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

Charlie slid it off the hook and opened the door. It was pitch-dark in the shed, and, feeling around the inside of the frame, Charlie could find no light switch. He picked the phone up off the ground and shined it inside.

As he’d already speculated, the shed was filled with various tools and garden-related items. Three rakes and two shovels. An old gas-powered lawn mower that, judging by the rust and the pull-cord that dangled from its housing, hadn’t been fired up in a very long time. Three bags of fertilizer and one of grass seed, some of it leaking out a hole that had no doubt been made by a mouse. There were four folded lawn chairs with webbing so far into the disintegration process that no one could have sat in them without risking grievous bodily harm, an electric hedge trimmer, a couple of extension cords, gardening gloves, a seed-spreading machine.

None of this held any interest for Charlie.

He was focused on the box tucked into the back corner of the structure.

He stepped over to it, pointed the phone flashlight for a better look.

This was what had been calling to him. This was what had been demanding to be found.

A cardboard box about two-by-two-by-three feet. Probably had once held packages of detergent, judging by the word printed boldly on the side.

tide.

Part II
Harry

Eight

No one could remember when, exactly, the shop had opened.

One day, there was nothing there. And then, one day there was.

People would say, it’s like when you need your shoes repaired, someone recommends Mike’s Shoe Repair, and you ask, where’s that, and you find out it’s right there on the main drag; you’ve strolled past it a hundred times but never noticed it because you never needed your shoes fixed till now.

This new shop was like that, except there wasn’t a soul who could remember how long it had been there. A week? A month? Surely not longer than that.

Regardless of when it had opened, the town of Lucknow now had something it had not had before, at least not in anyone’s memory. It had a toy train shop, somewhat anachronistic in a time when the electronic game systems—Nintendos and PlayStations and Xboxes—were ubiquitous. What chance did something as classic as a toy train stand, only a couple years into the new millennium?

Time would tell.

The place certainly had a catchy, if too-cute, name: Choo-Choo’s Trains. It seemed designed to draw in the little ones, or at least prompt them to drag their parents in with them.