Harry pulled in the driveway, parked and went in the side door. He expected to see Colette in the kitchen, starting dinner. She was going to make sauerbraten, potato dumplings and red cabbage, an authentic German meal. He’d been thinking about it all day and he was hungry. Colette was a terrific cook, and that was another benefit of living with her. He threw his keys on the counter, hit the message button on the answering machine. Another one from Galina.“Harry, you going to call me one of these days?”

No, he said to himself. Walked into the foyer, glanced in the den and moved into the living room. Someone was sitting in his leather chair, legs crossed on the ottoman. The man had dark shoulder-length hair and wore black jeans, a white shirt and a black leather jacket.

“I don’t think you’re a burglar,” Harry said, “or you’d be looking for the silver, so tell me what you’re doing in my house?”

“I stopped by your office. We could have handled it there, but you were too busy to see me,” he said with an accent that sounded like he was from Berlin.

“You buying or selling?”

“I am trading.”

“For what?” Although Harry had a pretty good idea.

“Where is Ernst Hess?”

“I’d try his estate in Schleissheim or his apartment in Munich. Maybe start by talking to his family and business associates?”

“I know he came here to see you.”

“Where’s Colette?”

“Safe for now. Tell me about Herr Hess.”

Harry pulled the Colt from under his shirt and aimed it at him. “I’ll tell you what. You want to trade, I’ll trade Colette for you. We can start there, see how it goes.”

“Put the gun away. You are not going to shoot me or you will never find her.”

The guy got up and came toward him. He was tall, six two, six three, and looked like he was in shape. Harry pulled the hammer back with his thumb. “First one’s going to blow out your knee cap. You better hope there isn’t a second one.” That seemed to persuade him. The German froze.

“I’m going to give you another chance. Where’s Colette?”

“Not far from here.”

“Let’s go see how she’s doing.”

“I have to call, tell them we are coming.”

“How many are there?”

“Two.”

“We’re going to surprise them,” Harry said. “And if they’ve done anything to Colette, you’re the first one I’m going to shoot. Believe that if you believe anything. Take off your coat, throw it over here and turn around.” He did and Harry checked the two outside pockets of the jacket, found a parking receipt, and a pair of handcuffs. There was also a piece of notepaper that had an address on Crooks Road in Troy and a phone number. “This where they have Colette?”

In the other pocket he found car keys and a small semi-automatic. He ejected the magazine and put it in his pocket. The German had his back to Harry, looking over his shoulder.

“Take off your clothes. I want to see what else you’ve got.”

The German stripped down to his briefs and tossed everything on the floor at Harry’s feet. Harry picked up the man’s pants and checked the pockets, found the key to the handcuffs and his wallet. Opened it, name Albin Zeller from Munich on the driver’s license.

“You a Nazi, too, Albin?” Harry said.

Zeller, with his back to him, didn’t say anything. He was less threatening now in his underwear, thin legs, pale skin that had never been in the sun.

“Why are you looking for Hess?” He didn’t respond.

“You break in, say you want to talk, but you don’t say anything.” Hess was a wealthy man and a member of the Christian Social Union, an important political figure in Germany. Harry could understand why there were people who wanted him found. Hess must have told someone his plans. Otherwise how would Zeller have been able to follow his trail to Detroit? Harry threw him the handcuffs. “Put them on.”

Zeller turned, caught them, clamped them on his wrists. “Where’s your car?”

“On the street.”

That wasn’t going to work, walking a handcuffed Nazi in his undies out to the car at gunpoint. “All right, let’s go. We’ll take mine.”

“They are expecting a phone call.”

“Well they’re going to be surprised then, aren’t they?”

“What about my clothes?”

“You’re not going to need them.”

“You drive up to the house they will kill her,” Zeller said.

“Then we won’t drive up to the house.”

Harry was parked in the driveway by the side door. It was 5:30 and almost dark. He led Zeller out, popped the trunk, took his eye off the German for a second and Zeller took off, hurdled the neighbor’s fence like a track star and disappeared. Harry started after him and stopped. Went back to the car, closed the trunk and drove to Troy to find Colette.

Dominic stared at the baby as Zeppe drove, letting his finger trace along her forehead. “She’s quiet for one so young,” he said, no trace of the vehemence that tainted his voice earlier.

“Yeah, I guess she likes you.”

“And look at those eyes. Such big brown eyes.”

“Beautiful,” Zeppe said, but he never took his eyes from the road.

When the little girl smiled, Dominic smiled with her, but soon afterward turned somber. He thought of the fate Maria suffered because of him. If anyone should have had children it was her, but she refused to marry Dominic because of what he was, and she refused to marry anyone else. He saw the pain when she sat at the playground and watched the children play. Pain she didn’t deserve. Perhaps this was God’s answer to his prayers.

There would be birth certificate issues and people to pay off…but that could be arranged. The bigger problem was getting Maria to accept the baby and then making sure no one ever told the truth. That was the difficult one. Truth had a way of creeping through cracks and oozing to the top, no matter how deep it was buried. He knew he could trust Zeppe, and he could trust Maria…but something in his gut ate at him. This would take careful planning.

Zeppe pulled up to a warehouse. Dominic got rid of the gun and changed clothes. Half an hour later he turned down the street to Maria’s house.

“Turn the corner and park on the street after hers,” Dominic said. “We’ll walk.”

“Dom, it’s cold, and that baby—”

“The baby will be fine in the blanket. I’d rather not be seen on Maria’s street.”

After Zeppe parked, Dominic checked to make sure no one was watching then signaled Zeppe to bring the baby. They walked around the corner and up to Maria’s house.

A few knocks brought Maria to the door, surprise registering on her face when she saw them. “What are you doing here?” Her voice not much above a whisper.

Maria was the same as always—as plain as her tawny hair and as quiet as a church at night. “Came to see my beautiful friend,” Dominic said, and removed his cap.

She brushed her fingers through the sides of her hair. “Beautiful? I’m already graying.”

Dominic hugged her and kissed her forehead. “I love that gray,” he said, then nodded to Zeppe, who handed the baby to Maria.

She went wide-eyed. “Whose baby is this?” She held the girl against her and peeled the blanket back one layer at a time. “She’s so small. Where’s the mother?”

Dominic brushed the baby’s red cheeks with his finger, and nudged her head with his nose, sniffing in her scent. For the second time tonight a smile lit his face. “Babies are so innocent. You can even smell it on them.”

Maria walked through the house, humming a tune while she rocked the baby in her arms. “You didn’t answer me, Dominic. Who does she belong to? Some woman friend of yours?”

“I’m surprised at you for saying such a thing, Maria.” Westminster chimes were signaling the half-hour. Dominic waited for them to stop; they were Maria’s favorite. “We found her on the street corner. She was in a stroller, freezing.”

Maria looked at him, perhaps trying to judge the truth. “I’m sorry, Dominic, it’s just…I thought…” She shook her head and continued walking. “Who would do that to a baby?” She kissed the girl’s head several times. “Poor baby,” she said, then turned to Dominic. “What can we do with her? Did you call those…services people?”

“You know I would never do that; besides, you always wanted a child. Now God has sent you one.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t keep her.” Maria made the statement, blessed herself when she said it, but a plea rode on her words.

“You must keep her. God has given you a gift. Someone who didn’t care abandoned her, now someone who does care will raise her.”

Maria stared at Dominic for a long time, then she hugged the baby as tears formed in her eyes. “There is no way I can keep her, but I will watch her for a while.” She walked with her for a few moments, then said, “In the meantime, I’ll call her Concetta.”

Dominic nodded, a smile on his face. Maria would never let go of that baby. “Concetta Gianelli. A good name.”

“I told you, Dominic, I can’t keep her. What would the neighbors say? They will—”

Zeppe shook his head. “Tell them a relative died. Trust me, they won’t say anything.” He leaned over and kissed Maria on the cheek, then kissed the baby. “I promise you.”

Dominic looked at Maria, then Zeppe. “If Maria keeps Concetta, no one is to know where she came from. Understand? No one.”

“Don’t worry,” Zeppe said. “Just the three of us.”

Maria nodded, clutching the girl as if someone might take her. “Yes, just the three of us.”

Zeppe turned and headed for the door. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Good night, Giuseppe.”

“Yeah, good night, Maria.”

As the door closed behind Zeppe, and Maria walked to the kitchen, Dominic made the sign of the cross, asking God for forgiveness. It was one thing to kill a man—but to take his baby and claim it as a gift from God might be pushing things too far. That was the kind of thing that could haunt a person in both lives. And what will Maria do if she finds out the truth? Even worse, what will this little girl do if she finds out?

