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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

“This stuff is from Afghanistan,” she explained. “Kandahar. I recognize the trademark from the briefings they gave us.” She gave him a beat to figure it out. “This shit,” she said, “is fucking propping up those same Taliban motherfuckers who’re fucking killing us over there. And that piece of shit Harwood is helping them do it.”

Her voice was low and even, her eyes dark. Mason had heard some scary things, seen scary people in the last fifteen years, but he reckoned he’d never seen anyone as dangerous as Jess looked and sounded right now.

“They grow this shit in the south,” she told Mason. “They ship it through Pakistan, and they put it on boats, and they send it around the world and buy guns with the profits. RPGs. Body armor. Trucks. Everything they need to make my life miserable. And meanwhile, Kirby’s at home with his monster truck and his big old boat, cashing in on this very same shit.”

Mason didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say; he didn’t like Harwood, but he knew Jess had to be feeling another level of hate. This made it personal, even beyond the death of her husband. From what she’d said about Ty, Mason figured Jess had lost people she cared a heck of a lot more about overseas.

He studied the package, and the smaller packs within. Tried to remember the jailhouse math. A brick of Southeast Asian white was worth about eighty dollars a gram, at least how he’d heard it. That clocked this package in at about eight hundred grand wholesale, far more on the street. But Kirby Harwood wasn’t selling on the street, and neither was Ty Winslow. The whole rotten mess had been the death of three people and counting, all for less than a million bucks.

Jess was off in her world, staring out at the ocean, and Mason was going to try to do something, say something to comfort her. He didn’t have the first idea how, but he was going to try something anyway. And then they’d pack up the heroin and bring it back around the shore and find Lucy, bundle everything back up into the skiff and head back to the Better Days, and maybe he’d find something to cook on the gas stove for dinner and they could decide what to do next.

He didn’t get the chance to do any of that, though, because before he could speak a word to Jess, she stiffened and looked up. She looked back into the trees toward the lagoon and the anchorage, and after a second Mason heard it too.