Ms. Watterss hand. They walked single file down the narrow bus aisle, bumping the cushioned seats on either side of them.

Off the bus, Lexi retrieved her scuffed red suitcase, which was almost too heavy to carry, filled as it was with the only things that really mattered to her: books. She dragged it to the very edge of the sidewalk and stood there, perched at the rim of the curb. It felt like a dangerous drop-off, that little cliff of concrete. One wrong step could break a bone or send her headlong into traffic.

Ms. Watters came up beside Lexi, opening an umbrella. The rain made a thumping sound on the stretched nylon.

One by one, the other passengers disembarked from the bus and disappeared.

Lexi looked at the empty parking lot and wanted to cry. How many times had she been in exactly this position? Every time Momma dried out, she came back for her daughter. Give me another chance, baby girl. Tell the nice judge here you love me. Ill be better this time I wont forget about you no more . And every time, Lexi waited. She probably changed her mind.

That wont happen, Lexi.

It could.

You have family, Lexi, Ms. Watters repeated the terrifying words and Lexi slipped; hope tiptoed in.

Family. She dared to test out the unfamiliar word. It melted on her tongue like candy, leaving sweetness behind.

A banged-up blue Ford Fairlane pulled up in front of them and parked. The car was dented along the fender and underlined in rust. Duct tape crisscrossed a cracked window.

The drivers door opened slowly and a woman emerged. She was short and gray-haired, with watery brown eyes and the kind of diamond-patterned skin that came with heavy smoking. Amazingly, she looked familiarlike an older, wrinkled version of Momma. At that, the impossible word came back to Lexi, swollen now with meaning. Family.

Alexa? the woman said in a scratchy voice.

Lexi couldnt make herself answer. She wanted this woman to smile, or maybe even hug her, but Eva Lange just stood there, her dried-apple face turned into a deep frown.

Im your great-aunt. Your grandmothers sister.

I never knew my grandmother, was all Lexi could think of to say.

All this time, I thought you were living with your daddys people.

I dont have a dad. I mean, I dont know who he is. Momma didnt know.

Aunt Eva sighed. I know that now, thanks to Ms. Watters here. Is that all your stuff?

Lexi felt a wave of shame. Yeah.

Ms. Watters gently took the suitcase from Lexi and put it in the backseat. Go on, Lexi. Get in the car. Your aunt wants you to live with her.

Yeah, for now.

Ms. Watters pulled Lexi into a fierce hug, whispering, Dont be afraid.

Lexi almost hung on too long. At the last second, before it turned embarrassing, she let go and stumbled free. She went to the battered car and wrenched the door open. It rattled and pinged and swung wide.