Chapter 1 the telltale glance The steady hiss of rain spraying from the tires lulled Eric into a daze. As he drove along the empty highway, the teenager struggled to stay awake. Cracking the window, he drank in a deep breath of the cool, moist air swirling into the car then shook his head, reached over, and stabbed at the power button on the radio. It crackled to life with a cacophony of garbled sounds and voices. With a twirl of the tuner knob, the radio chirped and warbled as the tiny, glowing pointer swept across the dial. Nothing. There was no relief. Eric blinked, leaned forward, and peered into the darkness as he reached over and rummaged blindly through the pile of junk in the passenger seat. His fingers probed for one of the 8-track tapes littered throughout the car. Grasping one, he held it up to the glow of the instrument panel. "Nope," he grunted, tossing it to the back. He grabbed another; the same fate. Over and over, he searched the pile in vain. As the supply of tapes dwindled, his fingers dug deeper. Wedged between the passenger seat and its back, a serrated edge nicked his fingers. "Hmmm," he wondered. "What the hell is this?" Extracting his discovery, Eric eyed it closely. It was a faded black and white photo. The dim light revealed little of its image to his weary eyes. Tossing the picture on the dash, he made a mental note to look at it later. Returning to the hunt, his fingers poked into the soft remains of a bag of fries purchased earlier. He sighed. They were still warm. Suddenly, Eric jolted to attention as a siren and flashing lights closed on him from behind. Stuffing one of the fries into his mouth, he glanced in the rear view mirror and pulled to the side of the road. The screaming rush of sound and light blew by and was gone. The appearance of the ambulance did what the radio could not--he was now wide awake. As he caught his breath, Eric remembered the photo. He turned the radio down and switched on the overhead light. He found the picture and held it up. With a start, he recognized it: an old photo of himself as a child standing in front of the family boat. Eric studied the image closely. The date burned into the corner was May 16, 1965--only ten years ago. Though he had been only six, he remembered the moment as if it were yesterday. It had been the high water mark of his childhood. Rubbing his forehead, Eric's eyes filled with tears. It had been the first time he had ever seen the old boat in the water. Shaking his head, he recalled the excitement of what he had thought would be the realization of his dream. Surely he and his father were on their way to becoming skippers of the finest charter tour boat in all of New Jersey. Leaning back, Eric closed his eyes. He looked far away to a place no longer seen. He could still picture wooden skiffs and rusted trawlers languishing along the weathered docks that made up the world of his childhood. It was a salt marsh realm of desolate beauty where tidewater inlets meandered into timeless bays and estuaries. Gulls circled lazily overhead and rested atop abandoned moorings scattered among the reeds between sleepy cottages. Everywhere a somber peacefulness permeated this forgotten land. Wiping his eyes, Eric took a deep breath and sighed. "Well, at least Dad took a good photo," he mumbled. As Eric listened to the raindrops sprinkle a delicate rhythm on the windshield, the pain from those memories continued to gnaw at him. It never seemed to go away. No matter how many years drifted by. No matter how many times he ran away to the boat. Tucking the picture into his shirt pocket, Eric paused, then reached up and flicked off the light. He dropped the car into drive, peeked over his shoulder, and veered back on the roadway. Once again, he was alone in the dark with no more than his memories and the unintelligible droning of the radio. Reaching over, Eric swept the junk from the passenger seat onto the floor clutching one last tape as it fell. Raising it to his eyes, he nodded. In one swift, well-rehearsed motion, the teen inserted the tape into a slot in the dash and cranked the volume. The car throbbed with a pulsating beat. Eric drove on. Seeing the photo only reopened wounds he had been trying to heal the past few days. Despite time to sort things out, Eric was still troubled by all that had happened before he ran away. He could not believe he had lost his dream, his best friend, and his girlfriend--all in the same evening. He rolled his eyes, wondering how everything had spun so far out of control. He understood the argument with his dad had been pointless. For years the circumstances surrounding what he had thought had been their dream had not changed. Despite his latest attempt to break the stalemate, Eric knew there had been no reason to expect a different result. He realized money was tight. But it was one thing to have their dream continue to be postponed, yet another