BooksBarbecue
Back Slow Burn
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Incident One
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Incident Two
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Incident Three
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Incident Four
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-one
  28. Chapter Twenty-two
  29. Chapter Twenty-three
  30. Chapter Twenty-four
  31. Chapter Twenty-five
  32. Chapter Twenty-six
  33. Chapter Twenty-seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-one
  38. Chapter Thirty-two
  39. Chapter Thirty-three
  40. Incident Five
  41. Chapter Thirty-four
  42. Chapter Thirty-five
  43. Chapter Thirty-six
  44. Chapter Thirty-seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-one
  49. Chapter Forty-two
  50. Chapter Forty-three
  51. Chapter Forty-four
  52. Acknowledgments
  53. Special Thanks
  54. About the Author

It wasn’t dark enough. She slowed as she realized that the door was not completely closed, and a thin slice of yellow light glowed around the jamb. Jim was careful about things like that—kept his door locked, all the time. She stopped where she was, debating, heart racing, and heard a whisper.

No, a moan.

Jim.

She crossed the rest of the distance in a sprint, slammed the door back, and stared in stunned disbelief at the wreck of his room. The couch was slashed and thrown against one wall, the chair shoved on its side. The shelves had spilled out their books on the floor. Jim’s prized big-screen television had a gaping hole in the center.

Jim lay against the couch. She threw herself to her knees next to him, unable to get her breath, saying his name over and over, but knowing he couldn’t hear her. His face was swollen and bloodied, his legs clearly broken, the left badly enough that a knife of bone had sliced through his pants and blood soaked the carpet around him.

Worst of all were his fingers, his long clever magician’s fingers. She bent her head and cried helplessly, desperately, at the sight of them broken like matchsticks.

As she dialed 911, still trying to force air into her aching lungs, he whispered, “They were looking for Velvet.”

Chapter Thirty-three

Velvet

Velvet had gotten across the street by the time Agent Dimples came out to get her from the car. She ducked in an entryway, but knew he’d seen her, knew he was coming after her. She darted from one storefront to the other, but they were locked, closed up tight.

The response time of the Highland Park Police was legendary. She picked up a brick from a flower-bed and pitched it through a plate-glass window; as she’d hoped, alarms went off, whooping to the skies.

Not enough. He was coming at a loping run, as if he ran a lot. She took off down the sidewalk, regretting all those hours at the bar, those candy bars between tricks. Her legs felt like mud. She heard the slap of his shoes behind her.

She gained the next corner, a cluster of imposing houses with high rock walls and ornate gates. The second one down had a plain-looking gate of six-foot-tall wooden boards—operated with a motor, of course. She got her fingers under the gate and shoved it open enough to wiggle in, leaving two fingernails in the wood as it slammed back against her. She surveyed the back yard—Christ, what a yard!—and circled the pool to a tall stand of something that looked like corn but probably was more expensive.