In retrospect, Moria should not have pulled her dagger when she was attempting to pass through the imperial city unnoticed. In truth, the pulling of the dagger was not so much a mistake as the throwing of it. Even the throwing of it wouldn’t have been as grievous if her blade had missed its target. […]
I HAVE MADE mistakes in my life. Mistakes that should loom over this one like skyscrapers. But this one feels the biggest. This one hurts the most. I lie in bed, massaging the old bullet wound in my shoulder as I try not to think of what used to happen when I woke in pain. […]
I have not seen my sister, April, in two years. Nine months ago, I called her before I fled to a hidden town in the Yukon, where people like me go to disappear. I didn’t tell her where I was going. I only said that I had to leave, and she might not hear from […]
The season may have officially started two months ago, but it isn’t truly spring in Rockton until we bury our winter dead. Dalton and Anders are digging the shallow grave. I’m wandering, trying to calm Storm. As a future tracking dog, she needs to know the smell of death. I’ve read books that say cadaver […]
Two frat boys jostle my shoulder as they tumble from the market shop. Their gazes brush over me. One realizes I’m ten years past his best-before date and pushes by without an apology. The other lets his gaze linger, considering. “Buongiorno,” he says, mangling it into something suspiciously close to “Bon Jovi.” “Hey,” I say […]
As we hitch our horses to a lodgepole pine, shouts and laughter float over on the night breeze. Teenagers partying in the forest. At their age, I’d longed to be invited to a party like the one we hear. I didn’t yearn for the beer kegs or the drug buffet or the awkward couplings in […]
I have a way with monsters. Unfortunately, this chickcharney seems immune to it. When I was three, my dad captured a chickcharney and brought it home for me. I tried to hug it. You can’t blame me. Chickcharnies look like owls on stilts with amazing monkey tails. Adorable. Anyway, the chickcharney, shockingly, did not want […]
For the first time since Claire Kennedy died last week, there wasn’t a police officer guarding the site of her murder. Kayla peered out from behind the boarded-up beauty salon. Seeing no one, she hoisted her backpack and set out, kicking stones, her gaze fixed on the ground. She was careful to walk slowly. If […]
I have to. I’ve been fighting it all night. I’m going to lose. My battle is as futile as a woman feeling the first pangs of labor and deciding it’s an inconvenient time to give birth. Nature wins out. It always does. It’s nearly two a.m., too late for this foolishness and I need my […]
MOMMY FORGOT TO WARN the new babysitter about the basement. Chloe teetered on the top step, chubby hands reaching up to clutch both railings, her arms shaking so much she could barely hang on. Her legs shook, too, the Scooby Doo heads on her slippers bobbing. Even her breath shook, puffing like she’d been running. […]
AFTER FOUR NIGHTS ON the run, I was finally safe, tucked into bed and enjoying the deep, dreamless sleep of the dead…until the dead decided they’d really rather have me awake. It started with a laugh that slid into my sleep and pulled me out of it. As I rose on my elbows, blinking and […]
WHEN THE DOOR TO my cell clicked open, the first thought that flitted through my doped-up brain was that Liz had changed her mind and come back. But ghosts don’t open doors. They will, on occasion, ask me to open one, so I can raise and interrogate the zombies of supernaturals killed by a mad […]
He hated the forest. Hated its eternal pockets of damp and darkness. Hated its endless tangle of trees and bushes. Hated its smell of decay-dead vegetation, dead animals, everything dying, even the living creatures incessantly pursuing their next meal, one failure away from the slow descent into death. Soon his body would be one more […]
He watched the girl stumble from the motel office, room key glinting under the harsh lights of the parking lot. Lightning flashed, illuminating her figure. Tall and slender, barely more than a teen, too young to be out alone in a place like this, on a night like this. Thunder rumbled and crashed. The parking […]
TONIGHT I would watch a man die for his crimes. I would hunt him down and let a pack of giant black hounds rip him to death and send his soul to the afterlife, and I would trust that he had done something to deserve it. I was struggling with that concept. Not the part […]
As Gabriel’s Jag tore up the country road, I stared at the house ahead. Flames blazed from every window. An ambulance sat in the driveway, lights flashing. As I saw that, I exhaled. The only witness who could set my father free was in that house, and we’d been terrified we’d finally found her only […]
There was a time in my life when the prospect of watching a man die would have filled me with horror. Now, as I shivered beside the cenotaph, knowing death was coming, what I felt was very different. Only knowing it was too late to stop what was about to happen kept me from screaming […]
Brendan struggled to stay awake. A tough battle-far tougher than it should have been under the circumstances. They’d approached him behind a bank, its parking lot empty as evening turned to night. He’d been cutting through to the shelter, hoping it would still have meals. Hot meals would be too much to hope for at […]
With every book, I thank my agent, Helen Heller, and my editors, to whom I’m always indebted. But this one needs an unusually big thank-you to my editors. Writing multiple points-of-view had its challenges, primarily that more voices meant more blather… and a bloated first draft. A huge thanks to Anne Groell of Bantam US, […]
“Got another C S I question for you,” Gloria said as Simon walked into the communication hub with an armload of papers. “If you’re not busy.” “Perfect timing,” Simon said. “I’m just about to start my coffee break.” He started pulling a chair to Gloria’s workstation, then hesitated. “Can I get you something?” Gloria smiled […]
