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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

I stood, but moved to the center of the car, where my body was at least partly shielded up to my chest. I still had the gun in both hands, my arms extended over the roof of the vehicle.

“Stay down!” I shouted.

He’d landed on his side, had rolled over onto his back, and was struggling to get into a sitting position. I figured I had the better part of four seconds to get to him before he could attempt to line me up in his sights again.

I came around the car and charged. Arms pumping at my sides, gun in my right hand.

He saw me coming, and he had to know he didn’t have time, but it didn’t stop him from trying. He went to swing the rifle in my direction, but before he could, I launched a kick directly at his face.

Got him, too.

His head snapped back and his upper body thudded to the ground. He lost his grip on the rifle. I snatched the weapon, tossed it, and stood over him, my gun aimed squarely at his head. The fire made his sweat-drenched face glow like neon.

It was my first really good look at our would-be assassin. He was about five ten, a hundred and eighty pounds, mid-forties, gray hair cut to within an eighth of an inch of his scalp.

I probably did something approaching a double-take as I asked him, “Where the hell is the other guy?”

By “the other guy,” I meant the man Barry Duckworth had emailed me a picture of.

Cory Calder.

This was not that guy.

Fifty-Five

FIFTY-FIVE

CALDER watched the Honda pull in behind the beach house. Saw Pilford and the old guy get out, go into the house.

He scurried after the car as it passed his cabin and hid himself behind a hedge that bordered the road. A good spot for keeping an eye on the place.

He’d been thinking about how to do this.

He knew he was going to have to shoot them both. The old dude was there watching out for Pilford, so he would have to take him out, one way or the other. Maybe there was a time when Calder would have felt badly about that. After all, it wasn’t this bodyguard who’d run down a girl with a car and got clean away with it. But when you thought about it, wasn’t he just as guilty? Weren’t all the people connected to Jeremy Pilford guilty to one degree or another? Weren’t his lawyers, who’d used that ridiculous defense, guilty? Wasn’t his mother guilty for so fucking him up that he didn’t know right from wrong?

Sure, Pilford was the most guilty. But so many others had played a part. And this man looking out for him was another one for the list.