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Authors: Philip Carter

Altar of Bones

BOOK: Altar of Bones
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Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.­SimonandSchuster.­com
.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Philip Carter

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition March 2011

GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
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. Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco Endpaper map by Paul J. Pugliese

Manufactured in the United States of America

10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carter, Philip

Altar of bones / Philip Carter.—1st Gallery Books hardcover ed.

       p. cm.

1. Couples—Fiction. 2. Secrets—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.I456288A79 2011

813’.6—dc22                                             2010033612

ISBN 978-1-4391-9908-4
ISBN 978-1-4391-9946-6 (ebook)

For Catherine

Contents

Cover Page

Front Flap

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Part One: The Keeper

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two: The Big Kill

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Part Three: The Legacy

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Part Four: The Lady

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Part Five: The Riddle

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Part Six: The Altar

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Epilogue

Back Flap

Back Cover

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
WANT TO
give thanks to the following people for their tremendous support and encouragement during the writing and publication of this book:

To my agent, Aaron Priest, for always telling it like it is, both the good and the bad. You’re the best in the business. Bar none. And to Lucy Childs and Frances Jalet-Miller for their extensive and well-thought-out editorial critiques, which ended up making the book so much better.

To my publisher, Louise Burke, and my best-in-the-world editor, Kara Cesare, of Gallery Books, and all the others at Simon & Schuster, from the art department to sales to production, who’ve put so much time and effort into getting the book on the shelves and into the hands of readers.

To CC for your generous advice and encouragement during our weekly lunches at the high-cholesterol factory. You know I could never have done it without you. And to TG, for so much it would take a book in itself just to describe it all. Everyone needs someone they can count on to come bail them out of jail in the middle of the night, and you’re that someone for me. (Not that that has ever happened. Yet.) And to my fellow writers of the First Wednesday of the Month Group, for always being there with advice and support.

And finally to my own One, for having put up with me all these years. How lucky I am to have you to go through life with by my side.

PROLOGUE

San Francisco, California
The present

R
OSIE KNEW
the stranger had come to kill her as soon as he walked into the circle of light cast by their fire.

They were deep in the woods of Golden Gate Park where the cops wouldn’t harass them—a small colony of homeless that panhandled on Haight Street during the day and camped out in the park at night. Rosie was new to the group, but it had been her idea to arrange their shopping carts in a circle like a wagon train, then cover them with cardboard and blankets to create a makeshift shelter. Still, she shivered in the bitter February wind as she looked up into the stranger’s eyes. His killer eyes.

She’d caught a duck earlier, down by Stow Lake, and was cooking it over the flames using a coat hanger for a spit. The stranger pretended the roasting meat had drawn him, but Rosie knew better.

“Hey, there,” he said. His English was good, but the burr of Mother Russia still lay thick on his tongue. “I dove a Dumpster tonight and found this.” He held up a pint of Wild Turkey as he came closer. “I’m willing to share for a bite of what you got cooking.”

Willard, who was their default leader, put down his beer and stood up to bump fists with the man. “Bring it on, friend.”

The stranger—a big, rawboned guy, wearing a greasy brown ponytail and a tough face—sat down cross-legged, close to the fire. He grinned real wide as he handed over his offering.

Willard was tall with a cue ball for a head and prison scratch over every inch of his skin. Even his face was tattooed with a pair of teardrops under each eye. Yet he gave the whiskey bottle a look of childish wonder. “Man, that was some lucky Dumpster.”

The stranger smiled again. “A liquor store over on Polk Street
caught fire last night, and they wrecked the place putting it out. Most of the shit inside got broken, and the cops and firemen probably ripped off what didn’t. Guess I got lucky, huh?”

Rosie had no doubt the burnt liquor store with its Dumpster existed. Men like him usually got the details right.

He had the homeless look down, too: jeans so grimy it was hard to tell if they’d once been blue, crack pipe stuck in his coat pocket, dirt caked in the seams of his skin. His eyes, though, were all wrong. They weren’t empty or beaten or lost. They were sharp, focused. The kind that could slide a knife across your throat without blinking, or put a bullet in your head from a rooftop two hundred yards away.

BOOK: Altar of Bones
12.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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