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CHAPTER 1 The train charged forward in the shimmering afternoon sunlight,
autumn's vibrant colors forming a natural lane for the raised bed of chipped rock and the
few hundred tons of steel and wood. The rails stretched out before the locomotive, light
glinting off their polished surfaces, tricked by the eye into joining together a half mile
in the distance, the illusion always moving forward at the speed of the train, as if those
rails spread open just in time to carry her.
For the driver of that freight, it was another day in paradise. Alone with his thoughts,
he and his brakeman, pulling lumber and fuel oil, cotton and cedar, sixteen shipping
containers, and seven empty flatbeds. Paradise was that sound in your ears and that rumble
up your legs. It was the blue sky meeting the silver swipe of tracks far off on the
horizon. It was a peaceful job. The best work there was. It was lights and radios and
doing something good for people – getting stuff from one place to another. The driver
packed another pinch of chewing tobacco deep between his cheeks and gum, his mind partly
distracted by a bum air conditioner in the bedroom of a mobile home still miles away,
wondering where the hell he'd get the three hundred bucks needed to replace it. He could
put it on the credit card, but that amounted to robbing Peter to pay Paul. Maybe some
overtime. Maybe he'd put in for an extra run.
The sudden vibration was subtle enough that a passenger would not have felt it. A
grinding, like bone rubbing on bone. His first thought was that some brakes had failed,
that a compressor had failed, that he had a lockup midtrain. His hand reached to slow the
mighty beast. But before he initiated any braking – before he only compounded the
problem – he checked a mirror and caught sight of the length of her as the train
chugged through a long, graceful turn and down a grade that had her really clipping along.
It was then his heart did its first little flutter, then he felt a heat in his lungs and a
tension in his neck like someone had pulled on a cable. It wasn't the brakes. A car –
number seven or eight – was dancing back there like she'd had too much to drink.
Shaking her hips and wiggling her shoulders all at once, kind of swimming right there in
the middle of all the others. Not the brakes, but an axle. Not something that could be
resolved.
He knew the fate of that train before he touched a single control, before his physical
motions caught up to the knowledge that fourteen years on the line brought to such a
situation.
In stunned amazement, he watched that car do her dance. What had looked graceful at first,
appeared suddenly violent, no longer a dance but now a seizure as the front and the back
of that car alternately jumped left to right and right to left, and its boxlike shape
disintegrated to something awkwardly bent and awful. It leaned too far, and as it did, the
next car began that same cruel jig.
He pulled back the throttle and applied the brakes but knew it was an exercise in
futility. The locomotive now roiled with a tremor that shook dials to where he couldn't
read them. His teeth rattled in his head as he reached for the radio. ``Mayday!'' he
shouted, having no idea why. There were codes to use, procedure to follow, but only that
one word exploded from his mouth.
The cars rolled now, one after another, first toward the back then forward toward the
locomotive, the whole thing dragging and screaming, the beauty of its frictionless motion
destroyed. The cars tilted right and fell, swiping the trees like the tail of a dragon,
splintering and knocking them down like toothpicks, the sky littered with autumn colors.
And then a ripple began as that tail lifted briefly toward the sky. The cars, one coupled
to the next, floated above the tracks and then fell, like someone shaking a kink out of a
lawn hose.
Going for the door handle, he let go of the throttle, the ``dead man's switch'' taking
over and cutting engine power. He lost his footing and fell to the floor of the cab, his
brain numb and in shock. He didn't know whether to jump or ride it out.
He would later tell investigators that the noise was like nothing he'd ever heard, like
nothing that could be described. Part scream. Part explosion. A deafening, immobilizing
dissonance, while the smell of steel sparking on steel rose in his nostrils and sickened
his stomach to where he sat puking on the oily cab floor, crying out as loudly as he could
in an effort to blot out that sound.
He felt all ten tons of the engine car tip heavily right, waver there, precariously
balanced up on the one rail, and then plunge to the earth, the whole string of freights
buckling and bending and dying behind him in a massive pileup.
He saw a flatbed fly overhead, only the blue sky behind it. This, his last conscious
vision, incongruous and unfathomable. For forty long seconds the cars collided, tumbled,
shrieked, and flew as they ripped their way through soil and forest, carried by momentum
until an ungainly silence settled over the desecrated track, and the orange, red, and
silver leaves fell out of a disturbed sky as if laying a blanket over the face of a
corpse.
