LITMIR.BIZ

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notice,” Thom said. His older brother reached for the shiny new padlock that had been attached to the door, preventing them from entering. A shiver of dread rattled through Jamie’s body, but he clenched his teeth and ignored it. He’d learned to control his deepest fears. He could be as strong as his older brothers if he had to be.

      “How can they evict us?” Tristan asked. “We paid the rent last month.”

      “Yeah, but we were already five months behind,” Thom explained.

      “All our stuff is inside. How are we going to get it?”

      “We’ll break in,” Thom said. “But we’ll wait until it gets dark. There’s a broken window in the basement that Jamie can squeeze through. Until then, we’re going to have to find a place to sleep for the night.”

      The trio walked off the crumbling porch and headed down the street.

      It wasn’t fair, Jamie thought to himself. Grown-ups could find a job and pay for the rent. But how were kids supposed to have a home if they couldn’t have a job?

      He’d tried to find a way to make money. He’d asked if he could deliver newspapers and they’d said he was too young. And when he’d tried to carry groceries for tips, the owner of the store had chased him away. And most of the neighbors were too poor to pay him to walk their dogs.

      “If we’re not at the house, how is Ma going to find us when she gets out?” Tris asked.

      Their mother had been caught shoplifting last month and was serving three months in the county jail. Somehow, Social Services had lost their address and the boys had been on their own since then. Now, with the eviction, their lives had been turned upside down all over again. They were on the street and they were vulnerable.

      “We could sleep in my fort,” Jamie suggested.

      “Your fort? Since when do you have a fort?” Tristan asked.

      Jamie shrugged. “Since I discovered it last month. I’ve been collecting some stuff. It’s warm and private and we can all sleep there. No one would know.”

      Thom studied him for a long moment. “You wanna show us where this fort is?”

      “It’s supposed to be secret,” Jamie said as he led them around to the back of the house. “So you guys have to swear that you’ll never tell anyone else.”

      “Who are we going to tell?” Tristan asked.

      Jamie led them through a maze of alleyways, keeping his eye out for anyone who might see them pass. When he was certain they weren’t being followed, he backtracked until they came to a ramshackle garage about a block from their house. “You stay here,” he ordered his two older brothers. “Don’t let anyone see you. I’ll show you how to get in and then you follow me.”

      Jamie used a garbage bin to boost himself up onto the roof. Scrambling up the slope, he was careful not to slip on the patches of unmelted snow on the old shingles. When he reached the peak, he hung over the edge and kicked open an old window. Then, with one swing, he landed lightly on the sill. A few seconds later he was inside, motioning for his brother Tris to follow his lead.

      When all three brothers were in, Jamie shut the window, pulled a curtain over it and reached for the light. In an instant, the loft of the old garage was illuminated, revealing a tidy array of cardboard boxes and crates. Jamie smiled to himself.

      Inside, the garage was state-of-the-art. The owner had camouflaged his sleek workshop beneath flaking paint and crumbling shingles. Jamie walked over to the edge of the loft. “The guy keeps the place heated in the winter. And there’s water and electricity and a refrigerator.”

      “Wow, look at this place,” Tris murmured. “It’s nicer than our house.”

      “If he takes care of his cars this way, you gotta wonder how he treats his kids,” Thom said. He peered over the railing at the pair of vehicles, hidden beneath canvas covers. “What kind of cars does he have?”

      Jamie shrugged. “I don’t know. Something foreign.”

      “What if he comes?” Tris asked.

      “He only comes on the weekends, during the day. And all the lights turn on as soon as he opens the door, so he wouldn’t notice if we were here.” Jamie moved over to the far wall. “I found some old blankets. And I’ve got books. And he even has a television downstairs.”

      Thom reached out and pulled Jamie into a fierce hug. “You did great, little brother. We’ll stay here for now. When Ma gets out of jail, we can find a new place.”

      Jamie smiled to himself. It wasn’t often his brothers gave him credit for doing something useful. He was usually the one dependent on them for all of life’s necessities. But this time he’d managed to find them a temporary home—a place that was safe and warm and comfortable.

      Someday, when he was older and had a job, he could use his money to help people who didn’t have a home. He could put a home in the loft of every garage in the neighborhood so there would always be places to live.

      Or he could buy some wood and build houses that no one could take away. There would be no landlords and no rent, and absolutely no evictions. Everyone would be safe and warm, and Social Services would never come to take any kids from their parents.

      His teachers always told him that everyone should have a dream. He’d always thought they were talking about stuff like being an astronaut or a basketball player. Maybe it was enough to be a guy who built houses...

       1

      THERE WAS SOMETHING about the very beginning of the day that Regan Macintosh loved. That moment when the first light appeared in the eastern sky and washed away the previous day, preparing her for a completely fresh start. No worries, no disappointments. Just the possibility of a perfect day ahead of her—and perhaps the perfect photograph.

      Her internal clock followed the seasons, always waking her up precisely fifteen minutes before the sun appeared on the horizon. The late September weather in Minnesota was a mix of warm and breezy days followed by chilly nights. The leaves were just beginning to turn, and flocks of geese lifted from the lake each morning and headed south.

      When she spent the night at her grandmother’s place on the eastern shore of Pickett’s Lake, as she’d done last night, she often took advantage of the early start and got up to take a walk, her favorite camera in hand. The light was always the best in the early morning hours, and the most unexpected images could be captured when the rest of the world was still asleep.

      Regan wasn’t sure when she’d begun the search, but the need to find the perfect image had grown more important to her as she got older. Just once, she wanted to snap the shutter and be completely and totally satisfied with the image, no need to alter it on her computer, no regrets about how she’d framed it.

      Regan dropped her camera strap over her head, then opened the door and slipped outside. She drew a deep breath of chilly morning air, the smell of the Minnesota woods and lakes filling her head. So different from the smell of her winter home in the desert of Arizona.

      As she walked up to the road, a sense of anticipation built within her. A low fog hugged the floor of the forest, and in the distance, she could hear the cry of a blue jay.

      Her parents and siblings had joked about her search for perfection when she was younger, teasing her about all her lists and plans. But she’d always been that way, finding something she was passionate about and then pursuing it with every ounce of her energy and every second of her time.

      Her fascination with photography had grown from one of her biggest childhood obsessions—brides. It had begun when she’d first watched the wedding scene in The Sound of Music. After that, she wasn’t happy unless she was wearing a long white gown and a veil. Sometimes they were made of clothes she’d stolen from her mother’s closet, other times they were made

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