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Back The Bone Factory
Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. The Bad Man
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUEBLOOD
  5. PART 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. PART TWO
  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. PART THREE
  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. EPILOGUE
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. High Praise for Nate Kenyon’s
  48. Other Leisure Books by Nate Kenyon:

I can’t say I’ve had anyone quite like him before. I’ve always diagnosed him to be harmless, but physically, he’s…intimidating. And he’s been through a lot of trauma in his life. I can’t say now where that might take him, and whether he might become dangerous to others. I can say that any suspicion that someone might be watching him, or anything that might make him feel threatened, could send him down a very bad path.”

“Now why would Hydro Development put a guy like that at their plant?” Flint said. Then he looked across the table at David Pierce, who had suddenly gone white as a sheet. He was staring at something over Flint’s shoulder. “Hey, you okay—”

Abruptly Pierce leapt to his feet and ran for the door. Flint stood and shouted at him to wait, but he never even looked back. Flint went to the window, but by the time he looked out, Pierce’s car was already accelerating, wheels throwing plumes of slush and snow high into the air as he fishtailed out onto the road.

When he returned to the table, Flint turned to see what Pierce had been staring at. On the wall, pinned to a bulletin board, was a “Missing” flyer, with the photo of a little girl in pigtails and a big, gap-toothed smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Helen slept comfortably for the first time in a long while. Her dreams melted into each other; she floated through a white bedroom with many skylights, then into another place that looked like a gigantic version of their old home in New York, the walls receding until she could no longer see any boundaries at all. It calmed her until eventually she did not dream of anything but floating naked through a clear blue sea.

When she finally awoke and left the dream world, the lazy feeling remained. She did not immediately think of the past week’s events, or the doctor’s words; in fact, she hovered for several long minutes in that state between sleep and full awareness. When she finally opened her eyes, she did it with a deep sense of regret.

The clock beside the bed read nine thirty-two.

She had the profound and irrefutable idea that someone was watching her.

Feeling her heart pound heavily in her chest, she sat straight up in bed, pulling the sheets close around her body.

Jessica stood in the doorway, holding Johnny Bear loosely with one hand. She looked tiny and lost, dwarfed by the doorframe. Helen let out a great sigh of relief.

“You scared me, honey.” She smiled, and began to climb out of bed. Her daughter’s words stopped her short.

“He’s coming for us, Mommy,” she said. “The bad man is here.”

PART THREE

THE DECAPITATOR

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE