Excerpt from The Last Secret by Mary McGarry Morris, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The caboose hurtles past, distant, fading, Eddie's taillights with it. She stumbles onto the road, back the way she came, the sudden quiet bearing only the platplatplat of her sandals on the macadam, her gasping, wheezy breath, as behind her swells the anxious whine of a car. She dives into the shallow ditch beside the tracks. Eyes closed, she lies curled in cinders. With her cheek to the hard rise of the gully, scrubby brambles snag her arms and legs. The oncoming wheels pulsate in her skull. He slows down, speeds past. She scrambles onto the road, stomach churning with every step. All at once she bends over, vomits, legs splayed, chest heaving, still gagging as headlamps flare high from be- hind, illuminating the emptiness ahead. The truck slows in a squeal of air and brakes. The driver peers down from his silver cab. "You okay?" he hollers.

"I need a ride!"

"Get in!"

"Oh, Jesus," she cries as the door closes and the big rig rumbles ahead.

"What happened?" the barrel-chested man asks, dead cigar stub clenched between his teeth. "You in trouble?"

"I don't know!"

 "What happened?" He taps his chin, the blood.

"There was a fight . . . and my boyfriend . . . oh, God, I'm so scared. Something terrible happened. Oh, God, God, help me, please help me," she sobs.

"He in a convertible? Yellow Mustang? Then slide down, just slide down," the driver says. "Okay," he says when the car whizzes by. A few miles ahead a cruiser passes, dome light spinning red. The truck driver flips on his radio, keeps glancing in the rearview.

A woman's staticky voice: "Ambulance! Up to the club. Fast, Buddy says."

"Oh, God," she moans into her sticky hands.

"Somebody's hurt." The driver looks at her.

"My boyfriend. Eddie," she sobs. "This guy tried to hit him. With a pipe. And then, oh, God," she gags, retching again.

"Hey, hey, c'mon now," the driver says. "You're all right now. Hey, I got kids myself. How old are you anyways?"

"Seventeen," she bawls at the horror, the shame of it. Her careful upbringing, her hardworking, principled mother.

"What's your name?"

"Nora." She hesitates. "Trimble."

"Where you from, Nora?"

"Massachusetts."

"You run away from home or something?"

"No. I don't know."

"Wanna go back?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to do. Maybe I should go back, go back and help. Oh, God, he's back there. In the car. He's hurt."

"Who? Eddie?"

 "Oh my God," she moans, covers her face.

"How old's Eddie?"

"Twenty-three."

"Eddie's a big boy. He'll take care of it. He don't need you."

A whoosh now, like the unsealing of a vault, as the truck slows for the ramp onto the interstate.

Excerpted from The Last Secret by Mary McGarry Morris Copyright © 2009 by Mary McGarry Morris. Excerpted by permission of Shaye Areheart Books, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.