Chapters (46)
- COVER PAGE
- PRAISE
- DEDICATION
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- SNEAK PEEK: EXIT .45
Vincent said, ‘We’ve had a lot of trouble with media intrusions, and we’ve actually taken out restraining orders. If it was a journalist posing as someone, anything you can tell me would be very helpful.’
‘Oh, right. Well, I didn’t get a name. He said he had some papers for Wayne to sign, and wanted to know where he was, and that was it. He left.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Uh, not really. He was just sort of a shadow. He always tells me—Wayne always tells me—“Use the peephole, use the peephole,” so I just saw the shape of him in the lens, and we talked through the door.’
‘What sort of age?’
‘I’d say … what was he? Not old, not young. Medium, I guess. Medium everything.’
Medium everything. That should narrow it down.
She said, ‘I heard on the radio this morning, there’s going to be forest fires up north again—like last year. It’s so dry, and they’ve been having trouble apparently. But it felt like some kind of sign, it really did. It’s like … well, I shouldn’t go on. But it doesn’t fill you with hope, that’s for sure.’
Vincent said, ‘Thanks for your time, Deborah. I’ll let you know if I catch up with him.’
‘Yeah, well, that depends. If he’s just been working overtime, tell him to give me a call, and the downstairs tap needs fixing again. But if it’s something worse, then maybe keep it to yourself. You can decide what’s worth sharing. I’ll just have to trust you, I guess.’
He sat in the car for a minute, thinking about what to do. The turn signal still tocking faintly. He took the Marshal’s business card from his pocket and flexed it.
COLTON LOCKE, DEPUTY UNITED STATES MARSHAL.
There was a landline number, and a cell phone. He could call him right now, tell him about the missing Wayne: maybe in Atlanta, maybe running from people owed thirty million dollars.
Except, giving tip-offs to Locke wasn’t the way to get the answers first. And despite telling Erin they should leave all this to the police, it wasn’t that simple. For a long time, this had been his entire professional domain: use force and solve the problem. It was hard to live by that principle for fifteen years and then abandon it. Even harder when he had memory to contend with: Erin’s look of terror as the man in the apartment tried to kill her …
It put the dilemma right there in front of him: Are you going to help her, or are you going to help her?