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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

I’ll just bet she was.

“During your pastoral training. That happens before you become a priest, right? Not after?” I recalled those times I’d been responsible for an interrogation, keeping my tone mild and my questions nonconfrontational. Giving the suspect the opportunity to say the things I knew he wanted to say. This felt like that. The sane Quinn inside me hated me for my deception.

“That’s right,” he said, without offering more. “She was a passionate woman, totally dedicated to her work and to the church. I even remember in our talks, at some point she shared with me that she had always wanted to be a priest. Of course that’s impossible in the Catholic Church.”

Good Lord, not that, too. So is this what it was like when saints mated? No wonder off and on I’d felt haunted by her presence in the house. I looked at Al and Peg, who had wandered back to the porch and were patiently waiting to be let inside. The pugs that Jane had given him just before she died.

Jane was suddenly not feeling like a ghost anymore. She was taking on more and more flesh by the second.

I didn’t say any of this. Instead, “There. I knew we could do it,” and felt all smug and grown up. It would only be later, after I’d a chance to think about stories about Jane and stories about me, that I’d start the comparisons. Like the fact that she had a rock-solid faith and I’m a mushy atheist. Like the fact that I put people in prison and she taught them to read. These things started eating at me. Was she good in bed? I wondered. What if she wasn’t a prig after all? But even I wasn’t dumb enough to ask that.

Ten

Beaufort went to the Quik Mart and asked the clerk at the checkout, “Do you sell throwaways here?” He measured his voice carefully to sound like he knew what he was talking about. The kid pointed to a rack, and Beaufort chose a phone and was relieved to see it came with instructions.

He called Yanchak.

“You hurt my man,” Yanchak asked. “Why should I talk to you?”

“You sent an imbecile to get me. Business must be bad.”

“Not so bad.”

He met Yanchak in another bar, in another part of town. You’d expect it would be a sleazy joint given Yanchak’s dealings, but it was an upscale place on the water. You’d expect them to meet in a dark corner, but they sat outside on the patio. You always expected these guys to look like malnourished scumbags, but not so Yanchak. He showed up in a navy blazer, white shirt. Loafers, no socks. Good haircut, more silver than Beaufort remembered. In short, what actual Florida drug dealers looked like.