Back to top.
CHAPTER 2
Six Weeks Later
Darkness descends quickly in December. In the flaming blue light of a camp stove, a man's
breath fogged the chattering boxcar as he struggled to warm a can of Hormel chili, the
aroma mixing with the smell of oil and rust. The faint vapor of his breath sank toward the
planking and then dissipated.
Umberto Alvarez thumped his fist onto the floorboards, the feeling in his fingers lost to
the cold, and then cupped both hands around the small stove, wishing for more heat. The
train rumbled. The can danced atop the stove. Alvarez reached out and steadied it, burning
himself. Be careful what you wish for, he thought.
The train's whistle blew and he checked his watch. Nearly ten o'clock. The last
significant slowing of the freight train had occurred ten minutes earlier, in Terre Haute.
Alvarez had taken careful note of this, for at that speed, a person could get on or off
the moving train – important to know for any rider. His reconnaissance almost
completed, this trip, Indianapolis to St. Louis, would be his last ride for a while. Thank
God.
Behind him in the boxcar, Whirlpool dishwashers were stacked three high, their cardboard
boxes proclaiming Whisper Quiet as the rattle of steel-on-steel shook his teeth.
Alvarez's fatigue-ridden eyes peered out from beneath a navy blue knit cap that he had
pulled down to try to keep warm. Still, unruly black hair escaped the cap in oily clumps.
A brown turtleneck was pulled up over his unshaven chin to keep out the cold. It protruded
from beneath a rat-holed sweatshirt. Over that, a faded fleece vest that had once been
turquoise.
The stacked dishwashers occupied half the boxcar, secured by tattered webbing straps held
together by cast-iron buckle clasps. The rhythm of the wheels on rail – two loud
bumps followed by whining steel, followed again by the two bumps – contributed to
Alvarez's pounding headache, a sound that would remain with him for days, on or off the
lines, a sound that lived in any rider's bones: cha-cha-hmmmm, cha-cha-hmmmm.
Pale blue light from the fire ring limited his vision. He could barely see to either end
of the forty-foot boxcar. There was spray paint graffitit here, if he remembered right, or
maybe that had been another car, another day, another line. It all blended together –
time, weather, hunger, exhaustion. He'd lost track.
The train could move him physically from one destination to another, but it couldn't
change the way he felt. The weary darkness that surrounded him had little to do with the
dim flicker of the stove. It lived inside him now. His grief was suffocating him.
Minutes earlier the open cracks at the edges of the boxcar's huge sliding door had
flickered light from a small town. The train's driver sounded the locomotive's horn on
approach. Through the car's rough slats, street lamps cast shifting ladders of light
throughout, reminding Alvarez uncomfortably of prison bars.
The train had clattered through the crossing, the warning bells ringing and sliding down
the musical scale, driving Alvarez further into depression. Any such crossing was an
agonizing reminder of his past. The minivan carrying his wife and kids had been recovered
nearly a quarter mile from a similar crossing, flipped onto its side and shaped like a
barbell – flat in the center, bulging at either end.
He felt only a sharp, unforgiving pain where he should have felt his heart. Nearly two and
a half years had passed, but still he couldn't adjust to life without them. Friends had
comforted him, saying he would move on, but they were wrong. He'd lost everything and now
he'd given up everything. To hell with sleep. To hell with his so-called life. He'd turned
himself over to the grief, succumbed to it. He had purpose, and that purpose owned him:
Payment for atrocities against him and his family would be made in full. If not, he would
die trying.
For the past eighteen months the media had reported a string of derailments: a freight
train in Alabama; another in Kansas; still others west of the Rockies. Drivers were
blamed. Weather conditions. Equipment failures. As many lies as there were train cars torn
from the tracks. He had not begun with any grand plan, but somehow one had evolved. He had
not awakened one morning to think of himself as a terrorist, although the description now
fit. He had a meeting with a bomb maker scheduled for the next day. He had never followed
a script, and yet he now found himself with a clear mission: nothing short of destroying
the huge Northern Union Railroad would do. David versus Goliath: he'd assumed the role
effortlessly.
