Prologue

She wants to kill you.

Martha’s fingers tightened onto the Pentel No. 2 pencil, clutched in her lap like a secret talisman. Dr. Ellijay picked up the stack of test booklets, squared them on her desk with soft raps, and began handing them out. She walked slowly down the aisle, her heels popping on the linoleum.

Not today, Martha thought. Please, Lenny, not today.

Outside the casement windows, the campus was awash in gray, a silent movie, as it had been for days, suspended between fog and drizzle, the dull light suppressing shadows, flattening the neo-Gothic buildings of Ponce de Leon College like a plywood set. Only two o’clock, but outside looked more like dusk.

The quad was empty, except for a lone figure seated on a bench, a man in a tweed blazer taking notes in a composition book. He looked up in Martha’s direction, then down at the notebook, then toward her again. To escape his gaze, she looked elsewhere, beyond the campus buildings, above the crenellated rooflines.

It was there again. She had seen it before, on bad days, and now it stretched across the buildings, high above the spires and turrets, gelatinous and nearly invisible except for a network of threadlike capillaries. It pulsed and it heaved, breathing, alive.

Don’t look at it, Lovie. Lenny murmured in her ear, his voice moist and intimate. You know they don’t want you to see that, right? Just pretend you don’t see it.

Today Lenny was only a voice, but on some days she could see him. He was tall and gaunt, his skin white and mottled, like the belly of a toad. Spiked hair. Blue jeans shiny with stains. Canvas sneakers, gray and frayed.

Martha felt a touch on her shoulder, jerked around.

“Relax, Martha.” Wade leaned forward in the desk behind her. “You look as tight as a piano wire. You’ll do great.”

You won’t do great. You’ll die. Lenny hissed. S’truth. You’ll die if you even touch the paper.

This was the first time Wade had spoken to her in months. In the early weeks of the semester, he had flirted with her, singled her out for special attention. For a while, the attraction had been mutual. She liked his pug nose, his subversive sense of humor. But that was before.

Dr. Ellijay walked to the end of the next aisle, Martha’s aisle.

Have a look out, Lovie. ’Ere it comes.

Martha tried to concentrate, to review her mental notes. This was the final. Her grades had been floundering—that’s all part of the plan, innit?—but Martha had decided she would overcome the plan. She wouldn’t let them win.

Don’t touch the paper, Lenny rasped. It’s printed with poison ink. It’s like them colorful frogs in Ecuador. We learned about that in Biology 101, remember? Beautiful, but lethal. If you touch the ink, you’ll die.

Dr. Ellijay returned to her desk at the front of the room and glanced at her wristwatch. “All right, you have forty-five minutes,” she told the class. “You may begin now. Good luck.”

Look at ’er. She’s watchin’ you. She wants to see you fail. Touch the frog poison, and you’ll die. Look out the window. The man on the bench, he’s watchin’, too. They’re all watchin’. They’ve all been waitin’ for this moment, doncha see?

Martha stared at the page, paralyzed. She felt a drop of perspiration release from her armpit and crawl down her side. Around her, she heard the frantic scratching of her fellow students’ pens. They mingled with the sounds of the rats in the walls, the ones that chewed at the masonry with their sharp teeth, like yellow rice grains. The other students acted as if the rats weren’t there.

She glanced at the clock. Six minutes gone already. She looked down at the paper and tried to focus, to form the answers in her mind.

If you fall for it—don’t say I din’t warn you, Lovie.

She wanted to cry, or to scream, but she was motionless except for the pounding of her heart.

Don’t react. Don’t let ’em know. Don’t let ’em on to you, right? That’s the worst thing.

She heard Dr. Ellijay’s footsteps approach and stop next to her desk. She didn’t look up.

“Martha? It’s been ten minutes, and you haven’t even started. Are you all right?”

A swarm of ghostly, amoeba shapes floated in front of Martha’s eyes, and she felt as if her head would explode.

“Martha?” Dr. Ellijay placed a hand on her shoulder.

Martha screamed and lunged out of her seat, pushing the desk over, causing books to tumble out.

Run. It’s yer only chance—run like hellfire.

She bounded up the aisle, reached the door, and flung it open with a bang.

Run, Lovie.

In the hallway, Martha collided with a student on his cellphone, texting. She turned the corner onto another hallway and spotted the door to the custodial closet. She tried the knob. It opened. She slipped inside, squeezed next to a plastic mop bucket with rubber wheels, pulled the door closed, and slid to the floor.

In the darkness, she could smell ammonia. She heard the rats scurry around her. One brushed against her ankle, another along the back of her neck. Out in the hallway, footsteps approaching.

Voices calling her name. But Martha remained silent, invisible.

This is one thing we’re good at, hey, Lovie? Lenny said. We know how to vanish.

