From Chapter 1

It is a day of firsts. My first day on the job and my first dead body. Chief Baxter wants me to see it. His whole face is concentrated with the effort to make his point, as though he were explaining blood spatter analysis or the biomechanics of tasers. He is wearing gold cufflinks shaped like barbells. Short and barrel chested, he looks like a well-dressed fireplug. I can imagine him as a street cop, pugnacious and badge heavy.

“Don’t sit around your office and wait for cops to come to you. That’s why I’m giving you a car and a scanner. Get out in the field.”

He speaks in short staccato bursts as though he is transmitting over the radio, dropping any unessential words. A slight spray of saliva leaves shiny droplets on his desktop. He walks around the desk and stands close to me. I smell his pine-scented aftershave and mouthwash.

“This is why I have credibility. I make it my business to suit up and get out on the street once a month. I stay in shape. And I always carry.” He opens his jacket and shows me his shoulder holster. He is wearing “a custom fitted dress shirt that shows off the inverted triangle made by his broad shoulders and narrow waist. “Street cops are the lifeblood of this organization. The street is where I started. I’ve never forgotten that and I don’t want anyone else to.”

He leans against the edge of his desk, his arms folded over his chest. “I have a rookie on scene at a suicide. Ben Gomez. He’s been having trouble. Talk to his field training officer. See what you can do to help him. I’ve met the kid. Not my best hire, but I think he’s salvageable.” He lifts his index finger. “I’m putting a lot of faith in you, Dot. I’ve had a lot of trouble in my organization since I took over as chief. Some days I feel like Typhoid Mary. I’ve got four officers on stress leave and three on admin leave under investigation. No telling when any of them will come back to work. I have a small organization—seventy-five officers. I can’t afford to lose this rookie, too. It’s bad for morale plus my overtime budget is off the charts.”

He extends his hand to me. “It’s one thing to study us and write books about us. It’s another thing to hit the streets with us. You come highly recommended by Mark Edison. That says a lot. Most men don’t have much good to say about their former wives.”

He laughs a little too loudly. I wonder if he has an ex and, if he does, what she was like.

“So, welcome aboard. I know this is a tall order, but Dr. Edison said you’re the one for the job. Don’t disappoint me or him. Now, get in your car and get out in the field.” He opens the door to his office and shows me out.

As the new department psychologist, I am in no position to protest or to tell him that I’m scared to death because I’ve never seen a dead body before. Not even my father’s. What if I embarrass myself, faint or, God forbid, get sick to my stomach? I wonder how he expects me to suit up. Maybe I should put wheels on my “couch and tow it behind my car?

The radio traffic on my scanner crackles briskly, drowning out my thumping heart. Listening to it is a guilty pleasure, like eavesdropping. This is the best of two possible worlds, close to the action but at a safe remove– the unobserved observer listening to the breathlessness of the chase, the escalating octaves that betray fear, the barked commands, the unnatural calm of the dispatcher, and the final “Code 4” signaling that the short reign of terror has given way to hours of report writing and investigation.

I drive under a cool green canopy of old oaks. Light filters through the leaves dappling the street. Fifty years ago this old northern California neighborhood was considered the ultimate in affordable, architect-designed family houses. Now the current selling prices are beyond my reach and the reach of any Kenilworth cop, firefighter or schoolteacher. Neighbors are congregating in small worried clusters on the sidewalk in front of a uniquely shabby one story home. They watch as I park my car. I take ten slow deep breaths and step to the sidewalk. Spindly trees flank the walk that leads to the front door. The grass on either side of the cracked concrete path is brown and freckled with splotches of hard, dry dirt. The front door is open. I grit my teeth and walk in.

***

Excerpt from Burying Ben by Ellen Kirschman. Copyright 2013 & 2024 by Ellen Kirschman. Reproduced with permission from Ellen Kirschman. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Secrets Are Hell

While Tim cocooned his body in the blue leather chair behind his desk, his fingers flew over the keyboard. The words flowed from his fingertips onto the computer screen. After he completed the final chapter of his novel, Secrets Are Hell, he leaned back in the seat that was positioned to optimize the view of the Caribbean. As he rubbed his newly acquired goatee, he watched the turquoise waves lap against the pearly sand.

When Tim and his former partner, Brad, sold their company, Multipoint Protection Services, Tim moved to Grand Cayman to pursue his dream of becoming an author. He grinned. His vision was about to come true.

