Chapters (68)
- Dedication
- Title Page
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Copyright
Cory thought the simplest way to handle it was to knock on the door. Whoever answered first got shot first. Then, when the other person came running to see what had happened, he would shoot him too.
Pretty straightforward.
It made him wonder if maybe he hadn’t been overthinking things with the others. The dog chowing down on Craig Pierce, the whole tattoo number on the other guy.
Just shoot the fuckers.
Kill them.
That was what he would do.
He watched them go inside, turn on the lights. Ground floor first, then the second floor.
Let them get ready for bed, he thought. Let them turn off the lights, then bang on the door. They’d be more disoriented.
But then he thought, what if the old dude’s got a gun? If he was hired to protect the Big Baby, he probably had one.
Shit.
He might come to the door with the damn thing in his hand. What then?
Think think think.
Maybe bang on the door, but not stand there like a moron waiting for the old guy to blow his brains out. Bang on the door, then hide. Behind the car, or the trash cans set a few feet to one side. Guy comes out, looks around, looks the other way, then blam.
Yeah, that could work.
Cory Calder realized he was very nervous. Far more nervous than he’d been when they’d grabbed Pierce or Gaffney. Those two weren’t armed, and once they were knocked out, they didn’t present any physical threat.
This time, it was different.
But he’d come this far, and he wasn’t about to pack it in. He was going to do this, he was going to shoot those two bastards and maybe even stay long enough to get a picture of a dead Big Baby that he could upload to the Just Deserts site, and then everyone in the world would know—
What the hell?
A bright flickering appeared at the perimeter of the beach house. It had started in one spot, then quickly spread around the building.
It was a fire.
Cory squinted. He made out a shadowy figure, carrying something long, running from the corner of the building to the boardwalk. The man—Cory was pretty sure it was a man—went up the boardwalk steps two at a time, then took a position at the midpoint.
What was happening? What was going on?
He very quickly figured that out. Someone else was out to steal the glory from him.
Someone else was going to get Pilford.
“It’s not fair!” he whispered to himself. “It’s not fair!”
He stepped out from behind the hedge at the end of the gravel driveway that led up to the beach house. Frustration coursed through him like an electric charge. What should he do?