While one hand stirred the chili with a red plastic stir stick, a shadow drew his
attention. Shifting shadows were routine in a boxcar; it was the shadows that did not move
that attracted one's attention. But this shadow was caused by something – someone
– on the outside of the boxcar; it – he- – moved slowly, boldly negotiating
on the outside of a moving freight. Alvarez alerted himself to trouble – some drunken
or crazed rider, no doubt, catching a whiff of the chili. It was no easy feat, what this
man was doing – inching along the boxcar's exterior; it implied someone strong, or
hungry enough to risk life and limb for a can of chili. Alvarez rose to block the door,
but too late. The heavy door slid open- – a one-handed move!- – another near
impossible feat.
Alvarez stepped back. The faceless visitor, silhouetted in the dark opening, stood tall
and broad, a big son of a bitch, with a football player's neck. This man reached for his
belt and a flashlight came on, blinding Alvarez, who felt another wave of dread: maybe not
a rider but a security guard, or even a cop. The feds had cracked down on riders since one
recently had been arrested for butchering people in seven different states. Hobo
Homicide! one of the headlines had read. The Railroad Killer, on the TV news.
``Smells good,'' the visitor said in a friendly enough tone, the voice low and dry. He did
not sound winded by his effort.
The comment confused Alvarez slightly, lessened his anxiety. Maybe this guy was just
trying to invite himself to dinner. But then again, that flashlight was oddly bright, too
bright. Sure, some riders carried penlights, even flashlights. But one with fresh
batteries? Never. Not once had Alvarez seen that. Discarded batteries were scrounged out
of Dumpsters, the last few volts eked out of them. If a rider had two bucks in his pocket
it went to booze, cigarettes, reefer, or food – usually in that order. Not batteries.
The crisp brightness of that light cautioned Alvarez. Heat flooded him. Finally warm.
``You alone?'' the visitor asked.
Alvarez had long since learned to keep his mouth shut, and he did so now. Most of the time
people tended to fill the dead air, and in the process they revealed more about themselves
than they intended.
The bright light stung his eyes. Alvarez looked away, the chili boiling at his feet.
``You Mexican?'' his visitor asked. The man's round face was now partially visible. A
white man, with the nose of a boxer and the brow of a Neanderthal.
Riders beat the stuffing out of one another for the damnedest reasons. Most of the time it
had little to do with reason – just the need to hit something, someone. Maybe this
guy rode the rails looking for Mexicans to pummel. Again, Alvarez glanced down at the
simmering chili.
``Or maybe,'' the visitor suggested, ``your father was Spanish, and your mother,
Italian.''
As a part-time rider, Alvarez had learned to live with fear, had learned to
compartmentalize it, shrink it, rid it of its power to seize control. You couldn't be
fighting fear and someone else simultaneously, so you learned to let the fear roll off
your back. But what he felt now wasn't fear, it was terror.
He knows who I am!
There was little he could do about terror. Terror, once allowed inside, owned you. There
was no fighting off real terror. Survivors could harness it, redirect it, but could never
be rid of it. Terror had to be dealt with quickly or it would freeze every muscle.
Alvarez bent down and launched the boiling chili into the visitor's face. He charged,
hoping to drive the man out the open door. But behind the ghoulish scream, as his face
burned, the man produced a nightstick or a sap, connecting it with the side of Alvarez's
face. He felt his nose crack and he spewed blood. Alvarez faltered, regained himself, and
turned, diving for the small stove. Coming to his feet, he waved it as a weapon, prepared
to strike.
This would be a fight to the finish. Alvarez knew it before the next blow landed.
Back to top.
CHAPTER 3
Alvarez awoke to the jarring sound of a garage door being hauled open, a pickup truck
starting, and the sharp smell of engine exhaust. He quietly moved a garden spade and
peered down through cracks in the garage loft into which he had climbed the night before,
weary and soaked in another man's blood. Dried blood, now brown, caked and cracking. If he
were spotted, it would mean the police. He couldn't allow that. Not after working at this
for eighteen months.
He shook from the cold and from his memory of the night before, realizing that he had
probably killed a man, whether in self-defense or not. By the time Alvarez had thrown the
intruder from the freight car, his attacker had lost so much blood that under the glare of
the flashlight he'd looked ghostly pale. Even the man's lips had been white. And now...now
he felt forced to question his own motives. He'd been accused of killing his own attorney,
Donald Andersen – a phony accusation that had caused him to flee in the first place.
