BooksBarbecue
Back We Were Killers Once
Chapters (65)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty–one
  25. Twenty–two
  26. Twenty–three
  27. Twenty–four
  28. Twenty–five
  29. Twenty–six
  30. Twenty–seven
  31. Twenty–eight
  32. Twenty–nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty–one
  35. Thirty–two
  36. Thirty–three
  37. Thirty–four
  38. Thirty–five
  39. Thirty–six
  40. Thirty–seven
  41. Thirty–eight
  42. Thirty–nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty–one
  45. Forty–two
  46. Forty–three
  47. Forty–four
  48. Forty–five
  49. Forty–six
  50. Forty–seven
  51. Forty–eight
  52. Forty–nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty–one
  55. Fifty–two
  56. Fifty–three
  57. Fifty–four
  58. Fifty–five
  59. Fifty–six
  60. Fifty–seven
  61. Author’s Note
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. Also by Becky Masterman
  64. About the Author
  65. Newsletter Sign-up

When she left him to take care of a frowny woman with a stack of books at the checkout counter, Beaufort set up a Yahoo account for himself, then went back to the internet, where the little blinking line rested on the Google space. He felt like one of those archaeologists opening a long-closed tomb, the suspense of finding something weighing against the suspense of finding nothing. He typed a name. A throb of pain hit behind his left eye, putting him on notice just how tense he was about this. He reached up and rubbed hard at a spot on his forehead as he hit the RETURN button with his other index finger and watched the computer.Within less than the time it had taken to touch his forehead the screen announced 500,000,000 “results” starting with some photos of medical appliances and something called Fashionable Canes. Whatever sound he made had Patricia the Librarian look in his direction. At least he didn’t sweep the computer off the table, but for the first time he thought this might be harder than he had previously figured. Taking one of those deep breaths that he had learned in prison support groups, he slid his chair back and decided to go for some lunch.

After all, he kept repeating to himself, this was all just to make sure everything was copacetic, that the thing called forensic science wasn’t lying in wait to bite him in the ass. Despite the dreams that threatened him, no one alive knew what really happened.

He chose an Applebee’s because it was close to the library. These menus made him nervous. There were so many options for everything these days, it would take some time to stop being either giddy or frustrated by all the choices of eating establishments and the vast menus so big you couldn’t see over the top of them. The menu fluttered in his hand when he tried to hold it up, so he put it on the table in front of him, opened to the sandwich pages, and stuck his hands between his knees to steady them.

“Hi. My name is Candy. I’ll be your server today,” a voice said.

“Give me the Reuben with fries,” he said. It was one of the things where he recognized all the ingredients. “And a beer.”

“What kind of beer do you want?” Candy asked with an efficient click of her ballpoint pen.

Tired of choosing, tired with the effort of struggling to fit in, he gave her a glare that would have once cowed a gang member one-third his age and growled, “Just bring me a fucking beer.”

She cocked her hip in one direction and gave her head a little jerk in the other. “Well, bless yer heart,” she said, making him imagine her plunging that ballpoint pen into the side of his neck.