Camouflage (Nameless Detective Mysteries) (25 page)

“Are those the only reasons?”

“No. I’m getting too old to keep dealing with dark-side crap like finding bunches of bodies and going up against killer dogs. Damn Virden case has been giving me nightmares.”

“Does that mean you’re thinking of retiring again?”

“Again?”

“Well, you’ve been back on a full-time work schedule the past year, haven’t you? Unretired?”

“True enough. And it’s time I got off the merry-go-round.”

“Off for good?”

I hedged on that. “I’ve been at it too long not to want to keep a hand in as long as I can. But there’s no reason I can’t cut back to the original plan—one or two days a week at the agency, no more. Tamara can put Alex Chavez on full-time—he’s earned it and then some—to take over the bulk of my workload.”

“You really think you can stick to the plan this time?”

“Pretty sure. A second home would help, someplace far enough away from the city to remove temptation.”

“Where you could go by yourself if you felt like it, not just with Emily and me.”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking along those lines.…”

“Why not? You’ll have a lot more free time than either of us, at least for a while.”

“What would I do stuck out in the wilderness by myself?”

“There’s no reason we have to buy wilderness property,” Kerry said. “And there are plenty of things you could find to do no matter what the location. Fishing and boating, for instance. You used to do both by yourself. Any reason you couldn’t take them up again?”

I admitted there wasn’t.

“So we’ll look for a cabin or a cottage on or near a lake or river. We could even start the hunt this coming weekend, if you’re really game.”

Fishing, boating, quiet days and quiet nights in the country with and without the family. Genuine semiretirement. The idea was a lot more appealing now than it had been when I’d first made up my mind.

“I’m game,” I said. “The sooner the better.”

“NAMELESS DETECTIVE” MYSTERIES BY BILL PRONZINI

Camouflage

Betrayers

Schemers

Fever

Savages

Mourners

Nightcrawlers

Scenarios
(collection)

Spook

Bleeders

Crazybone

Boobytrap

Illusions

Sentinels

Spadework
(collection)

Hardcase

Demons

Epitaphs

Quarry

Breakdown

Jackpot

Shackles

Deadfall

Bones

Double
(with Marcia Muller)

Nightshades

Quicksilver

Casefile
(collection)

Bindlestiff

Dragonfire

Scattershot

Hoodwink

Labyrinth

Twospot
(with Collin Wilcox)

Blowback

Undercurrent

The Vanished

The Snatch

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.

CAMOUFLAGE: A NAMELESS DETECTIVE NOVEL

Copyright © 2011 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust

All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-7653-2564-8

First Edition: June 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-7572-8

First Forge eBook Edition: June 2011