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Back The Last Guests Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART ONE
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. DEADLY SAS RAID IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER SCRUTINY
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. PART TWO
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. DANIEL MOORE: ‘A SINGLE BLOKE, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, A BIT OF A DUNCE BUT WITH A GOOD HEART,’ BEST FRIEND SAYS.
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. THIRTY-TWO
  41. THIRTY-THREE
  42. THIRTY-FOUR
  43. THIRTY-FIVE
  44. BREAKING: POLICE CONFIRM DANIEL MOORE ACTED ALONE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. SECOND ARREST MADE IN WESTAY HIDDEN CAMERAS CASE
  50. EPILOGUE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  52. Discover More
  53. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  54. Also by J. P. Pomare

The growl of the lawnmower fills the yard and enters the house as a low hum. Cain bought a new spark plug down for it.

My phone vibrates on the kitchen bench, it might as well be a fire alarm given the way my heart leaps. I rush to it. Another message from that number.

Sorry to text like this out of the blue, I was trying to flirt but it’s not working. I’m away this weekend, down in Rotorua actually. But I will be in Auckland next week. I’ve got something for you.

Rotorua. A short drive from here. Is that a coincidence? There is something mildly threatening about it. I’m so focused on the words on my screen I fail to notice the absence of sound coming from the backyard. Not until the door opens and Cain steps inside. I jam my phone in the pocket of my jeans. He goes to the sink for a glass of water, gulps it down before turning back to me.

‘What?’ he says, with a funny smile.

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re staring at me with that odd look again.’

I shake my head. ‘I was daydreaming.’ I glance through the doors, across the mowed grass and over the flat lake. Mirror-still, blue sky reflected; the distant mountains and the valley running between, it almost opens up enough for the sky to touch the water and form an hourglass.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I can see that. You’re not yourself today, Quin.’ I used to love it when he used my maiden name, like I was in the military too. It’s lost its charm these days.

What would he do if he saw the message? What would he do if he knew where I was last Thursday night? It was selfish, of course it was, despite how much I tell myself otherwise. I think about Trent Skelton, who served with Cain. I recall the media images of the siege when he’d barricaded himself in his house with his family. How he turned his rifle on himself before the police could reach him. War does strange things to people. Cain has changed in the time I’ve known him. Death, seeing death and killing would change anyone. He once told me about the Australians he served with, how those without a kill were forced to execute captive insurgents to ‘blood’ them. My instincts tell me Cain has killed before. He saw enough combat and came back a different man to the one I met at the student bar in Auckland city all those years ago.