Aftershock: A Thriller (Aftershock Series)($13.00Value)

Description

FIRST IN A NEW SERIES Dell, an ex-Legionnaire was working as a mercenary when he first saw Dolly, a nurse with Médecins Sans Frontières. When they later married, Dell abandoned his work, and Dolly shed her identity. But not her calling—she became a teacher, confidant, and defender of dozens of teenagers in their Coastal Oregon village. When the star softball pitcher guns down a popular boy on the last day of school, Dolly knows this is no "school shooting". She goes all-in to protect "Mighty Mary" McCoy, even to the extent of unleashing her lethal husband. As Dolly uses her contacts to gain access to medical secrets, Dell returns to his no-boundaries past. Using guile, extortion, shadow networks--and, finally, an act of terrorism—he uncovers the secret MaryLou was willing to sacrifice her own life to protect . . . a soul-killing rite of passage demanded of the town’s most vulnerable girls, with her baby sister next on that list. “Andrew Vachss impresses again with his new, dark and compelling thriller.” — Largehearted Boy “The baddest noir stylist of them all.” — Kirkus Reviews “Razor-edged and compulsively readable, the pages fly by.” — Library Journal   "Disquieting but engrossing. . . . Vachss explores the horrific intersection of victims and victimizers, evil and avengers. The setting has moved from urban to small town, but the eternal conflict is as it ever was.” — Booklist   Andrew Vachss’s many books include the Burke novels and two previous collections of short stories. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, and The New York Times, among other publications. He died in 2021. In the stretched-out moment when I heard the door open, I had plenty of time to make a decision before the first footstep creaked.   Time enough to slide the silenced pistol back into its compartment. Time enough not to push the button that would make the last five steps disappear. Any intruders who got this far might walk ninja-soft, but they wouldn’t be weightless. Easier to make the whole stairway disappear in a soft explosion, but the last thing I wanted to do was attract attention. That’s why the pistol was silenced. Even a fall from the stairs onto a concrete floor wouldn’t necessarily kill, and I had to seize any chance to learn how anyone had gotten so close.   How they had gotten past the only person on earth whose life mattered to me.   Inside that rocket-blast of thought was another one—no one could ever get that far unless Dolly had betrayed me. And if she had done that, my life was over no matter how this played out.   “Dell?”   “I’m right here, Dolly,” I called, leaving my voice to trail behind me as I backed away to the pool of blackness that formed the entire far wall of my basement “workshop.”   My voice was still where I last used it, but I wasn’t. And I had a new weapon trained on the staircase, its scope turning blackness to greenish light. A modified FAMAS bullpup auto that people in my old line of work had called “ un clarion .” If someone had forced Dolly to open the door and call my name, she was as good as dead anyway. The only job I’d have left would be to make sure that everyone else in the house followed her.   And find out who sent them.   And then take out the chain, link by link.   Her voice hadn’t sounded afraid. That could have meant a lot of things, but it stopped mattering the second I heard her misbegotten mutt woof at whatever small animal was outside the house. If there had been a human intruder, Rascal would have been inside. Growling deep in his throat. Waiting, just like I was.   “Dell, I . . . I really didn’t want to disturb you. And I’m not coming any further if you don’t want me to. But sometimes you’re down here for hours on end and I . . . I didn’t think this should wait.”   “Come on down, honey. It’s okay,” I said, watching through the scope so I could make sure Dolly was alone. When she was on the third step, hands held palms-up to tell me she was okay, I said, “Ah, never mind. Give me a second and I’ll come upstairs.”   *** Dolly didn’t know anything about my way of keeping her safe from some deer-killer’s bullets. And she’d never know what I’d been forced to do when something even more dangerous had wormed his way inside our home a couple of years ago.   I remember thinking, Alfred Hitchcock is dead. He’s lying there dead, and I don’t know what to do about it .   I wasn’t surprised when I found him dead on the ground. The woods behind our house are state-owned but wild—a country where Darwin makes the rules. I’ve been in enough places like that to know how they work.   Alfred Hitchcock was one of those crow-raven hybrids you see around this piece of the coast all the time—too big for a crow, but without that classic thick raven’s beak. You couldn’t miss him, even at a distance. He had a white streak along one side of his head, like the fire-scar a bullet leaves when it just kisses you o