Goodbye to the Dead

Brian Freeman

Chapters (73)

Goodbye to the Dead

Also By Brian Freeman

Also by Brian Freeman

Spilled Blood

THE JONATHAN STRIDE SERIES

The Cold Nowhere

The Burying Place

The Watcher

Stalked

Stripped

Immoral

Turn to Stone (A Jonathan Stride e-novella)

Spitting Devil (A Jonathan Stride e-short story)

THE CAB BOLTON SERIES

Season of Fear

The Bone House

Title

Copyright

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by

Quercus Publishing Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK company

The moral right of Brian Freeman to be

identified as the author of this work has been

asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopy, recording, or any

information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

HB ISBN 978 1 78206 900 3

TPB ISBN 978 1 78206 901 0

EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78429 985 9

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

businesses, organizations, places and events are

either the product of the author’s imagination

or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or

locales is entirely coincidental.

Dedication

For Marcia

Epigraph

‘We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.’

– MARCEL PROUST

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

THEN

NOW

FROM THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

The Present

Serena spotted the Grand Am parked half a block from the Duluth bar. Someone was waiting inside the car.

Mosquitoes clouded in front of the headlights. The trumpets of a Russian symphony – something loud and mournful by Shostakovich – blared through its open windows. Serena smelled acrid, roll-your-own cigarette smoke drifting toward her with the spitting rain. Beyond the car, through the haze, she saw the milky lights of the Superior bridge arching across the harbor.

There were just the two of them in the late-night darkness of the summer street. Herself and the stranger behind the wheel of the Grand Am. She couldn’t see the driver, but it didn’t matter who was inside. Not yet.

She was here for someone else.

This was an industrial area, on the east end of Raleigh Street, not far from the coal docks and the paper mill. Power lines sizzled overhead. The ground under her feet shook with the passage of a southbound train. She made sure her Mustang was locked, with her Glock securely inside the glove compartment, and then she crossed the wet street to the Grizzly Bear Bar. It was a dive with no windows and an apartment overhead for the owner.

Cat was inside.

Serena felt guilty putting tracking software on the teenager’s phone, but she’d learned quickly that Cat’s sweet face didn’t mean she could be trusted.