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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

“Come on if you’re coming,” Harwood told him. “We gotta get off this beach.”

He set up his rifle and fired again, and Cole did too, and as they fired and Joy made his move, Harwood searched the forest for any sign of the widow and her rifle, but he couldn’t see anything. He hoped they’d hit her with a round or two, neutralized her, but he knew they wouldn’t ever be that lucky. She was probably just taking cover.

No matter. Three rifles and only fifteen yards to the safety of the forest. Harwood motioned to Joy and Sweeney to make the run for it while he continued to rake the trees with rounds from his rifle. When the two men were safely off the beach, he ducked behind the bow of the boat and found Cole where he’d hidden in the forest, gestured to his deputy to start shooting.

Cole took a position and aimed across the bay, and when he pulled the trigger, Harwood stood and ran, stumbling on the wet rocks and nearly falling on his face into white water, expecting any minute to catch a round in his back. He covered the last three or four yards in the air, leapt into the forest and landed in a pile of deadfall, came up spitting moss and covered in mud, but hell, he was alive, and he’d made it off the beach.

“Let’s find her,” he told the others. “Put her down fast, and then we take care of Burke.”

Joy nodded. Sweeney peered out at the beach, the wrecked Grady-White sitting battered in the swell. He nodded too.

The men stood in unison. Stayed as low as possible and crept into the woods, rifles at the ready, scanning the forest for any sign of Jess Winslow.

Fifty-Seven

Fifty-Seven

Jess had screwed up something bad now, letting Harwood and the others off of the boat and into the woods. She’d hoped the waves would take care of them, or that she could pin them down in the wreck and pick them off, one by one. But someone on the team had a decent sense for tactics and had pretty well kept her ducking while they worked off the boat and across the beachhead. And now they were in the woods, and they were going to spread out, and killing them all had just become a hell of a lot harder.

For the first time Jess wondered if she might lose this fight.

She chased the thought. Burke was out there too, somewhere, with a big freaking shotgun. If he could neutralize just one of the surviving attackers—preferably the scary guy—Jess was reasonably certain she could take care of the other two.