The Curse of the Cobalt Moon

By Lou Hernández

In The Curse of the Cobalt Moon, teenage hemophiliac, Joshua Puig discovers that he is a half-vampire. He has his life turned upside down when he is confronted with the existence of two types of half-vampires--a non-aggressive group, and another, infused with a much more combative and deadly blood stock. Joshua reluctantly accepts that he belongs to the group with the 'passive' supernatural strains.

A cycle of seven blue moons completes the transformation for Joshua and all like him. Now, aged 16, a foster child living in Miami during the late 1960s, he is rapidly nearing this life changing event.

Leading up to the "cobalt moon reckoning" Joshua, his fellow half-vampire, Milagros, and friends are thrust into their own life and death battle against the vengeance-seeking vampire vixen, Alegría Pérez.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645369639

Lou Hernández

Lou Hernández is the author of several baseball histories and biographies. He was born­­­ in Cuba and lives in South Florida. This is his first novel.

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Phrases

About the Author

Lou Hernández is the author of several baseball histories and biographies. He was born­­­ in Cuba and lives in South Florida. This is his first novel.

Dedication

For Olivia. May all of your sunrises be bright and all of your sunsets rosy through all the days of your life.

Copyright Information

Copyright © Lou Hernández (2019)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Hernández, Lou

The Curse of the Cobalt Moon

ISBN 9781641823203 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781641823210 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781641823227 (Kindle)

ISBN 9781645369639 (ePub)

The main category of the book: Fiction / Fantasy / General

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2019)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

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Other Books by the Author

Manager of the Giants: The Tactics, Temper and True Record of John McGraw (2018)

The 1933 New York Giants: Bill Terry’s Unexpected World Champions (2017)

Chronology of Latin Americans in Baseball, 1871–2015 (2016)

Baseball’s Great Hispanic Pitchers: Seventeen Aces from the Major, Negro and Latin American Leagues (2015)

Memories of Winter Ball: Interviews with Players in the Latin American Winter Leagues (2013)

The Rise of the Latin American Baseball Leagues, 1947–1961: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela (2011)

Principal Characters

Joshua Puig [pronounced PWEEG]—high school student with hemophilia and a half-vampire

Milagros Ricardo—high school student with a heavy crush on Joshua. Docile half-vampire

Jerry Porter—Joshua’s best friend

Dawn Landis—high school student and Joshua’s unrequited love interest

Raúl Pérez—Joshua’s high school rival and Dawn Landis’s boyfriend. Hostile half-vampire

Cira Pérez—Raúl’s sister and Hostile half-vampire

Alegría Pérez—Raúl and Cira’s vampire mother

Margot Navarro—Alegría’s mother

Manolín Suárez—Milagros’s cousin

Rosa Montes—Milagros’s mother

Juan Montes—Milagros’s stepfather

Rafaela ‘Felita’ Sánchez—Joshua’s aunt

Carmen Puig Sánchez—Joshua’s mother

Prologue

Cira Pérez silently pushed open the swing door to the kitchen and peeked inside. The two other women of the house, her mother and grandmother, were facing the sink.

"Come in, mija," she heard her mother say without turning around.

Was it my perfume? Cira wondered as she tried to determine the source of her mother’s apparent psychic powers. But the curiosity quickly faded as she eyed the two most influential women in her life working in tandem, finishing up the dishes. The task appeared nearly done. Her grandmother, with her yellow Playtex gloves half way up her arms, always washed.

Standing near the round breakfast table, Cira now understood why she, along with her brother, had been summoned. She waited until her mother handed the last of the plates to her grandmother, who placed it—with a clink—on top of others in a neat pile. Hurriedly, she moved forward. Mom, please make Raúl wash, and I’ll dry. He’s a sophomore. I’m barely fourteen.

Her mother dropped the drying rag on the counter. A half-smile came over her face as she shot a glance at her Playtex glove-wearing mother. I didn’t call you here to assign you new chores, she said with a gentle stroke of her daughter’s head.

Oh. You didn’t? Cira cheerily replied. But you said right after dinner you had an important announcement involving me and Raúl.

Where is your brother?

I don’t know. Probably combing his hair with that greasy kid stuff.