After the identity thefts from his former company, Tim lasered in on the connection between the stolen information used to purchase prescription drugs and the subsequent laundering of the black market proceeds. The thriller was a product of his experiences, research, and imagination.

He recalled the conversation with his informant at the bar. Once the man he only knew as Jax consumed three shots of tequila, he’d spilled secrets about the money laundering business on the island. The man dripped sweat as he spoke, and he warned Tim to be careful with the revelations. Although Tim had fictionalized the facts gathered during his research, he prayed that he’d sufficiently disguised the characters involved in the illicit events.

Satisfied that the first draft was complete, he saved the document onto the flash drive and locked the device in the desk drawer. He stood and stretched his arms overhead before hiding the key underneath a leather-bound edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, one of many in his collection of books in the wall-to-wall bookcase behind him.

Tim raised his eyes toward the planked pine ceiling and contemplated his next steps. When he returned from Brad’s upcoming wedding, he would consult with developmental editors. In the meantime, he’d let the story marinate. His phone pinged, and he turned back to the desk to find a text from his girlfriend, Becky.

Why haven’t you called or messaged me?

His six-month-old puppy, Snooper, barked. He stepped away from his cellphone to let the dog inside. A salty breeze drifted through the opening. As he inhaled the scent, he wondered why he’d ever gotten involved with the former beauty pageant queen. He met her a few months ago when he’d volunteered at the rescue organization where he had adopted Snooper. While he massaged the black and white cocker spaniel mix’s ears, he reflected on that day they’d both tended to the homeless pets.

As Tim handed Becky a bag of cat food, a jolt of adrenaline pulsed through his body. Becky measured the servings and filled the bowls they’d deliver to the felines. While she poured, he admired her flowing raven hair that framed a heart-shaped face. Her almond shaped hazel-colored eyes shimmered with intrigue. After he heard Becky’s deep-throated laugh, he invited her to join him for a cup of coffee after their shift.

A month into the relationship, she began texting him incessantly. If he didn’t reply within an hour, she’d get agitated. He regretted inviting her as his plus one to Brad and Liz’s wedding in Charleston, South Carolina. A sigh escaped his lips. He longed for a soulmate like his friend had discovered in Liz.

Tim was delighted that the couple had chosen Grand Cayman as their honeymoon destination. He smiled in anticipation of the treasure hunt he’d planned as their wedding gift. Snooper wiggled away and bounded toward Tim’s cat, Irish. The feline hissed and halted the puppy in his tracks. Tim chuckled, picked up his phone, and fingered a response.

Been working on the book. Meet up for drinks at five at The Deck? We can talk about travel plans.

Without waiting for a reply, he placed the device down and strode toward the kitchen to feed his pets.

Who knew that today would be the last time he would touch the manuscript?

***

Excerpt from Cayman Conundrum by Stacy Wilder. Copyright 2024 by Stacy Wilder. Reproduced with permission from Stacy Wilder. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

They called him Cheezy Rider—and with good cause.

I stood at the wide front window of the Charmed Inn with a cup of coffee in hand. I watched my great uncle toddling around the corner onto Chestnut Street, pedaling steadily on his old Beach Comber. The picture he made was something to behold. His bright orange vest perfectly matched the small caution flag waving from a tall pole attached to the back of the bike. His silver bullet helmet matched his thinning silver hair peeking out from underneath. But nothing matched his teal and red-flowered Hawaiian shirt.

His legs, covered in khakis, pumped away as he came up the block waving to anyone who happened to be on the short street in our small town on the shore of the Susquehanna River. The bicycle had a big wire basket on the front that he filled with a box of donuts from Delilah’s Donuts every day, a place that had been in the same family for seventy-five years, like so many other businesses here. Those donuts were heading right for my work and then right to my hips. But I had never said no to pastry, and I wasn’t going to start today. In fact, I needed the pick-me-up. Things were busy at the inn, with everyone checking in for the writers’ extended working weekend, and sugar was always welcome. The staff wouldn’t say no, either.

“I’m going to take a break,” I said to my Aunt Hellen as I passed her in the hallway leading to the dining room. She was technically my great aunt, and she could keep things moving for a few minutes while I stepped out into the beautiful April afternoon sunshine. What I really wanted to say was that I was trying not to break, but that wouldn’t be good for business. It had been one heck of a morning already, and I needed a moment to collect myself in the downtime before the festivities really began. Donuts were a great distraction, even if my erstwhile uncle did bring them every day.

