Authors: Sean Doolittle
Safer (35 page)
“Someday, my son,” he tells me, “I’ll instruct you about protection.”
I tell him there’s only so much you can do to be safe in this world.
Charlie is snoring in a chair the next time I see him. At some point, someone turns on a television, and we watch the ball drop in Times Square. Michael and Ben call Sara’s cell phone from Clark Falls to wish us both a happy New Year.
We wish them the same, kiss at midnight, and drive our old friend Charlie home.
Special thanks are due to the First Annual Box of Wine Writer’s Summit Invitational for its assistance in the writing of this novel. Thanks to David Hale Smith and Shauyi Tai for ground control.
Thanks also to Detective Craig Enloe of the Overland Park Police Department for answering sudden, left-field questions with grace and generosity. Verisimilitude relating to the practice of law enforcement is due in part to his efforts, and miscues are wholly my own.
Finally, heartfelt thanks to Danielle Perez, Nita Taublib, and the ace Bantam Dell team for their faith and support. Double thanks to Danielle Perez for holding my feet to the editorial fire (and for the ample on-hand supply of editorial ointment).
Sean Doolittle is the author of four previous novels: the Barry Award-winning
The Cleanup, Rain Dogs, Burn,
and
Dirt.
He lives with his wife and children in the Omaha, Nebraska, area, and his Web site is
www.seandoolittle.com
.
SAFER
A Delacorte Press Book / March 2009
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2009 by Sean Doolittle
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the
colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Doolittle, Sean, date.
Safer / Sean Doolittle.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33779-9
1. Married people—Fiction. 2. Domestic fiction. [1. City and town life—
Iowa—Fiction.]. I. Title.
PS3604.O568S24 2009
813′.6—dc22
2008039208
v3.0