Sergeant Detective Jane Perry rolled to an abrupt stop in front of the gas pumps and checked the time. 7:17. It had been exactly seventeen minutes since she left her house on Milwaukee Street in Denver and headed south on I-25 but it felt like hours. Lately, reality had revolved in a surreal sphere, and Jane was looking forward to jumping off the mind-bending roller coaster and getting some heartfelt perspective on her life. But all that would have to wait now.If Jane were still a smoker, she would have extinguished four cigarettes since she left her house. Even though it had been over eleven days since she was sucker punched by the news, the rawness of that first moment when she saw the truth in black and white was still fresh and stung like venom, hot and unforgiving. Nicotine would soften the edges but she’d made a promise to herself to quit, so she’d have to figure out how to steer through this oozing emotional wound without the comfortable dulling of pain.
That was proving more difficult as the days progressed. In one moment, Jane’s world not only blew apart, but her entire identity split with it. She’d spent the past days dredging up her turbulent young life yet again—propelling her heart back into the chaos—searching for clues in the multitude of unspoken words and wondering how she missed the torturous secret her mother chose to keep. Unfortunately, her memories had been fogged by time and over twenty years of abusing the bottle. If there was any sign of what was hidden long ago, it was now buried in layers of regret and omission.Jane rolled down her window and adjusted the side mirror on her ’66 ice blue Mustang. She took in a deep breath, hoping it would abate her temp- tation for tobacco. The cool, mid-April breeze belied the promise of spring, even though March and April were known in Colorado as the wettest and snowiest months of the year. As Jane canvassed the flattened landscape so common for this section of the state, there was still no sign of the Isis of rebirth—no lush green panoramas to sink her teeth into and inhale the beauty. All that lay in eyesight were varying shades of taupe, edged by the blacktop of the frontage road. How was it possible for anything verdant to emerge from this lifeless topography? The sheer energy it took for Colorado to rise from the frozen ashes of winter never ceased to amaze and confound Jane. While the rains had abated over the last twenty-four hours, an uncommon moisture still clung in the normally dry morning atmosphere that lent a dampened spirit to her journey.
Jane leaned outside and caught her reflection in the side mirror. No, it couldn’t be, she thought. Moving closer to the mirror, she parted her shoulder length brown hair and found a cluster of gray. When did this happen? Had she been so preoccupied with the events of her last case that she failed to notice the preamble to death painted on her crown? She studied her brown eyes in the mirror and noted the bags underneath—badges of a hard fought life where sacrifice trumped freedom. Crinkling her nose, Jane forced the lines around the corner of her eyes to deepen. She could chalk it up to too much smiling but anyone who knew her would disagree since Jane Perry’s personality was not synonymous with grinning. She let out a hard sigh of resignation. How in the hell did she get so goddamned old in just thirty-seven years?She leaned over and locked her Glock in the glove compartment on top of her badge. Even though her anticipated seven-day trip was purely personal, she never traveled without her service weapon. It was an anchor and a steel security blanket. Swiping her credit card, she selected the highest-grade gasoline for her cherished classic ride and filled the tank. A gust of wind blew across the service station, forcing Jane to button the collar of her leather jacket. She turned and surveyed the smattering of vehicles filling up at this early hour. Jane had always been a student of observation; always keenly taking in the minute details in front of her. That ability ran on autopilot and served her well as a cop when she had to recreate a homicide scene.But lately, she’d taken to counting objects that were grouped together. It had almost become an obsession; something to indulge her addictive mind. At that moment, there were three cars, including hers, at the islands. There were seven islands, each with three options for fuel. But four of those fuel pumps were covered with yellow tape, marking them out of order. So, readjusting it, there were seventeen fuel handles available. Ironic, she mused. When she rolled into the gas station and looked at the clock, it was 7:17, which was seventeen minutes after she left her house. Odd.She’d come to know these as syncs, clusters of seemingly disparate words, digital times on a clock, names, symbols or numbers that kept cropping up in such a way to herald a hidden message. While some of the syncs had been easy to decipher, most proved mystifying, leaving Jane to feel she either wasn’t smart enough to understand the significance or that the message itself wasn’t ready to be heard. This concept may have occupied illogical territory, but even the most logical human being has been guilty of latching onto a sign from above or below in an attempt to give meaning to an experience.As much as Jane Perry primarily used her logic, these last few years had introduced her to phenomena that defied rational sense. The more she fought it, the more the strangeness attacked like a serpent, demanding to be acknowledged. More than anything, she couldn’t escape the weird coincidences and syncs that plagued her daily life and infested nearly every homicide she worked. The constant dovetailing of events was so common now that she no longer questioned the mystical belief of entanglement with other humans, both dead and alive.The fuel pump clicked but Jane kept squeezing the handle in an attempt to force every last drop of gas into her tank. She noted the signage on the pump warning against “topping off” your tank and some reference to “creating a cleaner, greener planet.” Fuck that shit, she thought. She had a long drive in front of her and her hungry Mustang needed to be fed as much liquid “grass” as possible. When she finally filled it to overflowing, Jane removed the nozzle and hooked it back on the pump. Just as she did, she sensed the presence of the attendant behind her, ready to make a smartass comment. She turned, ready to verbally tackle him with her well-worn bravado. Yet to her astonishment, there was no one there. Jane spun around and scanned the immediate area, looking for any sign of an attendant in the vicinity but she came up empty. She chalked it up to a lack of sufficient caffeine, even though she’d already knocked back three cups of coffee in the last two hours. While gas station java swill wasn’t her first choice, it would have to do.Inside the small Quik Mart convenience store, Jane found four aisles stuffed to the gills with every known junk food. Besides the corpulent woman behind the cash register who crunched on a greasy pork rind, the only other occupants were a beefy biker and a scrawny teenage boy who was loading up on enough “crack in a can” energy drinks to keep him awake until he stroked out. A small television, located above the cash register, was turned on with the sound muted. Jane briefly glanced up as a booking photograph of a heavyset man filled the screen. His wavy brown, scraggly hair matched his unkempt beard and mustache. His name flashed underneath the photo: Harlan Kipple, age forty-two.Jane knew all about Kipple, although she’d never met him. For almost fourteen days, he had been enjoying “three hots and a cot,” courtesy of the Denver penal system. She would have caught the case but Kipple committed his crime southeast of Denver in Limon, Colorado and was only kicked to Denver because of his heinous, high profile crime and to insure he was secured prior to trial.
Kipple, an Interstate truck driver with only one past infraction of transporting illegal prescription drugs in his rig for his brother-in-law, had been accused of the macabre butchering of an unidentified black prostitute. It was your classic open and shut case since Kipple had been found in a dingy Limon motel, passed out in bed with the working girl, clutching a bloody hunting knife and covered in her blood. To make the case even more depraved, the poor girl had been gutted like a deer and her head cracked open, leaving her brain draped outside of her skull. As expected, drugs were involved and that part of the murder made Harlan Kipple nefariously notorious. Lab reports showed he injected the girl with ketamine hydrochloride—a PCP analogue used as an anesthetic in veterinary medicine but gaining popularity on the street as a date rape drug. Known on the club scene as “Special K,” “Super K,” “KO” and “Make Her Mine”, ketamine was distinguished from other date rape drugs in that it produced a dissociative anesthesia, rendering the victim detached from all bodily sensations but often aware of what was being done to them and yet paralyzed and unable to respond. Picture being encased in a glass ball, while watching the unthinkable happen to you and having no way to fight back. It was the ultimate torture because if the victim survived the attack, they usually suffered from amnesia but were prone to subsequent, suddenly triggered vivid hallucinations that replayed the rape or attack, forcing the victim to question their reality. To Jane, ketamine was the epitome of a true mind-fucking drug that left its twisted mark on survivors for many years. As for the unsuspecting prostitute that Kipple mutilated, her last minutes were likely spent watching herself being raped and then filleted open until the grace of God separated her body from her soul.But the incongruity of Kipple’s case didn’t end there. About two years prior to the grisly murder, he had been given a life-saving heart transplant—a surgery that nearly ensured him another healthy two decades of life. The fact that those years would now be spent confined to a cell and probably end in execution was God’s little irony, Jane deduced. What a waste of a good heart, she recalled thinking when the story broke.Kipple’s face lingered on the television inside the Quik Mart. The press named him “Kipple, the Heartless Killer.” Nothing works like an obvious alliteration when you’re selling freaks to the public. Jane stared at his photo, searching out the darkness that always lingered behind the eyes of all psychos. But Kipple was a tough nut to crack. Instead of the penetrating evil, there was a strange softness and quiet sweetness that projected from his photo. Good God, was she losing her touch?“Can I help you?”Jane turned away from the screen to find the cashier staring at her, a speck of pork rind dotting her upper lip. “I need strong coffee.”The woman pointed her fat finger toward the back of the store, in the corner next to the bank of refrigerated shelves. Jane glanced outside to her Mustang and then quickly walked to the rear of the store. She selected the strongest brew available and the largest cup, filling it to the rim. Searching for the sugar, she tipped over the plastic bowl that held the packets. She counted them as she put them back in the bowl. Seventeen. She snapped the lid on the cup and carried it around the corner of the aisle, staring momentarily at the array of artery-clogging snack foods that lined the shelves. She looked up briefly to glance at her waiting Mustang before searching the selections for anything remotely healthy. It was another promise Jane made to herself after recently escaping what she assumed was a death sentence. She found herself drawn to the pine nuts, even though she never would have made that choice a few weeks ago. She squinted to read what was written across the front of the bag in green lettering: ENJOY THESE NUGGETS OF NATURE FROM THE PINECONE! The price was right for the small bag, a buck seventy.Jane grabbed all eight bags on the shelf as she felt the burly biker walk behind her. For some strange reason, he hovered awfully close. She allowed the intrusion to continue for another few seconds before spinning around. But there was no one standing there. The biker was, in fact, on the opposite side of the store. Jane stood still, sensing a muscular thickness around her; a phantasm imprint that lacked clarity. A few years ago, she would have ignored this curious feeling but she’d learned the hard way that the more she pretended it away or chalked it up to booze, flashbacks, PTSD or lack of sleep, the more dynamic it became.Jane waited, looking into nothingness yet still clearly aware of the unassailable presence around her. She started to turn right but was drawn to the left. Moving around the aisle, Jane stood at the long magazine rack that framed the front windows. Cradling the eight bags of pine nuts, she made her way toward the cashier when she heard the soft brush of a magazine fall to the vinyl floor behind her. Jane turned to find a copy of “The Q”—a glossy, men’s sports and outdoor magazine—splayed open, cover side up. She leaned down, picked up the magazine and replaced it on the shelf. Turning toward the cashier, Jane took a step and heard the magazine fall behind her again. She stopped. The phantasmal stickiness gripped her like a defiant child demanding her attention. Jane carefully turned toward the magazine, finding it sprawled in the same position as before. She leaned down, turned it over and stared at the advertising found on page seventeen. Against an indigo background lay a mountainous landscape with snowcapped peaks. Featured in the foreground was a woman’s modest wristwatch placed upon what looked like a red satin cloth that stretched from one side of the page to the other. The hands on the watch pointed to 11:17. In the bottom left hand corner, there was an illustration of the “great and powerful” Oz from The Wizard of Oz peeking out from his purple curtained area. In bold, red block letters next to the image, it read:IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE, DOROTHY.Jane searched on the page for the product or service being advertised and came up empty. She figured “time” related to the woman’s wristwatch and Dorothy correlated to The Wizard of Oz but the rest of the ad was nonsensical. There were no website links or phone numbers that related to whatever they were selling. Avant-garde garbage. That’s what Jane deduced as she inexplicably tucked the magazine under her arm and walked to the cashier. Suddenly, the presence that had hung so closely to her disappeared.“That all?” the chunky woman asked.“That’ll do it.”The woman tapped her greasy finger on a greeting card stand to the left of the checkout. “We got Easter cards on closeout.”Jane regarded the woman with an incredulous stare. Did she actually believe Jane looked like a woman who would send someone an Easter card? Jane glanced at the nearly empty card stand and saw a glittery greeting with the Archangel Gabriel blowing his trumpet. Who in the hell sends Easter cards? Jane peered around the card stand and saw liters of spring water. She grabbed four bottles and added them to her pile. “Okay. That’ll do it.”

