Raveling (64 page)

And I was running. Later on I was running, wearing my blue-and-silver Nikes, around and around the track of the junior high.
It was afternoon, and soccer practice was under way. Kids with shin guards and green-and-white kneesocks kicked a black-and-white
ball across the field. I stopped, hands on my knees, panting like a dog—like the wolf boy—and tried to discern the point of
this game. I lifted my head and watched these boys, each of them maintaining his respective position on the team.

“Are you all right?”

I was suddenly lying on the ground. Suddenly, I was looking up at the faces of two boys, the white sky behind them.

“Get the coach,” one of them said.

“I’m all right.”

“You just fell over. I was across the field.” He pointed excitedly. “And you dropped like a rock.”

One of the kids ran off in the direction of the school.

I propped myself up on my elbows. “I’m fine,” I said. “I was just running too much.”

He had coarse brown hair, this kid, and crooked teeth. I tried to imagine his panic, the sensation of watching me, a stranger,
drop to the ground—the thrill, almost. I tried to see inside him. He was sort of smiling now, encouragingly. But I could only
imagine—

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

—and this was amazing—

—what he was thinking, and I could only imagine the world outside this circle of grass, the soccer field, the rim of trees,
because it was just me inside it, just me,
only
me—not my brother, not Hannah, not Katherine, not Fiona, not anyone, because I was alone now. I smiled at this kid. I got
up. “I’ll be fine,” I said. I was alone now, gloriously beyond rescue.

The following people deserve my gratitude: Mary Ann Naples, my amazing, wonderful, incredible agent at the Creative Culture,
Inc., and her fantastic partner, Debra Goldstein; Tim Perell and Bart Freundlich, who led me to Mary Ann; Michael Pietsch,
the coolest editor in NY and the one I had been hoping for from the beginning; Sarah Crichton, Lauren Acampora, Heather Rizzo,
Maja Thomas, Pamela Marshall, Linda Biagi, John Aherne, and everyone else at Little, Brown and Warner Books, all of whom have
been so encouraging and enthusiastic; Paul Sidey, my editor in London, and all the helpful folks at Hutchinson; Matthew Snyder
at CAA, a true champion from the start; the creative management at BBDO NY and all of my friends there, past and present;
my beautiful wife, Brigette Roth Smith, to whom
Raveling
is dedicated; and, finally, especially, my father, Peter Moore Smith, my mother, Anne Love Smith, and my sisters, Valerie
Smith and Julianne Moore, for a lifetime of love and inspiration.

P
ETER
M
OORE
S
MITH
lives in New York City and has had stories selected for the Pushcart Prize and
Best Mystery Stories
collections.

Psychotherapist Katherine DeQuincey-Joy is torn between two brothers: handsome, successful Eric Airie and Pilot, her haunted,
schizophrenic patient. Especially when Pilot begins telling her secrets only he knows and only he can share…

“I AM OMNISCIENT.”

Allowing herself to fall in love with Eric and trying to save Pilot, Katherine grapples with the mystery the two brothers
have in common: the agonizing disappearance of their younger sister twenty years ago.

“I KNOW WHO KILLED HER.”

A woman whose own life has unraveled, Katherine is venturing into the mind of a schizophrenic, and a maze of deception, betrayal,
and danger. For what tragedy tore apart two decades ago, blood still holds together: Someone in this family murdered one of
his or her own–and will kill again.

“I CAN PROVE IT.”

RAVELING

“AS ORIGINAL AS IT IS ABSORBING.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC…CHILLING.”

—James Patterson