BooksBarbecue
Back Look Both Ways
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Foreword
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Thirty-Five
  40. Thirty-Six
  41. Thirty-Seven
  42. Thirty-Eight
  43. Thirty-Nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-One
  46. Forty-Two
  47. Forty-Three
  48. Forty-Four
  49. Forty-Five
  50. Forty-Six
  51. Forty-Seven
  52. Forty-Eight
  53. Forty-Nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Praise for Linwood Barclay
  56. Also by Linwood Barclay
  57. About the Publisher

And then there was the Salters, across the street and one house over. Blake and Nina. The newlyweds. Well, that’s what they were two years ago. But judging by their conversation the other morning, the honeymoon was definitely over. They came out the front door every morning at eight, both getting into their little Toyota—Blake in the passenger seat and Nina behind the wheel. This was before they were given an Arrival, of course. A few days before everyone surrendered their cars for one of those newfangled ones, Nina had come striding out of the house first, letting the door swing shut on her husband as he followed her. She wouldn’t look at him as he said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, if you want your mother here, fine, but for a weekend, not for an entire fucking week.”

She got into the car, and when he went around to the passenger side, he’d found the door locked. “Come on,” he said, banging his fist on the window. “Stop being a cunt.”

Lillian Bridgeman could hardly believe her ears. But what she saw amazed her more. Nina unlocked the door for him, let him in, and off they went. Lillian couldn’t imagine her late husband ever using that word with her. If he had, she could imagine what she might have done. A cast iron frying pan upside the head next time he turned his back on her, she thought.

She liked being close to the road so she could have a front row seat to these little dramas. If she were up on the porch, she wouldn’t be able to make out the cast of characters as easily, what with her eyesight declining these past few years. You got to be eighty-one and some of the equipment started breaking down. Some of it already had. Like her legs, which still worked but didn’t keep her standing for very long.

It was a good thing her son had arranged for that girl, Daniella—okay, young woman—to check on her a couple of times a day while he was off being the island lawman. She’d wheel her back up the ramp and into the house, make her some lunch, or assist her on a trip to the bathroom. She’d be coming along shortly, and just as well, because Lillian was feeling a tad peckish, as her own mother used to say, so many years ago. Lillian could manage to make herself a lunch if she had to, but getting back into the house was something she could not manage alone. She no longer had the strength in her arms to get up the ramp to the porch and her front door.