Wiping her hands in the apron around her waist, Cira’s mother moved toward the kitchen door. Ready to push through, she abruptly stopped. Come in, darling, she said.

The door swung open and in stepped Raúl like the leading man in a play making his grand entrance. Cira barely had time to digest her mother’s clairvoyant act again because the full-of-himself Raúl started in with her. Whatever I put in my hair is better than that smelly sticky stuff you spray all over yours. Raúl’s chest then deflated and he swiveled toward his mother. Wait, he said, pointing toward the door, how did you…? I didn’t make a sound.

At least my hair spray doesn’t leave my hands all oily, said Cira, satisfying a need to get the last jousting word in with her sibling.

Sit down, ordered their mother. You too, Cira.

Cira obeyed. It wasn’t too often that her mother addressed her by her christened name. She became a little worried, but not enough to resist matching ugly faces with Raúl as he sat. In the process, she pushed away the opened wall calendar that was on the table to give her hands more room.

As she pulled off her apron, Cira noticed the hemline of her mother’s sleeveless lime dress was now higher than the apron’s length. That did not used to be the case. I thought it best to have this talk with the two of you together, her mother said, the tips of her fingers coming together in an almost reverent way.

"Mom, we had our talk," Cira said.

Don’t get antsy, either of you. This isn’t about sex.

As Raúl relaxed in his chair, their mother breathed deeply and said: I am a vampire. A blood-sucking, life-draining vampire. I rest in seclusion during the day and kill indiscriminately at night. But not every night. Just twice…maybe three times a week. I could feed more often if I wanted, but overindulging leads me to put on excess water weight.

Cira and Raúl stared back with blank faces, with Cira finally speaking. Is this your weird way of saying you want to go trick or treating with us on Halloween?

I’m a vampire, the woman continued as she slipped into a chair, but your father was not. He was human. But the good news is that both of you will become vampires like me. My main objective, as a single mother, was to raise you both with love and affection so that you became well-adjusted, young adults. And when the time came, to point you on the path to becoming heartless, killing machines.

Cira exchanged a bewildered goggle with Raúl. I think I have some homework to do, she said, slowly easing away from the table.

Yeah, me too, said Raúl, extricating himself more brusquely.

Sit back down, the two of you, demanded their mother. She flipped around the calendar on the table to make it easier for the pair to read.

The calendar remained open to the current month, August, and Cira found nothing odd about it, except that the familiar calendar usually hung on the wall.

See that darkened circle, said the mother, and that darkened circle under today’s date? The woman pointed to two similar symbols imprinted under two different days of the month, four weeks apart. Two full moons this month. That’s a rarity. That’s the sixth time it has happened since the two of you were born. The next time will be thirty-two months from now, in May 1968.

Is this some queer astronomy kick you’re on? posed Cira.

When his mother did not answer right away, Raúl said, Yeah, you’re not going to start telling us our future by reading the stars?

That’s ‘astrology’, said Cira in a condescending tone. I said ‘astronomy’.

Are you making fun of my smarts?

I would if you had any.

Basta, their mother yelled. Enough. She then called out: Momó!

It was only when her grandmother was summoned, using the family’s pet name for her, did Cira realize that she had left the room. Cira always resented the fact that her brother was responsible for the endearing term that everyone used with their grandmother. She was told that little Raúl, just learning to talk, came up with the derivative after hearing others address her by her given name of Margot. Struggling with pronunciation, little Raúl turned his attempts at ‘Margot’ into ‘Momó’, which affectionately stuck.

When you guys were younger, her mother asked, interrupting Cira’s grudging thoughts, "didn’t you ever wonder why it was Momó that always took you on outings to the beach and pools and local tourist attractions? Who drove you to Little League practice? And you, mija, to your afternoon voice and music lessons?"

Cira responded, Your sunlight affliction, Mom. You told us you could be permanently blinded if you were exposed.

Her mother smiled affectionately. You’re both wonderful, she said lovingly. You’ve grown so accustomed to living in an insulated house by day that the closed-in environment has become totally normal for you.

