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Back Parting Shot Save as PDF
Chapters (68)
  1. Dedication
  2. Title Page
  3. Contents
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Forty-Six
  49. Forty-Seven
  50. Forty-Eight
  51. Forty-Nine
  52. Fifty
  53. Fifty-One
  54. Fifty-Two
  55. Fifty-Three
  56. Fifty-Four
  57. Fifty-Five
  58. Fifty-Six
  59. Fifty-Seven
  60. Fifty-Eight
  61. Fifty-Nine
  62. Sixty
  63. Sixty-One
  64. Sixty-Two
  65. Sixty-Three
  66. Sixty-Four
  67. Sixty-Five
  68. Copyright

Duckworth hesitated. “Carol Beakman didn’t show up for work today. And she didn’t call in sick.”

Twenty-Eight

TWENTY-EIGHT

CAL

JEREMY was up and dressed and ready to hit the road before I even had my clothes on. I was in the bathroom, stepping out of the shower. He knocked on the door. I wrapped the towel around me and said, “Yeah?”

He poked his head in. “I’m starving. You okay with me going down for breakfast without you?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want the kid taking off on me, but if he’d wanted to disappear, it would have been easy enough to do that when I was in the shower. He hardly needed to ask. And where was he going to go? How would he make his escape? Not that I didn’t trust him—well, I didn’t trust him—but I had brought not only my gun into the bathroom but my car keys, too.

“I’m not gonna do a runner,” he said. “I’m just really hungry.”

“Fine,” I said, hitting the fan in the hopes it would clear the fogged mirror.

His head withdrew. Seconds later, I heard the door to our room open and close hard. I was a little worried that maybe someone at this hotel—as had happened at the other one before I decided to bail—might recognize him. But that was going to be a potential problem wherever we went.

I quickly shaved, tossed the towel into the tub, and came back into the room. My phone was sitting on the dresser. That might have appeared foolish, leaving it there. But I had a four-digit passcode on it, so Jeremy wasn’t going to be able to use it to make a call or message his friends.

I got into fresh socks and underwear, slipped on my pants and tied my shoes. As I put on my shirt and started doing up the buttons, I went to the window and looked outside. It was a little after eight in the morning, and traffic was busy as people headed to work.

I gazed down into the parking lot.

“For shit’s sake,” I said.

There was a red Miata convertible down there, top up. I couldn’t be certain that it was Jeremy’s girlfriend’s car. Red Miatas were not exactly rare. But it was an early one, the color was faded, and the top torn and ragged.

I hurriedly did the last of my buttons, grabbed my jacket, gun and phone, and bolted from the room. I skipped the elevator and took the stairs, going down them two at a time, then booted it down the first-floor hallway until I’d reached the hotel’s dining area. There were about thirty people there, many of them working the breakfast buffet table.

A quick scan of the room did not produce Jeremy.