Chapter 1

Ten months later

Martha sat on an iron bench in front of the Wash-and-Fold and watched a column of ants as they marched away carrying crumbs from the smashed corner of a ham sandwich.

She had made the walk from the Pritchett House to Tobias Avenue in only fifteen minutes, strolling past dew-damp lawns and sprinklers, reaching the business district early. Nothing to do now but wait and watch the town slowly wake up. The morning was hazy, already humid. The rising sun painted sharp, expanding triangles of yellow on the buildings and storefronts.

Martha opened her leather satchel and unfolded the advertisement, the one Vince found on the bulletin board at the Gateway Center. She reread it for the hundredth time.

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
The Historical Society of Amberleen, Georgia, seeks a full-time intern to assist with book project. Must be bright, organized, and detail-oriented, able to hit the ground running. Will transcribe/edit interviews, write introductions, assist with research. Three-month term with stipend. Assist with book project. Must be bright, organized, and detail-oriented, able to hit the ground running. Will transcribe/edit interviews, write introductions, assist with research. Three-month term with stipend.

She felt restless, considered moving to the local diner for a cup of coffee, then scrapped the idea. Like so many things, caffeine was no longer admissible.

She wished she’d brought a book to read, or maybe a newspaper. Anything to take her mind off the fluttery feeling in her gut, a sensation that took hold yesterday when the Trailways bus crossed the Intracoastal Waterway and rolled past that sign in the grass median:

Welcome to Amberleen. Spacious Oaks, Friendly Folks.

Martha held the leather satchel close to her face and sniffed. The smell calmed her. It reminded her of her father, who kept it bulging with papers as he shuttled between their house and the university. She tilted the satchel and heard a faint rattle from within, a secret sound. The part of herself she would keep hidden.

A Lincoln Continental pulled up in front of the brick building across the street and parked. A tall woman with white hair and an old-fashioned, collared dress got out, unlocked the glass door to the building, and entered. Martha checked her watch—eight fifteen. She took out a mirror, freshened her lip gloss, and brushed a few strands of loose hair from her face. It was time.

***

Excerpt from THE GIRL IN THE MAZE by R. K. Jackson. Copyright 2025 by R. K. Jackson. Reproduced with permission from R. K. Jackson. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

What would be a landmark day for any other federal agent was an exercise in misery for Special Agent Gordon Stone. He sat, restless and uncomfortable, in the crowded auditorium inside the Albert V. Bryan US Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. Wesley Jay, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), was on stage addressing the capacity crowd. Jay extolled the virtues of his office and its extraordinary success in managing the Eastern District’s “rocket docket.” The court’s namesake had coined the term in the seventies, District Court Judge Bryan himself. What it meant for Jay and his stable of Assistant US Attorneys (AUSAs) was that they were forced to be one of the most efficient offices in the country when it came to prosecuting cases. They gathered annually to recognize the most successful investigations and prosecutions of the preceding year. Lawyers, law enforcement, and family members filled the auditorium. For an office that had prosecuted some of the most notorious spy and terrorist cases in the country—not to mention the occasional political scandal—the yearly awards ceremony always attracted a full house.

“Copied by many, mirrored by none,” said Jay. “We bring justice to the American people more quickly and effectively than anywhere else in the country. I take great pride in that fact and hope you do as well.”

Gordon tried to listen, but his discomfort just being there compelled him to tune out Jay’s speech. It wasn’t that he did not want to be there. On the contrary, his greatest desire was to be able to sit in the audience, listen to Jay, and enjoy a career highlight. Gordon was being recognized for his work as lead agent on an application fraud case with the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI).

But Gordon did not fit in. He liked people, but he had trouble relating to them and was painfully aware of his social awkwardness. Way back in elementary school, he had been diagnosed with high-functioning autism, at the time referred to as Asperger Syndrome, or colloquially as Asperger’s.

Gordon appeared just like everyone else, but when it came to basic human interaction, it took a great deal of effort for him to engage with most people. It was always hard and frequently exhausting. Small talk, humor, and sarcasm often flew past him. Therapy had brought him a long way, but still, those who did not know him thought he was aloof. Some actually found his behavior offensive.

“Damn Asperger’s,” he said to himself.

The true irony, he knew, was however damning Asperger’s was to his social status, it was also his superpower, allowing him to focus on a particular topic—or investigation—to the point where he could see things no one else could see. He could anticipate what others viewed as unexpected. That focus bred unparalleled intuition, which was what made him a great investigator.

That was why he was here in this crowded hall, surrounded by people he did not know. He was a great investigator. But he was most definitely not a great socializer, and he was uncomfortable. As much as he wished he could enjoy the ceremony and embrace the praise of his peers, his Asperger’s would not allow it. In fact, a big group setting surrounded by strangers? That was pretty much the nightmare scenario.

