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

He could tell Sandra hadn’t totally made up her mind yet. He needed to bring her around. But that was coming. She would love him. He was sure of that. And after all the shit that had gone down here on the island today, people would be wanting to pull together.

Family would become more important than ever.

Joe took one last, long look at the bedroom. The white bedspread. The pale blue wallpaper with narrow vertical stripes in a darker shade of blue. It all looked nice enough. He could live with this. Besides, decorating was never really his thing. Didn’t much matter to him what pattern the wallpaper was, what kind of lamps Sandra picked, what color the sheets were. But he’d have to do something about that picture on the bedside table, the one of Sandra with her late husband. The times he’d been here, in that bed, he’d been careful not to glance over at it. Didn’t make sense, he knew, being jealous—or even fearful—of a dead man, but that was how he felt. One time, he’d started to lose his erection, seeing Adam Montrose’s smile, a twinkle in his eye, as if he was looking right at Joe, saying, One day, when you get to heaven, I am going to pound the ever-lovin’ shit out of you.

It wasn’t like he could fold the picture down, or flip it around to face the wall. Not at this stage of their relationship. But when they’d made it official, he’d broach the subject. Suggest she move the picture to the kitchen or the living room. Or tuck it away in a drawer. A reasonable request, he figured.

It was time to go.

Sandra wanted him at the community center. She had high hopes he could get into Lisa Carver’s computer.

He didn’t like his chances.

Joe descended the stairs so quickly he nearly stumbled when he got to the bottom. Good thing his mother wasn’t here to see that. She never passed up a chance to tell him how clumsy he was on his feet.

Joe could have called Sandra and told her Archie and Katie were not at the house, but bad news was best delivered in person. He exited the house, hopped back on the bike, and started pedaling.

Thirty-Three

Lisa Carver’s phone hadn’t been out of Sandra’s hand for a second. She kept willing it to ring with news that Joe had found her kids safe and sound. If only she still had her own phone, that Gracie hadn’t run off with it. The kids might have called it dozens of times, were as worried about her as she was about them.

Not that the phone in her hand wasn’t ringing.