“All righty, Ms. Mighty!” Aunt Hellen yelled back. This highly respected tasseomancer and seance-leader had a set of lungs that should never be allowed near a microphone. “I just finished having tea with Owen, so I’m free if you want to go on your walk, too. His phone rang in the middle of our tea, and it must have been important because he hightailed it out the door after making an excuse.” She situated herself behind the desk and placed her hands on the computer screen like it might fly away if she didn’t keep it locked down. “Hey, one thing before you go.”

I held steady, waiting for the inevitable question. My life seemed to be filled with questions.

“What kind of afternoon do you think we’re going to have? Should I restock the printer?”

Showing my teeth in what should have been a smile, I flipped open the book I held in my other hand, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all. Why, oh why, did I have to have this particular book with me? And why was my aunt always trying to force me to use my “gift”? I had no real power to do anything, just predict the future or get guidance from the text. Sometimes it was right, sometimes not. Either way, it was not high-powered magic in the least.

While poking my finger at the text, I said, “No need to stock the printer, but be prepared to deal with many irritations.” There’s nothing like trying to give a vague answer to a mundane question when the page you opened to was a spicy-hot scene between the hero and heroine in a recently released romance novel.

“I could have told you that. You have to try harder if you want to own your power, Roxanne Gleason. This is not a game.” Peering at me over her bifocals, she twitched the classic “Mom finger” in my general direction and then tsked.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but only because I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. It would probably get me a lecture, and I didn’t have time for that today. Plus, those donuts were calling my name.

“Yes, Aunt Hellen. Sorry, Aunt Hellen.”

“Cheeky,” she said under her breath, but I still heard it and smiled.

“Is Owen’s nephew here yet?”

“No, Owen said he had to back out at the last minute, so we have a free room if we need it.”

I sighed because as much as I liked Andrew, that was one less eccentric I’d have to deal with. Owen was a character all on his own, but he knew when to rein it in, Andrew not so much. Plus, his room would still get paid for even if he wasn’t going to use it.

“Okay, thanks for letting me know. Keep an eye out for Paddy McGruver,” I said. “He hasn’t checked in yet, and sometimes he likes to come in the back door to avoid what he assumes are the paparazzi.”

“Oh my, Paddy’s coming in today? Will he be here all four days?” Aunt Hellen smoothed down the front of her shirt over what she jokingly called her shelf since it pretty much caught any crumbs she dropped while eating. She then pulled her peach cardigan closed over her stomach.

“Yes, and yes. Try to keep your hands to yourself this time. You read tea leaves, not rumps. No one is falling for that I’m-a-rumpologist-bit, no matter how hard you try to sell it.”

With that, I walked out the door and left her to primp and prime herself for one of the more problematic creatives who was going to be here for four whole days. Well, not quite four, since it was more like seventy-two total hours from check-in to check-out. But who was counting?

With ten of the writers showcasing their intelligence and posturing over who had the best book and which classes were not to be missed, it would be enough time for me to need a vacation afterward.

The hotel hosted this event every year, but this was my first as the owner of this fine establishment. I had been told to give myself the seven days following the event to only host boring people, so I could rest, relax, and restore my faith in down-to-earth people. I had taken the advice since it had come from the previous owner, my grandfather. We would have guests checking in on Sunday after everyone left, but there wouldn’t be a pen and paper or laptop in sight as far as the guest list went. I had made sure of it.

Uncle Vince was racking his bike at the side of the building and removing his helmet when I stepped out onto the wide veranda that encircled the inn. I looked forward to his visits and had for all the years he’d been in my life. I wasn’t sure exactly how far away on my dad’s family tree he was, just that he was there and always had been.

He was like a beacon in the middle of the day, everyone stopping as they strolled along the sidewalks to say hi and ask about his health. It kept him busy until I could reach him, which worked in my favor. As long as he didn’t give away any of my donuts.

“I see you got two boxes this time,” I said as I approached the old man in his loud get-up.

“Roxy, my love, my dove, how are we on this fine afternoon?” His smile was far cheekier than anything I had ever sported, and I immediately wondered what he was up to. It was almost never good. Or rather, it usually was good for someone but almost never good for me.

“What are you hiding?”

