“Baggage may have shifted during the flight, please use caution when opening the overhead bins…” The flight attendant’s muffled voice woke me from my two-hour slumber. Her lifeless speech droned on in the recesses of my mind as I rubbed… Continue Reading →

Ashworth sat in the chair as comfortably as his nerves would allow. He was unfamiliar with wearing a tie for work and the clumsy knot felt heavy around his neck, like a noose. The suit he had bought on the weekend… Continue Reading →

For a sweet house, right on Santa Monica Beach, it was unbelievably easy to break into. Mickey found a window he could open with a putty knife, so the double-locked doors were a joke. And Lana disabled the alarm within… Continue Reading →

Anna’s excitement built until she saw the building. Stepping out of the Uber, she opened the email on her phone to make sure she had the right address. The numbers in the message matched the rusted numbers bolted into the… Continue Reading →

Dear Jonas Williker, My name is Ginny Goodwinch, and I’m a single mother of two from Chappaqua New York. (Bobby is five and Little Derrik is three. Mommy loves you!) I’ve been following your case and I must confess, I… Continue Reading →

“Housekeeping.” ​The sun glowed red through my eyelids, and registered about the same time as the knocking on the door and the woman’s voice. She called again, but not loudly, and I said, “Okay, give me a minute,” and went… Continue Reading →

When I first got the case, I figured chasing down stolen art might lead to refined people with money and taste. It led to murder. The sinister tale began, like most of my cases, after my answering machine jarred me… Continue Reading →

Somewhere in the distance, the faint tinkling of a bell… In the serenity where he now found himself, Yamata still retained the vista of his previous life. Sitting meditatively, he could recall every moment of that existence with uncommon clarity…. Continue Reading →

Dana’s bed was empty. At first, Anna Barrington thought her son was in the bathroom. When she went up to knock on the bathroom door, though, the bulky, flop-haired thirteen year-old wasn’t there. Maybe he’s in the living room, Anna… Continue Reading →

  ​I was in finance. At least that’s what my mother always told people. “Alison’s in finance.” ​But whenever somebody climbed onto a bar stool, bought me a drink, and asked what I did, I admitted to being a bank… Continue Reading →

“I think it’s time we talk about the voices in your head.” She said it just like that, raising her eyebrows and pursing her red, over-lined lips. She managed to say it matter-o-factly, as if she actually believed someone who… Continue Reading →

When The News broke on TV but I didn’t hear it immediately. I was too busy with my sandwich. Making sandwiches is an art too often understated. I love them with avocado and pickles and onion. Mushrooms give them that… Continue Reading →

The crisp brown leaves piled up in front of me but did not completely hinder my view of the old, deteriorating house. The house was ugly; hideous. The multiple layers of gray paint peeling off the sides of the house… Continue Reading →

“Jesus, Dev, you startled me,” my wife Becca said. “Why are you still here? And why in hell are you––” She never got to finish the last question. I was too quick in bringing the claw hammer down on her… Continue Reading →

The scumbag pulls up to the valet stand in a BMW worth over a hundred grand the way it’s tricked out. I guess I should have expected him to show up sooner or later. Kama Sushi is a celebrity magnet… Continue Reading →

“A is for apple, and Amelia. D is for dog. B is for bed.” I tell Amelia we don’t use them anymore. “They’re bad for us.” And she looked back down at the alphabet cards in her hands. Outside the… Continue Reading →

I had been preparing for weeks; months if you count the myriad gruesome drawings haunting my ever present sketchbook. That black, bound codex was my shield against taunts and bullies, ape-ish jocks and unimaginative, authoritarian teachers that populated the terrifying… Continue Reading →

It was the eyes that did it. Darbinyan could have shut the door in the man’s face but for the eyes. When he had opened the door, he had been taken slightly aback by the man’s height, but it was… Continue Reading →

The braying voice and undisguised hate of Lou Carmody that was coming over the radio were so offensive to Tyler Feasel that he almost went for his hammer in order to smash the radio to bits. But the moment of anger… Continue Reading →

After almost eight hours of heat, highway and latent hostility, David Long found his options dwindling to two choices; kill a drink or strangle Dianne. Since the latter clearly wasn’t acceptable, Long saw his search for a roadside bar as… Continue Reading →

When Henry Willis told me he was taking me to a fairy crossing, I thought he was just being a typical homophobe. “Okay, I’ve seen the sign,” I said. “Very funny. If we leave now I can still catch the… Continue Reading →

I’m going to jail. My life is over. It’s the middle of the night, pouring rain, and I’m sitting in my car outside of a shitty local coffee shop, leeching the WiFi they accidentally left on. Oh, and I’m wearing… Continue Reading →