The thought that he now indeed might have killed a man could add weight to that earlier
accusation. With their relentless pursuit of him, they may have turned him into a killer.
Now resentment and anger overrode his initial self-questioning. Northern Union Railroad
would cease to exist. This, for their lies and endless atrocities.
His position up in the garage loft afforded Alvarez a view of the truck's steering wheel
and two large male hands gripping it. Alvarez lay down flat just in case the driver
happened to look up as he backed out. As a precaution, he remained still, even after the
truck cleared the garage, and this paid off because the driver left the vehicle to
manually pull the garage door back down. Alvarez listened to the truck pulling away,
waited another half minute, and then moved the ratty blanket and canvas tarp off himself,
grateful that the owners had left a hot lamp going all night for the cat. The lamp had
taken the edge off the cold and had probably kept him from freezing. It was the glow from
the lamp that had called him to this garage: a beacon seen through the woods.
A train whistle sounded, reminding Alvarez again of last night's horror and that he had to
keep moving. They might not find the body for weeks – or perhaps as soon as that same
day – but whatever the timing, he needed to put as many miles as possible between
himself and southern Illinois, and fast. The man in the boxcar had known his birth
heritage – had teased him by saying ``Mexican'' first, then waiting and identifying
Alvarez's Spanish father and Italian mother. It meant that Northern Union Security was
closer to capturing him than they'd ever been. He'd obviously screwed up – had
allowed himself to be seen or recognized, or worse, he'd become predictable. Had they
known which train he was on, or had it been random chance, a lucky guess? Had they
determined his next target? Did they know he'd sabotaged the bearings? Had they finally
made this connection between the various derailments?
He climbed down from the loft, all his joints aching, cold to the bone, passing a small
bicycle hung on the wall and catching a glimpse of his own face in the bike's tiny
rearview mirror. His wife had claimed he looked more Italian than Latino, citing his olive
skin, thin face, and sharp features, but he saw his father's face in the mirror, not his
mother's. He gingerly touched his nose. Bruised, but not broken as he'd originally
thought. Like the rest of him, his face was crusted in blood and dirt. He needed a shower,
or at least a facecloth. He had a small tear in the skin above his slightly swollen left
eye, the cut clotted shut. It would clean up and eventually recede beneath his thick black
eyebrows. His dark skin would go a long way toward hiding the discoloration. Now he needed
to get back on schedule: he had a plane to catch. But he couldn't even walk out in public
looking like this, much less hitchhike. He glanced around the dimly lit garage, the
morning sun just burning the edge of the horizon and sparkling off the fallen snow. Panic
struck him: snow. Footprints. A trail to follow. Them – right behind him.
For eighteen months he'd been running, and though in a way he was accustomed to it, he
still broke out in a sweat at the thought of capture. He clung to his purpose, confident
that God would protect him.
Ultimately he blamed William Goheen, CEO of Northern Union, for killing his family. But
his revenge was no longer focused solely on Goheen. Not only did one life not equal three,
but Goheen had not acted alone. The institution, the corporation, had killed his wife and
children, intentionally or not.There was no halfway in this.
A change of clothes – and fast! he thought, still looking out at the carpet of
fresh snow. Time seemed always to be working against him.
He edged up carefully to the frosted window behind the cat's bed and peered out at the
two-story farmhouse not twenty yards away. Gray smoke spiraled from a brick chimney.
Icicles hung from the gutters. A yellowish light glowed from the downstairs windows.
The kid's bike hanging on the wall suggested a family, not a single guy gone off to work
in his truck. It meant there were others inside: a wife, at least one child old enough to
ride a bike. Maybe others, too – perhaps a mother-in-law, more children, houseguests.
But he needed a closer look. He wouldn't get anywhere in his bloody clothes. He could only
hope that school might take the mother and child away to catch a school bus, or that the
wife was still asleep, a heavy sleeper. He watched the house carefully for ten long
minutes, evaluating his chances of crossing the open space unseen. If there was movement
inside, he couldn't detect it: he decided to make his move.
He elected not to crouch or sneak. He would run openly. If confronted, he would act as if
he were in shock. He would claim there had been a horrible traffic accident, that he
couldn't remember where, or even how he'd gotten there, but that he needed a telephone
quickly. He needed help. He would play on do-gooding Midwestern values. From there, he'd
see.
