The Final Twist by Jeffery Deaver (free ebooks romance novels txt) 📕

the area. Only one other person was on the street—a bearded man in a thigh-length black coat and dark slacks, a stocking cap and an Oakland A’s backpack. He wasn’t nearby and was facing away. If he’d seen the incident, he had no interest in the participants or what had happened. The man stepped into an independent coffee shop. San Francisco, with its Italian roots, had many of these.

“My God,” the woman whispered. “Thank you!” She was a little shorter than Shaw’s six feet even, but not much, with an athletic build, toned legs and thighs under her tight-fitting distressed jeans. She had slim hips and lengthy arms. The veins were prominent in the backs of her hands too, just like her attacker’s. Her brown hair was loose. She wore no makeup on her face, which seemed weather-toughened. A scar started near her temple and disappeared into her hairline.

“I don’t know what to say. Are you, umm, police?” She glanced toward the weapon on his right hip and then perused him. She was wary.

With his short blond hair, muscular build and taciturn manner, Colter Shaw could easily be mistaken for law enforcement, a fed or a detective running complex homicides—the stuff of anti-terror cases. Today, she’d think, he was undercover, as he’d ridden here on the Yamaha in his biker gear: the jacket, navy-blue shirt under a black sweater to conceal his weapon, blue jeans and black Nocona boots.

“Kind of a private eye.”

“I’m Tricia,” she said.

He didn’t give his, either real or a cover.

She shook her head, apparently at her own behavior. “Stupid, stupid . . .”

Shaw said, “Find a better quality of dealer. Or don’t use at all.” But he shrugged. “Easy for me to say.”

Her lips tightened; she looked down. “I know. I try. This program, that program. Maybe this’s a wake-up call.” She offered him a wan smile. “Thank you, really.”

And, in the opposite direction of the creature from Middle-earth, she walked off.

6

Shaw returned to the safe house, headed for the kitchen and the documents, but he got no farther than the living room.

He stopped, staring at a shelf on which sat a six-inch statuette, a bronze bald eagle. Wings spread, talons out, predator’s eyes focused downward.

Shaw picked it up and turned it over in his hand, righted it once more.

To the casual observer, what he was holding looked to be a competently sculpted souvenir from a wildlife preserve gift shop, one of the more expensive behind-the-counter items.

But it was significantly more than that to Colter Shaw.

He had last seen it on a shelf in his bedroom in the Compound many years ago. Before it went missing. He had from time to time wondered where it had ended up. Had he stored it away himself when he’d cleaned his room to make space for gear or weapons he’d made or discoveries from his endless hikes through the mountains surrounding the Compound: rocks, pinecones, arrowheads, bones?

Finding it here gave him considerable pleasure, at last understanding the artwork’s fate. His father must have brought it with him here as a reminder of his middle child. Shaw was thankful too it was not lost forever; how he’d come into possession of the sculpture was an important aspect of his childhood, a memento of an incident that had undoubtedly launched him into his present career and lifestyle.

The Restless Man . . .

But this icon of a bird in muscular flight brought sorrow too. It resurrected other memories of his childhood: specifically of his older brother, Russell.

Years ago, during a bad spell, Ashton Shaw had insisted that Dorion, then thirteen, make a one-hundred-foot free-climb up a sheer rock face in the middle of the night. This was a test. All of his children had to make the ascent when they became teenagers.

Russell and Colter already had done so. But had come to believe that the rite of passage was pointless, especially for their sister. Dorie was as talented athletically as her brothers with chalk and rope, and more so than Ashton himself. She’d already proved her ascent skills, including night climbs.

With a mind of her own even then, Dorion had simply decided she didn’t need to . . . or want to. “Ash. No.” The girl never shied.

But her father wouldn’t let it go. He grew more and more riled and persistent.

The older brother intervened. Russell also said no.

The confrontation turned ugly. A knife was involved—on Ashton’s part. And Russell, using skills his father himself had taught, prepared to defend his sister and take the weapon away from the wild-eyed man.

Mary Dove, her husband’s psychiatrist and med-dispenser in chief—had been away on a family emergency, so there was no adult present to defuse the situation.

After a boilingly tense moment their father backed down and retreated to his bedroom, muttering to himself.

Not long after, Ashton had died in a fall from Echo Ridge.

The circumstances were suspicious, and more troubling, Shaw learned that his brother had lied about his whereabouts at the time of Ashton’s death. He was, in fact, not far from Echo Ridge. Shaw believed that Russell had murdered the man. He was sure it had been agonizing, an impossible decision on his brother’s part. But he guessed that at some point Russell had come to believe it was Dorie’s life or Ashton’s, and Russell made his choice. By then Ashton Shaw had become someone very different from the kind and witty man and teacher the children had known growing up.

Shaw had made his own impossible decision: accepting that his brother was guilty of patricide. The thought tore at him for years, and tore him and Russell apart.

Then, just weeks ago, the truth: Russell had had nothing to do with Ashton’s death. It was a BlackBridge operative responsible, trailing their father to Echo Ridge on that cold, cold night in October.

Ebbitt Droon himself had told Shaw the story. “Your father . . . Braxton wanted him dead—but not yet, not till she had what she wanted. She sent somebody to, well, talk to him