Chapter One

“Nobody’s allowed to die on one of my sets!” hollered Jack L. Warner. “Who’s the jackass who wants to halt my production?”

Flanked by his personal assistant Bill Schaefer, Jack dragged Hal B. Wallis, his head of production, over to the sound stage filming Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring James Cagney. He swung open the door as soon as the red warning light turned off and stormed inside.

Michael Curtiz, the film’s director, dumped his megaphone and threw down the gauntlet. The parade band on stage accompanied his rage with a drumroll and cymbals.

Warner nabbed Curtiz’s discarded megaphone. “Rally the troops—all of them! I have a studio-wide announcement.”

Curtiz, turning red, clamped his hands over his ears. The actors and background extras, dressed in woolen military uniforms, stopped marching and sweltered under the hot lights. The live orchestra fell silent.

“Sir, maybe we should check out the dead body first,” Schaefer suggested with hesitation.

At Warner’s command, an assistant rolled back a piece of movable scenery to reveal a prone figure, an unknown young man wearing bloodied street clothes, but with a swastika carved on his neck.

“Are you sure he’s dead?” Warner asked. “He looks like he’s just sleeping on the job.”

Backing up a few steps, Wallis broke out in a cold sweat. “Has any-one been a-ble to i-den-ti-fy him?”

The assistant director strained to keep self-control but trembled. “Every-one denies knowing him. Our director, however, insisted we ignore the victim and stay on schedule.”

Wallis, turning green, gulped down his rising bile but regained his voice. “That’s unconscionable. We should secure the set. Everyone will have to swear to secrecy, and under no circumstances is the press to know about it.” Schaefer clutched his stomach, and his knees became unsteady. He grabbed a chair to brace himself.

Jack L. strutted the sound stage like Napoleon planning a counterattack and examined the casualty of war with a sense of unnerving calm. He wrinkled his nose and instructed his assistant, “Better call the Burbank PD. Won’t take long under these broiling lights for him to stink to high heaven.” The actors, who’d remained in the stance of military attention, were about to wilt. Offstage, on both sides, waited singers and female tap dancers dressed in skimpy satin costumes as a tribute to Uncle Sam.

“At ease!” Warner shouted, accompanied by a round of relieved sighs. “You think you can direct my film picture?” Curtiz shouted in his choppy version of Hungarian-bastardized English.

“I can and I will,” Warner barked. “Don’t forget, I sign your paychecks! Furthermore, I still can’t understand why you summoned half the musicians’ union to play instruments off-camera when you could’ve used a recording. Money wasted!”

Curtiz glared, with fire in his eyes. “It’s because they’re featured on camera at the beginning and the end of the scene!” He cursed in his native Hungarian tongue and stormed off the set.

Jimmy Cagney, the star of the show, followed. “You can find me in my dressing room.”

Undaunted by his director and lead actor’s histrionics, Warner demanded to see the production notes. After a quick glance, he scraped his fingernails through his receding hairline.

“Too much…can’t picture it. Summon your editors and set up a projector—somewhere—anywhere, on the damned wall if we must. I’d need to see the dailies and bring me that hot-headed Hungarian Goulash Gulag Meister and his la-di-da lead actor.”

Wallis broke the point of his pencil by slamming it down on his notepad. “All these delays…I don’t want to hear a word from you about going over budget.”

“I’m the one who makes the final decisions. Respect your commanding officer!” Warner admonished his confused subordinate.

Wallis gave him a weak salutation, but only out of respect. “Aye! Aye, sir!” Warner gave one last look at the body. “Go ahead, call the police,” he said to Schaefer. “And hire those two private detectives.”

Wallis scratched his head with a look as if a screwball comedian had thrown a cream pie in his face. “Who?” he asked.

Warner clenched his jaw. “Babs Norman and Guy Brandt, those young kids who solved the Blackbird Killer Case and saved the cast of The Maltese Falcon. That was a close call for everyone.”

* * *

The phone rang at B. Norman Investigations. Guy picked up and said Jack Warner’s assistant was on the line. Babs motioned for him to hand over the receiver.

“The Big Boss desires your company,” Schaefer told her.

