BooksBarbecue
Back Whistle
Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Part IAnnie
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Part IIHarry
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Part IIIAnnie
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Part IVHarry
  40. Thirty-Three
  41. Thirty-Four
  42. Thirty-Five
  43. Thirty-Six
  44. Thirty-Seven
  45. Thirty-Eight
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Part VAnnie
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. Fifty-Two
  61. Fifty-Three
  62. Fifty-Four
  63. Fifty-Five
  64. Fifty-Six
  65. Fifty-Seven
  66. Fifty-Eight
  67. Fifty-Nine
  68. Sixty
  69. Sixty-One
  70. Acknowledgments
  71. About the Author
  72. Also by Linwood Barclay
  73. About the Publisher

Annie put the caboose down, took out her phone, opened up the map app, and looked up Lucknow. If it was in Vermont, then it could be relatively close, depending on what corner of that state it was in. She found it in seconds, saw that it was in the southwest. A hike, to be sure, but could a determined little boy, desperate to find a father he refused to believe was dead, get there on his bicycle?

“He could,” Annie said to herself. “I believe he could.”

She looked at the caboose resting on her table, at the remains of Charlie’s trains scattered across the floor.

“You were trying to tell me, weren’t you?” she said.

The train was silent.

There was no point in calling Standish. First of all, Annie was sure she viewed her as a suspect. And second, if Annie told her she believed she knew where Charlie was, and how she’d come to this conclusion, the officer would have her committed.

Annie was on her own here.

She ran down the stairs, grabbed her car keys, and was gone.

Part IV
Harry

Thirty-Three

Chief Harry Cook couldn’t find anyone who claimed to have seen Gavin Denham in the last five days.

He hadn’t been at his usual morning station, the bench out front of the Lucknow Diner, since the Friday before, and it was Wednesday. His old pickup truck remained parked a couple of blocks off Main Street, where Harry had found it the morning of the sidewalk sale. He had left under the windshield wiper what might have looked at first like a parking ticket, but was actually a note from Harry that read: “Gavin, when you see this, come find me. Best, Harry.”

Ordinarily, someone like Gavin going missing would not set off too many alarms. He was a down-on-his-luck guy, homeless, unless you counted his pickup truck as a residence, and was known to like the bottle more than he should. But this town had already seen two men go missing—one of whom had been found without much of his skeletal structure, the other still unaccounted for—so Gavin made three, and that had Harry concerned.

He hadn’t made a big deal about it yet. The department was yet to issue a news release asking for information as to Gavin’s whereabouts, although Harry had asked Mary to get one ready. He had not made a call Rachel Bosma, the reporter for the Lucknow Leader, suggesting she do a story.