Excerpt from Chapter 1     Beth He looks at me with what appears to be great effort. Like he was about to nod off into a heavy, much-needed nap when I interrupted. He doesn’t look too bothered. Not like he might were I a car smashing through his fence. See that, Mom? I take my hand off the Nikon’s focus ring and give him a friendly wave. Hopefully he doesn’t find it creepy that I’m peering over his fence with a camera in hand. Why am I still holding the camera, anyway? “Hi?” he says as if he isn’t sure I’m even real. “I thought I was all alone out here.” I gesture vaguely at the world around us. Told you I’m a liar. “Seems like everybody else on the street already jumped ship for the season. Winter is coming.” “Call it a slack tide,” he says with a somber nod. “We’re between holidays, the kids are back in school, the weather’s just starting to turn, but the storm watchers won’t start arriving for another month. There aren’t many year-rounders here.” He pokes at the logs with an old hot dog skewer that’s coated in rust. The sight of…