Momó then came back into the kitchen along with another person—a young woman who surprised Cira and Raúl as much by her appearance as her presence. The stranger’s hair and clothes were disheveled and her face was bruised on one side. Her eyes were wide with fear and begged for help; her mouth was covered by a strip of duct tape. Cira and Raúl came half-way out of their chairs until reassured by their mother’s raised hand. Cira stared at the woman, her hands evidently bound behind her back. Adding a touch of the bizarre to the freakish sight, Cira, for the life of her, could not understand why Momó was carrying her bucket and mop in one hand while keeping the other hooked onto the stranger.

Well, said her mother, carefully smoothing the yellow tablecloth with her palms, we have already had the ‘tell’ part of our program, it’s now time for the ‘show’. Amicably taking the woman away from Momó, she grabbed the captive by the hair and yanked her head to one side. She scanned her children with a fleeting touch of sympathy. The shock of what you are about to see will wear off, my darlings. For this is your destiny. She then opened her mouth wide and leaned her head back.

It happened quickly, but Cira was sure she saw…them. And she was sure that her brother saw them too. Pronounced, pointy, and white, like those of the German shepherd from the house over on the next block. Like in the movies. Honest-to-goodness canine teeth!

A thin squirt of blood, from the area of the woman’s neck upon which her mother had clamped down with her mouth, spouted like an over-pressurized water fountain stream and then receded as if a valve was being turned off. The principle spurt splashed the area of the tablecloth that, moments earlier, her mother had been smoothing. Cira screamed as she and Raúl leapt from their chairs.

Cira then gasped as her mother paused from her feeding, holding one hand around her limp victim’s waist and the other around her throat, with three fingers placed over the neck wound to curb the bleeding. Her mother’s chin and neck looked as if they had been smeared with pickled beets. Oops, that’s going to stain, she said, apologetically bearing her blood-tarnished teeth.

Eyeing the tablecloth’s red-splotched mess, Margot wrung both hands along her mop’s long handle and sighed.

Raúl began to slap the back of his chair with his palm, his face filled with partial fear and partial deviance. Then, the fear subsided. Supercalifragilistic, he said, pronouncing each syllable with an admiring approval.

Cira removed her hands from her mouth. No, no, no, she said, confronting her mother.

The underworld being let the blood-drained girl fall to the floor with a thud.

I can’t be a vampire, said Cira. You know how squeamish I am; I almost fainted when I got my first period.

Chapter One

Joshua Puig sped off with the crack of the bat, huffing in concert with the fast, crunching strides of his feet over the outfield grass. He never took his eye off the soaring, miniature sphere, except for a glance at the four-foot-high retaining wall in foul territory that was rushing toward him. Against a cloud-crowded, late afternoon sky, the ball radiated a grayish hue in its spinning descent. After a long run, he stuck out his gloved hand and picked the chest-high ball out of mid-air, just before crashing his hipbone against the wall and completing an excellent, half-summersault catch.

Joshua loudly groaned, but the sound was drowned out by cheering applause in admiration of his excellent, game-ending grab.

On the team bench, Joshua did his best to hide his pain. He smiled with appreciation, basking in congratulations whirling around him from his teammates. Joshua was one of a handful of juniors on the varsity baseball team and the only regular starter. The chorus of approval from his senior teammates briefly swept away the pain in his hip and filled him with a rousing sense of belonging that he had rarely felt before. Joshua happily answered the praises with liberal exchanges of hand-slapping or palm-scraping. Slap me five, man. Gimme skin, Josh.

At the conclusion of each game, the Scorpions’ players would dutifully pull off their spikes in favor of their sneakers. This was insisted upon by their coach to prevent the cleated soles from scarring on any non-terrain surface. That same coach came over and patted Joshua on the shoulder. Way to go, Josh, said Richard Toney, for the benefit of all around. That was some all-out effort.

After he changed out of his spikes into his sneakers, Joshua stood up with a grimace, favoring the hip. Pain radiated from his injured side. Toney, who was also the school’s physical education teacher, noticed. Let’s go inside and have a look, Josh, Toney said, motioning toward the school building.

I’m all right, Skip, replied Joshua. It’s better if I head right home and just put some ice on it.

Though a bit skeptical, Toney did not push the issue. You have somebody to take you home?

Joshua had turned sixteen and recently obtained his driver’s license. But he did not own a car. His current family owned one vehicle, to which Joshua did not have access. Jerry’s mother will take me, he answered, as he flung his pair of laces-tied spikes over his shoulder.