“Thirty-three even.” Jane handed the woman a fifty.

The woman opened the register and handed Jane’s change back to her. “Seventeen’s your change.”

“What in the fuck is going on?“ Jane muttered.

“Excuse me?” the woman asked, offended.

“Not you.” Jane’s mind was elsewhere.

The woman dumped the purchases into a plastic bag.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, still affronted. “Hey…” Jane was still lost in thought as she tucked the seventeen dollars into her wallet. “Hey,” the woman stressed, leaning forward.

Jane awoke from her slumber. “What?”

The woman pointed out the front window. “Isn’t that your car driving away?”

Jane turned around just in time to see the back wheels of her ice blue Mustang squeal out of the parking lot. She raced outside, instinctively grabbing for her Glock and coming up empty. The only detail she could make out was the back of a man’s head and his thick neck.

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BLOOD FLOWS SOUTH: BOOK ILa famiglia è tutto

Family is everything

Dominic Mangini

Chapter 1

A Present for Maria

Brooklyn, New York—Winter 1982

Zeppe Mangini paced the busy sidewalk while nursing a cappuccino. He felt it was a sure sign that the world was falling apart when people sold cappuccino in paper cups, but he sipped the drink to draw warmth and to make himself appear busy. Every few steps he glanced across the street to the apartment at 1255. Tommy Nunzio had lived there since he was a kid. Tonight he would die there.

Zeppe finished his cappuccino, waited for a break in traffic, then half-walked, half-jogged across the street. The horn from a souped-up Camaro blared as he reached the sidewalk. He tugged on his cap, covering a full head of coal-black hair, then nodded to his brother, Dominic, standing by the front steps.

“Dom, you sure there’s no other way to do this?”

“This is the cleanest. He’ll buzz you in.”

Zeppe paused, scrunched his face up a little. “Yeah, but that ain’t right. I’m—”

“Do it.”

Zeppe hit the buzzer, fidgeting as he waited for Tommy to answer. The last time his finger hit this button it was to ask Tommy out for a beer. Now…

“Who is it?”

“Tommy, it’s Zep. Open up.”

They walked into the building and climbed the stairs to the third floor. Zeppe cringed with each groan of the old wood, bringing back images of him and Tommy as little kids, and Mrs. Nunzio hollering at them, warning them about playing on steps. Zeppe took a few seconds to catch his breath, and to calm the rotten feeling he had in his gut, but he couldn’t chase away the image of Mrs. Nunzio. As he reached the top of the third floor, he half expected to be greeted by the sweet aroma of garlic coming from her kitchen.

His face scrunched again, a nervous tic he had since he was kid. “Dom, can’t we buy him a little time?”

“Not on this one,” Dominic said, and stood to the side.

Zeppe knocked on the door, hands shaking more than his stomach ached. After a few seconds the door opened. Dominic moved fast, pushing Zeppe aside while he shoved his gun into Tommy’s stomach. “Keep your voice down.”

Tommy backed up, hands in the air. “What’s going on? What—” His look shifted from Dominic to Zeppe, then back again. He froze, his eyes growing large. “Zeppe, what’s this about?”

Zeppe closed the door with the heel of his foot, never taking his eyes from Tommy.

“You shouldn’t have crossed Vito.”

“That’s enough,” Dominic said.

Tommy cocked his head toward Zeppe, lifting his eyes in a pleading gesture. “Zep, can you help me out?” His voice cracked when he asked.

Dominic raised the gun to Tommy’s head and pulled the trigger. Twice. The small caliber bullets bounced around inside his skull, dropping him to the floor. There was little pain. Even less blood.

Dominic knelt beside him, checked his neck and pulse. The two in the head had done the trick.

“Let’s go,” Zeppe said, but as he reached for the doorknob a noise from the bedroom alerted him. “You hear that?”

Zeppe and Dominic stopped. Listened. A fan hummed in the bathroom and the ever-present noise of the fridge came from the kitchen, but something different from the bedroom. “Turn off the lights,” Dominic said, then crept toward the back room, gun drawn. “I’ll go in low. Hit the light once I’m in.”

Dominic crouched, pushed open the bedroom door and crept forward, his gun leading the way.

Zeppe waited for him to get in, then hit the light. “Mother of God! A goddamn baby.”

Dominic glanced about the room, barely big enough to hold the crib, a rocker, and a small chest of drawers. The baby fussed, tiny hands covering its eyes. Dominic picked the baby up, pried open the diaper, then lay the baby on his shoulder. “It’s a girl. Can’t be more than a few months old.”

Zeppe still had his gun out. “I’ll check the rest of the place.”

He returned in a few minutes, gun tucked into his pants. “Place is clean,” he said. “So what do we do?”

“Call Vito, but use the phone booth. I’ll wait here.”

Zeppe thought about the baby all the way down the stairs. Vito would be pissed; they should have known beforehand. He exited the building, crossed the street and called Vito.

“Hello.”

“Yeah, it’s me. We got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

A long pause, then, “We delivered the message, but we found something unexpected.”

“Don’t make me guess.”

“A baby.”

“How did we not know about a baby?”

“I don’t know. I never heard of no baby, but sure as shit it’s his. Got pictures everywhere, baby clothes, baby food in the fridge and cabinets. A room fixed up.”

Zeppe waited through more silence.

“Leave it.”

“Leave it? Christ’s sake, boss. It could die.”

“Leave it.”

“Okay, you got it,” Zeppe said, and put the phone back on the receiver. Ain’t no way Dominic is leaving that baby.

Head hung low, Zeppe walked back across the street, up the steps, and into the apartment where Dominic waited with the girl. “Vito said leave it.”

Dominic was a small man, but intensity always surrounded him, an aura of danger that even Zeppe wasn’t immune to. He had seen men far bigger than his brother back down after meeting his glare.

“I’m not leaving her,” Dominic said, and he held the girl a little tighter. “Do you know Tommy’s wife? Where is she?”

“I don’t know, Dom. I heard she left him a few months ago, but I didn’t know about the baby. I swear. I wouldn’t have done this if I knew.” Shouldn’t have done it anyway. Goddamnit.

“Did Tommy have family? Brothers or sisters?”

“His brother died last year. Remember?” Zeppe paused. “There might be relatives, but none I know of.” There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of Dominic leaving that baby alone, or with child services. Regardless, Zeppe felt he had to try. “Child services would—”

“I wouldn’t leave a dog with them.”

“Dom, I know how you feel, but—”

“Take her with us.”

“Are you nuts?”

“We shouldn’t be in this situation, Zeppe. It was your job to check this out.” Dominic shook his head then handed the girl to Zeppe. “It’s cold outside. Make sure she’s warm.”

“Okay,” Zeppe said, “whatever you want.” He took the baby from Dominic, and held her close.

“I’ll wipe everything clean.” Dominic looked around, checked where they’d been, then went to the bedroom and got extra clothes, a blanket, diapers, bottles. When he returned, he handed everything to Zeppe, cracked the door and looked down the hall. “Wrap her tight. I don’t want that baby catching cold.”

Zeppe wrapped the blanket around her, making sure to cover her head. “What the hell are we going to do with a baby?” He said it to himself, but Dominic answered.

“Taking her to Maria.”

Zeppe’s head was shaking as soon as Dominic finished. “Dom, you’re my older brother, but you’re as nuts as Maria.”

Dominic turned to face Zeppe. “If you ever say that about Maria again, I’ll kill you.”

They walked to the car in silence. Zeppe handed the baby to Dominic then got behind the wheel to drive. “Where to?”

“First the warehouse, then to Maria’s.”

