“It would seem so.”
“When I found out what happened, when Jill told us after you brought her home, I wrote you off as just another asshole who was stealing oxygen from the rest of us…”
“I can’t blame you for that.”
“You’re not that guy, though—Dyson, I mean.”
“No.”
“Who are you?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out for quite a while.”
“McKenzie … they say your name is McKenzie?”
“Yes.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love her?”
“Very much.”
“So, when you warned me that you would be heading out the door and down the street and that you wouldn’t be coming back, what you meant was that you were going back to her.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you prefer not to leave any misunderstandings behind.”
“I’m sorry, Josie.”
“It’s not like you didn’t warn me.”
“I’m sorry.”
She moved toward the cabin, got halfway around it, and stopped.
“Are you going to marry her, this girlfriend?”
“It’s still undecided.”
“If she won’t have you, I will.”
A moment later, Josie disappeared from view. I watched the spot where she had been standing for a long time. Bachelors, I told myself, and bachelorettes—we fall in love too easily for our own damn good.
ALSO BY DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT
Featuring Rushmore McKenzie
A Hard Ticket Home
Tin City
Pretty Girl Gone
Dead Boyfriends
Madman on a Drum
Jelly’s Gold
The Taking of Libby, SD
Highway 61
Featuring Holland Taylor
Penance
Practice to Deceive
Dearly Departed
Other Novels
The Devil and the Diva (with Renée Valois)
Finders Keepers
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Housewright has worked as a journalist covering crime and sports, an advertising copywriter and creative director, and a writing instructor. His crime fiction has been awarded both the Edgar Award and the Minnesota Book Award. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Visit the author’s Web site at www.davidhousewright.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE LAST KIND WORD. Copyright © 2013 by David Housewright. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photograph of city © Bill Moss; man © Cavan Images/Getty Images
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Housewright, David, 1955–
The last kind word / David Housewright.—First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-250-00960-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-03739-8 (e-book)
1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. Undercover operations—Fiction. 3. Illegal arms transfers—Fiction. 4. Minnesota—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.O8668L37 2013
813'.54—dc23
2013006984
eISBN 9781250037398
First Edition: June 2013