Third Rail

by Rory Flynn

  It’s joined by the memories of Dex lying in the muddy field and Captain Munro floating in the millrace. Because unlike memory, which circles like leaves caught in an undercurrent, life runs in one relentless direction.

  You crawl from the murk and walk on down the street.

  You find what’s lost and put it back in the right place.

  Harkness hands May to Candace and zips up his blue hoodie, ready to drive his unmarked gray Chevy to today’s bust.

  “Even without the uniform, you still look like a cop, Eddy,” Candace says. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Never.”

  “Aren’t you that Harvard Cop?” She smiles. “The one who shot that guy and messed up the Red Sox?”

  “Not anymore.” Harkness gives Candace the look that says Don’t mention the curse. It’s early in the season, but the Sox are on a winning streak. There’s already talk of winning the Series. Sportswriters are already calling this year’s team the Fenway Phoenix.

  He pulls Candace and May toward him for a moment to feel their warmth, to breathe their comforting scent.

  In the burgeoning spring, the city’s reward after a hard winter, bullets will cut down street-corner thugs in Mattapan and Mission Hill, pierce the chest of an unfaithful Cambridge husband, put a quick end to a convenience store robbery in Southie, and leave a player slumped behind the wheel of a black Escalade in front of a Boylston Street nightclub. But they won’t find Harkness, made invincible by love—and the best Glock on the market.

  He’s safe, for now.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to Andrea Schulz, Dan Conaway, and Megan Abbott for getting Third Rail out to the world beyond Nagog, Massachusetts—and to John Schoenfelder and Allan Guthrie for inspiring it in the first place during a couple of long nights in New York City and Edinburgh.

  Thanks to Katrina Kruse, Emily Andrukaitis, Stephanie Kim, Naomi Gibbs, and the rest of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt team—as well as Tanya Farrell, Emily LaBaume, and Wunderkind PR.

  Cheers to Russell Banks, Gregory Maguire, Castle Freeman Jr., Doug Johnstone, Wesley Brown, Ron Slate, Craig Moodie, Scott Phillips, Glenn Gray, Madison Smartt Bell, Hamilton Fish, Christopher O’Riley, Bill Cicciarello, Chris DeFrancesco, Lynn Landry, Esther Piszczek, Stephen Fredette, Verena Wieloch, Samantha Kane, Sandy Poirier, Julie Sorkin, William Mansfield, and all my friends and family.

  About the Author

  RORY FLYNN lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Third Rail is his first crime novel.

  Find him at www.mrroryflynn.com or @mrroryflynn.