#

Dominic stared at the baby as Zeppe drove, letting his finger trace along her forehead. “She’s quiet for one so young,” he said, no trace of the vehemence that tainted his voice earlier.

“Yeah, I guess she likes you.”

“And look at those eyes. Such big brown eyes.”

“Beautiful,” Zeppe said, but he never took his eyes from the road.

When the little girl smiled, Dominic smiled with her, but soon afterward turned somber. He thought of the fate Maria suffered because of him. If anyone should have had children it was her, but she refused to marry Dominic because of what he was, and she refused to marry anyone else. He saw the pain when she sat at the playground and watched the children play. Pain she didn’t deserve. Perhaps this was God’s answer to his prayers.

There would be birth certificate issues and people to pay off…but that could be arranged. The bigger problem was getting Maria to accept the baby and then making sure no one ever told the truth. That was the difficult one. Truth had a way of creeping through cracks and oozing to the top, no matter how deep it was buried. He knew he could trust Zeppe, and he could trust Maria…but something in his gut ate at him. This would take careful planning.

Zeppe pulled up to a warehouse. Dominic got rid of the gun and changed clothes. Half an hour later he turned down the street to Maria’s house.

“Turn the corner and park on the street after hers,” Dominic said. “We’ll walk.”

“Dom, it’s cold, and that baby—”

“The baby will be fine in the blanket. I’d rather not be seen on Maria’s street.”

After Zeppe parked, Dominic checked to make sure no one was watching then signaled Zeppe to bring the baby. They walked around the corner and up to Maria’s house.

A few knocks brought Maria to the door, surprise registering on her face when she saw them. “What are you doing here?” Her voice not much above a whisper.

Maria was the same as always—as plain as her tawny hair and as quiet as a church at night. “Came to see my beautiful friend,” Dominic said, and removed his cap.

She brushed her fingers through the sides of her hair. “Beautiful? I’m already graying.”

Dominic hugged her and kissed her forehead. “I love that gray,” he said, then nodded to Zeppe, who handed the baby to Maria.

She went wide-eyed. “Whose baby is this?” She held the girl against her and peeled the blanket back one layer at a time. “She’s so small. Where’s the mother?”

Dominic brushed the baby’s red cheeks with his finger, and nudged her head with his nose, sniffing in her scent. For the second time tonight a smile lit his face. “Babies are so innocent. You can even smell it on them.”

Maria walked through the house, humming a tune while she rocked the baby in her arms. “You didn’t answer me, Dominic. Who does she belong to? Some woman friend of yours?”

“I’m surprised at you for saying such a thing, Maria.” Westminster chimes were signaling the half-hour. Dominic waited for them to stop; they were Maria’s favorite. “We found her on the street corner. She was in a stroller, freezing.”

Maria looked at him, perhaps trying to judge the truth. “I’m sorry, Dominic, it’s just…I thought…” She shook her head and continued walking. “Who would do that to a baby?” She kissed the girl’s head several times. “Poor baby,” she said, then turned to Dominic. “What can we do with her? Did you call those…services people?”

“You know I would never do that; besides, you always wanted a child. Now God has sent you one.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t keep her.” Maria made the statement, blessed herself when she said it, but a plea rode on her words.

“You must keep her. God has given you a gift. Someone who didn’t care abandoned her, now someone who does care will raise her.”

Maria stared at Dominic for a long time, then she hugged the baby as tears formed in her eyes. “There is no way I can keep her, but I will watch her for a while.” She walked with her for a few moments, then said, “In the meantime, I’ll call her Concetta.”

Dominic nodded, a smile on his face. Maria would never let go of that baby. “Concetta Gianelli. A good name.”

“I told you, Dominic, I can’t keep her. What would the neighbors say? They will—”

Zeppe shook his head. “Tell them a relative died. Trust me, they won’t say anything.” He leaned over and kissed Maria on the cheek, then kissed the baby. “I promise you.”

Dominic looked at Maria, then Zeppe. “If Maria keeps Concetta, no one is to know where she came from. Understand? No one.”

“Don’t worry,” Zeppe said. “Just the three of us.”

Maria nodded, clutching the girl as if someone might take her. “Yes, just the three of us.”

Zeppe turned and headed for the door. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Good night, Giuseppe.”

“Yeah, good night, Maria.”

As the door closed behind Zeppe, and Maria walked to the kitchen, Dominic made the sign of the cross, asking God for forgiveness. It was one thing to kill a man—but to take his baby and claim it as a gift from God might be pushing things too far. That was the kind of thing that could haunt a person in both lives. And what will Maria do if she finds out the truth? Even worse, what will this little girl do if she finds out?

“Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you’re at it.”- Horace Greeley

CHAPTER 1

NOAH LARSON WATCHED RAINDROPS cascading down the window over the kitchen sink, racing to a predictable end. Most drops would find their way to the bottom of the sill before joining others to form a small stream that spilled into a dormant flowerbed. A few lucky ones would take control of their fate, resisting the urge to be like all the others by clinging ever so tenuously to an open spot on the glass. But even they were susceptible to being washed away by a collision with just another raindrop or a blast of air. It was a depressing thought, but momentary when the reality of Noah’s life collided with it. Who had time to ponder the depths of existentialism when there was a Super Bowl to win?

In three hours, Noah was scheduled to join his teammates on a charter flight to Houston where the Seattle Seahawks would attempt to bring home the city’s first Lombardi Trophy. And it was going to happen—he just knew it. Nothing could stop destiny. Ever since he began playing peewee football, Noah’s talents were apparent to everyone, including himself. He had boxes of personal trophies, plaques and accolades stored in unmarked containers on a shelf in his garage to prove it. The only trophy Noah wanted to show off was the smooth silver one, hoisted above his head while confetti rained down from the rafters of Gillette Stadium. That destiny was only six days away.

“Dad, did you pack my lunch?” came the question from across the kitchen. Noah snapped back to the present.

“Sure, Jake. Got it right here.” The pro quarterback handed his six-year-old son a Spiderman lunch box. “I even remembered to put your favorite Capri Sun in there, too.”

“Apple?”

“I thought you liked grape.”

“Daaaaad! You always mix up my favorite flavors. I like grape jelly but apple juice.”

“Well, we can fix that right now.”

Noah shuffled to the pantry and ripped open a six-pack of apple-flavored Capri Suns, grabbing one for Jake.

“Here you go, son. I’ll get it right next time—don’t you worry.”

“It’s OK, dad.” The first grader stuffed the bottle into the lunch box. “You know, I’m really gonna miss you this week.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, sport. But I’ll see you on Friday. You and mom are flying down and we’ll do something fun when I’m not busy.”

“I can’t wait! Can we go see the Dynamo’s stadium while we’re down there?”

“The Dynamo? Son, I’m playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday and you want to go see an empty soccer stadium?”

“Aww, dad. Soccer is cool, too. Maybe if you win, the Seahawks can have a parade just like the Sounders did when they won the MLS Cup.”

Noah tried not to let his son’s remark bother him. Jake loved soccer and preferred using his dad’s celebrity status to rub shoulders with the city’s star soccer players rather than visit the NFL locker room. What gnawed at Noah the most was the fact that Seattle threw a parade befitting of royalty when the city’s pro soccer team won the championship the previous fall. The cash-strapped city never dreamed another title might come so soon. But if the Seahawks won, forget budget restraints. Seattle would have a Super Bowl champion and it would celebrate.

Noah knew the city would go into debt in six days to throw a matching parade. He cared less about competing with the city’s other pro sports teams but more about the overall sense of despair hovering over Seahawk fans’ mentality. Doom and gloom held season tickets for the Seahawks—all 67,000 of them. Noah would change all that, maybe even turn his son into a die-hard football fan in the process.

“Don’t worry, son. You can ride with me in the parade next week after we come back home with a trophy.”

“Go, Seahawks! Beat the Dolphins!” Jake pumped his fist in the air and without reservation, sprinted across the kitchen to give his dad a high-five. They both laughed. Noah picked his son up and spun him around once. They shared a hug that ended with a tight squeeze.

“Don’t forget your rain coat, buddy. It looks like you’re going to need it.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Better hurry before you miss your bus.”

“Dad, you’re beginning to sound like mom.”

On cue, Ellen Larson wobbled down the stairs, trying to stay upright in her four-inch stiletto heels. Her naturally blonde hair clung smoothly to her head as her usually flowing locks were twisted into a tight bun and held in place with a diamond-studded hair stick. She wore the shimmering red dress well, which outlined the contours of her curvaceous figure. The silk shawl draped over her shoulders toned down the image of a woman that would put most men’s head on a swivel.

Noah drew out a long whistle and shook his head in delight as he watched his wife of eight years come down the staircase. Who cared if she wasn’t the most graceful woman at the moment? Noah certainly didn’t. And neither did Jake.

“Jake, don’t think you’re going to school without giving mommy a kiss.”

Jake didn’t wait for his mother to make it to the front door. He liked being the first kid to arrive at the bus stop and wasn’t going to let the obligatory kiss from his mom prevent him from achieving his daily goal.

“I love you, Mommy,” Jake planted a wet kiss on her cheek

“I’ll pick you up from school today and then we’ll go shopping. We need to get some warm clothes for our trip.”

“OK, Mom. See you then.”

Ellen went to plant a kiss on Jake’s cheek, but he dodged and resisted. If there was one thing that was sure to get a first-grade boy laughed at, it was having bright red lipstick on your cheek. Instead of getting her way, Ellen withdrew and blew a kiss. Jake’s face lit up with a toothy grin as he put on his raincoat, grabbed his book bag, and ran toward the door.

