Moonlight Mile (26 page)

“Watch that,” Angie called as we went to the back of the Jeep for the luggage. “That’s my child you’re corrupting.”

A snowflake fell on my cheekbone and instantly melted and Angie wiped at it with her finger. She kissed my nose. “Great to see you.”

“You too.”

She took my burned hand in hers, looked at the large Band-Aid I’d placed across the palm. “You okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “Don’t I look okay?”

She peered into my eyes, this gorgeous, volatile, hyper-passionate woman I’ve been in love with since second grade. “You look great. You just look, I dunno, pensive.”

“Pensive.”

“Yeah.”

I pulled Angie’s bags out of the back. “Something occurred to me today while I was sitting by the river, throwing away a five-hundred-dollar gun.”

“What’s that?”

I closed the hatch. “My blessings outweigh my regrets.”

She cocked her head and gave me a crooked smile as the snow found her hair. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Then you won, babe.”

I sucked in a breath of snow and cold air. “For now.”

“Yeah.” She held my gaze. “For now.”

I slung one bag over my shoulder and lifted the other with my right hand. My injured left hand I closed over my wife’s and we walked up the small brick path to our home.

Acknowledgments

S
PECIAL THANKS TO:

Lieutenant Mark Gillespie of the MBTA Police and Chris Sylvia of Foxborough Terminals Co. Inc.

Ann Rittenberg, Amy Schiffman, Christine Caya, and my Midtown family—Michael Morrison, Brianne Halverson, Seale Ballenger, and Liate Stehlik.

Angie, Michael, Sterling, and Tom for the early reads.

And Claire Wachtel for deworming the dog and sending it to the groomers.

About the Author

DENNIS LEHANE
is the author of nine novels—including the
New York Times
bestsellers
Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island;
and
The Given Day
—as well as
Coronado
, a collection of short stories and a play. He and his wife, Angie, divide their time between Boston and the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Also by Dennis Lehane

A Drink Before the War

Darkness, Take My Hand

Sacred

Gone, Baby, Gone

Prayers for Rain

Mystic River

Shutter Island

Coronado: Stories

The Given Day

Credits

Jacket design by Mary Schuck

Jacket photograph © by Andrew Sanderson/Trevillion Images

This book is a work of fiction. The
characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination
and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

MOONLIGHT MILE

Words and Music by Mick Jagger and Keith
Richards

Used by Permission of Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc.

MOONLIGHT MILE
. Copyright © 2010 by Dennis Lehane. All rights
reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By
payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive,
non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen.
No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded,
decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any
information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means,
whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without
the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition November 2010 ISBN:
9780062024978

Version 10262012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1