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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

Something had woken her. Just what it was, Jess Winslow couldn’t be sure, but she was awake now, wide awake and lightning fast, too, like she was back in that OP in the Hindu Kush, strapping on her body armor as someone triggered the alarm, listening to the sound of mortars launching, waiting for the boom.

Except she wasn’t over there anymore. She was here, America, home, sacked out on the couch under a Pendleton blanket, the TV blaring infomercials, and God only knew what time it was. Dark outside; no light but the moon.

Lucy whined. Lifted her head from the floor, looked around, those big black ears perked. She looked up at Jess and whined a little more.

Whatever it was, it had scared the dog, too.

“Never mind, you big baby. It’s probably just a deer.” Jess sat up, rubbed sleep from her eyes. Found the remote and turned down the TV. “For a big, scary guard dog, you’re kind of a wuss.”

Lucy grumbled like she wanted to contest the point, but decided better of it and laid her head back down. Kept her eyes fixed on the front door, though, and her ears at high alert.

Though Lucy might have looked the part, the truth was she wasn’t really a guard dog. There wasn’t much that Jess owned that needed guarding. “Companion animal,” the VA doc had called her. “Something to help you keep your mind over here.”

Lucy helped, sort of.

She was a mutt, probably pit bull but not entirely; she had that square, blocky head and that big, dumb pit smile when she panted, but her body was long and more lean than stocky. A boxer, maybe, or some kind of retriever. Her hair was short and fine, jet black save a white snout and a stripe up her forehead, a patch on her neck and one on her belly, white socks on all four paws, and another patch like paint on the tip of her tail. She was a rescue, the lady at the agency had told Jess, a refugee from somewhere back east, from some assholes who’d aimed to fight her.

The agency lady had sworn Lucy had never actually fought, the law having caught up to the assholes in question before they could actually chuck her into a pit. They hadn’t even snubbed her tail or clipped her ears, and for that Jess was glad. Lucy’s ears were her most distinctive feature: velvet smooth and floppy like a Labrador retriever’s, they channeled the dog’s mood better than her perpetually sad eyes or even her bullwhip tail.