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
It was a beast of a wave, and it was fixing to kill them. Harwood watched it rise, a thick black wall of water, saw the lip curling over high above the stern, and he knew they were finished just as soon as it came crashing down.
“Hold on,” he told Sweeney and Joy in the split second before impact. “This here’s going to suck.”
* * *
She’d fucked up.
Jess watched the wave build behind Harwood’s boat, and she swore to herself and wished she’d been smarter.
As soon as Kirby had decided to make a run for shore, she’d have been better off letting him through those rocks unmolested, she thought now. Let him have the little bay, the calmer water, and then open up on him and his boys, put them down without risking the boat.
She needed the boat to get Burke and Lucy off the island.
But she’d had a clear shot at Dale Whitmer, and she’d taken it and hadn’t missed, popped him center mass and sent him into the drink. One down—two, if she was lucky, though she didn’t think she’d hit Kirby’s friend with enough to put him out of the fight permanently. Mind you, it would be a miracle if any of them survived what was about to happen, that monster wave breaking over the stern, picking up the Grady-White and surfing it out of control toward mountains of sharp rock. It would be a miracle if the boat survived too.
Jess watched from the southern edge of the bay as Kirby tried to outrun that wave, as he couldn’t do it, as it spun the Grady-White sideways and nearly tipped it full over, hurtling it toward the reefs on the bay’s opposite shore. The boat rode the wave up and onto the shoals, ten or fifteen feet across the rocks before the wave ran out of steam and the boat went aground.
She could hear the hull rip and tear from across the water, watched the little boat shudder violently as the wave’s last momentum dragged it farther into the bay. The boat stayed upright anyway, and when the white water receded, the boat stayed where the wave had left it, marooned in two or three feet of turbulent water, the white hull scratched to shit, the twin engines still roaring.
There was no movement from within the boat, and for a brief moment Jess wondered if the wave hadn’t killed them all. But then she saw Cole Sweeney poke his head up from the stern and look around, dazed. He seemed to say something toward the cockpit, so she figured Kirby and the other guy were still aboard too.
So be it, she thought, leveling her rifle again. I was kind of looking forward to messing these guys up anyway.
* * *
The bitch was shooting again.