We start walking and the sirens grow louder. “Wonder what that’s all about.” Kevin asks, looking over his shoulder and then back at me. “Maybe Old Man Michaels who owns that corner store is beating his wife again.”

“Or the dog,” I suggest. “I heard he beats his dog, too.”

“No way,” Kevin gasps. “The dog?”

I nod and assure him it’s true. “That’s what I heard.”

“Man,” he says. “That’s bad.”

I pull my doughnut from the bag. “That stuff after school yesterday was bad, too, right?”

“I know, right?” Kevin eyes me. “I wanted to help poor Henry, but I didn’t want to get beat up, too.”

“Me too.” I test the chocolate with a lick of my tongue. “That new boy helped and he’s big.” I take a bite. It’s really good. “I love this doughnut.”

“Right?” Kevin says. “Those are the best. So is the new girl,” he adds. “She’s pretty.”

I shrug and take another bite. “I guess.”

“Hey! Hey! Heyyyy!”

We stop walking and turn to find our next best friend, Connor, running toward us, arms flying around wildly.

“What’s his deal?” Kevin murmurs.

“Probably mad because we didn’t ask him to walk to school with us,” I suggest.

“I had only one extra doughnut,” Kevin whispers. “What do I say to him?”

Connor screeches to a halt in front of us and leans forward, hands on his thighs, panting hard. “Class is cancelled.”

I finish my doughnut. “Sister Marion sick or something?” Now I lick my fingers.

“No,” Connor says, straightening, hands on his hips. “I heard my mom talking on the phone. One of the kids from class is dead. As in never coming to class again.”

Kevin and I both drop our backpacks and together ask, “Who?”

“Don’t know,” Connor says. “But they found him down by the creek.”

CHAPTER ONE

PRESENT DAY

I sit in the back row of the theater-style Austin, Texas speakeasy, the air conditioner cranked on high, soothing the heat of a hot August night. A stage sits in the center of the room, and there is whiskey in my hand—an expensive pour of a high-end Macallan—my preferred drink. I’m loyal to what I believe to be quality in all things. There are other, more affordable whiskey choices, of course, but when I’m alone, without my family, I am no longer forced to play the frugal husband and father. A role that is cumbersome, but necessary to protect a higher purpose I must serve.

I glance at the attendees of tonight’s poetry reading, counting twenty heads, the ages varied; one young woman can’t be more than sixteen, while one man’s shriveled skin ages to sixty-plus.