He slapped his hand to his chest and feigned hurt. “I would never -”

“You do. Always,” I shot back, but a smile was trying to come out on my lips that I did not want to give in to. If I indulged him, he always had to see exactly how far he could take it.

“I’m offended.”

“Only because I’m catching you before you can even begin. Hand over the donuts, and I might be able to see my way to just watching for any missteps instead of thwarting you before you even get started.”

At first, he looked defeated, but I knew for a fact that was a lie. He’d just figure out a different way to get around me. It was a game he liked to play, and since he was an uncle and someone who had watched over me since I was a toddler, I knew, and so did he, that I had a weak spot for him and his antics. As long as they didn’t hurt anyone.

Sure enough, that smile popped back out on his face. As I knew it would.

“I saw you in my scrying bowl this morning.”

Ack, that was the last thing I wanted him to say. I would have preferred almost anything else, even the practical jokes he sometimes liked to indulge in. He wasn’t very good at them, but I laughed, even if it was just a big fake spider on my porch. His visions were some of my biggest fears, though. Or it might be better to say his visions had brought about many of my stumbles in life.

***

Excerpt from By Hook or By Book by Misty Simon. Copyright 2025 by Misty Simon. Reproduced with permission from Misty Simon. All rights reserved.

Afterward, I broke open. I cried. I held him so tight I left nail marks in his skin. What were a few more marks now?

The EMTs ungently separated us, and, with the coordination of motions necessitated a thousand times, they deftly lifted Kyle from the malignity of our apartment floor to a gurney that could barely contain his tall frame. They secured him under a thin blanket pulled all the way up to his chin and rushed him out our door into the hallway, past building onlookers, toward a waiting elevator, shouting to me which hospital to meet him at.

Then I was there, by myself, panting, kneeling on the floor, staring at my still-connected phone nearby with the 911 operator trying to get my attention. I disconnected and a moment later listened to the sirens reverberating off the impenetrable glass apartment towers around us as the ambulance pulled away.

I stared straight ahead, so flooded with emotion that none could get out. I fingered one of the smooth buttons on the front of my jacket until it felt uneven, and realized I had loosened the thread holding it on. I looked down at the ruined thread, thinking about how much effort it would require to fix it later.

I raised my eyes from the thread to the unholy mess that surrounded me, and thought of the money we had to put down to get this place, the most we had ever had to come up with, what almost kept us from getting the apartment.

The wailing of the ambulance was farther away now, and I could hear the disquieted murmuring of our neighbors outside our still-open door.

I picked my keys up off the floor, gathered my phone and purse, smoothed down my skirt, and walked—unsteady, chin raised—out the door into the sea of rubberneckers, locking our apartment behind me.

I do not remember getting in the elevator or pressing P so it would sink me down to the level of my car. But that is where I found myself. I do not remember making my way out of the gray parking cavern, across the snowy streets filled with work day stragglers trying to get home, to the hospital. But there it was. It loomed into view ahead of me, and I did not know if I had come to it or it to me. I followed the burning red Emergency signs, as this undeniably was an emergency, right? Or had that moment passed? Then I just kept following—following signs, following instructions, following people. It was all I could do.

I answered endless questions from untouchable people in glass enclosures whose entire job was to guide people through this plane that existed outside our normal lives. Finally, when all the check-ins were completed and necessary information provided, I sat down to wait. I was in the emergency room waiting area, my face paralyzed in a thousand-yard-stare, as hours or years slipped by, surrounded by people stuck in the sucking mud of sickness and trauma.

I needed to call Kyle’s mom.

Instead, I called my mom. Voicemail. I wanted the recording of her voice to come alive and talk to me. But I forgot, it is Wednesday. Mom is on a plane to Italy with two of her friends: her dream trip. “Mom, something’s happened. Give me a call when you can.”

I lowered my hand to my lap, still holding the now-dark phone. I stared, mute, at an empty wall opposite me. A woman in dull blue scrubs appeared in the way of my stare, and I slowly raised my eyes to hers.

“Lauren?” she said.

I considered the question, then nodded.

“I’m Nurse Lindsay. You can come back now.”

I nodded again, and followed her out of the waiting area through a set of double doors.

The doors opened into a large, antiseptic hallway, housing beds separated by nothing more than what looked like heavy sheets hanging from the ceiling, and I found it impossible to not look at the other patients as we went by. I wanted someone—patient or staff—to scold me for the intrusion, but no one had the energy.

