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Chapter One

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HE WAS COMING HOME Maryland's Eastern Shore was a world of ht as soldiers It was flatland rivers with sharp shoulders, and secret tidal creeks where the heron fed

It was blue crab and the Bay, and the watermen who harvested them

No matter where he'd lived, in the first miserable decade of his life, or in the last few years as he approached the end of his third decade, only the Shore had ever meant home

There were countless aspects, countless ht and brilliant in his mind as the sun that sparkled off the water of the Chesapeake

As he drove across the bridge, his artist's eye wanted to capture that moment—the rich blue water and the boats that skireedy gulls The way the land skireens All the thickening leaves of the gum and oak trees, with those flashes of color that were flowers basking in the war

He wanted to remember this moment just as he remembered the first tihtened boy beside a man who'd promised him a life

HE'D SAT in the passenger seat of the car, with the man he hardly knew at the wheel He had the clothes on his back, and a few er possessions in a paper sack

His stoht was a bored look on his face and had stared out the

If he ith the old guy, he wasn't with her That was as good a deal as he could get

Besides, the old guy was pretty cool

He didn't stink of booze or of the ht up to the du in used to cover it up And the couple of tiht hier or pizza

And he'd talked to him

Adults, in his experience, didn't talk to kids At them, around them, over them But not to them

Ray did Listened, too And when he'd asked, straight out, if he—just a kid—wanted to live with hi fear or hot panic He'd felt likea break

Away froer they drove, the farther away from her

If things got sticky, he could run The guy was really old Big, he was sure as shit big, but old All that white hair, and that wide, wrinkled face

He took quick, sidelong glances at it, began to draw the face in his mind

His eyes were really blue, and that was kind of weird because so were his own

He had a big voice, too, but when he talked it wasn't like yelling It was kind of calm, even a little tired, maybe

He sure looked tired now

"Alry?"

"I dunno Yeah, I guess"

"My experience, boys are always hungry Raised three bottomless pits"

There was cheer in the big voice, but it was forced The child ht have been barely ten, but he knew the tone of falsehood

Far enough away now, he thought If he had to run So he'd put the cards on the table and see what the fuck hat

"How co me to your place?"

"Because you need a place"

"Get real People don't do shit like that"

"Some do Stella and I, my wife, we did shit like that"

"You tell her you're bringing me around?"

Ray smiled, but there was a sadness in it "In my way She died some time back You'd've liked her And she'd have taken one look at you and rolled up her sleeves"

He didn't knohat to say about that "What a?"