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Back Seconds to Live Save as PDF
Chapters (47)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  43. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  44. Chapter Forty
  45. Chapter Forty-One
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. About the Author

On the TV, behind the reporters, two men in coveralls rolled a gurney toward a white and red van. Missy had been zipped into a black body bag.

Too bad.

The public should see what happened to the fallen. She’d deserved what she’d gotten. He’d performed a public service: judgment, punishment, and execution of the depraved.

Missy had claimed to be redeemed, but none of them were. She’d been dirty. Weak. Pathetic. And now she was gone, plucked from society like a dandelion ripped from a lush, green lawn. The grass would fill in, healthier, stronger without her tainted roots.

The news segued to a traffic report. He stopped recording.

How could he make his message clear? Some people were unworthy of life. There were consequences for bad decisions. People should be punished for their sins. What would it take for the world to understand?

He replayed the news clip. When Detective Dane entered the frame, he paused the recording. She was in charge. Therefore, she was the one he needed to convince.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Monday, June 20, near Tabatinga, Brazil

The booming growl of a howler monkey echoed across the forest. Mac froze. He lowered his binoculars, his survival instincts quivering as the rain forest around him went on alert. Something was wrong.

June was past the official rainy season, but this part of the jungle didn’t really have a dry one. The Amazon River flowed fat and fast past him, sunlight glimmering on its rippled surface. Twenty yards away, a male giant river otter poked its head above the water and stared downstream. Mac followed the weasel’s focus, looking for the snout of the black caiman that had been hanging around the day before.

A pair of scarlet macaws burst from the forest and winged out over the river. Mac shifted his binoculars from the water to the canopy. A hundred feet above, the reddish brown body of a howler monkey poised on a thick branch. The air smelled like rain was coming, but torrential downpours were daily events and wouldn’t bother the monkeys. The big male sounded another throaty warning. Something—or someone—was invading the primate’s territory.

Mac lowered his binoculars. His three-member team had been camped near a small village ten miles from Tabatinga, Brazil, for weeks. The monkeys had become accustomed to their presence. Another group of primates could be encroaching on the home turf of the resident troop. Or it could be something else entirely, maybe a jaguar. The monkeys scattered, the canopy shifting, branches and foliage swaying, as the creatures took flight. If another group of primates were muscling in on their territory, the howlers would have stood their ground, at least for a time. There would have been a vocal protest, posturing, possibly even a physical altercation. The animals’ quick abandonment of their domain meant one thing: predator.