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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

It was a neat little place. One room, basically, with a bathroom notched out of the corner. An aged, hulking refrigerator with sides thicker than a steel vault, a counter with a big porcelain sink, no cabinets under it, but a wooden shelf that held a few pots and pans. In one corner, an actual old woodstove with a pipe that led up through the roof. The folks who rented it out had left a small stack of wood alongside it, plus a wrought-iron stand that held a small shovel, tongs, a poker, and tiny broom.

Quaint.

But Cory didn’t think it was cold enough to bother lighting a fire. As a backup, there was a small electric fan on the shelf he could plug in if he needed it.

Before he went to check out Cape Cod Bay, he parked his van behind the cottage. The back end was slightly visible to anyone driving by, but they’d really have to be looking for it.

Strolling along the beach, standing there with his toes in the sand, feeling the water rush in around his ankles, filling his lungs with the cool sea air was pretty damn nice.

And you met the most interesting people.

Now, back in the cabin, he had to think about how he was going to do this. There was a time when he believed that his subjects should live with their punishment, but his position on that was evolving.

He took a seat at the small table in the kitchen nook of the cabin and took out his cell phone. He’d powered it off hours ago. He didn’t want to run the risk of using it to track Pilford, in case they were on to him, which he now understood was a real possibility.

Maybe just for a few seconds.

He turned on the phone and saw that he had a message. He put it to his ear and listened.

“Cory, it’s your father. Call home immediately.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to do that,” he said aloud. He deleted the message and powered the phone off once again.

“What do to, what to do, what to do,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any bright ideas?”

Carol Beakman, unconscious and tied to one of the two single beds in the small room, did not.

Forty-Three

FORTY-THREE

CAL

BACK at the beach house, Jeremy and I resettled ourselves on the deck. Soon, we would have to start thinking about dinner, but there was still time to chill out. The only problem with that was that Jeremy was more than a little preoccupied by the discussion we’d had while walking along the beach.

“That was quick thinking, saying your name was Alan,” I told him, looking out over the bay from my chair.

“Well, I’m not an idiot,” he said.

I gave him a smile, but the young man did not return it.