I was so distracted watching a gray-looking man in a bed weakly calling for help that I almost ran into the nurse, who had stopped in front of me at the foot of a bed. I did not recognize that I was standing at the foot of Kyle’s bed until the nurse said, “Here we are,” and gestured at his sleeping figure.

I gasped slightly, as if I’d come upon him like this without warning. Maybe I had, but that moment was hours in the past now. Now the gasp only indicated a crack in the wall of composure I had been building.

The nurse swung a cheap, hard plastic chair up to the bed. “Go ahead and have a seat, but let him sleep if you can. The doctor will be in after he’s had a chance to look at the X-rays.” With that, she pulled a ceiling sheet near the foot of the bed partway closed, and left. She may have done it to create the illusion of privacy, but I knew we were now just part of the lineup for the other emergency room voyeurs.

I stood next to him and stared while he slept, inanimate, under the harsh judgment of the fluorescent lights. How could it be Kyle?

I studied him, hunting for something to betray the imposter, but it was Kyle’s free range brown hair, his eyebrow divided by a scar from where a baseball caught him trying to steal second base when he was eleven, and another nearly undetectable scar on his lip from mountain biking the year we met. He had shown up that night four years ago for our planned dinner with a cold pack on his swollen face, still leaking blood. My roommates had fawned over him while I pouted about the ruined dinner I had spent all afternoon preparing. He just grinned that quirky smile of his and said he was starving. Watching him eat my dinner that night, despite what had to be withering pain (and what I realized after taking a bite was terrible food), had stoked a spark. That was not the last time Kyle would show up injured, grinning, and packing a great story. It was one of the keys to his magnetism. I smiled at the memory, and cried.

I pulled the chair closer and positioned it next to his chest, where he would be able to see me without contorting himself. Or at least, he could once he woke up.

Outside his tiny, curtained pseudo-room I could hear the staff talking about a bad date one of them had had. Their laughter here seemed like a flower growing in rubble—hopeful, misplaced?

I noticed the black dress shoes of someone standing on the other side of our half-wall who seemed to be working there, because they were not moving off like all the other shoes. I stared at them; they were worn but immaculate.

A loose strand of my dark brown hair fell into my peripheral vision, and I tucked it behind my ear to delay having to take care of it properly. I looked reflexively at my phone to see if I had missed anything, but there was nothing.

I looked at Kyle again. I briefly, selfishly, thought about waking him. I needed to know what happened, and for him to tell me everything would be all right.

Beneath the blanket, his chest rose and fell with percussive monotony. I watched it, transfixed, tears streaming freely now.

Then, a doctor with a clipboard appeared in the opening between the curtain walls. “Knock, knock,” he said, stepping in. “Hi, I’m Dr. Moreno. Are you Lauren?”

“Yes.” I stood up but looked away, smearing tears across my cheek in a failed attempt to wipe my face clean of giveaways.

“Great, have a seat.” He gestured to my chair and pulled another chair up to face mine. We both sat.

“And what is your last name?”

“Delgado.”

“D-E-L-G-A-D-O?”

“Yes.”

“So, Spanish?” he said, as he wrote it on the clipboard paper.

“My father was from Mexico.”

He continued ticking boxes and flipping pages on the clipboard. “Ah, I just spent some time down there volunteering in a village. Where is your father from?”

“I don’t know. He died before I was born.”

He looked up. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

I smiled politely, accepting the obligatory sympathy.

“Is your mother also from Mexico?”

“No, New Hampshire.”

The doctor chuckled. “That’s a long way from Mexico.”

I smiled weakly. It was. And growing up in one looking like the other had left me feeling like a citizen of neither. Because in the small, friendly college town where I grew up, there were only a few others like me, and none I saw regularly—not on the playground, not in class pictures. In the Thanksgiving play I was cast as a Wampanoag Indian. Again. And again. And again. Until finally I came home in tears and my mother called my third-grade teacher, Ms. Martin, to suggest someone else have a chance to experience the role. (I can still remember Ellie Thompson’s anguish when she lost her role as Pilgrim and was recast in my place. “But my family came over on the Mayflower!” she wailed.)

My mom said we were helping to educate good people. But that was a job I had never asked for.

