Chapter ONE

The kids slumped against the hood o his squad vehicle, not clinging to each other but wanting to. Their shoulders and hand-stued pock-ets pressed together, brown dust pasted to the toes o their sneakers.Benjamin Patil knew why. Blood hid under the dust.“You kicked the towel?” he asked them.“I ell over it,” the boy said. “I didn’t know what it was.”“Are we in trouble?” the girl asked.

Kids.

They were teen, sixteen maybe, and he thought o themas kids. He was only ten years their senior. Only.When did he get so old?“You’re trespassing,” Benjamin said, taking his camera rom thecar. He snapped some photos o the bloody towel, o the red fecksacross the grass. He listened to the chirps o his camera, the rustling beneath his eet, the Say’s phoebe and dickcissel futtering and chat-tering around him. “Want to tell me what you’re doing out here?”The teenagers both shited rom one hip to the other.

“I didn’t think so.” He pulled on a rubber glove, shook open a

transparent evidence bag, and grabbed the balled-up towel. It unrolled,

and a pulpy, grayish blob plopped to the ground.“Oh, man. Is that a brain?” the boy asked.“No,” Benjamin said. “Get in the car, both o you.”“What—”“Now.”

Christa Parrish

He shoveled the towel and placenta into the evidence bag, dropped

it through the open window o his nine-year-old Dodge Durango.Head down, he tracked the speckles o blood until they turned to

drops, then splotches, leading him along a thin, heat-eaten stream.

Something yellow was tucked in the slough grass on the near bank o a muddy pond. He strode orward, needle-and-thread awns snag-

ging his pants, trying to stop him rom nding what he knew he’dnd. And then he was there, at the pond’s edge, staring at a white

grocery sack, yellow smiling ace printed on it, two tiny eet twistedin the handles.“Dear God . . .”He dropped to his knees, clawed at the bag, the plastic stretching

like skin, tight over his ngertips. It split, and he saw human fesh

beore a swarm o mosquitoes poured into the air. Benjamin swiped

them away; one dove into the sweat on his orehead and bit him.He crushed it against his brow and, in the same sweeping motion,

gathered an inant rom the bag and into his hands.Startled by the light and the rush o air against its body, the new-

born scrunched up its ace and wailed, sts failing like a prizeghter’s,

knuckles bluish-gray and lmy. The umbilical cord hung rom its—

her—belly, a dirty shoelace knotted near the rayed end. Benjamin laid

her across his knees, tugged at the buttons o his uniorm, opening

the top two and then yanking the shirt over his head. He wrapped

the baby in it and sprinted to the car.“Tallah, get up here,” he said.“It’s a . . . a . . .”

“Just get in the ront seat. And belt up.” The girl did, and Benjamin

gave her the baby. “Hold on to her, you hear?”