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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

“Well, it’s nice to meet you.” He extended a hand and I took it. “What’s your name?”

“Cal,” I said.

He put out his hand to Jeremy and asked the same thing. I felt an instant sense of panic.

Don’t tell him your name. Don’t tell him your name.

Jeremy, almost robotically, held out his hand.

“And you are?” the man said.

I tried to catch Jeremy’s eye, but he still wasn’t tracking very well.

He said, “Uh, I’m Alan.”

I breathed an inward sigh of relief. Even in a stunned state, he had enough good sense to give a fake name.

“Well,” the man said, “nice to meet you both. Might see you again. I’m Cory, by the way.”

Forty-One

FORTY-ONE

ALASTAIR Calder led Duckworth up to the second floor of the house and opened the first door on the right.

“This is Cory’s room,” he said.

Maybe Duckworth expected all young men’s rooms to look as though a bomb had just gone off in them, but Cory’s world was meticulous. The bed was made, the desk uncluttered. A shelving unit was packed tightly with CDs and DVDs and books, but there was a sorting system for all of them. The disks were arranged alphabetically, the books into subcategories. Science-fiction novels were grouped, then alphabetized by author, and the same was true for non-fiction titles. Graphic novels were collected according to character, so stories featuring Batman, regardless of who wrote them, were stacked alongside each other.

“He’s neat,” Duckworth said.

“I’ll give him that,” Cory Calder’s father said.

The bed, which was about a foot lower than a typical one, seemed to float in the room. Duckworth noted that the mattress sat directly on a platform, without a box spring, and the supporting legs were set back just far enough to be invisible.

He checked out the desk. There was desktop computer with an oversized monitor not much thicker than a finger. Wireless mouse, wireless keyboard. He gave the mouse a shake and the monitor came to life, but it was password-protected.

“You know your son’s password?”

Alastair shook his head. “No.”

“Could you guess at it?”

“No.”

Duckworth nodded. Nothing about the room was jumping out at him. He scanned the items on the shelves. The DVDs were mostly science fiction or fantasy. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit. As he scanned the spines of the books, he was hoping for titles along the lines of Do-It-Yourself Tattoos or Kidnapping 101.

What he had not really expected to find was one called Sedation: A Patient Handbook.

He pulled it from the shelf and showed it to Alastair. “What do you make of that?”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” Alastair said.