She also worked hard to explore my father’s culture with me. Every year for Día de los Muertos, we painted our faces and dressed up as skeletons. My grandparents would play my father’s cassette tapes and the three of us would dance around by candlelight while Mom was cooking. We would buy the local florist out of marigolds, eat sugar skulls, and set up an altar for my father. On it, below his picture, we would set Coca-Cola, his favorite (though as a kid I preferred apple cider), and the special foods Mom had made, including his favorite enchiladas. We would take a raft of pictures, mostly of me, and send them, along with a letter carefully translated by the high school Spanish teacher for some cash on the side, to his mother, my abuela. We never heard back from her, but every year we continued to send pictures and a letter.

I remember when I was four or five, after checking the mailbox every day for weeks, I asked, “Why doesn’t abuela write back, Mommy?”

She stopped what she was doing and took my hands. “Well honey, your father grew up very poor out in the country, so she may not have the money for paper and pencils and postage. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy receiving our letters and pictures.”

I nodded, hearing but not fully understanding this new detail about the man who contributed half of my genetic material, with no sense of what it meant to be him.

Even after I went away to college, my mom would send me a care package to celebrate my father on that day, and ask me to send pictures she could print out to send to her. Despite her best efforts, I still wore that culture like a backpack, rather than feeling it in my veins. The majority-white people of New Hampshire were my people, even though I was always a side glance away from feeling they were not. I did not have to codeswitch, because no one had told me the code.

The doctor with the clipboard was saying something. “And you live with Kyle, is that right?”

“Yes.”

He made a note.

“Is he your boyfriend?” he asked, without looking up.

“Yes.” This was all information I had given before, but I was thankful to be asked questions I had the answers to.

“It’s been a rough day for you, hasn’t it?” Now he looked at me earnestly, and I tried to push down the brick that had just developed in my throat. I nodded and lowered my eyes, refusing to believe I was going to cry in front of this doctor, though fresh tears were already rallying.

The doctor put his hand on my arm, then reached for a box of tissue. “Here.”

I pulled the top tissue to my face and met the doctor’s eyes again, as if lack of moisture proved composure, as if my red eyes were not already blazing the banner “not composed.”

The doctor continued, flipping through several pages on his clipboard and looking at Kyle. “We have him on something for the pain. He didn’t break any bones, fortunately, but there is obviously some other trauma. We’re going to be moving him to a room in the regular part of the hospital, so that’ll be more comfortable than our little tents here.” He paused to look at me and smile, then continued. “And, of course, we want to make sure he’s doing okay before he leaves the hospital.”

I nodded.

He paused, looking at his clipboard. “The EMTs said you didn’t know how long he had been like that when you found him, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He looked at the clipboard again, then rapped his pen against it and stood up. “Okay! Do you have any questions?”

I shook my head, lying.

“We’ll get him set up in that room as soon as we can. Would you like to wait here with him?”

“Yes, if that’s okay. I mean, I know I’m not actual family.”

He smiled. “In here, it’s whoever shows up.”

I smiled.

“Someone will check back in with you in a bit.” He laid his hand on my arm again, giving me a reassuring nod. “Take care.”

“Thank you. I will.”

I still needed to call Kyle’s mom.

***

Excerpt from Afterward by Bristol Vaudrin. Copyright 2025 by Bristol Vaudrin. Reproduced with permission from Bristol Vaudrin. All rights reserved.

Prologue

Ronnie Charles slotted the dirty champagne flutes into the plastic racks as fast as she could, two at a time, her arms flashing between trays and crates. Her skin tightened, an overall prickling that never failed her. It meant danger, meant she had to be out of there quick. The bracelet lay heavy in the secret pocket of her trousers, bumping her thigh as she moved. Someone shifted behind her, too close, and she worked faster. She didn’t have time to fight off one of those ass-grabbers who always seemed to work these big charity dos, creeping on anyone. Even when Ronnie dressed as a man like tonight, they would reach out and squeeze a handful. Ronnie swung her bangs out of her eyes, peeked over her shoulder.

“You’ll give me back my bracelet, or I’ll rip your balls off.” The silky voice caressed her ear, the woman crowding her into the boxes before she could turn around.

The Feline. Ronnie didn’t usually name her marks, but those two words had sprung into her head as she watched the way the calculating woman slinked through the room, eyed the crowd, pounced on her targets. Ronnie took a deep breath, got a whiff of expensive perfume, and then did the only thing she could in a situation like this. She made her voice higher than normal and said, “Ma’am, I don’t have any balls.”

