Chapter 2 - THE ESCAPE PLAN
Rachel jumped out of her gray Honda before I reached the curb.
“What happened?”
Her eyes dropped to my stomach.
Then to the hospital bag.
Then back to my face.
“Oh, my God. You’re in labor.”
“Looks that way.”
“Looks that way?”
Another contraction tightened low across my belly.
I grabbed the roof of her car.
Rachel went pale.
“Okay. Hospital. Now.”
“Not Riverside.”
“Megan—”
“Not Columbus.”
She froze.
Rain soaked both of us.
Three weeks earlier, I had called Rachel at two in the morning.
That was the first time I had told anyone the truth.
Not the polished version.
Not “Derek works a lot.”
Not “Marriage is hard.”
Not “Pregnancy has made us both stressed.”
The truth.
Derek had taken control of our finances two years earlier because he said I was “bad with money.”
My paycheck went into a joint account.
He transferred most of it out.
He gave me one credit card with a limit so low I sometimes had to text him from the grocery store.
He made jokes about my marketing job being “cute.”
He reminded me constantly that the house was in his name because his father helped with the down payment.
During arguments, he liked to stand in the doorway.
He never hit me.
That made it harder to explain why I was afraid.
Rachel had listened without interrupting.
Then she said, “If you ever leave, don’t announce it. Don’t threaten him. Don’t give him a chance to prepare. Call me, and I’ll come.”
So I prepared quietly.
A second phone.
Copies of my birth certificate, Social Security card, medical records, and employment documents.
Some cash from selling old jewelry Derek had forgotten I owned.
Three changes of clothes for the baby.
One for me.
A folder hidden behind insulation in the basement laundry room.
Every time Derek went to the gym, I moved one more piece of my life into a storage locker Rachel rented under her name.
I had planned to leave after the baby was born.
Then labor started.
And Derek handed me fifteen dollars.
Rachel opened the passenger door.
“Where are we going?”
“East.”
“How far east?”
“Far enough.”
“Megan, if your contractions are five minutes apart, Pittsburgh is not a smart plan.”
“I know.”
“You could have the baby in my car.”
“I know.”
She stared at me.
Then she said quietly, “Is he going to come after you?”
I looked back toward my street.
Derek’s house.
That was how I thought of it now.
Not ours.
His.
The front door was still open.
A dark figure stood in the doorway.
Watching.
My phone buzzed.
DEREK CALLING.
Rachel saw the name.
“Answer?”
“No.”
The call stopped.
Immediately, a text arrived.
YOU BETTER NOT EMBARRASS ME TONIGHT.
Rachel read it over my shoulder.
Her jaw tightened.
“Get in.”
We pulled away.
I didn’t look back again.
For the first twenty minutes, Derek called six times.
Then twelve.
Then seventeen.
At 8:06, a different message appeared.
WHERE THE HELL IS MY CAR?
I stared at it.
Then laughed.
Rachel glanced over.
“What?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“The car isn’t his anymore.”
Two months earlier, I had discovered something Derek never expected me to find.
The SUV he called “his” had been purchased partly with money from an account in my name.
Money my grandmother left me.
And the bank records proving it were now sitting in Rachel’s trunk.
Derek wasn’t just about to lose his wife.
For the first time in years, he was about to learn how much of “his” life had actually been built with mine.
Then another contraction struck.
This one didn’t stop quickly.
And halfway through it, I felt a warm rush beneath me.
Rachel looked over.
“Megan?”
I looked down at the soaked passenger seat.
“My water just broke.”
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We were still more than an hour from the Pennsylvania border.
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