He opened the garage's side door and started running. All kinds of thoughts went through
his head. How had he come to this point? He didn't belong here. Eighteen months ago he
would have laughed at the notion that he would be running across a yard of freshly fallen
snow in bloody clothes, with the intention of stealing fresh clothing from complete
strangers. He'd been a schoolteacher – eighth grade science and computer science;
he'd loved his job, his wife, the twins. To have told him then that the threat on his life
would be so high just a few years later; he would never have believed it. And yet here he
was.
He reached the house unnoticed. Perhaps he would not need any elaborate story. He crept up
the back porch. A forgotten withered black pumpkin frowned monstrously at him, its jaw
frozen, wearing a crown of ice.
He saw someone inside. An attractive woman in her early thirties, she wore green flannel
pajamas, the top unbuttoned enough that she wouldn't want a strange man gaping at her.
Short, but not skinny. Hearty Midwestern stock. Dull hair that hadn't yet been brushed
out. She left the kitchen and returned a minute later cradling a pile of sheets. Alvarez
ducked under the window and moved in tandem with her to the far end of the small back
porch where another window looked in on a pantry, a laundry room. An ironing board stood
on all fours next to the window.
The woman bent over to remove a load of clothes from the dryer, exposing her breasts to
him, and he thought how there had been a time when that might have had an effect on him.
Now he felt no stirring, no interest whatsoever. He thought of his wife, the crushed car.
It strengthened his resolve. He focused on a pair of men's jeans strung over a clothesline
rack in the far corner. The woman lifted a pile of darks to the top of the dryer. He
spotted a flannel shirt, some heavy socks. Alvarez leaned back from the window as the
woman unloaded the clothes. He sensed that she was about to look out, that she had felt
his presence.
She moved some clothes from the washer to the dryer and then stuffed the sheets into the
washer. He glanced around, making sure he wasn't being watched. He briefly considered
entering the kitchen right then – he felt certain the back door would be unlocked
– surprising the wife, perhaps tying her up, and stealing some food and clothing. But
any such encounter would put him at greater risk. Cops would be called in – his trail
would be easier to follow. He began to feel impatient, but the cold in his bones was gone,
replaced by hot adrenaline.
She reentered the kitchen. Alvarez moved cautiously to another window and took a position
nearer the porch stairs but still with a view inside. The woman measured out water into a
pot and turned on the stove. She pulled down a box of Cream of Wheat and set it on the
counter. Morning rituals. He recalled them with longing.
Then she hurried out, disappearing into another room.
He was guessing three to five minutes for the water to boil. How accurately did she have
such things timed in her head? His wife would have known exactly. Three minutes
would be plenty for him to get in, grab the clothes, and get back out. He made his move,
pulling his hand into the sweatshirt's sleeve so as not to leave fingerprints on the
doorknob as he turned it.
The door opened. He stepped inside.
The kitchen smelled like a home. God, he missed that smell. For a moment it owned him, the
poignant feeling carrying him away, and then the distant sound of shower water caught his
attention. It was warm in here, the first warmth he'd felt in days. Was she just warming
up the shower, or getting in? Each option offered a different scenario. He crossed toward
the laundry room. He wanted to stay here; he wanted to move in. He pulled the jeans into
his arms, stepped to his left and reached for the flannel shirt in the pile of dry
clothes.
The buttons plunked against the surface of the dryer. He stiffened, though he thought the
noise from the washing machine would conceal this much tinier sound. But in rising up
abruptly he bumped the ironing board and now watched as the iron, just out of reach, began
to rock, first this way, then that, teetering back and forth. At that moment, the wife,
her flannel pajama top now fully unbuttoned, pants off and left back in the bedroom or
bath, crossed the kitchen to where, had she looked to her right, she would have seen a
panicked stranger reaching out to stabilize her iron, which was about to crash to the
floor.
The iron started to fall.
Alvarez caught it, reaching out just in time. He then remained absolutely still, aware
that the iron might have just presented itself as a weapon, if needed. Could he bring
himself to use it that way? he wondered.
He couldn't hear her over the noise of the appliances. He pictured her measuring the Cream
of Wheat and carefully stirring it into the boiling water. That was when he realized she
had used hot tap water, not cold, which had shortened the time it took to boil. He moved a
bit in order to remain hidden, all the while keeping one eye on the kitchen.