The large number of students living in the Larsons’ neighborhood who attended Westminster Prep necessitated a school bus. Jake’s walk to the bus stop for the city’s most prestigious prep school was less than a block. Noah and Ellen had no reservations about letting their son walk alone to the corner of this quiet, tree-lined street. Even on a day that registered as extra blustery and rainy by Seattle’s sopping wet standards.

Noah watched Jake pull the door shut and hustle down the steps. Once Jake reached the sidewalk, Noah could see Jake tossing his Sounders soccer ball in the air as he skipped toward the bus stop. Noah craned his neck to watch Jake until he disappeared from his field of view. Noah smiled and shook his head, proud of his little guy.

“Don’t you look nice,” Noah spun around and turned his gaze toward Ellen.

“Thanks, honey. I am going to miss you. I can’t wait for Sunday to get here and this season to be over with. It’s so much better when you lose and don’t make the playoffs.”

Noah moved closer to Ellen. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“I don’t know how to respond to that. Wouldn’t you rather be married to a Super Bowl champion quarterback to impress all your socialite friends?”

“I don’t care about that—I just want you to be done with football so we can enjoy life together again. This football stuff just gets in the way all the time.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

Ellen suddenly grabbed Noah’s arms.

“Seriously? Are you going to retire from football?”

“Well, I’ve been playing football for a long time, living up to a lot of people’s expectations and doing what everyone else thinks I should do. I’m kind of tired of it. Besides, what better way to go out than on top and be the king of this city?”

Ellen began shaking Noah, giddy with excitement. She was careful not to jump up and down in her unstable shoes.

“I can’t believe this!”

“I was hoping you would react like this. Honestly, I’d like for this to be the last game I play and go out with a Super Bowl win. It’s time.”

Ellen smiled.

“You’re not just going to win,” she said, poking Noah in the chest, “you’re going to destroy the Dolphins!”

She turned and headed back upstairs to finish primping for her shopping outing. Noah watched her put her fist in the air and mumble something about “no more football.” He knew retiring would make her happy—and it was time to make it official.

Noah glanced at his packed bags by the door. He then walked back to the kitchen and resumed raindrop watching. Noah stared out the window, grappling with the fact that he had uttered aloud the thought that had been tormenting him for the past six months: Did he have the nerve to walk away from the game that had consumed his entire life? But there was no going back now. Ellen had likely already committed to memory their entre conversation, word for word. And Noah knew she would make sure he kept his word. It was one of the things he liked best about being married to Ellen. It was also one of the worst.

***

Carlos Rivera nursed the cup of coffee in his right hand. It wasn’t cold yet but it was getting there quickly. Another minute or two and it would be undrinkable. Not that he minded. He thought the claim that Seattle was home to the best coffee in the United States was a chiste. It had been a week since he arrived in Seattle, and this was the fifth different brand of coffee he had tried. He remained unimpressed. However, he knew next month Seattle would be invaded by Buenisimo!, the best coffee south of the border. It would make his return trip more palatable.

Yet a chance to sample Seattle’s famous coffee was hardly the reason Rivera found himself far away from his family. Not that he had a choice. When Mr. Hernandez said, “Go to Seattle,” he went. No questions, no protests. Yet this job made Rivera sick. He told himself he was a professional and he could do this. It’s what he told himself every time that Mr. Hernandez required him to do something distasteful. Rivera hated dipping a rival gang member’s hand in acid. Neither did he care for shooting a man’s beloved dog just to make a point. But this assignment? This one was exceptionally cruel. It was so monstrous in its nature that Rivera wondered if Mr. Hernandez even had a conscience anymore—or a heart. Of course, Rivera could refuse. But he loved his family too much. He preferred ever so slightly this sordid existence over death, even if it was a half-step above. Choosing one over the other was about a 50-50 proposition. Rivera chose to live.

Rivera shook his partner, Juan Morales, who had just dozed off in the passenger’s seat.

“It’s time. Wake up.”

Morales rubbed his face and looked through the rain-speckled windshield at their target meandering down the sidewalk. The pulsing wipers swept away a handful of raindrops, gliding across the glass creating a clean space for more raindrops to gather.

“That’s him,” Rivera said.

He eased the car forward and stopped about 10 feet past the target.

With great precision and efficiency, Morales jumped out of the car and grabbed the confused boy. Jake resisted his abductor yet was only able to make one muted call for help. Rivera secured the boy’s arms and mouth; Morales snatched his legs. The boy squirmed and tried to kick free, but in less than two seconds, he was in the backseat of the Town Car wedged between the seat and Morales’ left knee. It was a fight the boy had no chance of winning. His muffled cries went unheard.

Morales grinned and patted Rivera on the back as they pulled away from the curb and headed down the street.

“We got him!” Morales said.

Rivera said nothing. He adjusted the mirror so he could only see Morales. Seeing the terror in the boy’s eyes as Morales was wrangling him in the street was too intensely personal for Rivera. With a six-year-old son of his own, Rivera could hardly stomach this task. But he couldn’t let this get personal. This was business, a business he had to conduct professionally and efficiently or his own family might end up victims of Mr. Hernandez.

Morales couldn’t stop grinning as he basked in his moment of triumph, albeit a sick one—a 28-year-old man overpowering a six-year-old boy 180 pounds his junior. He looked down at his catch, brooding over him with a gruff voice.

“Hola, Jakie boy.”

1/THE PERFECT CANDIDATEA month before Beth Hill made her 911 call, the job posted on Craigslist.

Case assistant. Exoneration Foundation.

He’d been looking for weeks, but this was the first listing that really jumped out at him, truly suited him, and that he thought he had a shot at.

“Candidates must have strong analytic skills, attention to detail, commitment to social justice,” the ad read. “Interest in criminal justice issues, collegial and collaborative work style are a must, candidates should be skilled in writing and presenting information clearly and succinctly and dealing with emotionally charged situations professionally.”

Check, check, and check.

So there he was ten days later sitting on a worn black leather sofa, wearing a navy pinstripe suit that he’d picked up at a thrift shop. It hung off him a little loosely. He’d walked from his apartment. He was downtown, in SoMa—South of Market—on Third Street, in a small, cheerless reception area that didn’t look so different from the waiting areas of the state and city agencies he’d been obliged to visit in recent months.

The Exoneration Foundation.

He’d known about the place before he saw the ad. Some called it the “court of last resort,” but the foundation preferred a different, less dramatic description. It was a nonprofit, pro-bono legal clinic that represented prisoners whose wrongful convictions might be over- turned through biological evidence, the kind that was overlooked, misinterpreted, or botched in one way or another.

The founder was an attorney named Marty Lowenstein, a preeminent DNA expert. To prison inmates he was simply known as the DNA Dude. That’s what they called him. “Get the DNA Dude on it,” was their mantra for every guy who claimed he was actually innocent. “Dial that mofo up. He’ll get your actual ass off.” Fucking idiots. No one believed it.

Marty Lowenstein was a do-gooder. An actual one. The poor, the forgotten, the innocent schmuck on death row, the royally screwed were his meat. The irony was that he owed his reputation to representing a handful of rich pricks in high-profile cases that got big spreads in Vanity Fair. Those people you didn’t always exonerate. You got them off. You created reasonable doubt. But you didn’t get to walk a guy out of prison after twenty-two years for a crime the evidence clearly showed he didn’t commit and maybe even someone else had copped to in the meantime. That was exoneration. Lowenstein got off on it.

Richie Forman looked around. His suit fit right in. There was something a decade or two passé about the décor, a little off, a little tired. The furniture had obviously once served in another office, probably a corporate law firm.

Smack at ten, the receptionist, a young black woman with straightened hair, said the case director was coming out, she’d see him now. That got his heart going. You’re going to crush this, he thought. This one’s yours.

A moment later, a heavyset Hispanic woman with a pleasant face came out and greeted him. Her name was Lourdes Hinojosa, and after she shook his hand, she walked him back to her office. She looked fairly young, early forties, but she had a pair of reading glasses on a chain around her neck that made her look older, especially when she put them on to scan his résumé.

He sat there anxiously watching her. As she read, she nodded a couple of times but made no comment. The silence made him nervous. He crossed, then uncrossed his legs. Finally, she took off her glasses and looked at him with a renewed intensity.

“Richard—”

“Rick,” he said. “You can call me Rick.”

“Okay, sorry. Rick. I see you were in marketing at a dot-com.”

“Yes.”

“I suppose you’re looking for a more noble calling. You understand,

though, that the case assistant position is an entry-level position.”

She obviously had seen his type before—or at least the type she thought he was.

“Yes, I know. But—”

“We get a lot of people applying for this who are right out of college, including schools back East,” she said, referencing his résumé. “You’ll be doing a lot of grunt work. When was the last time you did grunt work?”

He almost said “yesterday,” but he held his tongue. He was prepared for this, the not-so-subtle age discrimination. He looked good for thirty- seven—but not that good.

“You might want to look again, Ms. Hinojosa. I was in marketing—but a long time ago.”

She put her glasses back on and looked at the sheet.

“Oh,” she said, reading the dates more carefully. “Wow. Seven years.”

She looked at him again. “What have you been doing since then?”

“Time,” he said.

Her eyes opened wide.

“Out in gold country,” he added. “Mule Creek.”

“You’ve been in prison?”

“Yes.”

