Excerpt from Secret Song (Richard Carter #4)

Shane went outside as much to let the uninvited tension dissipate as for a smoke. The autumn night was all washed-out grays in the half-light of a full moon not yet risen beyond the eastern ridge. He walked down to the creek, stopping momentarily to light up before going out onto the dock. Riffles murmured beneath the floats, soft, but distinct in the autumnal chill. Overhead, limbs laced a star-stippled sky with slashes of intricate tracery. First one, then another star blinked out, momentarily puzzling him. A mournful solitary honk solved the mystery—night-flying geese. A puff of wind stirred the crisp leaves behind him, sounding like the turning of a page, the passing of another year. He was already nineteen.