The woman's pale bare bottom shifted hip to hip as she left the room.
Alvarez returned the iron to the ironing board, grabbed a few more pieces of clothing
– a T-shirt, several mismatched socks – and made for the kitchen.Here, he heard
the shower water still running. This woman had her morning routine all planned out.
He took two steps toward the back door and changed his mind. He returned to the pantry,
deciding to take some canned food while he had the chance. A clock ran inside his head; he
had maybe another minute or two.
``Mommy?'' a tiny voice called from behind him.
Alvarez flattened himself to the wall. Dead still.
``Mommy?''
He rocked his head to see, with great relief, that he was partially screened from the
kitchen by the open pantry door. Through the crack he saw a small six-or seven-year-old
boy with red hair, freckles, and a blue stuffed dog tucked tightly under his arm. The boy
crossed to the fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice. He moved around the kitchen
comfortably, reaching for a glass on tiptoes and then filling it with the juice.
The plumbing pipes to Alvarez's left rumbled and went silent. The shower had ended. He
stood there with his bundle of clothes and cans of tuna not knowing what to do next.
She'd be drying herself off now. Just from having observed her, Alvarez knew she'd already
decided what clothes to wear, if in fact she hadn't already laid them out.
The boy gulped the orange juice. Alvarez felt himself tighten, not over his predicament,
but at the sight of the boy – a living, breathing boy, in a joyful moment of drinking
orange juice. A child. Innocent. Loving. Waiting for his mother. Alvarez's vision blurred.
Nothing would bring his twins back. He'd revisited their loss countless times. He pushed
his anger deeper inside and locked it away, though only temporarily. It owned him.
Possessed him. But he could not work with it in the forefront of his thought, he could
barely move. He had learned to tame it but feared he would never be rid of it.
What to do? he wondered, silently urging the boy to seek out his mother. The Cream of
Wheat would burn in another minute or so. Mom had to be just about fully dressed by now.
His worlds were colliding. He had to get out.
The boy seemed to be debating whether to leave the kitchen, but Alvarez needed to take
action, now.
The window...
There appeared to be some home-fix-it caulking plugging its edges. Could he get out it
with his arms full? Slip off this far end of the porch? He could taste his freedom.
The boy remained in limbo, hugging his blue dog and staring off into space, but he faced
the laundry room, preventing Alvarez from crossing the pantry's open door and making for
the window.
``Nate, honey?'' called Mom, sounding close, though not yet into the kitchen.
``Yeah?'' the boy called in response.
``Stir the cereal for me, would you? Turn it off first! Use a pot holder! And watch out
for the bubbles. They're hot! I'm going to get your sister up.''
A second child!
The boy crossed to the stove.
Alvarez moved back to the ironing board. He set down his loot on the dryer and gently
moved the ironing board out of his way. Would she remember how it had been sitting? If he
could get out without setting off any alarms in her, he might buy himself more time –
freedom.
He unlocked the window, the washer's motor and churning water providing cover. One firm
bang with an open palm jarred the window loose. The weather stripping, long strings of
soft caulk, pulled from the jamb. He was in a full sweat now – hands, armpits, brow,
the back of his neck. He tossed his haul out into the snow, slipped his legs out, and
reached to pull the ironing board back into place, dragging it.
His mistake was attempting to stand the iron itself back up as he had found it. He stood
it up fine, but in his final effort to get out, he once again nudged the ironing board.
This time, he took no notice. As he ducked his head out the window, he heard the iron
strike the floor.
He pulled the window shut and scooped up his stolen possessions.
The woman heard the noise. Sounded like something falling. With Samantha cradled in her
arms and Nathan standing on a chair stirring his hot cereal, she stepped into the confined
space. She thought it felt cold, but this laundry room never heated well in the morning.
Northwest side of the house and all.
The iron lay on the floor. She stared at it, puzzled. Then the washing machine shook,
going off-center, as it was prone to do with sheets and towels, and the room vibrated so
much she was surprised every shelf hadn't fallen down along with the iron. Just another
thing that needed fixing. Like most everything in this place.
Excerpted from PARALLEL LIES © Copyright 2001 by Ridely Pearson. Reprinted with permission by Hyperion. All rights reserved.
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