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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

As he drove the rest of the way on I-10 Beaufort had too much time to think about how he was on the same road that he had traveled with Hickock and Smith so many years ago. His grandfather dying somewhere along this road, he couldn’t remember where. If he’d never met up with Hickcock and Smith, who would he be? What if he hadn’t done what he’d done … he could hardly remember why he did it … to prove to them and himself that he was bad?

And the nightmares. He probably wouldn’t have the nightmares if it weren’t for Hickock and Smith.

The next night Beaufort was in El Paso, where he handed off the money to his contact.

Thirteen

Here’s something I held on to, something we had in common: Carlo and I both liked to read. Granted, we read very different books. Carlo read a lot of philosophy, theology, and science, and sometimes books that combined all three. And more recently, books with titles like Peterson’s Guide to Stars and Planets.

Me, I gravitated toward Ken Bruen, who sets his tough crime dramas in Galway. They’re raw, but not in the sense that some use the word, as in smutty. Raw like the wounds of Jesus. Reading about the tortured alcoholic detective Jack Taylor pumping bullets into the face of some bollix made me, by contrast, feel girlish.

I stopped at the line “She noticed me staring at her neck. Nuns, like cops, see everything.” Did that go for priests, too? And how much like a nun was Jane? Was she submissive and plain?

“If she couldn’t be a priest, did Jane ever consider entering the convent?” I said aloud. Having once said her name, it had become easier to say it again.

I thought I noticed Carlo shift his butt in his recliner.

“She did, I think. But decided she loved the world too much.”

The whole world? Or just your spot in it?

I glanced at the cover of the book he had just opened.

“Trollope,” I said.

“Strumpet,” he replied, smiling but without looking up.

“Very funny. The book,” I said, squinting so I could read the title. “The Way We Live Now. Is that a novel?”

“It is,” he said, and kept reading.

“I’ve never seen you reading a novel before.”

That didn’t seem to require a response.

If Carlo had been more forthcoming I wouldn’t have nosed into the book that evening when I begged fatigue and he went to walk the pugs by himself. Inscribed on the blank page when I opened the cover was “To my dearest Lady Carbury, with undying devotion from your obnt srvnt, Mr. Broune.” And the date, more than two decades ago. The handwriting was Carlo’s.