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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

So he was going to have to move her from the bed to the car without anyone seeing him. Luckily, his cabin was far enough down the road that he thought he could manage that without being seen.

Yeah, except everything else had gone to shit so far. Why not that?

As he ran back to the cabin, he felt his eyes misting up with tears.

“Everything is against me,” he muttered to himself. “God hates me! Everyone hates me!”

As he ran, he wiped tears from his eyes. The cool night wind coming off Cape Cod Bay chilled his dampened cheeks.

“Not fair,” he said again. “Not fair!”

While he still wanted to kill the Big Baby, he wanted to do something even worse, if that were possible, to that asshole with the rifle who had ruined everything.

He stopped to dig a tissue from his pocket and dab the tears that continued to puddle from his eyes.

All he’d ever wanted was to be somebody.

No, not just somebody. He wanted to be somebody better. Somebody better than his brother and his sister. Somebody better than his judgmental father. Somebody who made a difference, somebody who would be talked about for years to come.

He’d come so close to that.

He felt an aching sadness wash over him. What he wished, right now, was that he was home. That he was curled up on the couch in the basement under a blanket, knees pulled up to his chest, in front of the TV.

He could cry all he wanted then.

But he couldn’t do that now. He had to keep moving.

A thought occurred to him.

Maybe they wouldn’t catch him for the things he’d already done. He’d harbored a sense of inevitability up to now, figuring that sooner or later the police would close in on him. It was the whole reason he’d brought Carol Beakman with him. A hostage had seemed like a good idea at the time.

But if he got in that van right now and drove through the night, he could be hundreds of miles from here by tomorrow. He could ditch the van, steal a car, and keep on going. Two or three days from now, he could be on the other side of the country. He could find a place to hide out while he figured out his next step. Figure out a way to change his identity. Alter his looks. Get some kind of job where you got paid in cash. It would be tough at first, but it sure beat the alternative of spending the rest of his life in prison.

Yeah, that was a plan.

But it raised another question.

What was he to do with the Beakman woman? Let her go? Leave her tied up in the cabin to be found by someone in a few days?