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Southern Review , he’d simply wound up his pitching arm and let the book (a hefty hardcover) go from his place behind the podium. Even with CJ’s college baseball experience, no one was more surprised than he was when the book flew unerringly toward its target and struck the man in the forehead.
    It hadn’t been one of CJ’s prouder moments, but he had to admit to taking some pleasure in having laid the man out between the rows of seats. There’d even been a little blood, a small raw knot on his head.
    Neither CJ nor his attorney had heard from the man’s lawyer yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. And depending on the amount the reviewer would try to collect, it might have even been worth it, considering the cathartic nature of the incident. Too, it might not be a bad thing for his readers to consider him temperamental. Weren’t most of the great ones?
    CJ ran cold water and wet his face, hoping this would beat back the pounding in his head. The headaches had been coming with more frequency, lasting longer, and reaching new pain thresholds with regularity. Matt had been after him for months to see a doctor, but CJ suspected his editor was only concerned that the recurring headaches would keep him from supporting the new book. He’d thought the headaches were just stress, and with everything going on, it seemed a reasonable hypothesis. They were getting worse rather than better, and that tracked right along with the fact that in the last week he’d assaulted a critic, been served divorce papers from his wife, and received his first ever lukewarm review in the New York Times . He thought it was a wonder he hadn’t had an aneurysm, all things considered. Still, CJ was beginning to question if following Matt’s advice would be the worst idea.
    As he stood in front of the sink, head tilted so he could see the hair clogging the drain, he felt a curious rumbling in his stomach that quickly turned to nausea. Before he could think to move to the toilet, he vomited into the sink. When he finished, he ran the water until the brownish mixture, with half-dissolved white ibuprofen tablets mixed in like Lucky Charms marshmallows, was gone. Then he rinsed his mouth to rid himself of the sour taste. When he was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to throw up again, he took another round of pills and went back to bed.
    He had almost drifted to sleep when the phone rang. After the third ring it clicked over to the answering machine, and CJ waited for his lawyer’s voice—the one that would tell him they’d been served. But it wasn’t Al. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in more than eight years.
    “CJ, it’s your father. Are you there?”

Chapter 2
    Adelia, New York
    Graham was out of the truck before the engine’s rumble had dissipated, which didn’t say as much about his speed as it did about the recalcitrant nature of the truck. It suffered through a series of small trembles and the automotive equivalent of a coughing fit every time he pulled the key from the ignition. The old Ford F-150 had seen much better days, but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. Too many fond memories had attached themselves to the vehicle—hunting trips up the Oneida, mud runs in the lowlands between Adelia and Manchester, and coolers filled with crappie sliding around in the bed, making satisfying thumps against the sides. In all likelihood, he would keep the truck until he slid behind the wheel one morning, eight inches of snow giving the emerald green body a second skin, and turned the key to ineffectual result.
    Of course, having the BMW siphoned away any sense of urgency from thoughts of purchasing a new truck. True, the X5 didn’t lend itself to the beating that driving around Franklin County would extend to it, but it would do in a pinch, and now that the road up to the house had been paved, the precision German engineering would remain as precise as its stringent manufacturing processes had built into it. But to this