Close by, Jerry Porter tried to hide his surprise. Jerry was one of the other juniors who played on the varsity. Jerry always managed to get into games, though he did not start. He would pinch-hit or pinch-run and stay in to play defense, usually center field, next to Joshua in right. He was virtually assured a starting spot on next year’s team. Yeah, my moms is coming, Coach, Jerry said. I’ll give the acrobat a ride to his pad. He avoided a direct look into Toney’s face, and then flashed Joshua a questioning glance.

Toney lingered a bit before moving away. Then, Raúl Pérez walked up. Good grab, Puig, he said.

Before Joshua could answer, Dawn Landis, on Raul’s arm, injected, My, that was a simply splendid capture.

Dawn’s voice was tinged with a Southern lilt that Joshua found extremely captivating—as he did everything about Miss Dawn Landis. Such as at this moment, the dirty blonde hair that cascaded to her shoulders, which was carefully pushed back high on her head by a wide yellow headband, allowing a veil of neatly trimmed bangs to fall casually over her forehead. She had emerald-specked green eyes that, Joshua noticed, sparkled with every light-reflecting movement. Dawn wore an orange ribbed sweater and a mahogany-brown mini skirt that stopped several glorious inches above her knee. At the sight and sound of Dawn, Joshua temporarily forgot about the deep pain in his hip. He smiled his thanks to her, replaying in his mind the melodious tone of her voice, with a simultaneous close-up of her cherry-pink lipstick-coated mouth. My, that was a simply splendid capture. His smile lengthened into a silly-looking grin, which he absent-mindedly retained while nodding in appreciation at Raúl.

Raúl’s disposition had clearly soured, however. It seemed he had not taken kindly to Joshua’s extended gaze at his girlfriend. Forgetting his well-meaning, congratulatory comment, Raúl clamped Dawn’s hand in the crooked elbow of the blue-sleeved baseball undershirt he wore under his uniform jersey and walked off with her.

After a few steps, Dawn twisted back and shot Joshua a curious half-smile. Then, she and Raúl converged upon another group of senior athletes and a small, interested gaggle of junior and senior female students. Dawn herself was a sophomore. A very rare sophomore that the jocks characterized as having Playboy looks, as in Playboy magazine. A rare tenth-grader dating a twelfth-grader. In high school, exceptionally pretty girls like Dawn could traverse the fraternizing divide that existed between older boys and underclass female students. Dawn maintained the privileged status of dating the best player on the baseball team. On the days he did not pitch, Raúl played first base.

Joshua tried not to stare in the glamour couple’s direction; he wondered about Dawn’s reaction. Did she think he was humble or stuck up, due to his fumbling silence? Was her half-smile one of winning approval or ridiculing amusement? For a moment, Raúl had also looked back in his direction as the two walked away. And there was nothing winning or amusing about his look.

Then the pain in Joshua’s hip grew stronger, and he knew he would be risking much if he did not address the injury. I’ve got to get back into school, he told Jerry.

Aren’t you afraid of missing your ride? Jerry responded sarcastically. They both knew Jerry’s mother was not coming to pick up anyone. As was their custom, the two friends had walked to Joshua’s house after school, changed into their uniforms, and walked back to the school for the game—all with the intention of returning the same way before Jerry continued onto his house. Everyone on the team wore their uniforms home after the game for washing. Jerry then noted the distressed look on Joshua’s face and became more sympathetic. You need help? he offered.

No, answered Joshua, though he actually would have welcomed a helping hand. He did not want Coach Toney—or anyone else—to know how much he was hurting. Just come with me.

Joshua and Jerry entered the school through the south-side double doors, the ones closest to the gymnasium, the ones that stayed open until all after-school activities ceased for the day. The two boys walked down one of the hallways, Joshua’s pace stiffly out of step with Jerry’s.

Finally reaching his locker, Joshua sped through the combination and unlocked the skinny metal door. The hallway was empty, except for him and Jerry. Joshua reached for a black leather toiletry pouch covered by a small blue hand towel on the top shelf of his locker.

What do you got there, Jay? asked Jerry. I didn’t know you shaved already.

