Title: Skeleton Key
First published: January 2007
Description: 13-year-old Jarrett Ross has been no more than a ghost for months, a lonely ghost crying in the darkness where no one can see or hear him. A drug dealer put moves on his mom, got her addicted, and now rules their tiny apartment in a ancient West Oakland Victorian house. Jarrett's only refuge has been his room, its door locked with a skeleton key. But one rainy night even that protection fails him when the man breaks open the door. In a fight for Jarrett's life the man falls down a stairwell. Jarrett, battered and bleeding, knows the cops will never believe the man's death was accidental and Jarrett was acting in self-defense. He has to run away!

Weak from loss of blood, Jarrett stumbles through dark streets and alleys with no destination except to get away. Finally, he finds himself at the rusty iron gates of small and forgotten graveyard and collapses to wait for death. But instead of the Dark Angel, a chubby homeless boy appears... a boy who also had to run from sins the world made him commit and now dwells alone in this place of the dead. Together, they fight to restore Jarrett's life.
Subjects: black kids, black teens, homeless kids, ghosts, graveyards, child abuse
Places: Oakland California
Time periods: Present