Chapters (65)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty–one
- Twenty–two
- Twenty–three
- Twenty–four
- Twenty–five
- Twenty–six
- Twenty–seven
- Twenty–eight
- Twenty–nine
- Thirty
- Thirty–one
- Thirty–two
- Thirty–three
- Thirty–four
- Thirty–five
- Thirty–six
- Thirty–seven
- Thirty–eight
- Thirty–nine
- Forty
- Forty–one
- Forty–two
- Forty–three
- Forty–four
- Forty–five
- Forty–six
- Forty–seven
- Forty–eight
- Forty–nine
- Fifty
- Fifty–one
- Fifty–two
- Fifty–three
- Fifty–four
- Fifty–five
- Fifty–six
- Fifty–seven
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgments
- Also by Becky Masterman
- About the Author
- Newsletter Sign-up
After dinner Carlo said he was going to fire up the telescope, sight it, and enter some coordinates for interesting spots he had picked to view. He rubbed his hands together as he said that, and looked expectantly at Jerry.
Jerry wanted to help with the dishes. I tried to shoo him away, but he insisted. Specifically, it appeared he wanted to put his own dishes in the dishwasher. I watched him as he rubbed his thumb and index finger vigorously over his knife and fork before placing them in the utensil compartment.
He spent some time with Carlo and the telescope, used the bathroom before saying he needed to be on his way home, and left.
Twenty
Beaufort was taking a chance, and he knew it, but didn’t have a choice if he wanted to get in their good graces and make it easier to find out what he needed to know. The woman’s niece was there, too, and stared at him half the time as if she was dissecting him in her mind. Gemma-Kate was her name. She had fixed the dinner, something oriental but not like what he’d ever gotten in a Chinese restaurant, made with shrimp and crushed peanuts. And noodles instead of rice, what was it with that? Next dinner was going to be a big steak and mashed potatoes, he decided.
“Interesting aroma,” he said. “What is that smell?”
“You’re probably smelling the fish sauce,” the niece said. “It’s kind of like soy sauce but heightens all the other flavors better.”
If the dinner was long and dull, the time with the telescope was pure torture. Carlo kept training the telescope on one area after another, stepping aside to let Jerry exclaim over pale smudges of light while Carlo kept advising him on how best to see them, looking out of the corner of his eye, for example. Telling him about star clusters, nebulae, the moons of Jupiter. Could he see the four spots of light that were the largest moons? Could he see the bands across the planet itself?
Could he keep from slamming Carlo’s face on the eyepiece? He had held it together through the dinner, and mostly through the telescoping, but the effort of not simply shooting the three of them and searching the house at his leisure was almost too much to bear. What rotten luck, that the priest had gone and married an FBI agent. Retired or not, she wouldn’t think the way other people do.