Gordon’s brain was wired differently. At least that’s how Katherine, his longtime therapist, described it. He thought differently, acted differently, saw the world differently than most. She emphasized repeatedly to him he was not broken, just different, and Gordon knew it was okay to be different. Most of the time, that was enough. But even now, as a successful thirty-two-year-old federal agent, he could still feel broken. He hoped today would not be one of those days.

“The work we do—check that—the work you do for this country is, simply put, extraordinary,” Jay continued. “We put more cases before a judge than anyone else, and that means when it comes time to recognize our best work in a given year, the competition is tight. I salute those of you sitting in this room. Your work, your intellect, your dogged pursuit of justice places you at the top of what we do here. You are the best of the best. Thank you for all you do for our organization, our district, and our country.” Jay smiled to his audience. “Now then, let’s hand out some hardware.”

***

Excerpt from Silent Killer by Ross Weiland & Tracy Burnett. Copyright 2025 by Ross Weiland & Tracy Burnett. Reproduced with permission from Ross Weiland & Tracy Burnett. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

The digital screens on the kitchen appliances screamed 5:00 a.m. He knew he should crawl back into bed. It had been like this for six months now, ever since the promotion at work. Waking up with sweat across his brow and his back just before the reoccurring dream headed toward a disastrous end, as if his mind were a savvy film editor cutting out an ending he hadn’t the fortitude to handle. Each time, he carefully felt the area around his body, without waking Charlotte, to make sure it wasn’t so bad that the sheets were damp, and then walked as quietly as possible to the open area of their apartment housing the kitchen and small living room. No amount of effort to return to sleep worked these days. Nagging concerns that it was more premonition than dream rolled up in him with all the discomfort of a chronic stomachache. Logging into his work laptop settled his fears. Focusing on a stack of emails—a pile of problems to be solved and tasks to be completed—reassured him that he was necessary, valuable, not someone they would discard like an old rag no matter what he’d done. In his mind, there had been no way but the path he’d chosen. But words didn’t seem to alleviate the mild trembling in his hands.

Lies were like that. They felt justified as a route to sparing others hurt, a path to keeping things balanced, a necessary evil. Lies spawned subsequent lies until the entangled mess required putting one’s ethics on the shelf now and then to simply manage life. This was the well-worn mantra Ted told himself in the wee hours of the morning to justify how he’d moved up and into a manager role. They needed the money. Jesse needed the money. He’d put everything he held sacred on the line. He couldn’t allow the twin detractors of guilt and regret to weaken his resolve. He’d done what he needed to do for the people he loved most.

It was quiet at this hour, streetlights reflecting against windshields sprinkled with soft, multicolored leaves and a touch of dew that wasn’t quite frost. Late September always hinted at colder weather just around the corner. A few more hours and the neighborhood would awaken. People brushing off the comfort of blankets and sleep would appear below to warm up vehicles parked bumper to bumper in urban uniformity along both sides of East End Avenue. Others would hurry to the bus stop to catch the 61A. The world around him stepping into the day. Ted’s itch to join their ranks felt as natural as breathing. It was all he’d left his life in Montana to pursue.

Similar to the residences of most of their neighbors, the roomy but older apartment harkened back to another time. A solid brick building whose faded glory showed in the slight dip and sag of the front steps, old woodwork in need of refinishing, plumbing with ancient cast-iron pipes, and registers emitting solid boiler-powered heat. A faded, elderly lady in need of a facelift with all the architectural character Charlotte loved. Ted wished they could buy a home in the neighborhood, but he’d told Charlotte he lusted after the big, refurbished homes near Frick Park or the luxury condos on Mt. Washington. Another lie placed carefully to postpone a little bit longer her aching desire to own a home, just until he could restore the funds missing from his account at the company’s credit union, which he’d drained. Thankfully, the account was in his name only. A few more months and he’d have replaced at least three quarters of what he’d felt forced to remove. His promotion to manager was making that possible.

“Tell her the truth about the ranch,” Jesse had advised.

“She’ll want to move back to Montana,” Ted had said. “You know she has this fantasy about living there.”

“Would that be so bad?” Jesse replied.

Just thinking about the endless hours in the saddle herding cattle, sore muscles from the physical labor, then falling into bed exhausted, worn out, only to do it again the next day made the muscles tighten in Ted’s neck and shoulders. He felt a slight pain and, looking down, realized he’d clenched his hands at the thought of returning, to the point where tension ran all the way up his arm and into his shoulders. Jesse viewed ranch life as freedom from the chains of a rigid, corporate structure. Freedom to work for himself and to answer to himself only, to own his own destiny. Ted saw it as a beautiful trap, the land and mountains casting stunning views on a life where progress, as Ted defined it, was limited. He saw freedom in a place where his computer skills and cyber knowledge prepared an even path upward to clearly definable roles that would fund a nicer, easier life for his family. He and Jesse had had discussions about this, a few of which were heated, so they’d agreed to disagree and move on. Charlotte alternated between agreeing with him and then with Jesse, her chronic indecision making Ted feel he was required to make the tough decisions.

