BOOK 5 PART TWO

Cliff was far up the Coquihalla Highway before he realized it, driving with no destination in mind, just . . . driving. When he knew he could go no farther because fatigue blurred his vision, he pulled over and sat, head on the wheel, thinking, wondering where it had all gone wrong, what he’d done to screw things up again.

If only he could tell Lynne the lie she so longed to hear. If only he could make himself believe that somehow, some kind of miracle had occurred and what she insisted was true was true. But... he could not.

Presently, he turned his car and headed back toward the city of Vancouver. Hours later, as dawn broke, he was surprised to find himself parked outside the house where he had spent his first sixteen years. The drapes were drawn, the lawn neatly mowed, and a pickup truck was parked in the car-port with a ten-speed bike chained to a bolt in the wall beside the front steps. A basketball hoop hung high on the garage.

A kid on a bike, broad strap of newspaper bag ac