BooksBarbecue
Back Deception Cove
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

It was twenty after eight now. No time to get scared. Jess dug out Hank Moss’s chart and the tide table, spread them out before her. Knocked on the front window and signaled to Burke as she idled the troller closer to the wall of rocks and white water.

Time to go.

Forty-Three

Forty-Three

Mason looked out over the water at the tiny gap in the rocks and wondered how on earth Jess thought she was going to fit the troller through. The cliffs closed in around them, waves breaking white over jagged black, the pass barely twice as wide as the little boat and studded with more rock—cruel, unflinching obstacles—on both sides. Some peeked out over the high-tide waterline. The rest were visible only by the way the flood tide dappled and whirled as it passed overtop of them, invisible undersea mines just waiting to cripple the boat.

Jess kept the troller inching forward, the diesel engine at a low grumble, until the boat rested barely two lengths from the rocky threshold. She poked her head out the starboard window, called up to Mason.

“How’s the tide running?” she asked.

He peered over the bow. Beside him, Lucy did too. There was water flowing into the pass, but not much of it. The tide licked at the rocks and at the lowest of the trees that clung to the shore.

“Looks slow,” he reported back, though he really had no frame of reference. “Looks manageable.”

Jess looked dubious, like she’d just remembered he was a Michigan guy, likely hadn’t seen a high tide in his life. But she had no choice but to take his word for it; the dog wasn’t hazarding an opinion.

“I’m going to take it slow,” she said. “You keep your eyes up ahead, let me know if I’m going to run us up onto the rocks.”

He nodded. “Roger.”

“You see me heading into trouble, you holler at me, Burke.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

She peered out at the pass another moment or two, at the waves on the rocks to both sides of the little gap. Then he watched her retreat back into the wheelhouse, watched her through the front window as she gripped the wheel with her left hand, pushed up on the throttle with the other.

The boat motored forward. Mason hunched over at the very forepeak, gripping the anchor chain and hoping he didn’t fall in. The waves carried the boat as it neared the rocks; he could see vast patches of kelp on either side too, and he imagined the thick growth would wreak hell on the propeller if Jess wandered into the middle of it.