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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

But there was something lacking in both of those options. Ty Winslow had aimed for a fast turnaround, hold the package for ransom and get paid off quickly, and a run across the border or around the cape would have stood to lengthen the process considerably. He’d have made things a lot easier if he’d stashed the package on Dixie, but Jess Winslow couldn’t think she could make it up that pass, could she?

Could she?

The helicopter flew closer, and Harwood saw the pass open up, a thin, jagged scar through the black rock and trees. The tide was going out now, rushing through that narrow opening and over semisubmerged rocks, and from the way it churned and roiled, Harwood decided only a maniac would attempt to head through.

He turned to Cole Sweeney. “When’s high tide these days?”

Sweeney, an avid fisherman, looked up at the roof of the helicopter and thought for a second. “About oh eight hundred, eight thirty,” he said. “Why, boss?”

Because the timing works out, Harwood thought, if she was trying to make a move. But if she did, we’d see wreckage somewhere.

But then the helicopter climbed a little bit to get over a rise in the terrain on Dixie Island below, and when it crested, Harwood saw the pilot point out through the forward window and descend again. He crowded beside Joy to look out where the man pointed, and there, smack-dab and sitting pretty in the middle of Dixie Lagoon, Ty Winslow’s old troller sat bobbing at anchor, everything peaceful, like it wasn’t no thing whatsoever to be in there at all.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Harwood said, more to himself than to anyone else. “Jess Winslow, you’re just a constant surprise, aren’t you?”

Forty-Nine

Forty-Nine

“Put us down,” Joy instructed.

The pilot shook his head. “Where?” he said, gesturing outside the helicopter. “There’s not a flat piece of ground on this whole goddamn island.”

“On the boat, then.”

“Can’t do that, either,” the pilot replied. “See that mast sticking up in the air, all those stay wires? We get too close to that crap, we’re crashing. Unless you want to jump, you’re not getting down there.”

Joy wished he could strangle the pilot, but the man was right. The island, small though it was, was covered in trees, and what wasn’t trees was steep, jagged rock. There was no place for a helicopter to land.

He studied the little fishing boat from the window. There was nothing moving aboard, no sign that the widow or her companion had noticed the helicopter. But they must have. The woman was a former marine. And she wasn’t going to simply surrender just because her adversary was airborne.

Then the chief deputy, Harwood, touched his arm. Pointed out his own window at the western edge of the lagoon. “Look.”