“It’s not what I want. And it’s not really what she would want once she got a good taste of it,” he told Jesse, hoping to shut down the topic.

“You never know. It could turn out to be really great for both of you, and I’d love for you to live closer. You could work in Bozeman, and I’d run the ranch.”

“Yeah, we miss you too, but no, Jesse, I’m not leaving the opportunities here for some smaller place with no career path.”

“It’s your call, brother.” Jesse sounded more resigned than disapproving, tired of what was a conversation they’d had before.

“Dad should have left the ranch to you. We both know that,” Ted said. “And even if he had, I’d still be helping you when times got tough.”

“He loved you more,” Jesse answered. “We both know that too.”

Jesse, his younger brother who loved their family ranch, who lived a straight and honest life, who loved but rarely understood Ted. He wished he could be fully honest with Jesse. All this hiding secrets from people he loved, covering up old lies, creating new ones. Only a few more years and he could sign that ranch over to Jesse, shake the albatross from his shoulders along with the memories of the last words between him and his father, and move on. Another six months and he could pretend he’d settle for a house in their neighborhood and hire a realtor.

“Hey, there . . . couldn’t sleep again?” He didn’t realize Charlotte was in the living room until she slid down next to him on the couch, resting her head on his shoulder as his fingers tapped the laptop keys. “How long have you been out here?”

“About an hour, I guess.”

“You work too much.”

She looked beautiful—hair tousled, eyes drowsy as they fought the need for a little more sleep. He knew she was weary of him working long hours.

“I tried to go back to sleep and I couldn’t, so I figured I’d get some work done,” Ted said as he carefully minimized the screen and slid his hand over the USB flash drive he’d inserted earlier.

“It’s not healthy, Ted,” she replied. “We need to get you a sleeping pill or some solution to this insomnia. I’m going to ask Dr. Collins tonight.”

“The therapist can write prescriptions?” Ted fought the urge to roll his eyes, as he did, privately, about most things related to Dr. Collins. It was his first experience with a marriage counselor and, he hoped, his last. He’d agreed to go because he loved Charlotte and she thought this was the key to some sort of marital happiness. He thought otherwise but kept his comments to himself.

“She’s a licensed psychiatrist. She can prescribe medication.”

“I’d love to sleep a good eight hours,” Ted said. Dr. Collins might prove to be good for something after all, even if it came in the form of a little white pill.

Seven years of marriage and several months of marriage counseling had taught him a few things, such as when to keep his mouth shut and when to agree.

“Did you work on your list . . . for tonight?” Charlotte tapped the cover of Ted’s iPad, closed and lying on the coffee table.

“Done. Insomnia was good for something, I guess.” The marriage counselor had asked them to create a list of what they loved about each other and what drove them to the problems they’d been facing. He’d thought about objecting to what seemed a silly request that solved very little, but Charlotte had leaned forward, excited, attaching herself to the counselor’s words. “I had zero problems listing what I love about you.”

Ted smiled at her as, in a flash of memory, he could see her auburn hair lifting on the breeze while they rode horses across the land and into the mountains near his family’s ranch. His sole thought had been to wonder if she would agree to marry him as he nervously fingered the ring box in his jacket pocket. He’d envisioned a life for them with a steady income they could count on, medical benefits, a modest home of their own, children. The opposite, in his mind, of the insecurities of ranch life. They’d been halfway to that dream when his parents died in an automobile accident, and he discovered his father actually could reach back from the grave to maintain a level of control over him. Their deaths had created the uphill battle he found himself trudging along now.

“Can I see it? Your list?” Charlotte asked, reaching for his iPad.

“No, we’ll do this together, later . . . with the counselor.” Ted grabbed the iPad and popped it into his backpack, removing the USB from his work laptop at the same time. He’d need to actually create a list, quickly, during his lunch hour. “How about your list? Done?” He was a little nervous about what she might say about him tonight.

“Hmmm . . . sort of.” Charlotte stood, heading for the kitchen. He could hear her opening cupboards, pulling items to make coffee.

“I’d say you don’t trust me, which makes list-making hard, but I know where that will take the conversation.” He purposefully kept his tone light, something practice had made perfect where this topic was concerned, but he still felt an anger that never quite grew a scab and healed.

