The house seemed huge to him, a modern white palace with soft blue trim. Rockers on the front porch, screens on the windows.

In tidy houses with painted shutters, flowers and trimmed bushes in the yard. It always amazed him that people lived so neatly. He shifted, blinked hard to clear his wavering vision, and stared at the house. Shit, the way a machine like that would move, he'd be halfway there before anybody knew it was gone. The son of a bitch would get him to Mexico, all right, and anywhere else he wanted to go. There was a pickup beside it, rusted, rugged and ridiculously rural beside the arrogant sophistication of the car.Ĭam crouched down behind a lushly blooming hydrangea and studied it.

He saw the car first, a glossy white 'Vette, all power and grace, sitting like a grand prize in the misty light of dawn. His shirt stuck to his back his feet began to weep. As the sun rose higher, the air grew thick with heat. He badly wanted to find shelter, somewhere he could curl up and sleep, sleep away the pangs of hunger and the greasy nausea. He lost track of how far and what direction, but instinct told him to keep to a narrow country road where he could easily tuck himself into the high grass or behind a tree if a black-and-white cruised by. For reasons he couldn't name, he followed it along the edge of the marsh until it disappeared into thick trees. He'd never seen a heron before, and he thought it looked like something out of a book, a made-up one.īut the wings flashed, and the bird soared. A huge white bird rose up, making Cam's heart skip. The sun was beginning to break through the eastern sky, turning those muddy flats and that high, wet grass gold. The marsh's shadows and sounds gave him the willies. If his mind had been clear, he might have considered breaking into one of the shops that lined the water front, but it didn't occur to him until he had passed through town and found himself skirting a marsh.

A two-bit little town that had rolled up its streets for the night. When he crept off the train, he smelled water and fish, and he wished to God he'd thought to grab some food somewhere. Huddled in the dark, his body weeping at every bump, he promised himself he'd kill or he'd die before he went back. He didn't know where it was going and didn't care as long as it was away. He copped a ride in the cargo car of a train heading out of Baltimore.

Sea swept trilogy