BooksBarbecue
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

She found the other guy, Joy, lying slumped over a rotten stump a stone’s throw from the cove. He had his rifle slung around his chest, but he wasn’t a threat anymore; half of his head was blown off, and he’d taken a few more rounds in places the body armor wasn’t protecting.

Jess hoped he’d died slow, the son of a bitch.

Lucy skirted Joy’s body quickly, her tail between her legs. She hopped up onto a fallen tree and looked back at Jess again, waited until she’d nearly caught up, and then jumped down again. Jess made the tree, and began to step over. Then she stopped.

On the other side was Mason Burke.

He’d been shot too, at least a couple of times. His jacket was bloody, at chest level and lower. He lay nearly flat on the forest floor, his head resting against the trunk of a tall pine, and he wasn’t moving, and she thought as she looked at him that he was already dead.

Of course he’s dead, stupid. That’s how this ends.

But then Lucy went to him and licked at his face, whimpering, and Jess saw Burke smile weakly and open his eyes just a hair.

“Hey, girl,” he said. Lucy wagged her tail fast and licked at his face some more. “Hey, girl, it’s okay,” Burke said. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Jess stepped over the tree and came down close to where Burke lay, and he raised an arm weakly to fend Lucy off, looked up at her.

“Hey,” he said.

She swallowed. “Hey yourself.”

“Are we winning?”

“Yeah, Burke,” she said. “We won.”

He smiled a little bit wider. Leaned his head back. “Good,” he said.

Then he closed his eyes, and Jess felt her heart break a little bit.

Sixty-Five

Sixty-Five

Jess wasn’t going to let Burke go that easy.

She left Lucy to keep an eye on him, figuring if the dog was nearby, he might think twice before deciding to die. She’d packed his wounds with dirt, wrapped them with strips she’d torn from her T-shirt, stabilized him as best she could. Burke needed more than battlefield dressings, though; he needed a hospital, no matter how many kisses Lucy gave him.

She wrapped her jacket around her and hurried back toward the isthmus and the western beach, where Kirby’s Grady-White lay wrecked on the rocks, a few feet above the waterline now that the tide had fallen. She studied the hull as she approached, looking for any visible holes. She couldn’t see any, but that didn’t mean anything. She circled around the far side and climbed over the gunwale and into the cockpit, went down into the cabin to look for something she could use.