BooksBarbecue
Back We Were Killers Once Save as PDF
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

Gemma-Kate accepted a ride back to her dormitory from one of the deputies. Before getting into the car she told me she was royally pissed that I hadn’t kept the confession. Seemed I couldn’t please anyone that day.

We just had the one car at the crime scene, the Miata I’d driven from the airport. I was a little rattled after something like this, but no more than usual, and trusted myself driving the half mile back to our house with Achilles in the backseat. Carlo was the one I was concerned about. Too obediently, he got into the car and sat hunched over his knees with his hands tucked between them, staring at the glove compartment. He just as obediently got out of the car when I pulled into the garage, walked into the house, and sat in his reading chair hunched over as if he was still staring at the same glove compartment.

I turned on a few lights here, too.

Al and Peg ran up to him and, expecting the usual rubbings, jumped at his knees, then smelled the dampness of them from the water I’d splashed on him. Carlo didn’t appear to see or feel them. Achilles sat close to the garage door, waiting to be invited in. When the pugs couldn’t get attention from Carlo, they trotted over and sniffed Achilles suspiciously. Then they came over to me by the liquor cabinet in the kitchen and stared with all their WTF bug-eyes. If they were thinking you just can’t rely on Homo sapiens, I agreed with them.

I opened a bottle of red wine, took a look at Carlo, and, assuming a stronger dose was needed, put the cork back in. We had some Glenlivet. It had been there for years, but liquor doesn’t go bad. At least God got that detail right. It’s the least he can do. I went into the living room and handed a glass to Carlo, but he didn’t take it, didn’t look up. I put it on the end table next to his chair.

I knelt in front of him, hoping to catch his gaze and make him see me, I admit, to reassure myself as much as him. “Talk to me,” I said. “You can’t keep this inside. Sooner or later you have to talk.”

I’d been worried about all kinds of things; what Carlo might think of me, for example, watching me in action, seeing what I was capable of. How he might be traumatized by his scrape with death. I ached at what he might have seen Beaufort do to Gloria Bentham, some horror that he couldn’t express. So I was surprised when he did speak, at what he talked about.