Chapters (65)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- 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
- Forty–one
- Forty–two
- Forty–three
- Forty–four
- Forty–five
- Forty–six
- Forty–seven
- Forty–eight
- Forty–nine
- Fifty
- Fifty–one
- Fifty–two
- Fifty–three
- Fifty–four
- Fifty–five
- Fifty–six
- Fifty–seven
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgments
- Also by Becky Masterman
- About the Author
- Newsletter Sign-up
“Yep. Third time was the charm. I was in for life, no parole. Whether it was fate or God, those years in prison changed me, and getting released not too long ago was like salvation. I truly had my second, hell, sorry, Father, my fourth chance at life. And I wasn’t going to screw it up this time.”
“So you were never a jockey.”
Beaufort shook his head ruefully, imagining his segue into finally finding out where Carlo had that document. If he could somehow trick him into revealing it without having to strong-arm him. What if, somehow, some way, it wasn’t necessary to kill Carlo? That would be nice. He didn’t want to hurt Carlo even more than he didn’t want to hurt Gloria. “No, I made that up. I could see you were good people and I didn’t want you to think bad things about me.” He took another sip, and watched Carlo, who looked at him with such kind eyes as he had never known before. No one in his whole life had looked at him in just such a way. Was that love? And then he heard himself talking.
Beaufort talked for a long time. He told about when he was twelve years old, taking out his pop’s shotgun that was kept in the closet, and playing cops and robbers with his eight-year-old brother. He never liked his brother, that was for sure, because he knew Howard was his mom’s favorite. She never looked at him the way she looked at Howard, or made the things he liked to eat as much as she made them for Howard.
He shot his brother dead, but he told the judge he didn’t know the gun was loaded. He was pretty sure he didn’t know, anyway. But he got sent to reform school just the same. His mother didn’t believe it was an accident at all. The reform school was hard. He got pushed around by the other boys because he was smaller, but worse than that was the matron, a woman whose armpits smelled of frying onions and garlic when she leaned over him. For some reason those times made him angry, and he took it out on the other boys, once beating a kid’s head so hard with a brick he came back from the hospital with his face all wired together.
They must have told his parents, because when Jeremiah was released from the school two years later, his parents wouldn’t let him back in the house. What was he going to do, where was he going to go, and only twelve years old? The house burned down. He didn’t know his parents couldn’t get out. He went to the next town, lived with his mean old granddad for a while, and then they lit out west …