“If he doesn’t mind throwing in two mouth-watering prime-rib dinners at the Smoke House for us,” Babs said, who hadn’t eaten all day, “we’ll consider that his consultation fee.”

The two PI partners headed downstairs to their building’s garage, where they now had their own assigned adjacent parking spaces instead of playing roulette for empty spots on the street. Babs put her key into the ignition of her ailing Crosley—the Clown Car, the brunt of Guy’s constant jokes, with a paint job that resembled a motley patchwork. The moment she put her foot on the gas pedal, it made a bone-shaking screech of metal against metal and emitted exhaust that would’ve choked a triceratops.

“We’re taking mine,” Guy said after he stopped wheezing. He rolled up his windows to keep out the foul scent. “Can’t believe you never had the sense to replace that fossil since it never ran well.”

They pulled out of the garage, and he donned his sunglasses. “Now, you’re stuck with it since our government stopped new automobile production and only people in vital professions, such as doctors and clergymen, qualify to purchase remaining inventories.”

“Private eyes don’t have priority?”

He shook his head. “Not in your sweet life. Those assembly lines are being converted to produce tanks, aircraft, and weapons for the military. Mark my words. Next thing you know, they’ll demand that we ration fuel and rubber for our tires like they do in England. Read the papers if you don’t believe me.”

Guy flashed his Warner Brothers pass to the gate security guard. Babs panicked as she searched inside her purse. “I must’ve left mine in my car.”

“Try flirting,” Guy whispered.

She snorted in defiance. “I will not!”

Much to her surprise, he sweet-talked his way into saying, “She’s with me,” and pulled into an empty guest parking slot.

When they arrived at the Yankee Doodle sound stage, the crime scene investigation was well underway. The Burbank PD sectioned off the area where the deceased lay, but nearby, Curtiz insisted on conducting rehearsals even if it was too noisy to roll sound. He ordered the gaffer and his electrical crew to prep the lights for the next set of shots, but they went berserk, thinking a light was shorting out every time the crime scene photographer’s flashbulb went off.

Curtiz insisted his captive cast and crew finish what they started. He’d work around the police, even if it meant yelling and screaming, at the risk of losing his voice, to make sure they kept quiet.

“Isn’t Jimmy Cagney your star?” Guy looked around for the missing actor.

Curtiz made an unintelligible grunt and spat into his handkerchief. “We shall work around his crybaby tantrums.” He launched a new battle with Wallis. “You complain that clocks ticking means money. Then why does Warner have to be such a stingy fat cat?”

Wallis bit his lip to keep from laughing at the director’s deliberate jabs at the English language. “Our detectives-for-hire are here.” He pointed out Babs and Guy. “Jack wants you to perform the entire number, Yankee Doodle Dandy, from start to finish.”

The director stood his ground. “That’s not how we shoot it. We fall behind schedule. Then Jack gets more and more angry.”

Warner paced the floor, bellyaching to himself and to any of the cops who would listen. “What if Cagney had been the intended victim? Not that I’m glad this man is an unknown Joe Palooka, but you get where I’m coming from.”

The moment Babs saw the corpse, her stomach lurched. Guy took his handkerchief and covered his nose and mouth. “Did you find any ID?”

“Found a driver’s license in his wallet,” said one cop. “He’s got a German-sounding name: Gerhard Sauer.”

Warner, holding a script, muscled in on their conversation. “I want to see this scene played out from start to finish.”

Since Cagney left the set, Guy volunteered to stand in and improvise his choreography, but the studio head ignored his suggestion. “If that fussy thespian wants to act like a child, I’ll just have to take over and go through the motions.”

Babs took her notepad out of her pocketbook. “Did anyone hear any strange noises?” She looked around for reactions but got none. “Did you consider that someone killed Sauer elsewhere and, for whatever reason, dumped his body backstage?”

Babs blew her anger out of her nose. No one seemed to listen. Wallis gave the PIs an overview to get them up to speed. “The film, Yankee Doodle Dandy, is about the life of lyricist and composer George M. Cohan. He performed with his family, and they called themselves The Four Cohans. Playing his father, we’ve got the famous actor who played the shot-up Captain Jacoby from The Maltese Falcon, Walter Huston.”

“Give My Regards to Broadway is also one of Cohan’s famous songs,” Guy mentioned.