to have his dad sacrifice it to bankroll a future Eric wasn't prepared to accept. Being blindsided by his father's latest decision had really hurt. And as much as he hated to admit it, Eric realized his best friend had been right about his dad all along. Dragging a hand through his hair, Eric regretted the argument he had had with Tim. Despite his friend's warnings, Eric had refused to believe his father could ever betray him or the dream they had shared. "I guess denial ain't just a river in Egypt anymore," he mused. "Boy, was I ever wrong." Eric recalled his friend's anger and sighed. "I guess I probably deserved it," he mumbled to himself. "I shouldn't have blown him off the way I did." Struggling to see through the growing rain, Eric wondered if it was too late to make amends with his best friend. Eric winced. "Unfortunately, not gonna happen with Tina." Tina had been special. She was one of those offbeat quirky girls who had a way of getting under your skin. More importantly, she had always been there when Eric needed someone--especially after all the arguments with his father. Despite her constant pleas, Eric could never completely open up to her. It was like he couldn't let go of something--what, he wasn't sure. But he did know how gut-wrenching it felt when she drove off that night. As one of their favorite songs began to play, Eric mulled over the troubling words she had said in her goodbye. Suddenly, as his car rounded a bend, flashing lights of emergency vehicles lit up the roadway between the walls of the looming Pine Barrens--a stark and eerie sight. Despite his distance, Eric instinctively slowed down. "This must've been where that ambulance was going," he mumbled. Approaching the spectacle on the side of the road, Eric squinted at the brilliant bursts of light refracting through the rain on his windshield. It appeared to be a car accident. Drawing closer, he could see sparks dancing from the transformer of a downed power pole in the midst of it all. "Someone must have run off the road--probably trying to miss a deer or something." Eric shook his head. "Why do they plant those damn poles so close to the road for, anyway?" Entering the garish, other-worldly scene, Eric's senses smoldered with dread. Something was not right. Despite the gestures of a traffic cop, Eric pulled over across from the accident. As his car skidded to a halt in the soft gravel, he reached over and turned off the music. The only sounds were from the clicking of flashers and the staccato outbursts of a monotone dispatch crackling over a police radio. Prickling with expectation, Eric peered at the dark figures hovered over the wreckage. Eric's eyes darted between them, scanning the scene for clues. A telltale glance of an exposed fender was all he needed to see. He knew that car! At once, he was both panicked and paralyzed. He desperately wanted to jump out but froze. Each flash of the emergency lights revealed his growing anxiety. His mind raced through every conceivable rationalization. "No, it couldn't be," he reasoned. "This is too far away. It has to be someone else! It just ... it just can't be! Oh, my God, please!" Gripping the steering wheel, he already knew the answer to the question he did not want to ask. It was clear the car was totaled. He could feel the leaden finality of it all through the veils of mist around him. "Oh, my God, please don't let this be what I think it is! Please!" he begged. For what seemed an eternity, he sat motionless staring at the distorted surroundings through the intermittent beating of the windshield wipers. Eric wanted to get out, to see that it was all a bad mistake, and to move on. But the fear pinned him to his seat and his devastating doubts. Confused and torn asunder, tears welled up in his eyes. Suddenly he was jolted back from his deepening trance by a rap on the window. He hesitated, then rolled it down. "Y-yes, officer?" "You need to move along and clear the road." "S-sorry, sir," Eric said, pausing, "b-but I think I know that car." The officer glanced back at the scene as if to question Eric's claim. Turning back, the officer changed his tone. "You know who owns that vehicle?" Eric nodded nervously, struggling to regain his composure. "Wait here a minute," the officer ordered. Eric watched the yellow raincoat disappear into the turmoil. He stared at the grotesque tangle of wood and metal in the glare of the headlights. "Oh, my God! How could anyone ever live through that?" Tears began to stream down his face as Eric sat in stunned silence, unable to take his eyes off the horror before him. There had to be other Jeeps like that nearby. Yet deep inside some inexplicable place, he knew whose car that was. Nothing he could think or do could shake his mind from that dreadful intuitive certainty. Waiting for the inevitable, Eric's body grew numb, his mind drifting back to the events of only a few days before.