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

It didn’t. I supposed she hadn’t filled it to the brim, and hoped if I could somehow get to it, and use it, I’d be able to apply enough force to get a good stream out of it.

Achilles whined.

“I really like that little guy,” Beaufort said, mostly to himself. “I think I’m going to take him with me.”

Then he looked at the bag that I held away from my body with my right hand while trying not to look like I was holding it away from my body. “So that’s it?” he asked, and ran his thumb over his bottom lip.

I nodded.

“No bogus blank sheets? You wouldn’t think I’m stupid enough to fall for that, would you?”

“Not by half,” I said. While I wanted to say go ahead, open it, I couldn’t trust that he was that much of a sucker. Instead, I looked at it sadly as if I hated to lose my last bargaining chip, but what I was thinking was take the bag, take the bag.

“I’ll make sure you and Carlo can’t do anything for a couple of hours, plenty of time to get across the border and get picked up by some friends. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”

The same words that Hickock had used with the Clutters. Maybe the same words that Beaufort had used with the Walkers. I forced my eyes to light up as if I believed him.

“Would you mind if I put it on the table here and untied Carlo?”

As I did so, Beaufort looked at the bag with a mixture of eagerness and fear that I’d never seen before, the door to the basement stairs in a horror movie that he was forced to open. He seemed to have forgotten me for an instant as he focused on it, lying there on the table, and I decided the next safe move was to make sure to get Carlo out of harm’s way for what might come next. I stepped slowly to the back of the chair where he sat and tore duct tape from around his wrists. He started to rise, but I put my hands on his shoulders and, without actually moving him, pressed in the direction of the kitchen to his left, hopefully sending a message to go there. He nodded ever so slightly, and I hoped that meant he understood.

First wiping the back of his hand against his mouth as if he was salivating, Beaufort grabbed as I had hoped he would, eagerly, with his whole hand around the bag in which the papers were curled into a tube. Then he seemed to recognize that we were standing off to the side. He trained the gun on me, on us, balanced the bag against the wall, and opened the top with one hand.