He noticed her eyes zeroing in on the long scar on the right upper side of his forehead. He could have hidden the blemish better, but he kept his dark hair slicked back and parted to the other side—the left. The style was a little short to be a true pompadour, but it was longer on top and had some wave to it. She’d noticed the scar when he was in the outer office but probably thought it was some sort of athletic injury.

Now it seemed to take on new meaning for her.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what did you do?”

“Technically speaking, in the eyes of the court, I was responsible for the death of a twenty-four-year-old woman. Felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.”

“Oh.”

“But there were extenuating circumstances.”

He reached in his bag and pulled out a small sheaf of papers that he’d stapled together. They were mostly news clips, but he also had a couple reference letters thrown in at the end, both of them from the owners of restaurants where he’d worked recently.

He handed the packet to her. “In the interest of full disclosure, I thought you should have this.”

She leafed through the clips, starting with the San Francisco Chronicle piece that would forever label the post-bachelor party accident the “Bachelor Disaster,” then moved on to the San Jose Mercury News’s similarly provocative headline, TRADING PLACES, with the subhead, “Bachelor Party Boy Says He Wasn’t Behind Wheel, Friend Switched Seats After Accident.” There were pieces from the local papers, too, covering the trial and subsequent civil lawsuit.

“I vaguely remember this,” she murmured, her eyes betraying conflicting emotions: she seemed partly empathetic, partly perturbed.

“As you might imagine,” he said, “I feel uniquely qualified for the position. How many recent college graduates do you know who can say they have a corporate background and the kind of personal experience I have with this foundation’s potential clients?”

She didn’t seem to know quite how to respond. Perhaps she expected him to smile after he made his declaration, inject it with a little humor, but he didn’t. He said it with a straight face, deadly serious.

For good measure, he added: “I also have a keen understanding of what it’s like to be in a place where you don’t think you should be.”

She looked at his scar again. Then, touching the side of her forehead in the same spot, she asked:

“Did you get that in prison?”

“Yes.” He pointed to a smaller scar just under his left eyebrow. “This one, too. But on the basketball court.”

Before he was sent away, he’d been in decent shape. He ran twice a week and played some pickup games at the Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto. In the joint, though, he’d gotten ripped. He was putting up close to three hundred on the bench, which, for a guy his size— five-eleven, one seventy-five—was serious. And since getting out, he’d mostly kept up his workout regimen. The fact that he could wear the Boss suit, a size fifty, was a testament to that. Before he went up, he was two sizes smaller.

“I had six bad months behind bars, Ms. Hinojosa,” he said. “The rest wasn’t cake. But it was manageable. I helped some guys. I wrote some of the letters you probably received at one time or another. I have, as your ad says, an understanding of criminal justice issues.”

She nodded.

“And you also understand that the starting salary for the job is twenty- seven thousand dollars?”

“That’s better than I thought.”

“How much were you making before you went to prison?”

“In a good year, counting stock and bonus, multiply by ten.”

Now he did smile. And she did, too.

“Long gone,” he said. “Whatever wasn’t taken up in legal fees went to the accident victims’ families.”

Seeing her confusion, he quickly added: “A second woman was injured. Her roommate.”

“Not your fault, though. You were innocent?”

“I didn’t say that. There were extenuating circumstances.”

With that, she looked at his résumé again.

“Well, Mr. Forman,” she said. “You certainly meet the qualifications. But ultimately, I have to run this past a few other people. We have two case coordinators, one of whom isn’t here today, and a second case assistant who you’d share an office with.”

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll volunteer for a couple of weeks. You keep interviewing all the recent college grads you want. You’re not going to find anybody more grateful to do grunt work. In that folder, I’ve included my parole officer’s info, as well as the manager at a restaurant in Sacramento where I worked. I encourage you to talk to them.”

She considered his request.

“We wouldn’t be able to pay you.”

“That’s okay. I work nights. I have an income.”

“What do you do?”

“I sing. Mostly at parties. Corporate gatherings. Sometimes at the wax museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. Did a Bar Mitzvah last week.”

“What do you sing?”

“Sinatra.”

“What else?”

“Just Sinatra.”

She raised an eyebrow, not quite believing him.

“I’m a Sinatra impersonator.”

She laughed, and then looked down at his résumé again, stalling.

“Ms. Hinojosa,” he went on, “you know damn well how hard it is for a guy like me to get a corporate job, even a low-paying one. Eventually, I want to start my own company. But today I’m just looking to get back in the game somewhere. If I have to start from the bottom, I at least want to do it at a place like this, where I’m personally invested in the mission.”

She stared at him for a moment

before her mouth gradually broke into a smile. “I suppose you’d be willing to start Monday.”

“Or now,” he said.

“Monday’s okay.”

He stood up and shook her hand. The interview was over. He’d crushed it.

“Monday it is then,” he said.

I didn’t start out writing books, The Unbridled Series started out as a TV drama, and the Hollywood readers loved the show. The problem was we just couldn’t sell it. So one of the readers said to me, “Cindy, don’t be stupid. Turn your scripts into a book series.” and so I did!

In May of 2011 I took the big leap and exchanged my dancin’ shoes for a lap top—I retired from dance. It was a scary proposition, I was terrified, but I had the full support of my husband, Saint Bill. It has been a huge change for me. I went from dancing hard five hours a night to sitting in front of a computer. I still work-out and I take my dog, Harvey, for a daily run. I have to or I’d be as big as a house. Do I miss dance? Sometimes I do. I miss my students. I miss choreographing musicals, but I love my books and I love sharing them with you.
Visit Cindy at her website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and GoodReads.

The fading sunlight seeped through the curtains, shimmering over the silky white Persian cat, Stella, sleeping on the window sill. The candles on the vanity flickered, sending a waft of vanilla throughout the room, camouflaging the smell of sex. Ava West’s auburn hair cascaded across her shoulders, and her breathing was shallow and steady against Carl Lugowski’s chiseled chest.Lieutenant Carl Lugowski worked homicide for the Rosemount Police Department. He was normally a light sleeper as most cops are. Subconsciously prepared for that emergency phone call from the station that jolts them from their bed, because a body had been found in some dark alley, or a domestic argument had gone terribly awry, resulting in murder. But today his sleep was deep and his gentle snore was restful, holding Ava’s beautiful naked body in his arms, after their afternoon of abandoned love-making.

God she knew how to get to him. He had taken a half day off, they were supposed to see a matinee, but when he arrived at her apartment, Ava had other plans. Not a problem. Nosiree, Bob. She answered the door in a dark blue lace Teddy, accentuating the swell of her round breasts and her stiff nipples peeking through the sheer delicate fabric. Her sultry green eyes had a “come on” look, and her plump lips curled, begging to be kissed, hard.

Ava didn’t flirt. When she wanted sex, she was shameless. She opened the door and pressed her lips to his, running her hands over his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. There was no fumbling. The buttons slipped open with unerring precision. He slipped the strap of the Teddy from her shoulder, baring her beautiful breast, running his tongue over the pebbled nipple, feeling the undeniable pressure of his erection. Her smile turned devious, pushing him away. Ava was like that. She teased. He knew what she was about.

As gracefully as a dancer, she swooped up two glasses of wine from the hall table, strutting toward the bedroom. Her long silky hair caressed her back as she moved. Lord have mercy, how he loved to watch her walk toward that bedroom where pleasure would rule the afternoon, and where once would never be enough to satisfy her desire. Ava was a demanding lover, and he aimed to please and please and freakin’ please. Who needs a damned movie?

Their clothes lie on the floor, and the daylight was gently giving way to the purple whisper of twilight. They were spent. The sheets lightly covered their warm moist naked bodies, until suddenly the surreal quiet was broken by Lugowski’s cell phone buzzing and vibrating against the lamp on the nightstand. Damn it. His eyes dragged open slowly, rotating toward the meddling reverberation. He let out a low grouse, and then begrudgingly reached for the phone. Ava tugged at his arm.

“Let it go to voice mail,” she murmured.

Not a bad idea. In fact, he was seriously considering it, when his eyes caught the name on the screen: KATE WEST.

Game changer.

His relationship with Ava meant the world to him. He had wanted that woman since well, forever. He wanted her when they were in high school. He wanted her while he was away at the academy, and he still wanted her when he returned to find that she was Mike West’s wife. But now she was exactly where he always wanted her to be, in his life, and in his bed.

Wrangled and rocked beyond his control, his heart helplessly skipped a beat when Kate West was around, hell, when Kate West’s name was merely mentioned. She stirred something inside him that he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t wrap his head around, it confused and quite frankly scared the hell out of him.

She wasn’t the clichéd blue-eyed, blonde-haired, “girl next door”. But she was definitely a woman any man would want to come home to, wrap his arms around, and make love to night after night. Kate West was what Lugowski would define as “a keeper”.

WTF? He was in bed with the woman of his dreams. He should really let the call go. Yeah, really, that’s what he should do. She was squeezing him, why would she be calling? They didn’t have anything but a professional relationship. So…

“I need to take this. Sorry, baby,” he said, sitting up, pressing the phone as tightly and as covertly as possible to his ear. “Lugowski…” he announced, making sure he sounded authoritative, official.

“Carl, I’m so sorry to bother you. This is Kate West.”

Ava groaned, dragging her fingers through her hair, perking her ears when she detected a slightly familiar female voice, filtering through the receiver. It made her brows furrow and her lips purse. Suspicion was mixing it up with jealousy, fast. Lugowski had successfully muffled the voice, but she tilted her head against the pillow, narrowing her eyes, engaged. The voice sounded like Kate’s, and that was definitely an unacceptable intrusion on her afternoon delight.

