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Don’t Look Back
Laura Lippman
Eliza Benedict’s past returns to haunt her when the serial killer she escaped from as a young girl walks back into her life. The nail-shredding novel from New York Times bestseller, Laura Lippman.25 years ago, he stole her innocence. Now he wants to get in touch.Eliza Benedict cherishes her quiet existence with her successful husband and children in the leafy suburbs of suburban Washington. But her tranquillity is shattered when she receives a letter from the last person she ever expects – or wants – to hear from: Walter Bowman.In the summer of 1985 when she was fifteen-years-old, Eliza was kidnapped by serial killer Walter Bowman, who targeted young girls like Eliza in a sexually motivated killing spree. Now facing lethal injection on death row, Walter is keen to make contact with Eliza, seemingly motivated by a desire to atone for his sins before he finally meets his maker.Carefully, with some reluctance, she lets Walter enter her life, first by letter, then in person. Walter is keen to convince Eliza that he has changed but it becomes clear that Walter has more of an agenda than he first revealed. Cunning and manipulative, Walter is never more dangerous than when he can't get what he wants, and he wants something very badly. Disturbingly, he seems to have an ally working in the outside, one who seems to know everything about Eliza's life – including where she lives.As Walter once again manages to exert his malign influence, Eliza must draw on all of her reserves of wisdom and strength as the battle of predator and prey once more plays out and she must face the past head on if she is to survive.A taut and mesmerizing novel by the highly-acclaimed author of Life Sentences and Every Secret Thing.
LAURA LIPPMAN
Don’t Look Back
Copyright
Copyright © Laura Lippman 2010
Laura Lippman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9781847560940
Ebook edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007432486
Version: 2016-02-17
For Dorothy and Bernie
Contents
Cover (#u378e1c09-9361-54d6-8575-a730fec1bb1f)
Title Page (#udc453615-2a61-523a-ba45-27d131ac0070)
Copyright (#u32bccce9-4333-57dc-84a1-f2d117247ac4)
PART ONE: I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
PART TWO: CARELESS WHISPER
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
PART THREE: IN MY HOUSE
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
PART FOUR: WHO’S ZOOMIN’ WHO?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
PART FIVE: HOLIDAY
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
PART SIX: CRAZY FOR YOU
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
PART SEVEN: EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
PART EIGHT: VOICES CARRY
Chapter Forty-Five
PART NINE: EVERY DAY
Chapter Forty-Six
Excerpt from The Innocents
GO-GO
US
Chapter One
READ ON FOR AN EXCLUSIVE SHORT STORY FROM LAURA LIPPMAN
Honour Bar
Femme Fatale
About the Author
Author’s Note
About the Publisher (#uc05c7887-953e-52b1-80af-db734ec84469)
PART ONE
I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE
Chapter One
‘Iso, time for—’
Eliza Benedict paused at the foot of the stairs. Time for what, exactly? All summer long – it was now August – Eliza had been having trouble finding the right words. Not complicated ones, the things required to express strong emotions or abstract concepts, make difficult confessions to loved ones. She groped for the simplest words imaginable, everyday nouns. She was only thirty-eight. What would her mind be like at fifty, at seventy? Yet her own mother was sharp as a tack at the age of seventy-seven.
No, this was clearly a temporary, transitional problem, a consequence of the family’s return to the States after six years in England. Ironic, because Eliza had scrupulously avoided Briticisms while living there; she thought Americans who availed themselves of local slang were pretentious. Yet home again, she couldn’t get such words – lift, lorry, quid, loo – out of her head, her mouth. The result was that she was often tongue-tied, as she was now. Not at a loss for words, as the saying would have it, but overwhelmed with words, weighed down with words, drowning in them.
She started over, projecting her voice up the stairs without actually yelling, a technique in which she took great pride. ‘Iso, time for football camp.’
‘Soccer,’ her daughter replied in a muffled, yet clearly scornful voice, her default tone since turning thirteen seven months ago. There was a series of slamming and banging noises, drawers and doors, and when she spoke again, Iso’s voice was clearer. (Where had her head been just moments ago, in the laundry hamper, inside her jersey, in the toilet? Eliza had a lot of fears, so far unfounded, about eating disorders.) ‘Why is it that you called it soccer when everyone else said football, and now you say football when you know it’s supposed to be soccer?’
At least I remembered to call you Iso.
‘It’s your camp and you’re the one who hates to be late.’
‘Football is better,’ said Albie, hovering at Eliza’s elbow. Just turned eight, he was still young enough to enjoy being by – and on – Eliza’s side.
‘Better as a word, or better as a sport?’
‘As a word, for soccer,’ he said. ‘It’s closer to being right. Because it’s mainly feet, and sometimes heads. And hands, for the goalie. While American football is more hands than feet – they don’t kick it so much. They throw and carry it.’
‘Which do you like better, as a sport?’
‘Soccer for playing, American football for watching.’ Albie, to Eliza’s knowledge, had never seen a single minute of American football. But he believed that affection should be apportioned evenly. At dinner, Albie tried to eat so that he finished all his food at about the same time, lest his peas suspect that he preferred his chicken.
Isobel – Iso – clattered down the stairs, defiant in her spikes, which she wasn’t supposed to wear in the house. At least she was ready, in full uniform, her hair in a French braid, which she had somehow managed to do herself. Eliza couldn’t help raising a hand to her own head of messy red curls, wondering anew how she had given birth to this leggy creature with her sleek hair and sleek limbs and sleek social instincts. Isobel had her father’s coloring – the olive skin and dark hair – but otherwise could have been a lanky changeling.
‘Are we snack family today?’ she asked, imperious as a duchess.