“We’ve included that one, along with Over There. All patriotic numbers that helped us endure WWI. Just think, we have a song for every star and a star for every stripe.”

Wallis stopped and scratched his chin. “You know…I rather like that line. Must insist on using that quote for our trailer. However, what you’ll see on screen is a show within a show, as if our cinematographer was shooting a documentary. At the beginning and the end of the scene, the camera will pan, showing an establishing shot of everyone inside the theater. That’s where our live orchestra comes in.

“The Cohans perform in a stage production of a show titled George Washington, Jr. The song-and-dance medley scene we had been shooting before everything went haywire centers on Grand Old Flag. Once edited, it will look like we shot it from start to finish, but since Warner told me you used to be actors, you probably know that most of the time we shoot scenes out of order. We’ll stop within sections to film close-ups and from different angles. Everyone’s curious to see if there are clues about the killer in the footage we’ve shot so far.”

Babs asked Wallis if he’d drop her a line when the footage was available for viewing.

Jack Warner, however, seemed to have his own agenda. He took over as director and insisted on doing a dry run. “Up with the curtain! Places, please. Stand by, and on with the show of the century. It’s the most original thing to hit Broadway. You know why? Cagney…or Cohan, to be more accurate, is the whole darned U.S. of A. squeezed into one pair of pants.”

Wallis asked the PIs to follow him and take seats with the extras in the audience.

“How many actors does the scene start off with?” Babs asked.

“Not including the live orchestra and the packed seats filled with the audience, I guess there are about thirty-five, but more join in later.”

Lighter on his feet than expected, Warner skipped across the stage and justified substituting for Cagney, who refused to leave his dressing room. “Believe it or not, I’ve had experience as an entertainer. When my brothers and I started our family business, I used to sing in the aisles in between screenings.”

Wallis drew a deep breath and released it. “There he goes again. The boss loves telling everyone the story of his debut in show business. Often, I wonder whether Jack secretly always wanted to be a performer instead of running a studio.” He explained the upcoming scene while everyone blocked the action. “Jimmy sings Grand Old Flag. Twenty young Boy Scouts stride in from the top of the stairs. Betsy Ross sews the flag, upstage center. Eight more adults, who look like members of a military band, join them in song and advance from upstage right. After that, we cut away to five or six members of a fife and drum corps.”

The PIs made every effort to follow Wallis while Warner danced on stage with the hired actors. “Upstage left, a variety of singers march forward, representing the common man and the working class—policemen, bakers, bankers, a nurse, miners, railroad workers—showing their solidarity. Everyone turns toward the flag and breaks into My Country, ’Tis of Thee in front of people manning an anti-aircraft gun.”

Guy, who had been counting on his fingers, lost track. “How many would that add?”

“Probably another thirty. Central Casting must’ve broken out bottles of champagne after receiving our requisitions. Then the stage curtains close, and the spotlight falls on Cagney, downstage right. In come the tap- dancing dames, many bearing American flags. This is where we rival MGM’s schmaltzy musicals with their elaborate costumes and choreography. Enter Uncle Sam, played by Walter Huston, and the Statue of Liberty. Then Jimmy wows everyone with his signature dance steps. More female flag bearers emerge from behind the rear curtain. Our stage crew has rigged the floor with conveyor belts, giving the illusion that the actors are marching toward the audience while they’re actually staying in place.”

“Otherwise, they’d march right off the stage,” said Babs.

“Correct, but we wouldn’t want them to do that,” Wallis explained. “As the cinematographer pulls back and widens the focal length of his lens, background curtains continue to open until we see a painted backdrop of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. I’m no expert in visual effects, but it gives the audience the feeling there must be well over a hundred people proceeding down the boulevard. Pretty spectacular, don’t you think?”

The assistant director leapt onstage and reminded Warner that the soldier actors were still suffering under the scorching lights and waiting for their next order. “Sir, we’re not rolling camera. We should dismiss them.”

“Tell them it’s a wrap until further notice. I won’t approve an exorbitant dry-cleaning bill for everyone schvitzing in their costumes.”

With military precision, the assistants rounded up the various groups of performers and shuttled them toward wardrobe. Curtiz and James Wong Howe, his cinematographer, remained to discuss how they’d execute the rest of that scene.