The tall blonde stepped back. Ronnie whipped around and saw the guys lugging chairs and tables into the truck, the caterer with her clipboard, and the cleaning crew hard at work. She so needed to keep this job.

The Feline tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, examined her through mascaraed lashes. “Well, well.”

She scanned Ronnie up and down, checked over the details of her slim hips in the black pants, her flat white shirt and bow tie, her short hair in a boy’s cut. She studied the one thing Ronnie couldn’t fake: her lack of an Adam’s apple.

“It’s not often I’m fooled.” The Feline’s voice was low, dark clouds in the distance. “We both know you have my bracelet. I let you take it because I wanted to see how good you are.”

Ronnie sucked in a breath and watched the certainty come over her, her brown eyes shining. The Feline wasn’t trying to hide her age with makeup the way a lot of women did. She proudly wore the fine lines around her eyes, the smile lines on her cheeks. She was as beautiful up close as she had been in the crowds. Ronnie had watched her, watched as the men and women gathered around her as if just being near her would save their lives.

“And you’re good,” The Feline continued, “but I’m better. I could’ve taken it back from you.” Her eyes flickered to Ronnie’s hand, which had moved all by itself to cover the secret pocket in her trousers. The Feline smiled, lines etching her skin. “I could have, but I was curious about someone almost as brazen as I am, working a crowd of this caliber.”

Tiny beads of sweat gathered at Ronnie’s hairline, and she crossed her arms to keep herself still. The first time she got caught by a mark and it was this willowy goddess. She didn’t know why she’d taken it in the first place. Not like she needed it. “Look, lady.” The caterer approached them. “You have to go. Here, I’m giving it back.” She reached into her pocket and fumbled around, for some reason, not finding the opening. “I’ll give it to you, and you can leave. I really need to keep this job.”

The Feline ran her eyes over her once more then grabbed her upper arm and started walking Ronnie away from the crates. She smiled and nodded at Ronnie’s boss. Under her breath, she said, “No, you don’t.”

Ronnie tried to pull away, but the woman tightened her grip and kept walking.

“I’ve decided you’re going to come work for me.” Her heels punctuated her words as they strode toward the exit. “You have skills I can use.”

Ronnie caught a glance from another waitperson as they passed. Pure envy. Amazing the feelings this woman could pull out of people.

“I have a garden apartment you can live in while you work off the bracelet.” Isabelle cut her eyes to Ronnie, a lioness eyeing her prey. “Your androgyny will throw my marks off balance. I can teach you so many, many things.” Her voice was hard, yet somehow soft at the same time. “I’m giving you an offer of a lifetime.”

Ronnie stopped walking, planted her feet, and the woman’s voluminous gown swirled around her legs as if to trap her.

The Feline stopped, too, but didn’t let go of her arm. “Or I can call the cops.”

No way. Ronnie could not go to jail again. She’d used up whatever goodwill the system had for her, and it would be prison for sure this time. She knew she could run, spin out of her grip, jump off the loading dock, and into the night. Down alleys and through back doors, up fire escapes and over rooftops, disappear into the grit and the cold and the peculiar community of the homeless of New York City. She sucked in her breath. Did she say “garden apartment?” The woman’s earrings glittered at her. No more sleeping on the streets. No more dumpster diving. Okay, one night, that’s it. She’d scope the place out, learn the alarm system and The Feline’s habits. Tuck the information away for when she was desperate, and tonight, she could sleep in a soft bed. An offer of a lifetime.

“I have to get my backpack.” Before Ronnie turned toward the setup tables where she’d stashed it, she caught the grin spreading over the woman’s face, her eyes dancing.

Chapter One

Frank Jankowski burst through the emergency room doors, his sixteen-year-old daughter in his arms. He rushed to the front desk, pushed past people in line, yelled at the staff, tried to get someone to pay attention. Cathy moaned, her sweaty head lolling as if she had no neck. A rushing in his ears drowned out all other sounds, and his eyes darted from one person in scrubs to the next. When he opened his mouth to yell again, Cathy vomited on the floor. As if a director had yelled Action, everyone moved at once. A woman with a wheelchair waved aside the guy with the clipboard and yelled, He can do that later! They asked Frank for symptoms, for his daughter’s name, then told the nurse at the desk to page the doctor. The curtain screeched as they yanked it back and deftly placed Cathy on the bed.

