Choke Point

Three weeks and four days later, Knox stands outside a duplex in Hamtramck, Michigan, ready to keep his promise. The air smells clean thanks to an overnight rain. He toes the cracked sidewalk where a tree root is exposed, trying to write a script in advance, to have himself prepared for whatever arises. He remembers when the tree was only as tall as he is now. All his size and powerful body, and yet he feels so small.

He wonders why he stalls, what necessitates such preparation. Catch as catch can, he reminds himself. But he answers: because it’s smoking in a fireworks factory. It’s a life that centers around him like he’s the sun. It’s this unrelenting burden and responsibility that he resents and that he loves, that he welcomes and resists. Where does the temptation to turn around and return to the rental car come from? How can a gun fired not terrify him the way standing here does?

He climbs the steps and rings the doorbell.

• • •

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

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Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pearson, Ridley.

Choke point / Ridley Pearson.

p. cm

ISBN 978-1-101-62115-8

1. Child slaves—Fiction. 2. Netherlands—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3566.E234C46 2013b 2013003706

813'.54—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ALSO BY RIDLEY PEARSON

The Risk Agent

In Harm’s Way

Killer Summer

Killer View

Killer Weekend

Cut and Run

The Art of Deception

The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

(writing as Joyce Reardon)

The Pied Piper

Beyond Recognition

Undercurrents

BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

Peter and the Starcatchers series

(with Dave Barry)

The Kingdom Keepers series

Never Land series

(with Dave Barry)

Steel Trapp series

For a complete list of this author’s books click here or visit

www.penguin.com/pearsonchecklist