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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

Yep. It was Caitlin. Running up to a man with a limp little girl in his arms. She took the child away, worked frantically on her, getting air into her lungs, bringing her back to life.

His father didn’t stop talking about it for days.

Then there was his brother, Miles, who at least didn’t make it to CNN, but he was doing great work, oh yes he was. Big-shot scientist halfway around the world, finding ways to make seawater drinkable. Your basic save-the-world kind of thing. No biggie. Quoted in Scientific American, even the New York Times once or twice. A genius, they called him. Yeah, well, Cory could remember the time he locked the keys in his Infiniti with the engine running. Didn’t seem like any great genius that day.

Well, you didn’t need a medical degree or a PhD in whatever it was his brother had to make your mark in the world. There were other paths to greatness.

In many ways, Cory considered what he had been doing more noble, because it was anonymous. He wasn’t on CNN. He wasn’t getting quoted in the New York Times. He was working behind the scenes to effect change. Didn’t that make it more genuine? More real?

Except there were times when he wondered, maybe he should just tell his father. “You think Miles and Caitlin are such hot shit? You see them putting themselves on the line the way I have? Running the kind of risks I’m running? I could go to jail. I could get sent away. You don’t see them taking those kinds of chances.”

So many times he’d wanted to say it. Not only so his father would stop thinking his so-called useless son wasn’t so useless after all, but to see the expression on his face.

In the last twenty-four hours, Cory had had a feeling that was going to happen sooner or later. When his father came to see him at the police station with a lawyer in tow.

Cory had to admit things hadn’t gone so well lately.

Not that there hadn’t been some major successes. Finding Jeremy for one. He’d tracked him down, lost him, and found him again.

He’d picked him up leaving his great-aunt’s house the night before, getting in that Honda with the old guy. It had been no trick figuring out he was at Madeline Plimpton’s house. The whole world had worked that out. Little wonder the kid was hightailing it out of there.

Cory had followed them to some Promise Falls apartment over a bookstore. But then the old guy must have seen his van, because he came running out onto the street, heading their way.

“Oh shit, here he comes,” Dolly’d said, and Cory had tromped on the accelerator.

By the time he’d come back, the Honda was gone.

Shit.

He’d lost him.