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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’s not what you were hired to do. Don’t expect my mom or Bob or anyone to pay you for doing something extra. Especially Bob. He’s all business. Everything done by the book. They’ll say you’re trying to pad the bill.”

“I’m not charging them anything extra,” I said.

“I’m giving you a heads-up. They’ll be pissed.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe this wasn’t my concern. I’d been hired to look after him, plain and simple. I hadn’t been hired by the defense.

But I couldn’t help but feel bad for the kid. Outside of his family and Bob, I thought I might be the only one on the planet who felt that way. His father sure didn’t seem to have much time for him.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” I said. “Maybe you can give me some names then.”

He shrugged.

We got our tickets, a bucket of popcorn big enough that it could have served as roofing insulation for a medium-sized house, and some Cokes. Jeremy and the rest of the audience were pretty taken with the movie, cheering at the end, especially when there was a teaser about the next instalment in the series. I knew I’d only be attending under threat of death. All these flicks were the same. Regular guy somehow gets super-powers. Comes up against villain with even greater super-powers. Big fight at the end where hero prevails, but not before the two of them have engaged in an epic, never-ending fight that pretty much levels a city. But it doesn’t matter if thousands of innocent people are killed in the crossfire, because the superhero’s girlfriend is okay.

It was nearly midnight when we got back to the beach house. I wished I’d left some lights on. I kept the headlights shining on the back door long enough for me to get the key in. As soon as I had it open, I flicked on the inside and outside lights and gave the high sign to Jeremy, still in the car, to kill the headlights.

There was a smell in the air I didn’t like. I thought it might be gas, or something chemical. I wondered if it was blowing in off the water, or coming from one of the nearby cottages. While the houses close to us didn’t appear occupied, they all had boats of varying sizes sitting on trailers in their yards. I wondered if someone had spilled some fuel getting a boat ready for an outing. Or, worse, someone had tried to steal some gas by siphoning it out of a tank.