“What’s going on?” Lugowski asked, recognizing the disquiet in her voice.

“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone, but it’s really important, Carl. Can we meet at McDonald’s?”

Coffee, he had had coffee with the lovely blonde at McDonald’s several times, usually at his request, and it had become almost a code between them-never anything sexual, and he wasn’t sure what he would do if it ever did. Shit. What was he thinking? Kate was Mike West’s little sister, and Ava’s ex-sister-in-law. It was too complicated, too weird, too out-of-control…

“I’m on my way,” no hesitation, the words spilled right out of his mouth, as he ended the call, pitching the sheets aside, swinging his legs over the bed, and reaching for his boxer briefs.

Briskly sitting up, Ava grabbed his arm. The black satin sheets slipped to her waist. Her breasts bobbed delicately into glorious view, “What? Wait a minute, where are you going?” She demanded in a high-pitched annoyed tone, and it only took a nanosecond for her green bedroom eyes to morph into a jaded glower.

It was a justified question that he knew he couldn’t give an honest answer to; unless he was absolutely sure he wanted to endure the repercussions. Ava would be furious, to say the least, if she knew he was leaving her bed to go to Kate’s aid, or whatever it was that he was going to, he wasn’t sure.

He just knew that he had to go.

To make a living he builds and maintains housing for recovering addicts and along the way he’s employed a number of his clients. The men wrestle with the siren call of drugs and teach Lorado about the difficult struggle to stay clean one day at a time.

When these two worlds come together, Lorado learns that not every elderly person dies of natural causes and that some estates are sold to benefit a killer. His latest project hits close to home. A woman he’s known since childhood haunts him from a fresh grave. Her grandson, an affable addict who has fallen off the wagon, stands to inherit a considerable sum whether he deserves it or not.

Chapter One
February 17th. Nineteen degrees on a Friday night and I was tucked in a dead lady’s bed trying to convince myself the pressure in my gut wasn’t worth risking the cold oak and then the bathroom tiles. Sound miserable? Not for me. I wasn’t thinking about the punk heir or how silly I looked in a pink comforter covered with big red roses. I was a pig, belly deep in mud. No part of me wanted to move because I’d been treasure hunting all day. Everything was sore, especially my right elbow, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
You’re probably laughing. Picturing a fat guy in a pink blanket who fancied himself a pirate. I was no swashbuckler. Unwanted treasure was my specialty. New England might not have had gold or oil, but it was packed with loot.My ancestors were either cowards or laggards. They landed on the Mayflower and walked inland far enough to get away from the Atlantic storm surge, but not so far they couldn’t run back to the boat if the Indians attacked. I couldn’t run back. I could walk if I lost a few pounds. Okay, probably not.
Every winter New Englanders dreamed of moving to Florida or South Carolina. Adventurous souls picked some island the rest of us had never heard of like Turks and Caicos. Not me. The South Coast was exactly where I belonged. New Bedford was the whaling capital of the world. Every old geezer who croaked had some scrimshaw or an oil lamp or something that had been around a few hundred years.In the old days people had a bottle dump at the back corner of the foundation. Old timers scoured the woods and picked through old homesteads that had rotted into the ground. My grandparents took me along sometimes. They built tiers of wooden shelves in their cellar, a spooky mildew-coated place that had one of the last stone foundations built in the area. They collected thousands of bottles from two-toned brown jugs to tiny blue medicine bottles. One day I found a Fairbanks & Beard soda bottle and my grandfather gave me ten bucks for it. Ten bucks for something I dug out of the ground! I was hooked.I didn’t wait for houses to fall down and their foundations to fill with leaves like my grandparents did. Yuppie kids called me even before their last parent was buried. They saw a house worth two hundred thousand, some cash, and investments. They browsed the jewelry and they were done. The rest of the stuff was just in the way. A bunch of junk that kept them from the big score. They wanted everything gone so buyers could start looking at the house.That was my domain. All the stuff they didn’t want. Some of it was worth a whole lot more than that old F & B bottle with the green glass and jagged top. My last thirty years were dedicated to learning the difference.
At forty miles per hour I could spot a barrel of Lincoln Logs in somebody’s trash and slam the brakes in time to swing around and pick them out before the garbage truck got there. Put me in an old lady’s house and I was in heaven.Everyone had some useless crap that never should have been made in the first place. Once that was gone, every single thing left was useful to somebody. The trick was matching them up. Every fork, can opener, end table, and cheesy 1970’s lamp was dying to make someone happy.In about a week I could have a house open for sale. Posted on Craigslist. In the Standard Times classifieds. A cardboard sign on every main road.

The people would fill the place shoulder to shoulder. Browsing. Smiling and sharing reminders of their childhood. Kids would pick up useless junk and laugh. An hour later an old lady would buy the very same piece. Young and old alike were struck with a combination of nostalgia and bargain fever, but every person who walked through the door had one problem. They were all trying to forget someone died in that house not long ago.
Death never bothered me much.

There’s nothing wrong with dead stuff. Road kill could make a great hat if the bumper didn’t poke a hole in the pelt. It was awful hard to mess up a raccoon’s tail with a car and those rings looked pisser dangling down the back of your neck. When you were seventeen anyway. Or maybe twenty. The raccoon didn’t care. He was gone.
People were different. They knew death was coming and didn’t want to entertain the thought any longer than necessary. Sometimes they got angry when they died. Sometimes I could feel it. That night working in Mrs. Newbury’s house I swore the old lady was watching me. And she wasn’t happy about me rummaging through her stuff.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know I was coming. My parents had known her a long time. They went to school together back when Rochester kids went to New Bedford High. Decades ago.

A year ago she’d hired me to replace her kitchen cabinets. And she walked me through the house when I was done. Showed me her treasures. Pieces of scrimshaw squirreled away in the attic. Plates I had to Google to find out what they were worth. Mrs. Newbury had some great stuff. She knew her grandson, Newb, wouldn’t appreciate any of it. Her telling me was a sign she wanted me to make sure the valuable pieces weren’t thrown away.
Sometime between showing me her house and dying, she’d gotten angry and decided to take it out on my stomach. Maybe I was sleeping on Mr. Newbury’s side of the bed, but that shouldn’t have mattered. They were together in Heaven. Or at least they should have been.

Maybe she’d changed her mind about me selling her stuff to strangers. The closet cramped with fifty years of floral dresses and skirts. Two bureaus overflowing with scarves and socks and underwear. Boxes, purses, and shoe trees pressed into every available space. The clutter slumped against the walls parted just enough to reveal the oak flooring along the weaving path Mrs. Newbury followed to the bathroom. The night light’s glow gleamed off those precious few boards and my gaze fell there as I struggled to sleep in spite of being haunted.

Old people got out of bed to pee a lot. Well, they couldn’t pee a lot, that’s why they got up so often. Anyway, the thing they feared most was a fall at night when no one could hear them and come to help. If you’d seen my big blue coffee cup you’d know I needed to get up a time or two myself. And at three hundred twenty pounds, when I fell there was damage. So I left the night light on even though I wasn’t keen on anyone seeing me wrapped in the old lady’s pink comforter. I’d have been under the pink sheets and rose-patterned blankets, too, if I wasn’t so worried about bedbugs. The look wouldn’t have changed. Only the temperature.

It’d be just like Roxie to swing by for a little action and snap a picture from the doorway. She was a whiz with the Internet. She’d email it to all our friends before I could get dressed and chase her home.
Giving her a key to job sites was a risk, but who knows what’d happen in those old neighborhoods. Junkies read the obits. They’d hack out every length of copper from the cellar if they thought no one was home. If they caught me sleeping and roughed me up, maybe she’d call the cops and save my ass. More likely she’d come by to give me a piece of hers. Sadly, three days after Valentine’s my stomach hurt so much I hoped she wouldn’t come.

My gut rumbled and I pulled the comforter tighter. Damned unromantic.
Wind whistled against the toothless exterior and found its way in through gaps around the windows. I’d pitched the kid a siding and window replacement job, but the only thing the vulture wanted was his grandmother’s place gone in a rush. Forsythia slapped the shingles and tickled the glass. The bushes could have been cut back enough in a day so you could see the street from the windows. The briars and scrub out back mowed with a brush cutter in three hours. Two hundred bucks to triple the yard and jack up the sale price at least three times that. No deal. No cash was going into grandma’s house. He wanted me to wring out every penny. Every cent he could get without lifting a finger or spending a dime.

Thankless cheapskate I worked for. Even worse when he worked for me.
A knot in my gut twisted so tight I forgot my annoyance with the kid.

The cramps forced me to wrestle out of the comforter and lumber down the path, hunched over in the dark, cradling my gut in my arms. On my second step, something jabbed the meat of my right foot. It pressed in so deeply, I hopped and crashed my right shoulder into the doorframe.
I swiped at the sole of my foot, feeling for blood, expecting a staple or a tack. A bit of broken plastic was all I found. It bounced into a corner for me to step on again later. The jostling hurt so much I thought my stomach was going to erupt horizontally. I wished I’d just kept walking and let the plastic burrow its way in. It would have been a lot less painful.

Four hobbled steps carried me through the hall into a bathroom that had been designed for tiny old people. Her toilet was wedged in a corner between the closet and the window. I leaned against the wall. Ignored the ceramic toilet paper dispenser digging into my knee. The cold air rushing through the window. Balanced there in the dark, the pain radiated lower.

Giving birth had to feel like this. It hurt too much to push. It hurt too much not to push.