“I let that whole San Francisco trip go. You know that.” Ted watched her move around the kitchen, her back to him, alert for body language that said otherwise. Maybe arms crossing her body, biceps tightening, chewing on her nails. And then, there it was as she yanked the cabinet door so hard it banged and pulled out one, not two, coffee mugs.

Ted knew she was lying. It ate at her insecurities that he’d gotten drunk on a business trip, woke up fully clothed, his coworker Missy asleep next to him, his mind a blank as to how she’d ended up in his room. The story had trickled out, with various twists, until it reached Charlotte. He’d been explaining ever since that nothing had happened. But who was he to call anyone out on lying these days?

“We were happier in Montana,” Charlotte said. “We were more . . . more . . . I don’t know, centered? Before you took this job, we were different.”

Here we go again. Ted clutched the arm of the couch and closed his eyes, willing himself to keep the inward groan rolling up his chest from escaping through his mouth.

“We were kids then, Charlotte. Everything was easier. We’ll both be thirty years old this year, and I want to move forward, not go back,” Ted answered, hoping his voice sounded steady, calm, the opposite of the turmoil flushing his cheeks. He turned sideways on the couch, watching Charlotte move gracefully around the kitchen. “A ranch is nothing but hard work and very little money. We have a nice life here.”

This was the kind of crap he thought they should hash out in counseling and that, if Dr. Collins was as good as she claimed, their sessions would be less one-sided in favor of Charlotte. But he wasn’t about to drop a bomb in their marriage therapy sessions and start a fight. He’d decided after the first round with the good doctor that her goal was to agree with Charlotte about what key topics they should be covering and he was just along for the ride. Not that the topic of Charlotte’s ideas about living in Montana didn’t come up with the counselor, but it never moved from what Ted viewed as a fantasy lens of “living a simple life” to reality. There he sat with two women who had grown up in the city’s suburbs, their biggest childhood chore involving keeping their bedrooms clean, as the only expert on actual ranch life in the room but deferring to Charlotte’s view to keep things amenable. To Ted, simpler meant poorer. Neither Charlotte nor Dr. Collins had ever had to live that kind of life. What he’d gleaned so far in their five months of therapy was that meeting in college, dating exclusively, marrying quickly following graduation, and having a child two years later had left them unprepared for the hard work of marriage in a way that didn’t appear to affect other couples they knew.

Charlotte ignored him, pulling down cereal for breakfast, bread and peanut butter to make and pack a sandwich for Kelsey’s lunch, and refusing to answer. He supposed she knew it could end up in an argument and she’d rather drop it now, hash it out later. But Ted thought they could save a lot of money on therapy if they could simply talk things through without a mediator and without anger and tears. The last time he suggested this, Charlotte said they would revert to the habits they needed to break rather than chart a new course. He assumed she thought therapy would accomplish some sort of new life for them. He was relatively cynical regarding the outcome she envisioned, but he’d keep showing up and giving it a try. Somewhere within himself he knew it was a half-hearted try, and this, alone, doomed the therapy journey to a less-than-successful outcome. If he could keep his current plan on track, he’d buy a house for his family in less than a year, and that, he believed, would be a much more effective game changer than Dr. Collins.

“You have a full day today?” Ted asked.

“What?” Charlotte paused, brows pulled inward in confusion. The brewing coffee was beginning to smell good.

“You’re making Kelsey a sandwich, so I thought she must be going to the kindergarten after-school program rather than home with you.”

“Oh, right, right . . .” Charlotte nodded, turning back to the kitchen counter. “I’m at the museum until noon, then lunch with Leah, and I’m on a deadline for an art gallery review for the newspaper . . . plus we have counseling later. I’ll pick Kelsey up a little later than usual, and then Shay said he’d babysit.”

Shay, Ted’s colleague at work and best friend since their move to Pittsburgh. Other than Jesse, he’d never had as close a friendship with another man. He valued Shay like a brother. Shay had run interference after the San Francisco debacle, but he’d warned Ted that one more mistake that big and Charlotte would leave.

Ted walked into the kitchen and poured cream into the bottom of a mug, then added the coffee, one of the few habits he’d picked up from his father.

“Can you grab a coffee and sit with me before we go our separate ways?” Ted asked.

Charlotte’s face softened, and she brought her mug—black, no sugar, he knew—with her, sitting down slowly, careful not to spill the hot liquid. He took her hand and squeezed, feeling the current between them he’d felt on their first date, a connection that all the ups and downs in their lives had not yet diminished, even when they chose to ignore it out of anger or disappointment in one another.

“Before my job, we were poor,” Ted said. “We agreed Pittsburgh had better opportunities. You wanted to be near family, but now you rarely make any effort to see them beyond asking if they will babysit Kelsey.”

“You know how difficult my mother can be, Ted,” Charlotte responded. “And be honest . . . you don’t really like my family all that much.”

