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
Now Katie is very frightened. She scans the ocean, hoping her father will bob up someplace, playfully, and laugh at how he has tricked her. But when she does not see him, she wades in farther until the water—and oh, it is so, so cold—is up to her waist.
That is when she feels something brush up against her leg. At first, she thinks it’s a fish, or maybe seaweed, but when she looks down into the water she sees her father, stretched out, looking up.
Not moving.
Katie screams, “Daddy! Daddy!”
But then she notices his lips are moving. He’s trying to tell her something. Bubbles rise from his mouth as he speaks. Like in a cartoon, when the bubbles break the surface, his words emerge.
“Hi, honey bunch,” says the first bubble.
“Daddy!”
“It looks to me like . . .” says the second bubble.
Katie is trying to grab hold of her father, to pull him up, but every time she tries to reach for him, he slips from her grasp.
The third bubble pops to the surface.
Her father says, “. . . Bruce is dead.”
Katie says, “What? What did you say?”
But then, suddenly, her father is gone, as if he were made of salt and had instantly dissolved.
“Daddy, Daddy!”
“Daddy!”
That last scream was real, and loud enough that Katie woke herself up. The first thing she noticed as she opened her eyes was that she was pressed up against the passenger door of the Cadillac. The car was seriously listing to the right. As she turned her head to look out the window, she found herself looking down into the ditch.
She was also quickly aware that she was in pain. Her left temple was throbbing, and when she touched it, it was wet. She was bleeding.
Slowly, she turned her head toward the driver’s side of the vehicle.
“Bruce! Oh God, Bruce!”
He should have slid across the seat and been resting against her, given the rules of gravity, but somehow Bruce’s left arm had gotten hung up on the steering wheel, so his body had only shifted slightly toward the center of the car. His head hung limply on his neck, his chin on his chest. The right side of his face looked fine, but there was still a lot of blood, which was easily attributable to the shattered driver’s side window. Katie couldn’t see the other side of Bruce’s face from where she sat, but she was guessing it had endured a thousand cuts, given all the glass scattered across the seat, his lap, and the floor.