Joshua ignored the crack. It’s not my shaving kit, he answered, grabbing the toiletry pouch, and closing the locker. It’s my first aid kit.

Joshua hurried toward the boys’ lavatory down at the end of the hallway, strongly limping now with each step.

Jerry caught up with him, looking a bit confused.

Inside the empty boys’ bathroom, in front of the mirrored sink, Joshua pulled off his uniform jersey. He unbuckled his uniform pants and, with a wince, peeled down one side of the waistband of his underwear. The incandescent light of the bathroom shone on a reddish-blue blotch of ugly skin discoloration spread over Joshua’s hipbone.

Jerry whistled at the sight. Looks like one of my momma’s blueberry pancakes.

Joshua felt oddly drawn to his king-size bruise. It pulsed with heat, a sensation very different from others he had experienced with past bumps and bruises. He placed his palm over his injured hip, and the pads of his fingers began to probe the affected area with his fingernail tips. After a few seconds, he began gently scraping the flaming abrasion with a sudden, throbbing desire to dig his fingers into the king-size welt.

Steady, my man, said Jerry, grabbing Joshua’s quivering wrist.

Joshua looked at Jerry for a stunned moment. How could he possibly have been inclined to inflict a potentially greater wound on himself? To cause himself to bleed? He shook off the impulse and returned to the matter at hand. He brought up his underwear waistband and loosely buckled his pants. Then, he unzipped the black leather pouch on top of the sink and opened it. Its lined inner flaps revealed two syringes and two small bottles held in place by stitched bands. The syringes contained needles with small rubber tips attached. Joshua slipped a syringe out of its half-circle containment loop and pulled off the rubber tip.

What is all of this, man? Jerry asked, his eyes wide. What kind of drugs are these?

Joshua placidly poked the needle through the plastic seal of one of the bottles and drained most of the contents to fill the syringe. Not drugs, he replied, backing into one of the stalls. Medicine, Jerry. Medicine.

Yeah. Well, if a brother like me was caught with one of these fancy squirt bags, no one would believe it was medicine.

Joshua allowed a half-smile to dent his face as he spied Jerry carefully replacing his medical pouch on the countertop, just before entering the bathroom stall. He latched the door and flipped down the toilet seat cover. With the syringe between his lips, he rolled up the blue sleeve of his baseball undershirt and began briskly rubbing the underside of his forearm. He clenched his fist until several spidery green veins plainly appeared, bisecting the length of his forearm to his wrist. As Joshua prepared for the injection, the heat sensation from the wound nearly overtook him. His heartbeat accelerated and his head began to throb from the blood pulsating through his temples.

Joshua quickly unfastened his belt and yanked down his pants at the waist. He pulled up his undershirt to see the contusion. The bruise had grown larger, redder, and more purplish than a minute before. It was not a pretty sight. Joshua worried that the wound would have to be drained. Hematoma, a doctor had told him, is a very bad injury to have with his condition. Hematoma, he knew from his manuals and pamphlets, was the accumulation of blood within the muscle tissue.

With the practiced routine of many years on his side and the instincts he had developed to manage his own well-being, Joshua exercised enough self-control to turn away the irrational thoughts seizing him—the urge to rip at the traumatized region. He took the syringe from his mouth and stuck the needle into the targeted area of his forearm. Joshua yelled, not from pain, but rather from the act of defying his crazy, overwhelming desire for self-mutilation.

Jerry responded to the cry with a knock on the stall door. Jay, man, is everything cool? he asked.

Joshua pulled the needle out of the penetrated vein in his arm. Using crumpled toilet paper, he dabbed at the pin drop of blood left on his forearm by the needle’s intrusion. He, thankfully, had administered the injection without complication. He sat there on the toilet seat, regaining his composure. His brain was late in processing the quick flurry of activity coming from outside the stall, but by the time the flimsy lock of the stall door flew past his face, he was back to being completely aware of his surroundings.

Surprisingly, not startled by the loud bang of the smashed-in door, Joshua calmly looked up from the toilet seat cover to see the scowling face of Raúl. The senior stood there, holding in one hand the black leather pouch Joshua had left on the sink. Joshua reacted to the brashness. Give me that, he said, springing forward.

