BooksBarbecue
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

Constance was at the grocery store picking up a few things, but she had borrowed Monica’s Volkswagen Beetle. Monica said she didn’t need her car today. Before Constance had left, Brian had told her at breakfast that he wanted to cut the grass. He needed something to do, he’d told her, but she had objected strenuously. He had to rest after all he’d been through, she said. He shouldn’t be doing anything physical.

Okay, Brian said. But as soon as his mother left in the Bug, he decided he was going to cut the grass anyway.

It would get his mind off things. It would get his mind off all the terrible things that had happened to him. It would also get his mind off whatever was going on between his parents. His mother hadn’t been taking her usual shots at his father. They were both very, very quiet.

Something was going on.

Brian wasn’t even sure he wanted to know what it was.

So he went out to the garage and swung open the door on the left.

There was his father’s car, looking, Brian thought, cleaner than he had ever seen it.

That was strange.

Considering that Brian worked at a place that cleaned cars, and also considering that he was able to give members of his family a discount—like, free—and considering even further the fact that he had seen this car go through the wash a couple of days before he went missing, why had his father gone to the trouble to wash it himself in the last day or so? Brian remembered that when his father found him, after Brian had walked out of the hospital, this was the car he’d been driving.

And it wasn’t this clean then.

Not only that, but even the floor of the garage was cleaner than Brian could ever remember seeing it. It was actually damp in a few places.

Weird.

He found the lawnmower at the back of the garage, checked that it had gas in it, and wheeled it out to the front yard. He did feel it in his ribs when he pulled the cord to start the machine up, but pushing it back and forth across the yard didn’t hurt at all.

He had about half of it done when Jessica’s car pulled up to the curb.

Brian killed the mower.

“Hey,” she said, getting out of the car. She’d left all the windows down, and Brian noticed that her kid was in the back seat.

“Hey,” Brian said.

“I went to the hospital to see you and they said you’d been discharged. When I didn’t find you at your apartment, I figured you might be here. I looked in the book and this was the only other Gaffney in Promise Falls.”

“Yeah, they let me out.”