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

“Come,” he said. “The clock is ticking.”

Which clock he meant was unclear. But as the helicopter’s engines roared to life, and the rotors began to spin, Harwood decided the shooter could have been counting down for the helicopter, for Jess Winslow and Mason Burke, or for Kirby Harwood and Cole Sweeney and Dale Whitmer themselves, and all would have been accurate.

The clock was ticking. Somehow, Harwood knew, this would all be over soon.

Forty-Seven

Forty-Seven

Jess and Burke didn’t sleep much, though they didn’t try very hard, and it was early afternoon by the time they stepped back out on deck, the air cool and refreshing after the stuffy warmth of the wheelhouse. Lucy followed them out, nosed around the back hatch, steadfastly ignoring both Jess and Burke like she held a grudge over what she’d just been forced to witness.

Burke went up onto the roof of the wheelhouse and untied the three-person rigid inflatable skiff that Ty had kept stored by the dodger. He tied a rope to the bow and eased it over the starboard side of the wheelhouse, where Jess was waiting to help guide it down to the water. When the skiff was in the water, Burke handed down the rope, and Jess walked it toward the stern and tied it off, left the skiff to bob alongside the troller as she and Burke gathered supplies.

They didn’t talk about what they’d done. But they didn’t not talk about it, exactly; Jess could have predicted that Burke wasn’t the type to pour out his heart to a girl after he’d slept with her, but she could sense his mood in how his fingers traced her skin and how he smiled, self-conscious, when his eyes lingered on hers a half second too long. She didn’t regret what they’d done, and she could tell Burke didn’t either, though in the back of her mind that fear still remained, that she’d just dragged him deeper into the hole that would bury him, that by giving in to her impulses, she’d ensured he would never escape.

She pushed the thought from her mind and tried to focus on what came next.

They filled the skiff with supplies: tools for digging, enough food from the galley’s lockers to last a night onshore, warm clothes and blankets, matches for a fire. Jess had a good idea where Ty had hidden the package, but she decided it was better to plan ahead. They had a whole island to search, and the quicker they could cover ground, the better.

They brought the guns, too: Hank Moss’s supply, Jess’s shotgun, the pistol Burke had bought from Rengo in the woods.

“We’ll stick you with the shotgun,” Jess told Burke. “Easier to hit something at close quarters, and you look like you could handle the kick.”