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Back Deception Cove Save as PDF
Chapters (78)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Prologue
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. Thirty-Nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-One
  48. Forty-Two
  49. Forty-Three
  50. Forty-Four
  51. Forty-Five
  52. Forty-Six
  53. Forty-Seven
  54. Forty-Eight
  55. Forty-Nine
  56. Fifty
  57. Fifty-One
  58. Fifty-Two
  59. Fifty-Three
  60. Fifty-Four
  61. Fifty-Five
  62. Fifty-Six
  63. Fifty-Seven
  64. Fifty-Eight
  65. Fifty-Nine
  66. Sixty
  67. Sixty-One
  68. Sixty-Two
  69. Sixty-Three
  70. Sixty-Four
  71. Sixty-Five
  72. Sixty-Six
  73. Sixty-Seven
  74. Sixty-Eight
  75. Acknowledgments
  76. Discover More
  77. About the Author
  78. Also by Owen Laukkanen

“You know it’s not your fault,” he said after a bit. “None of this, Harwood taking the dog, what happened to Ty. Your man running around while you were off fighting. That’s on him, not you.”

She laughed. There was a harder edge this time, and when he looked her way, she was kind of smirking at him, like he’d said something wrong and crossed some kind of line.

“You don’t have to counsel me, Burke,” she said. “I married a real piece of shit, and that’s a plain fact. I don’t need you holding my hand.”

“I’m not…” He felt lost. Immature, unprepared. This wasn’t a conversation he’d ever had before. “Yeah,” he said. “All right.”

He kept driving. Felt her eyes on him, didn’t look. Jess sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re only trying to…”

She stopped when she saw the look on his face. He was scanning the road in front of them, just coming to the outskirts of town now, a haze hanging in the air, thicker than the rain.

The smell, too. Smoke. Something burning.

“You smell that?” he asked her. “Something’s on fire.”

Thirty

Thirty

Even with the rain falling, the place burned pretty good.

It was a wood house, after all, and once Harwood and Bryce Whitmer had spread a few gallons’ worth of regular grade all over the widow Winslow’s floors and her meager collection of furniture, the fire was a foregone conclusion.

Harwood and Bryce retreated to the edge of Jess Winslow’s weedy, muddy lawn, watched the place burn from there until the flames got too high and the heat overpowering, and then they retreated farther up the road and sat in Harwood’s truck and stared at the inferno.

Nobody bothered them. Jess lived at the far end of a going-nowhere road, and Harwood had dispatched Dale Whitmer to stand guard at the head of it, his county cruiser angled across and his blue-and-reds flashing. Harwood knew the odds were nobody would bother old Dale at all, but it was better to be safe. He’d left Cole Sweeney in the detachment, let the kid feel like he was doing some good in the world, playing cop instead of helping Harwood work out his frustrations with a jerry can and a match.

Harwood felt a little bit of remorse as he watched the fire, but not much. The arrangement with Okafor was supposed to be easy cash, a little boost to the community economy. And if Harwood hadn’t taken the deal, the boys in Clallam County surely would have.