Chapters (57)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Foreword
- 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
- Praise for Linwood Barclay
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
Gazing out her bedroom window, Sandra observed how radically different the morning commute was today from a couple of weeks ago. She didn’t see Bill Winston, manager of Winston’s Grocery, driving by in his usual mid-’90s Ford Taurus on his way to work. Ann Worley, who’d be passing the house in another hour taking her twin five-year-old boys to day care before arriving at her law office, wouldn’t be behind the wheel of her Honda van. And the Klepmanns, the elderly couple in the small cottage around the corner, wouldn’t be in their ’70s-era Buick station wagon—a land yacht if there ever was one—on their way to the shopping center for their daily mall walk.
But Bill Winston and Ann Worley and the Klepmanns would still be driving by. The difference would be in what was transporting them.
They’d all be behind the wheel—no, correct that, since there was no wheel—they’d all be in a brand-new Arrival autonomous car.
Self-driving.
A bright red one was going by right now. That’d be Bill.
Sedan-sized, four doors, lots of glass, an Arrival looked a lot like any other car in that segment, albeit with some quirky, distinctive styling. A bit jelly-bean-like with rounded fenders, yet somewhat rakish at the same time, with a low sloping hood and high trunk, like a Dustbuster minus the handle. Sandra was not about to tell the Arrival execs in general, or that snarky shit Albert Ruskin in particular, that the car reminded her of a ferret. Slinky and kind of creepy, especially with those narrow, snake-like headlights that gave the vehicle a hint of menace. But there was no doubt it was aerodynamic. You could ride a bike right up the hood, over the roof, then take a leap off the back. She wondered how long it would be before some of the neighborhood skateboarders figured out an Arrival made a great ramp.
It hadn’t occurred to her, until the Arrivals invaded Garrett Island, how most cars these days were silver or black or white or gray. Boring, blah colors. Sandra could remember her grandfather had a two-tone, turquoise and white Ford from the fifties. Beautiful machines from a forgotten era.
Arrival Inc. wasn’t afraid of a splash of color. Their vehicles came in strawberry red and lime green and sky blue and lemon yellow and plum purple, just for starters. So even if you didn’t always hear these battery-powered cars coming, you sure as hell saw them.
And they were the only cars to see these days on Garrett Island. Arrival Inc. had made the islanders an offer they couldn’t refuse.