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
There was a little cave there, on the far edge of the clearing, and they’d decided it would do to keep them dry when the storm started in earnest. At the very least, they could stick the guns under the shelter of the rock and keep them out of the rain. The wind would drown out the sound of any approaching boat until it was dead on top of them, but they would hear a helicopter from a distance. They had energy bars and plenty of water, warm clothes; they wouldn’t need a fire.
They hiked up through the forest to the clearing in the last of the day’s waning light, and by the time they’d made it to the cliff and the little cave, it was night and the pass wasn’t visible, the forest just barely. Lucy stuck close to Jess as they navigated by flashlight, though whether it was fear that kept her close or some comforting instinct, Mason wasn’t sure. The dog needed Jess as much as Jess needed the dog; that much was clear.
“Is this what you thought you’d be doing?” Jess asked, breaking a long silence as they knelt by the rocky outcrop and slid the guns into the dry. “All those years in your jail cell, did you figure you’d be hiding in the woods from a pack of dirty lawmen before you’d been a free man for even a couple of weeks?”
It was impossible to see her face, but there was humor in her tone, dark as the night outside.
“Truthfully, I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Mason replied, thankful for the conversation. “I guess I still don’t.” He gave it a beat. “I wasn’t ever the kind to have a life plan, not before I went inside. I was mostly just running with Dev, trying to keep up.”
“Yeah, and how’d that work out for you?”
He shrugged. The wind howled through the trees, and he laid out a mat of spare clothes on the dry rock beneath the overhang, and laughed as Lucy promptly curled up in the middle of it.
“‘Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings,’” he said.
She made a face. “What is this stuff, Burke, the Bible? You found God?”
“That one is Thoreau,” he said. He shrugged, feeling sheepish. “I had a lot of time to read these last few years.”
“Yeah? And what’s it supposed to mean, ‘rescue the drowning’?”
“I guess it means you’re supposed to help anybody who really needs it, but otherwise mind your own business,” he said. “At least, that’s how I read it.”