PROLOGUE LAST SUMMER I spent the bulk of the call with my eyes shut, thinking I was still asleep and in some kind of lucid dream. I may have even called the night sergeant out of the Chicago Police Department’s 12th District “Mom” before he barked at me to wake the hell up and get…
Chapter 1 The woman looked up at Bernie. Something about her face, turned up like that, made an impression on him. I can feel those impressions happening in Bernie, but what they are exactly is something I find out later or not at all. “No, it was a good joke,” she said, agreeing with me.…
Prologue The policeman, with his slicked-back hair, stands at the bottom of my hospital bed, staring at me intently. “So, can you confirm you knew the deceased?” he says, in heavily accented English. I nod, but even that hurts. His eyes narrow as he studies me. “Do you remember what led up to this unfortunate…
ONE I was angling my taco toward my mouth with the speed of the ravenous when a voice made me nearly fall off my barstool. “Lucy, you have to help me!” My taco hit my cheek instead, and juicy pork carnitas began dribbling down the left side of my face. At the same time, several…
Chapter 1 Van Shaw crouched in the shadows, as natural a home to him as the warm Gulf waters to a tiger shark. He watched as the guard with the charcoal gray uniform and company-issued Smith & Wesson completed his circuit of the dim warehouse. The guard’s eyes passed over the upper level of the…
01| Begin / End The last thing I remember is noise. Images are hazy, and they only come in flashes. Most of them are dark, dripping with night, and impossible to make sense of—a glimpse of a tree branch here, a wiry crack in the glass there. Bloodstained fingers. Fragmented pieces of my reflection gazing…
Chapter 1 I was born in death. At least that’s how my father put it whenever I’d ask him about my mother. In truth, I guess he’s right, because she died during childbirth. Some people say it was her last selfless act, but I’ve been told that a mother’s love is unconditional, and no matter…
Chapter the First After my reconciliation with my brothers in the summer of 1889, I spent August quite happily with Reginald Collie, visiting Ferndell, my childhood home in the country. Moreover, after returning to London and my very safe albeit somewhat Spartan room at the Professional Women’s Club, I purchased a delightful new dress, apricot…
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 FIVE HOURS LATER Eleanor The light in the small room is cold, the stark, white glare of an eco-friendly bulb. I’m sure it’s meant to be reassuringly normal, just like the anonymous chair I’m sitting on, and the smooth, light-wood table in front of me. When I look at my hands I…
Chapter 1 Seated behind the HH-60’s cockpit and facing outward, Captain Nicholas Flynn felt his stomach floating as the helicopter raced downslope at more than one hundred and sixty knots. Through the cabin window in front of him, he caught blurred glimpses of massive boulders zipping past not more than a few feet below.…
