CHAPTER 1: The Station of Desperation The ticket agent didn’t see a man and his dog; he saw a liability and a mess. He looked at Barnaby’s graying muzzle and the heavy, labored rise of his golden chest, and his lip curled in that way people do when they want to look away from mortality….

CHAPTER 1: The Verdict of Scars The heavy, studded leather collar sat on my father’s scarred kitchen table, smelling of engine oil and old rain. Across from me, the county officer didn’t look at my face; he looked at the massive, gray-coated shadow resting its head on my boot. “People around here have long memories,…

CHAPTER 1: The Shadow in the Hall The silence in Marianne’s house had a weight to it, like a dusty quilt that had been folded for too long. It sat in the corners of the kitchen and settled over the empty chair where Arthur used to read the morning news. For three years, the only…