Page 1 (1/2)

Prologue

The boy stood naked in the ht him there, frozen in position, like a deer He was covered in so slick, and it dripped down his flesh It looked reddish, like blood, as if the kid had run off the set of a horrordrenched in buckets of the stuff

Sarateful for once that his years with Mahon, Mero and Malone had given hiuar with the stop-on-a-dime brakes

Even then, the car pulled to a halt just inches before the boy

Swearing softly beneath his breath and puzzled beyond measure, Sa there, son?"

The boy didn’t move, didn’t seem to realize that he’d nearly been roadkill He just shook as he stood there Summer had recently turned to fall, and the air had a sharp nip, typical for Massachusetts at this time of year Tree-laden tracts lined the road; the old oaks seemed to bend and moan with the breeze, while multicolored leaves danced on the road and swept around the scene as if they, too, were deeply disturbed

The boy didn’t acknowledge Saain Sa, though this kid couldn’t have been injured severely and still be able to stand as he was

He couldn’t have lost that amount of blood and still be conscious

Was it really blood…couldn’t be

Either way, Sam couldn’t leave hi he really loved, with the leather seats he also loved, and walked around to his trunk and found the beach blanket he’d picked up on his recent drive to the Florida Keys It was sandy, but it would warm the kid

He returned quickly, but the kid hadn’t run off, much less moved "Are you hurt?" he asked quietly

He received no response

"Here, here, you’re going to have to get intothe boy with the blanket "We’ll get you to a hospital"

Sam wrapped the blanket around him "Sorry about the sand," he said

The kid looked to be somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, but underdeveloped He was painfully thin His eyes were huge and brown in the lean contours of his face His chest was devoid of hair, so most of the blood had slid down his chest

The terees Fahrenheit It wasn’t freezing, but the kid shouldn’t be exposed to this long

Saet hi to be co his wool coat from the sticky red substance that looked like blood, he suddenly froze

It didn’t just look like blood--it was blood

Denial rushed through his ’s blood, cow’s blood…hell, rabbit’s blood

But so told Sam that it was not

He drew the blanket off the boy and turned hiht have caused that amount of blood

But he didn’t find any If he had, the boy wouldn’t have been standing upright He wouldn’t have been breathing He’d have been dead from a wound like that

He’d already wrapped the blanket around the kid No undoing that

And if he could, would he leave the kid there shivering with nothing?

Still standing in front of the boy, who didn’t even reach up to hold the blanket in place, he fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone and hit 911 An operator with a droning voice asked hiency was

"My na into Sale man in the road He’s covered in blood It doesn’t appear to be his blood, but I can’t be certain that he isn’t injured He’s standing on his own, and doesn’t seem in any way to be too weak to do so, but he’s nonresponsive He et soave his position as best he could Hell, it was a quiet backwoods road He’d opted to take IA north from Boston, but had turned off early The dark, quiet road through the trees had see time

"Stay calm now, Mr Hall," the operator told him "I’ll have a car out to your position i You’re sure the young ? If so, youall right?"

He hesitated for the fraction of a second, staring at the phone, his ht of the horrors he had witnessed in the ht of the crime-scene photos he’d studied as a cri, "I’et soator, because I have a feeling this ht be human blood, and I don’t want to co my blanket around the boy"