“I like some of them . . . maybe not your mother,” Ted answered jokingly, hoping to lighten the mood with what was usually their mutual annoyance with Charlotte’s mother. “The ranch should belong to Jesse. He loves Montana. He loves his life. And we can always visit.”

“Should belong?” Charlotte was staring at him now, that questioning look she got when she was working on a new story for the newspaper crossing her face. “Art left the ranch to Jesse because you didn’t want it.”

“Right,” Ted said, quickly covering the slip. “I meant the ranch should always belong to Jesse.”

“Yeah, of course,” Charlotte said.

It saddened Ted to see the wistful expression on his wife’s face. If he kept pushing this conversation, he would open the door to something unpleasant.

“Let’s talk about Montana vs. Pittsburgh with Dr. Collins, okay?” Ted hoped he could find a way to convey that moving to Montana wasn’t necessary. Charlotte and Kelsey did not take a back seat to his work life, as she often claimed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything he’d done, everything he was doing, was for the wife and daughter he could not imagine life without and the younger brother he loved deeply. Jesse deserved that ranch, and Charlotte deserved to own rather than rent a home.

Charlotte nodded and gave him a tired half smile.

“Finish up that coffee. I’m going to take a shower,” Ted said, standing and heading toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathroom. He wanted to wash it all away, the sleepless nights, the lies he’d just told, yet again, woven into the fabric of the ancient lies his father had dumped on his shoulders.

“Don’t be late tonight, Ted,” Charlotte called out behind him.

She’d laid down the rules months ago. Go to marriage counseling, or she was taking Kelsey and moving out. He hadn’t missed a session, and he wouldn’t, no matter what the day would bring.

***

Excerpt from What Lies We Keep by Janet Roberts. Copyright 2025 by Janet Roberts. Reproduced with permission from Janet Roberts. All rights reserved.

PROLOGUE

Saturday night, March 3rd

A sobbing and trembling Myra Taylor lies on the cold Nevada desert floor. Her hands are tied behind her back, and her ankles are cruelly bound. Though she cannot see the passing clouds high in the night sky, she can hear the unmistakable sounds of a shovel digging into the sand, with the earth tossed rudely to the side.

Two months ago, a chance encounter at Sprout’s Farmers Market had changed everything. The agent's offer seemed like a lifeline amidst her struggles. Her infant son’s medical bills had piled up, and the financial burden was overwhelming. Her job as an exotic dancer didn’t pay enough. The substantial amount of money the agent promised felt like a divine intervention, a means to alleviate her worries and give her son a fighting chance. But now, the single mother wishes she’d never agreed to snitch her boss, Sonny Holman, off to the FBI.

“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.” The terror in her voice is unmistakable, even though the canvas hood dulls her frantic cries.

There is no response.

“Please, I’ll do anything you want. Anything at all.”

Still no response.

The twenty-seven year old brunette twists her wrists in a vain attempt to free herself. If only she could work the cord off one wrist, she could free her legs and run for it.

Then she hears a thump. Footsteps crunch in the sand, getting closer.

Her thoughts go back to her son and to the man she was in love with.

A pair of strong hands jerks her off the ground like she’s a ragdoll. “Please don’t. I have a baby boy. He’s very sick. Please let me go. I’ll be good. I’ll do anything Sonny wants. I swear.”

“You shoulda done that ‘steada rattin us out to the fuckin feds,” the man growled.

Myra finds herself thrown to the ground face-first. The impact knocks the breath out of her. She inhales, gasping in the canvas hood. The last two sounds she hears are the slam and slide of a semi-automatic handgun and the mournful howl of a lone coyote.

***

Excerpt from Whatever It Takes by Alan Brenham. Copyright 2025 by Alan Brenham. Reproduced with permission from Alan Brenham. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

The man ran, rabbit-fast and rabbit-scared, through the trees. His pack pulled on his shoulders as he scrambled over rotting logs and gouged the moldy sponge of fallen leaves with his boots. He couldn’t hear what was behind him over his own frantic sprinting, the racket of an inexperienced fool. His foot hit a hole and he went tumbling down an incline, landing hard in the Ozark dirt. He got to his knees and tried to catch his breath. If he could only make it to the road. Maybe he could find help. Safety. He started to move, but his knees wouldn’t stay steady enough for him to stand. He tried to crawl and got nothing but a few yards’ progress and a stab in the thigh from a dead branch. He bit his lip to keep from yelling out as blood started to seep through his pants. He slumped down on his elbows and swore.

It was time to face facts.

He sat back on his haunches and shrugged the pack off his back. The wind hit his sweat-soaked shirt and sent a chill along his spine. He twisted around, searching for a hiding spot. Nothing. He forced himself upright and stumbled forward. He made it over the next rise, dragging the pack behind him, and saw what he needed. He concealed it as completely as he could. Maybe it would work. Nothing else during this whole calamity had.

