Chapters (73)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Prologue
- Part IAnnie
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Part IIHarry
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Part IIIAnnie
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Part IVHarry
- 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
- Part VAnnie
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
She was his tormentor. He was her victim. It had always been this way. He’d considered retaliation before, but anything he attempted would bring serious blowback from his parents. He couldn’t just hit her or pull her hair or put a snake in her underwear drawer. He wished he were more creative, that he could find a way to teach her a lesson without anyone tracing it back to him.
Then he rolled over and eyed the Bratz doll Glynis had left sitting on the couch, staring into the room with its dead eyes. And there, on the floor, were discarded strands of green ribbon that had secured some of the now-unwrapped presents.
An idea was forming.
One day, his father had shared some old tapes of cartoons he’d loved as a kid. One was about a dumb Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman named Dudley Do-Right who was forever saving a girlfriend when she got tied to the railroad tracks by the nasty Snidely Whiplash.
Jeremy took the Bratz doll from the couch. Placed it across the track and secured it with the green ribbon. Then he put the locomotive and cars back onto the track.
See how Glynis liked it when her new toy got run over by his used train.
He cranked the throttle so hard the engine’s wheels spun as they sought purchase on the track. Only half a loop to go to make contact. There was no Dudley Do-Right coming to rescue Glynis’s Christmas present.
For a second there, as Jeremy looked into the face of the doll, he thought he saw the face of his sister.
That was not possible, of course. He blinked, and the doll went back to being a doll.
Chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff
Jeremy hit the whistle button.
Woo-woo!
Rounding the turn. Almost there. The moment of impact a millisecond away.
Chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff
And then, whomp.
What wonderful chaos. The doll was catapulted across the room, the flimsy ribbon cut by the loco’s wheels before the engine bounced off the track and landed on its side, taking the attached cars with it. It was, Jeremy thought, an epic derailment as good as any he had ever seen in a movie.
And then, from the kitchen, the sound of something shattering.
Followed by a bone-chilling scream.
Jeremy sprang to his feet and went to the kitchen doorway to investigate.
His mother, father, and sister were crowded around the sink, Glynis in the middle, holding her hand over some dishes that had been left there to soak.
On the floor by their feet, the shattered remains of a glass.
Blood was dripping furiously from Glynis’s hand.
“My God!” Jeremy’s mother shrieked. “Call an ambulance!”