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Back The Nest Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright page
  3. Introduction by Will Errickson
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. TREMORS
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. SUSPICIONS
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. DREAD
  19. 1
  20. 2
  21. 3
  22. 4
  23. 5
  24. 6
  25. WITNESS
  26. 1
  27. 2
  28. 3
  29. ALERT
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. ENCOUNTER
  36. 1
  37. 2
  38. 3
  39. 4
  40. 5
  41. 6
  42. HAVOC
  43. 1
  44. 2
  45. 3
  46. 4
  47. 5
  48. 6
  49. SEARCH
  50. 1
  51. 2
  52. 3
  53. 4
  54. 5
  55. CLASH
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. 3
  59. 4
  60. 5
  61. 6
  62. 7
  63. COUNTERATTACK
  64. 1
  65. 2
  66. 3
  67. 4
  68. 5
  69. 6
  70. 7
  71. VICTORY
  72. 1
  73. 2
  74. 3
  75. 4
  76. 5
  77. 6
  78. 7
  79. 8
  80. 9
  81. EPILOGUE
  82. About the Author

But Bonnie’s mind was not on her feelings for the handsome Portuguese. She was saying in a subdued way, “That those roaches could actually eat people?”

Without meaning it to be, Elizabeth’s response was sharp. “How do I know? I’m not Wanda Lindstrom!”

Bonnie desisted, with understanding, only to split the kitchen air with a searing scream. A plate crashed from her hands and shattered to pieces.

“What!” Elizabeth cried out in alarm.

Elias Johnson and Stephen Scott burst into the kitchen. “You girls all right?”

Bonnie Taylor pointed a trembling finger at the corner of the sink and sobbed, “I thought I saw one!”

But the moving shadow was not a cockroach, large or small. A small cleaning rag had stirred in a draft coming through the warped window.

“Sorry.” The woman went into her friend’s arms shaking with embarrassment and relief. “I really thought—” she apologized.

Captain Johnson patted both women heartily on the backside. “We’re all jittery as hell. What’s the menu for dinner tonight? The men’ll be hungry when they get back.”

Elizabeth disentangled from Bonnie. “Reed Brockshaw brought in a nice blue this morning . . .”

“First-­rate.” Her grandfather tried to sound normal, “Put the pork to the beans, girls!”

2

TWO

Leaving the lighthouse, Sheriff Amos Tarbell belched sourly as he drove to the village. The girls had made a nice-­tasting shrimp salad, but his lunch felt like lead in his middle. He was in a hurry to reach High Ridge and get the Laidlaws and Tintons out of their houses—diplomatically and tactfully—but he had to stop at the jail first. Stephen Scott, as Justice of the Peace, had ordered the release of the hoodlum jailed for nudity and drugs. The ferry for Chatham was delayed by the weather but they wanted the man on it, with a stern warning not to exercise his constitutional right to come back to Yarkie.

After releasing the prisoner, Amos Tarbell turned to the piled-­up papers on his desk. Thus, he did not see the freed man turn up Main Street heading for High Ridge instead of going downhill to the ferry dock. Tarbell did not know that the three sunbathers had spotted jimson weed growing wild down at the cove. Indeed, the sheriff was not familiar with what the three experts gleefully recognized at once. Jimson weed was the latest discovery on the drug scene, better than marijuana because it was free to hand when found and—to the best of their knowledge—not even illegal, though it produced a similar high. But men like these were beyond caring about jimson’s side effects, which included frightening hallucinations and irrational, dangerous conduct.