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Back Deception Cove
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 that was a lie. She knew she’d rather be dead than live with Burke’s absence, live with the knowledge that he’d died for her. She knew she’d see him with Afia every time she closed her eyes, more guilt and this time compounded by the fact that Burke was the most decent man she’d ever met in her life, and she couldn’t even keep him alive long enough to tell him.

This kept her going. Kept her struggling, slow and steady, through the dense underbrush, Lucy beside her and ahead of her and constantly underfoot (the damn dog), the wind in the trees and the sun sinking low, already touching the horizon. And the tide crawling over the rocks, slow and inexorable, coming to lift Kirby’s boat and take them away.

Cole Sweeney caught up with them on the beach, limping along on that rifle of his, wincing every step of the way. His eyes went wide when he saw Jess and Burke; he stopped and stared and coughed a little bit, self-conscious.

“I mean, you need a hand with him?” he asked.

She didn’t look at him. “Can you stand up on that knee without toppling over?”

“No,” he said. “But you—”

“You just worry about you, Cole,” she said, gritting her teeth. “It’ll take us a while, but we’ll get there.”

The tide continued to rise as they struggled across the beach. By the time they reached the rocks, seawater once again covered the shoal that had trapped Kirby’s boat. Jess waded through, exhausted, more tired than she’d been since Afghanistan, her head swimming and her mind fighting to keep focused. She nearly dropped Burke, staggered under his weight, fifteen feet to go and it felt like infinity.

“Put me down,” Burke told her. “I can walk from here.”

She snorted. “Bullshit. You’ll drown on these rocks.”

Sweeney came alongside, then passed them, and she watched him hobble up to the side of the boat and throw his rifle over and hesitate and then pull himself up, heard him groan in pain as he rolled over the gunwale. All too late, she remembered there were guns on board, ammunition. If he wanted to, he could go down into the cabin and come back shooting, kill them all.

But Sweeney only propped himself up in the cockpit and leaned over the rail toward Jess and Burke, his arms outstretched.

“Bring him this way,” he told her. “I’ll pull him aboard.”