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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

Right now it was the before. It was the tension. She’d crept around the outside of the Whitmer property knowing the night was going to get greasy, knowing there wasn’t a thing she could do about it, not if she wanted to get Lucy back.

And now here it came, someone out of the house, heavy footsteps across the porch and down to the backyard. Whistling, cheerful, not really a tune, but Jess could feel every note creeping up her spine.

She tensed, held the shotgun tight, ducked away from the gate and tried to stay hidden as Burke did the same beside her.

The whistling stopped, and then a man’s voice called out. “Here, boys,” and Jess could hear the dogs, both of them, panting and snapping at each other, chain collars jangling as they raced across the compound toward the man.

Jess knew the man was Bryce Whitmer.

Suddenly there was light, bright white and blinding. Whitmer must have flipped a switch somewhere, hit the juice on the junkyard, because every light in the compound stayed on, and all at once it was as bright as day beyond the fence.

Jess closed her eyes, tried to steady her breathing. Realized she was shaking, her hands, couldn’t make them stop.

Man up.

Whitmer began to whistle again, and he was getting closer. Jess wasn’t looking. She was backed against the fence, shotgun to her chest, looking out into the black forest. But then Burke nudged her, and she had to turn.

He was staring through the fence, motioning through the wall of cars to the left, somebody’s old Buick crushed and left for dead, just enough space left in the front windshield to see a clear path through the yard to another building, maybe ten feet by ten feet, and Jess didn’t know what she was seeing at first.

But then she saw the fencing out front, more chain link, saw the silver bowl on the ground. And then she saw the mass beside the bowl, black and white and oddly shaped, and she saw the glint off the collar, rhinestones she’d bought to try to make her butch dog look more feminine, and the mass shifted and those ears perked up, and she knew it was Lucy.

Before she could do anything else, though, Bryce Whitmer appeared at the front of the kennel, blocking her view, and she couldn’t see Lucy anymore, but she could see the light glint off the meat cleaver that Bryce held in his hand.

Lucy whimpered, and Jess felt it like knives.

Seventeen

Seventeen

This was the part Jess was good at.

She pushed herself off the fence. Spun, and leveled the shotgun at the gate. “Move,” she told Burke, and Burke caught the look in her eye and he moved, all right.