Author/Uploaded by Stephen Amidon
Contents Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Epigraph Prologue Midday Wednesday Wednesday Afternoon Wednesday Night Thursday Friday Monday Tuesday Thursday Epilogue Acknowledgments Also by Stephen Amidon About the Author Newsletter Sign-up Copyright Guide ...
Contents Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Epigraph Prologue Midday Wednesday Wednesday Afternoon Wednesday Night Thursday Friday Monday Tuesday Thursday Epilogue Acknowledgments Also by Stephen Amidon About the Author Newsletter Sign-up Copyright Guide Cover Title Page Dedication Prologue Midday Wednesday Epilogue Acknowledgments Contents Copyright Pagebreaks of the print version Cover Page v vii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 303 305 ii iv Begin Reading Table of Contents About the Author Copyright Page The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. For Clementine He has seen but half the universe who never has been shown the House of Pain. —EMERSON Prologue PATRICK He hit the dog on Locust. It came out of nowhere, a blur of dark motion. He swerved, but not enough—the bumper’s edge caught the animal’s hindquarters, sending it spinning back into the night. Its yelp harmonized with the shriek of braking tires. And then he’d stopped in the middle of the road, his heart racing, thinking that maybe going out for a drive wasn’t such a good idea after all. It took him a moment to locate the stricken animal. It had fled back the way it had come, but only made it as far as the nearest lawn, where it was now turning in circles, nipping at its flank, locked in futile pursuit of its pain. It finally lay down and began to lick furiously at the point of impact. The dog was big and black. A Labrador, maybe, or a Labrador and something else. Patrick didn’t know dogs. He checked the nearby houses to see if lights were flaring as homeowners in robes emerged onto front porches. All was quiet. The dashboard clock read 3:11. It was entirely possible the event had gone unnoticed by the residents of Locust Lane. The setbacks here were deep, the windows tightly sealed. Trees shrouded most of the housefronts. Things that happened on the street were a long way off. The dog continued to nurse its wound, though its movements suggested a recovery was in progress. Patrick told himself to drive on. He wasn’t at fault. Dogs weren’t allowed to run free in Emerson. Everybody knew that. A six-foot leash was required. There were signs everywhere. And he was not necessarily under the legal limit. The last thing he needed was to wind up walking the sobriety tightrope for some yawning cop. Go home, he thought. Finish the bottle, hit the sack. You know the drill. Dawn will come, followed by another barren day. But he couldn’t do it. He’d injured a living thing. That made him responsible for it. He had to help. He didn’t need another item in the overladen shopping cart of guilt he was pushing around. He’d made a deal with himself not to abandon decency. He could leave behind everything else, but not that. He pulled the car to the side of the road. The dog remained curled on the grass, although it was fussing with its flank less avidly. Having committed himself to helping, Patrick now understood that he had no idea what to do. Loading a large, frightened, and potentially bloody creature into his M3 and transporting it to an all-night animal hospital was out of the question. And he certainly wasn’t dragging it back home. Whatever he was going to do would have to be done right here. The best he could come up with was to see if there was a tag on its collar, a number to call. He got out of the car. The dog watched him, waiting for the human being to define the situation. “Good boy,” Patrick said, although he had no evidence that the dog was either of these things. It emitted a brief whine, more of a radar ping