He backed away and took in the lay of the land. He still didn’t know where he was, but there were no longer sounds of pursuit. He chose to continue downhill. If he didn’t hit the road, chances were good he’d at least hit a creek. That might lead to a lake, which might lead to people.

He limped along as quickly as he could. The puncture wound started to burn and he could feel the blood running down his leg and into his sock. The darkness was almost complete, and all the obstacles he’d been able to see and avoid were disappearing in the gloom. He tripped again, going down hard and cutting his cheek. He lay there inhaling the scent of fungus spores and animal piss and his own fear. He curled his hand over dry leaves, taking their last bit of sunbaked warmth and turning them to dust.

A nearby tree worked as support for him to regain his feet. He wiped blood and tears on his sleeve and pushed off. Then a glimmer of moonlight showed a sliver of flat surface, flat like a God-sent, man-made road. It was off to his left and he veered in that direction, heading past a stretch of blank blackness on the right. His step started to lighten and his lungs loosened with each breath. He quickened his pace.

He never saw them coming.

Hank Worth spread the paperwork out over his desk. There was a comfortingly large amount of it. It would take him a long time to sort through everything, which meant he’d need to stay here longer. And not go home. He didn’t need to, not really. The kids were fine, on a back-to-school shopping trip with Maggie. They’d probably come home late with new lunchboxes and sneakers, and ice cream on their faces from the bribe their mother had to pay in order to get them into that last store for glue sticks and Ticonderoga pencils.

He’d be home in time to put them to bed. And then he could go work in the garage. And think about what to do about these catalytic converter thefts. He pulled the latest theft report out of the pile. A used-car dealership out on Highway 76 had had seven of the car parts stolen sometime in the past week. Hank looked around the dreary office he’d been stuck with since becoming the Branson County sheriff almost two years ago, then out the window at the beautiful fall day. Maybe the owner was at work today. He grabbed his keys and quickly left the building.

Twenty minutes later he was walking through the not-so-gently-used collection of cars at Combs Car Emporium. A man built like a snowman emerged from the office and watched him approach.

“Yeah, I’m the owner. Wendall Combs.” He was wearing a polo shirt and slacks and had skin and hair so white he would’ve been impossible to spot in a blizzard. He shook Hank’s hand and ushered him inside. “Brian told me you all asked about my security when he filed the report.” He shut the door firmly behind them. “The employees don’t know what I got. Keeps them honest.”

“So what do you have, sir?” Hank asked. He hadn’t been able to pick out any surveillance cameras as he walked across the lot.

“I got a camera in the light pole by the entrance.”

Hank waited. ‘Is that everything?’ he finally said.

“Well, yeah.’ Combs shifted self-consciously.

“How much of the lot does that camera cover?”

“All of it.’ Frosty was indignant.

“Excellent. May I see the video? You can orient me and then I can take a copy of the recording of the past week?”

The footage turned out to be even worse than Hank expected. A high-wattage security light washed out the view of most of the lot. The remainder was pockmarked with impenetrable shadows.

“It’s real high up, now, so it’s hard to see down in between the cars, like,” Frosty said defensively. “I’m watching for thieves moving big-ass cars. Not small-ass parts. How the hell should I be expected to know they’d come for that kind of stuff?”

Hank gave what he hoped was a soothing nod, and made a few recommendations about camera placement and studies that showed visible cameras actually did act as a deterrent and perhaps Mr. Combs could consider it? The owner grumbled a while before saying he would think on it.

“Do you have any idea when the converters were taken?”

“No, son, I don’t know when. We just noticed it. The last time someone drove one of the cars was last Tuesday. So had to have been after that. But just ’cause I can’t sell a 2003 sedan doesn’t mean I want to offer it up for parts, free of charge.”

He had a point. They went outside and Frosty showed him which cars had been targeted. All were parked on the edges of the lot, where access was the easiest and the video’s pockmarks were the blackest.

“So your employees don’t know about the camera?”

“Nope.”

“And they’ve never seen video from it?”

“Nope.”

“Keep it that way. But add some more cameras, like we talked about, Okay?”

He got grudging agreement and an icy handshake before Combs disappeared into his office. Hank thought for a minute and headed down to the next used-car lot, Briscoe’s 76 Cars, where he ruined that manager’s day in sixty seconds flat.

“What? Converters stolen at Wendall’s place?” The manager hadn’t heard and immediately sent his two hapless twenty-something salespeople crawling under every vehicle on their patch of asphalt. They found four missing. They also had no usable surveillance video. While they had three times the number of cameras as Combs did, it turned out they became ineffective when colonized by birds and covered in what birds tended to output at high rates.