The contents of my bowels willed themselves free with a liquid rush that went on far longer than should have been humanly possible. Stuff I’d eaten days ago freed itself from my body in a torrent that released so much pressure it felt as good as any orgasm.

Then my entire body seized in a cramp that folded me in half.

Women complain about cramps like it’s the end of the world. If this was what having a period was like, I’d take back every menstrual joke I ever told.

Forty minutes later I was still sitting there with the seat jammed so firmly into my backside the impression wouldn’t fade for a week. I’ll spare you the details, but stuff kept squirting out of me until I swore my intestines were inside out, hanging down there in the bowl getting a rinse.

I hate doctors almost as much as I hate health plans and the government sponsored socialist crap that forced me to pay for something I didn’t want so some lowlife could get free healthcare. My right elbow had hurt for two years before that night and I hadn’t seen a doctor yet. I’d rather wake up wincing in pain than pay some rich boy two hundred bucks to talk with me for seven minutes.
That night it hurt so badly I might have called an ambulance if I could have gotten my pants back on. Might have driven myself in if I could have taken a step away from the porcelain throne, but I was tethered by unrelenting cramps and the fear of my insides splashing all over everything if I stood up.
I clutched my gut and leaned forward, praying that somehow the pain would pass and I’d make it back to bed. Sleep would set me right. Little did I know sleep was coming in a rush. A nasty cramp hunched me right over forward and my foot slipped.

The bolt of pain in my groin erased any memory of the cramps. Blinding, mind-erasing pain that only men experience. My arms shot down to catch myself on the seat and free my crushed testicle.

The toilet seat broke free under my weight and I leapfrogged forward. The sharp edge of the vanity creased my forehead. That was the last pain I felt that night. My vision faded like an old tube TV, closing in from the outside to a point of light. As I lost consciousness I had the distinct feeling the old woman was cackling with delight.

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The Mediterranean Sea, 2008“It would help, sir, if I knew what we were looking for,” Captain John J. Hightower of the Aurora said to the stranger he’d picked up on the island of Crete.

The stranger remained poised by the research ship’s deck rail, gazing out into the turbulent seas beyond. His long gray hair, dangling well past his shoulders in tangles and ringlets, was damp with sea spray, left to the whims of the wind.

“Sir?” Hightower prodded again.

The stranger finally turned, chuckling. “You called me sir. That’s funny.”

“I was told you were a captain,” said Hightower

“In name only, my friend.”

“If I’m your friend,” Hightower said, “you should be able to tell me what’s so important that our current mission was scrapped to pick you up.”

Beyond them, the residue of a storm from the previous night kept the seas choppy with occasional frothy swells that rocked the Aurora even as she battled the stiff winds to keep her speed steady. Gray-black clouds swept across the sky, colored silver at the tips where the sun pushed itself forward enough to break through the thinner patches. Before long, Hightower could tell, those rays would win the battle to leave the day clear and bright with the seas growing calm. But that was hardly the case now.

“I like your name,” came the stranger’s airy response. Beneath the orange life jacket, he wore a Grateful Dead tie dye t-shirt and old leather vest that was fraying at the edges and missing all three of its buttons. So faded that the sun made it look gray in some patches and white in others. His eyes, a bit sleepy and almost drunken, had a playful glint about them. “I like anything with the word ‘high.’ You should rethink your policy about no smoking aboard the ship, if it’s for medicinal purposes only.”

“I will, if you explain what we’re looking for out here.”

“Out here” was the Mediterranean Sea where it looped around Greece’s ancient, rocky southern coastline. For four straight days now, the Aurora had been mapping the sea floor in detailed grids in search of something of unknown size, composition and origin; or, at least, known only by the man Hightower had mistakenly thought was a captain by rank. Hightower’s ship was a hydrographic survey vessel. At nearly thirty meters in length with a top speed of just under twenty-five knots, the Aurora had been commissioned just the previous year to fashion nautical charts to ensure safe navigation by military and civilian shipping, tasked with conducting seismic surveys of the seabed and underlying geology. A few times since her commission, the Aurora and her eight-person crew had been re-tasked for other forms of oceanographic research, but her high tech air cannons, capable of generating high-pressure shock waves to map the strata of the seabed, made her much more fit for more traditional assignments.

“How about I give you a hint?” the stranger said to Hightower. “It’s big.”

“How about I venture a guess?”

“Take your best shot, dude.”

“I know a military mission when I see one. I think you’re looking for a weapon.”

“Warm.”

“Something stuck in a ship or submarine. Maybe even a sunken wreck from years, even centuries ago.”

“Cold,” the man Hightower knew only as “Captain” told him. “Well, except for the centuries ago part. That’s blazing hot.”

Hightower pursed his lips, frustration getting the better of him. “So are we looking for a weapon or not?”

“Another hint, Captain High: only the most powerful ever known to man,” the stranger said with a wink. “A game changer of epic proportions for whoever finds it. Gotta make sure the bad guys don’t manage that before we do. Hey, did you know marijuana’s been approved to treat motion sickness?”

Hightower could only shake his head. “Look, I might not know exactly you’re looking for, but whatever it is, it’s not here. You’ve got us retracing our own steps, running hydrographs in areas we’ve already covered. Nothing ‘big,’ as you describe it, is down there.”

“I beg to differ, el Capitan.”

“Our depth sounders have picked up nothing, the underwater cameras we launched have picked up nothing, the ROVS have picked up nothing.”

“It’s there,” the stranger said with strange assurance, holding his thumb and index finger together against his lips as if smoking an imaginary joint.

“Where?”

“We’re missing something, el Capitan. When I figure out what it is, I’ll let you know.”

Before Hightower could respond, the seas shook violently. On deck it felt as if something had tried to suck the ship underwater, only to spit it up again. Then a rumbling continued, thrashing the Aurora from side to side like a toy boat in a bathtub. Hightower finally recovered his breath just as the rumbling ceased, leaving an eerie calm over the sea suddenly devoid of waves and wind for the first time that morning.

“This can’t be good,” said the stranger, tightening the straps on his life vest.

* * *

The ship’s pilot, a young, thick-haired Greek named Papadopoulos, looked up from the nest of LED readouts and computer-operated controls on the panel before him, as Hightower entered the bridge.

“Captain,” he said wide-eyed, his voice high and almost screeching, “seismic centers in Ankara, Cairo and Athens are all reporting a sub-sea earthquake measuring just over six on the scale.”

“What’s the epi?”

“Forty miles northeast of Crete and thirty from our current position,” Papadopoulos said anxiously, a patch of hair dropping over his forehead.

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Hightower.

“Tsunami warning is high,” Papadopoulos continued, even as Hightower formed the thought himself.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, we are in for the ride of our lives!” blared the stranger, pulling on the tabs that inflated his life vest with a soft popping sound. “If I sound excited it’s ‘cause I’m terrified, dudes!”

“Bring us about,” the captain ordered. “Hard back to the Port of Piraeus at all the speed you can muster.”

“Yes, sir!”

Suddenly the bank of screens depicting the seafloor in a quarter mile radius directly beneath them sprang to life. Readings flew across accompanying monitors, orientations and graphic depictions of whatever the Aurora’s hydrographic equipment and underwater cameras had located appearing in real time before Hightower’s already wide eyes.

“What the hell is—“

“Found it!” said the stranger before the ship’s captain could finish.

“Found what?” followed Hightower immediately. “This is impossible. We’ve already been over this area. There was nothing down there.”

“Earthquake must’ve changed that in a big way, el Capitan. I hope you’re recording all this.”

“There’s nothing to record. It’s a blip, an echo, a mistake.”

“Or exactly what I came out here to find. Big as life to prove all the doubters wrong.”

“Doubters?”

“Of the impossible.”

“That’s what you brought us out here for, a fool’s errand?”

“Not anymore.”

The stranger watched as a central screen mounted beneath the others continued to form a shape massive in scale, an animated depiction extrapolated from all the data being processed in real time.

“Wait a minute, is that a . . . It looks like— My God, it’s some kind of structure!“

“You bet!”

“Intact at that depth? Impossible! No, this is all wrong.”

“Hardly, el Capitan.”

“Check the readouts, sir. According to the depth gauge, your structure’s located five hundred feet beneath the seafloor. Where I come from, they call that impos—“

Hightower’s thought ended when the Aurora seemed to buckle, as if it had hit a roller coaster-like dip in the sea. The sensation was eerily akin to floating, the entire ship in the midst of an out-of-body experience, leaving Hightower feeling weightless and light-headed.

“Better fasten your seatbelts, dudes,” said the stranger, eyes fastened through the bridge windows at something that looked like a waterfall pluming on the ship’s aft side.

Hightower had been at sea often and long enough to know this to be a gentle illusion belying something much more vast and terrible: in this case, a giant wave of froth that gained height as it crystallized in shape. It was accompanied by a thrashing sound that shook the Aurora as it built in volume and pitch, felt by the bridge’s occupants at their very cores like needles digging into their spines.

“Hard about!” Hightower ordered Papadopoulos. “Steer us into it!”

It was, he knew, the ship’s only chance for survival, or would have been, had the next moments not shown the great wave turning the world dark as it reared up before them. The Aurora suddenly seemed to lift into the air, climbing halfway up the height of the monster wave from a calm sea that had begun to churn mercilessly in an instant. A vast black shadow enveloped the ship in the same moment intense pressure pinned the occupants of the bridge to their chairs or left them feeling as if their feet were glued to the floor. Then there was nothing but an airless abyss dragging darkness behind it.

“Far out, man!” Hightower heard the stranger blare in the last moment before the void claimed him.