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
Burke studied it a beat longer. Then he moved down the line, the wedding picture, her and Ty outside the church in Neah Bay, Ty in a rented tux and her in that borrowed white dress from her cousin, her smiling and those stupid freckles showing across the bridge of her nose, and Ty looking at her all proud anyway, like he’d never seen anything so beautiful in the world.
Shit.
“Where’s the old man?” Burke asked.
“Dead,” she replied. “Drowned. Been almost four months.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do it,” she said. “He got drunk one night on that old boat of his, misjudged the distance jumping across to the dock. They found his body the next morning, stuck under a float.” She shrugged. “It happens every few years; people get careless. And Ty had a tendency to get that way when he’d been drinking.”
Burke turned from the picture to look at her, the skin around his eyes crinkling. She wondered what he was seeing, what he was thinking about.
She motioned with her Remington over to the couch. “You going to sit down, or what?”
He gave up on the photos and went over and sat. “Okay.” He set the palms of his hands flat on his thighs. “You want to tell me how Lucy came to bite that deputy?”
She sighed. “Not really,” she said. “Look, what are you planning to do here? Are you thinking you’ll just pile that dog in your truck and take her back home with you?”
“I don’t have a truck,” he said. “I took a bus here. And I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. But, ma’am, she’s your dog. I just want to see to it that she stays alive.”
She said nothing. Chewed on her lip and lowered the gun slightly.
“So you want to tell me what happened, or what?”
Jess closed her eyes. “Not really,” she said again.
Lucy was growling, her hackles raised, and Jess tried to shush her as she slipped past to the front door, tried to chase the fear from her voice, hoped the dog couldn’t hear it.
But the dog knew something was wrong.
Whoever was outside knocked again. Startled Jess so bad she thought her heart had stopped. She nudged Lucy away from the door with her knee. Brought her hand to the lock, hesitated. Then she turned the lock and pulled the door open.
“Good evening, Jess.”