The manager was furious and spent ten minutes stomping around before Hank could get another word in. Multiple swear words and a stale cup of coffee later, Hank had repeated his security improvement recommendations and gotten the list of Briscoe cars now missing catalytic converters. He left the manager dialing his boss with a look of dread, and walked back to his squad car, carefully skirting the cameras’ drop zones on the way.

Chief Deputy Sheila Turley limped into the Pickin’ Porch Grill, fingers curled lightly around the handle of her cane. She tried swinging it with a jaunty air, but her fifty-two-year-old body wasn’t quite ready for that. She planted it back on the floor and made her way to the table. Her gait was slow but no longer torturous. Compared with her appalling wheelchair-bound immobility for the past several months, this stroll was equivalent to tap dancing into the restaurant and finishing off with a cartwheel.

A tall, trim white man in a suit and tie rose to his feet as she approached. He waited until she settled herself before resuming his seat. Wisely, he did not offer her any assistance. Their many phone conversations seemed to have schooled him on enough of Sheila’s personality to know that would be unwelcome.

“It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” Malcolm Oberholz said.

“You, too.’ She propped her cane against the wall and eyed the prosecutor. “You really are older than you sound on the phone.”

He laughed. ‘I told you so.”

“I do wish you’d let me meet you halfway. There was no need for you to drive all the way down here from St. Louis.”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all. It gives me an opportunity to see the area. Which is important.” He looked around. “If I’m going to try to convince twelve Branson County residents that Eddie Fizzel, Junior, is guilty, I need to not seem like an outsider.”

Then the man needed a cheaper suit. She’d save that advice for later, though. Instead, she asked how they could possibly get an unbiased jury in this county.

“That’s a very good question. I’m going to assert that we can’t, and ask the judge to change the trial venue entirely. Move it to my county, ask the good people of a nice big metro area to decide.”

“Will a judge go for that?”

He shrugged. “It depends on who we get. It will be a while before we know who it’ll be, since it has to be someone who also has no connection to this county.”

Sheila nodded. It would be just semi-complicated if it were only her, Branson County’s African American chief deputy sheriff, involved. But the man who assaulted her – in addition to being an unemployed, entitled little shit – was the son of a county commissioner. Edrick Fizzel, Senior, had been in office since God was young and the devil just fallen. He knew everyone. Half of the electorate loved him, and the other half he had dirt on. Combine that with people’s strong opinions of law enforcement – both pro and con – and this citified white boy had his work cut out for him.

“So that’s going to be one of my first moves,” Oberholz said. “But it’s a motion that’s going to need to be argued in your courthouse, even if it is in front of an out-of-town judge. So I’d like to get my feet under me, so to speak.”

“A good place to start is with a fried chicken sandwich with extra chipotle aioli,” she said. Oberholz ordered two at the counter and had the waitress come back with their drinks. Sheila took hers, shifting slightly to ease the ache in her torso. Thankfully, Oberholz didn’t notice.

“No matter where it’s tried, though, we’re going to have a problem with the ER doctor’s report of your injuries.”

Or maybe he had. She sighed.

“That ER doctor is a friend of yours. They’re going to allege that she’s biased in your favor.”

Sheila snorted with laughter. “The only thing Maggie McCleary is biased toward is an accurate diagnosis.”

Oberholz’s lips turned into a thin line. Sheila looked straight back at him and calmly put her napkin in her lap. “I’m not making light of how hard this is going to be. In Maggie’s case, there are multiple surgeons and specialists who back up her initial opinion about all of my abdominal injuries. And the broken ribs. And the concussion. And my lacerated hands and knees. I know you like those.”

The second time they’d talked, he’d asked specifically for the photos her husband Tyrone had taken the night of the attack that showed her raw and bloody palms and kneecaps. Now he shook a straw at her before plunking it into his iced tea. “Those two things tell a story. The story of a woman who had to crawl four hundred yards through the woods at night in order to save herself. Jurors will see your X-rays and it won’t matter. To laypeople, that’s just a bunch of shadows on a screen. But everybody can relate to scraped and bloody hands. And they only got that way because you knew you were going to die if you stayed there lying in the dirt. So you dragged yourself to the road in order for paramedics to find you. You saved your own life. Your palms might’ve been beat all to hell, but Edrick Fizzel, Junior, is the one with blood on his hands.”

Sheila sat back like she’d been smacked. Oberholz took a sip of tea. “The facts matter. I’m not one of those lawyers who pretends they don’t. But a trial usually comes down to who’s the better storyteller. And ma’am,” his voice suddenly slowed and rounded into a drawl, “ain’t no one can tell a story like me.”

***

Excerpt from Throwing Shadows by Claire Booth. Copyright 2025 by Claire Booth. Reproduced with permission from Claire Booth. All rights reserved.