Chapters (78)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Acknowledgments
- Discover More
- About the Author
- Also by Owen Laukkanen
The dog certainly didn’t seem bothered. She’d been asleep since they rounded the breakwater, curled up in a pretzel in the far corner of the wheelhouse. Jess didn’t think Lucy had ever been on a boat before, but the dog didn’t seem to care; it was warm in the wheelhouse, and there was somewhere cozy to sleep, and sleeping was pretty well how Lucy solved all of her problems.
Close your eyes and pretend it’s all okay. Pretend you’re somewhere else, somewhere far away. Pretend there’s no one chasing you, and no one wants you dead.
Pretend you have no reason to be scared.
They’d passed the lights of Neah Bay in the night, off to port, and as the day found them, Jess could see Tatoosh Island up ahead, the northwestern end of contiguous America. There was a Coast Guard light there, to guide the big cargo ships out of the open seas and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, point them down toward Seattle and Tacoma, and Vancouver, Canada.
Ty’s freighter had come in through here. Whoever’d made the drop had hailed Kirby as the ship passed that light on Tatoosh, and Shelby Walker had intercepted the message and passed it along to Ty, who’d disabled Kirby’s boat and set out in his stead, sealing his fate and Shelby Walker’s, too.
Jess wasn’t headed as far as Tatoosh. There was a bay on the northeastern tip of the cape, just before the mainland petered off into water. A place called Mushroom Rock. And just off that bay, about a mile from the rock, the island called Dixie sat lonely and uninhabited, the smallest of specks on anyone’s map.
It was a mile in circumference, maybe. Rock and a few trees, a little beach on the western side facing open water. Ty had brought her to the beach once they’d anchored in the cove, rowed them to shore in the troller’s rubber dinghy. He’d brought a bottle of wine and a basket of sandwiches; she could tell he was trying to be romantic, and it was romantic, even with the wind blowing and the sand getting everywhere, gritty and painful, as they lay on the picnic blanket and tried to make out.
She’d thought it was paradise, even with the sand and the wind. She hadn’t been able to believe her good luck.
The island was shaped like a letter C, the rocky shore curling around Dixie Lagoon like a protective embrace.
“You could hide out here through the worst weather imaginable,” Ty had bragged once they’d set the anchor in the calm waters inside. “Hide out from everything, for as long as you wanted.”