Raúl anticipated the movement and rapidly hid the pouch behind his back. Not so fast, needlehead.

Raúl reacted aggressively to Joshua crowding him; he grabbed Joshua’s wrist and banged it twice against the stall. Joshua dropped the empty syringe that he held in his fingers, and Raúl flung the pouch out of anyone’s reach. In an instant, the two boys were grappling inside the stall. At close quarters, Joshua held two fistfuls of Raúl’s uniform jersey, while Raúl’s embedded hands appeared as if they would tear the undershirt from Joshua’s back.

Raúl was older than Joshua, taller than Joshua, and outweighed Joshua. But Joshua managed to hook his sneakered foot behind one of Raúl’s ankles with enough force to cause the oversized opponent to lose his footing. The narrow walls and toilet cross-section kept the scuffling boys from falling completely to the linoleum floor. Raúl pawed at Joshua’s shoulder before grabbing the back of Joshua’s neck to gain control of the situation. Face to face, his breath hot, he pinned Joshua against the stall door, which had swung shut.

Raúl had two hands in a vise-like grip around his over-matched adversary’s neck. Joshua tried his best to pry them loose, but Raul’s flexed arms dug in too closely to Joshua’s chest. Raúl snorted twice through his nose, like a bull getting ready to charge a matador. Then, Joshua thought he saw something completely unbelievable in Raúl’s eyes—just before his mind was jarred with white flashes during several moments in which he thought he might lose consciousness.

Raúl gave Joshua a ferocious yank, then an even harder push that sent the bathroom stall door flying off its hinges, with Joshua pasted to it from the driving force of the enraged twelfth grader. As if shot out of a cannon, the two tangled boys came flying out from the stall with a forceful bang and crashed into the lavatory sink in a loud, destructive heap.

The explosion startled senior third baseman Pete Williams enough to release his grip on Jerry, whom Pete had subdued in an overpowering bear hug. Once freed, Jerry leaped on Raúl, who still held onto Joshua, following the impact against the lavatory sink, as much to keep himself steady as anything else. The stall door was cracked down the middle under Joshua. Shards of glass from the broken mirror and shattered pieces of the porcelain sink rained down to the floor in a crumbling, dusty pile.

Jerry, though a bit heavier than Joshua, was still no match for his senior teammate. What’s the matter with you, Raúl? he yelled. Are you…

Pete easily, almost disdainfully, pulled Jerry off Raúl. As he did so, Raúl gave Jerry a chilling look that silenced the intervening boy and even gave Pete pause. Raúl let go of Joshua and guardedly moved away from the smashed sink.

Joshua carefully slid off the splintered stall door. He stepped to the floor, fragments from the countertop crunching under his sneaker. The disorienting white flashes cleared from his head as a pair of teachers burst into the bathroom: Mr. Patterson, 11th grade American History, and Mr. Zolnack, Algebra I and II.

Gentlemen! exclaimed Mr. Patterson, filled with despair and disappointment.

What is the meaning of this? cried a perplexed Mr. Zolnack.

Peeking in from the entranceway, Dawn appeared. With an adventurous smile, she eased past the surprised teachers and hooked onto Raúl.

Pouting her glossy, cherry-pink lips, Dawn smoothed Raúl’s uniform. Please do not tell me I was the cause of all this mayhem? she said, to the absolute consternation of both teachers.

* * *

Joshua sat in the principal’s office between his foster parents of nearly four years, Thomas and Katherine Garvin. Katherine wore her moderately long hair swept into a moderate beehive bump behind her head. Not too high and not too bulgy. Everything about Katherine Garvin emitted moderation, from the moderate makeup on her face to the moderate green dress of moderate length to her knees. Katherine did allow herself one indulging accessory—she liked to wear pearls. Today, she had worn her white pearl choker necklace; it gave her the look of a girls’ academy school instructor. During an intentional, sideways glance at Katherine’s sedate frame, Joshua distinguished the unmanageable wisps of hair along the base of her neck, exposing the dark roots of her reddish-orange, color-treated locks.

On Joshua’s other side, Thomas Garvin sat with his hat in his lap, trying to keep his eyelids from closing behind his black-rimmed glasses. His hair was neatly trimmed and combed, with