At All Costs: A Novel

Two unlikely people meet on a freight train. Natalie, a freckle-faced teenager runs away from her abusive stepfather. She hops a freight train, but soon discovers she is not alone. She cowers in the corner, frightened by a gruff-looking hobo already occupying the dimly lit space. Jonathan, a former detective and handsome black man, has walked away from his life after his wife and daughter were killed. For months, the unkempt hobo wanders aimlessly across the country before hopping into the same boxcar. He sits on a bale of straw sipping from a bottle hidden inside a brown paper bag. He's taken aback when a young girl rolls across the straw-laden floor, disrupting his nomadic state. After Natalie and Jonathan's worlds collide, they form a bond and set out on a journey filled with perils-sometimes in the form of natural disasters. Other times, it's struggling for peace or to accomplish a goal. Through it all, a psychopath lurks in the shadows. Natalie's stepfather is determined to kill her-At All Costs.