Prologue

JUSTICE

The numbing wind lifts the hair from around my face, biting at my cheeks like an enthusiastic puppy. A cold front had come through last night. It is the beginning of October in New York, and already, people around me are hunkered into their coats, shivering.

I don’t.

Sleeping on the streets of San Francisco as a child hardened me... especially to the discomfort of the elements.

The rain that pelted like bullets. The cold that stung like knives.

And the times when the sky grew bleak, turning as gray as my stepfather’s eyes had been.

Flat. Steel. Ugly.

Just like today.

There isn’t any cheer in this place. Not so much as a spark.

So damn sad.

Taking a deep breath in, I let it rattle out through my mouth. I shuffle my feet on the grass to disentangle my black overcoat from my knees. An ache like a sucker punch settles in my chest. Not for the first time do I peer up at the heavens and question: what the hell is it all for?

My wish for an answer is futile. I know that. But today... just today, I pray for understanding.

I’m still staring, waiting for the writing in the sky, when Xaver nudges me in the side with his elbow.

With reluctance, my eyes shift back to the scene playing out with reverent care.

A cemetery worker dressed in dark blue jeans and a heavy black coat kneels by the handle of the crank. Without fanfare, he lowers the casket into the ground while the pastor bastardizes a few verses from Genesis.

The preacher gets to the part of ashes to ashes and dust to dust just as the coffin settles with a weighted thump into the earth.

The silence around the grave breaks for the song of the rain and the sniffles and unabashed crying of her sons.

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