She looked like a rag doll. More nurses, stethoscopes, pulse-ox on her finger, someone in scrubs pulled him aside to quietly go over the symptoms with him, poking the iPad she cradled with each thing he said. The nurse turned him away as they inserted an IV in his daughter’s arm and led him back to the waiting room to fill out the paperwork.

He got as far as “Catherine A. Jankowski” when his gut roiled, and he clutched the clipboard tighter, knuckles whitening, scalp tingling as he waited for it to pass. He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, counting breaths as images of his daughter surrounded by medical staff, machines, an IV hookup swam behind his eyes. Not again.

Damn. Susan. He called her, told her they were in the emergency room. “Everything’s under control. Don’t worry. I’ll explain when you get here.” He didn’t want her to think it was as bad as it had been a year and a half ago. “Really, it’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Her worry would make her anxious, and her anxiety would make her yell at him. He pressed the button to end the call.

Whatever this was, and it certainly warranted the ER, it couldn’t compare to the hit and run that took more than a year from Cathy’s life. The long hospital stay, the painful rehab. But she was past all that, seeing friends, catching up on her schoolwork. So this was just—dehydration from whatever cold or flu had laid her low.

He gazed down at the clipboard as if it had just leapt into his hand. He wrote the address of Susan’s apartment on the form. His old apartment. The apartment they had found when he was first transferred to the New York Field Office, the one he thought they would stay in forever, stretching for a two-bedroom because they planned on children. He had been glad she’d kept the walls white, hung cheerful photographs, so when he came home, put his keys in the dish on the table, trying to shed the thoughts of all the evil things people did to other people, the nastiness he worked hard to fight every day, he would pause and try to put himself in the photograph, try to hear the people in them laughing, feel the gentle breeze—

Someone sat down next to him and he shifted in the plastic chair, irritated that a stranger would invade his space like that.

“Frank.”

Susan, his wife—ex-wife—pulled the clipboard away from him and began filling in the form, glancing up at him as if trying to determine what kind of stupid he was. The rhythmic scratching of pen on paper calmed him. She checked off that Cathy had had her immunizations, was current on tetanus, that there was no history of diabetes in their family. The pen hovered over What brought you in today? She raised an eyebrow at Frank. “Are you going to tell me?”

“I thought it was the flu.” He stared straight ahead, not wanting to see the accusations firing from her eyes. “But then she started hallucinating…”

“The flu.” Susan’s pen scratched on the paper. “In August. You thought it was the flu.”

“SuSu—” Frank turned toward her but quickly looked away when he caught the flare of her nostrils and the flash of her blue eyes. He shouldn’t have used his old name for her, but it had just slipped out. He watched the activity at the front desk for a beat, then said, his voice quiet, “You would have thought so, too.”

“Not in August, Frank. I would never have thought that. Did she have a fever?”

“She didn’t seem to. I felt her forehead because she was sweating so much, but—”

“No thermometer at your apartment? How can that be? All these years of Cathy over there, and you don’t even have the rudiments of—the basics for—any way to take—”

Susan tripped over her words, sputtered in her anger, and Frank stayed still, waited for it to pass. A man a few rows ahead of them tapped on his phone, his three children around him squirming and kicking each other, whining at their father, who didn’t respond.

“…her symptoms?” His ex-wife had taken on a neutral tone, perhaps deciding that the paperwork was more important than fighting Frank.

He listed the symptoms in the order they had occurred, the aches, the sweating, the vomiting. Her pen flew over the paper, her frown deepened as the list went on, ending with the hallucinations.

“Mr. and Mrs. Jankowski?”

Susan flinched, her lips thin, jaw tight.

“Could you come with me, please?” The nurse checked for them over her shoulder, an iPad in her hand, led them down the hall, opened a door. “Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Jankowski, let’s go in here—”

“We’re divorced.” Susan forced the words through clenched teeth, sounding as if she wouldn’t mind going through the proceedings all over again.

They followed the nurse into a small room crammed with desks. The young woman in her cartoon scrubs and bright clogs didn’t ask them to sit. She shut the door and turned to face them. She held up her iPad as if it were a shield, aimed her question at the device, her tone mild as if merely confirming Cathy’s age, “How long has your daughter been addicted to opioids?”

***

Excerpt from The Brownstone on E. 83rd by Jenny Dandy. Copyright 2025 by Jenny Dandy. Reproduced with permission from Jenny Dandy. All rights reserved.