Blood Brother. J. Kerley A.

      Blood Brother

      J. A. Kerley

      For April and Mark, my brother and sister…

      Siblings without rival.

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       Dedication

PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

       TEN

       ELEVEN

       TWELVE

       THIRTEEN

       FOURTEEN

       FIFTEEN

       SIXTEEN

       SEVENTEEN

       EIGHTEEN

       NINETEEN

       TWENTY

       TWENTY-ONE

       TWENTY-TWO

       TWENTY-THREE

       TWENTY-FOUR

       TWENTY-FIVE

       TWENTY-SIX

       TWENTY-SEVEN

       TWENTY-EIGHT

       TWENTY-NINE

       THIRTY

       THIRTY-ONE

       THIRTY-TWO

       THIRTY-THREE

       THIRTY-FOUR

       THIRTY-FIVE

       THIRTY-SIX

       THIRTY-SEVEN

       THIRTY-EIGHT

       THIRTY-NINE

       FORTY

       FORTY-ONE

       FORTY-TWO

       FORTY-THREE

       FORTY-FOUR

       EPILOGUE

       Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Also by J. A. Kerley

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

      Rural Southern Alabama, mid 1980s

      The boy is in his teens, slender and blond, kicking a pine cone down the red-dirt country road, dense woods to his left, cotton field to his right. Though the Alabama sun lays hard across the boy’s bare arms and legs, his skin is pale, like light bounces off, never sinks inside.

      A sound at his back turns the boy’s head to a bright truck grille a hundred yards behind. He steps to the road’s edge to let the truck pass. But it glides slower and closer until his nose fills with the oily stink of the engine. The truck pulls even.

      “Hey, I saw you in the newspaper,” the driver calls through the open passenger window, a man in his early thirties with tight-cropped hair, angular face, eyes behind wraparound mirror sunglasses. His face is built around a smile, his voice is pure country twang. “You’re that kid who got a perfect score on the STA, right?”

      The boy’s water-blue, almost feminine eyes drop with embarrassment.