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

Lillian did love the fall. She could still be outside, and she loved to see the leaves change. Every day, another splash of color to enjoy. When it was raining she didn’t venture off the porch. And once it got cold, she’d watch the street’s events from the living room window. She didn’t read that much anymore. There was a time she could read a book a day—there were so many Danielle Steel novels to gobble up that Lillian wondered if that woman didn’t write one every day—but it was harder for her to concentrate now, and watching the world go by demanded less brainpower and was often more entertaining.

Although, if there was a downside—and didn’t everything have a downside?—sitting out here also gave her time to think. And what she was thinking was what her son, the chief of police, might be planning to do with her. He’d been talking more and more about this or that seniors’ home. How nice it would be for her to have her meals made for her. How wonderful it would be to have people to socialize with every day. How convenient it would be to just press a button whenever she had a problem and someone would come running. How positively splendid it would be, when you had to go to the bathroom, not to have to take a weewee in your Depends while you waited for Daniella to show up? Okay, maybe Joe had not actually said positively splendid or weewee but he had hinted that very sentiment.

So he was ready to have her locked away somewhere. Lillian had a pretty good idea why, too. He’d met some woman. Sandy or Sandra or something. Sure, he’d met other women over the years, but things had never gotten serious enough with any of them to make Lillian worry that their living arrangements might change.

Before her more recent decline, if Joe had decided to set her up in her own apartment, she probably could have managed on her own. But now that she was increasingly disabled, Joe couldn’t take that route. He had to find her a home if he met someone and wanted to have some woman move in with him. Three of them under the same roof, that would never work.

Soon as I carry you over the threshold, could you help my mom find her teeth?

Yeah, that would go over well. Lillian could only hope this latest romance would end the way all the others had. Joe had a tendency to push too hard, scare the girls off. Maybe he’d do that with this one, and then Lillian wouldn’t have to worry about—

Now that’s funny.

The red Arrival parked in the Smitherses’ driveway, two doors up, was quietly backing out onto the street. Once there, it straightened and headed for the business district of downtown Garrett.