Warner scribbled a note and handed it to his assistant. “Bill, tell these two to drop everything. I’m calling a meeting to order and want them present.”

Schaefer reviewed his memo pad. “Sir, you scheduled one with them already.” Then he checked his watch. “They should be there…right now.”

Jack pointed to Babs and Guy. “Then you’re coming with me and away from the crime scene.” In a rush, he sprinted ahead.

Babs shouted loudly enough for him to hear her as he gained distance. “We’ll need to sign a contract to make our assignment official!”

“Pick up the pace, you slowpokes, and I’ll cut you a check after we get there.”

***

Excerpt from Round Up the Unusual Suspects by Elizabeth Crowens. Copyright 2026 by Elizabeth Crowens. Reproduced with permission from Elizabeth Crowens. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

God, it’s cold. Rumor Shoff checks his digital watch. 10:45 p.m. The Marburg State Park ranger won’t start his nightly rounds for another fifteen minutes. It will take him at least half an hour to forty-five minutes, to reach this end of the park. Rumor has plenty of time to accomplish his task. Perfect.

At the bed of his Ford F-150, he lifts a duffel bag with R. Shoff sewn into the canvas, and throws the strap over his shoulder. He pulls the trucker’s cap tighter to his balding head, the air rushes through its vented rear and prickles his dome. Chills walk up his skin. He zips his coat to his chin. Christ, it must be near zero with the windchill. The crisp, dry air burns his throat, and the scent of the oncoming snowstorm tickles his nose.

He’s alone in the Serpentine Trail parking lot. Only the forest trees are watching. Silent observers who won’t tell a soul what he is up to—even after killing plenty of their kin.

Good. But Rumor needs to move. If caught by the park ranger at a quarter to eleven, he’ll arrest Rumor and charge him with trespassing on state land after dark. That’s the least of Rumor’s concerns. What’s in his duffel bag, however, is.

Heaving the strap to a more comfortable position on his shoulder, Rumor starts toward a large ranch-style gate serving as the entryway onto Serpentine Trail. The white moonlight casts the gate’s arch onto the gravel trail winding its way through the forest like a snake, past the Shoff Family Cemetery, and down to the shoreline of Lake Clarke, directly across from the abandoned summer camp.

Rumor starts past the gate and into the forest, the moonlight has trouble penetrating the leafless trees; the branches so thick and interwoven they block all but a few streaks of white light cutting through the bare canopy. But Rumor doesn’t need a flashlight to guide him; he’s taken this trail many times to get to the cemetery—day and night—before the land was stolen from his father.

Rumor’s face grows warm even in the bitter cold at the thought of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) stealing his father’s land. The DCNR came to his father a year and a half ago with an offer to buy thirty-two acres of woodlands that made up the southwestern shore of Lake Clarke, excluding the small plot of land on which the Shoff Family Cemetery rests. No sir! Uncle Sam won’t pick up the tab to take care of that. They planned to add to Marburg State Park’s already sizable acreage. With his father’s refusal to sell, the DCNR made an eminent domain claim—the right of the government or its agencies to expropriate private property for public use. His father sued. But it was a losing battle from the start, and the courts ruled in favor of the DCNR, forcing his father to surrender the land with zero compensation.

The DCNR can claim eminent domain or whatever fancy legal jargon the lawyers invented to sugarcoat the truth, but to Rumor, it was theft—plain and simple.

The trail curves sharply to the right, and the Shoff Family Cemetery appears on the left. Behind an old wrought iron fence, fifteen tombstones jut from the forest floor like crooked white teeth. The wind blows with a haunting whistle. The bare branches sway back and forth, casting long shadows across the front of the tombstones that look like skeleton fingers caressing the grave markers. Rumor pauses by the gate. Even in the shadowy darkness, he spots his mother’s tombstone. Feels his heart ache.

Fuck cancer.

Rumor starts again. The gravel trail fades away and turns to dirt, worn-down over time by hikers making their way to the lakebed on the backside of the hill. He hasn’t been past the cemetery since August 1997 and doesn’t want to go down there now. Still, the DCNR needed to pay for what they had done. And by God, Rumor was going to collect in spades, even if that meant scaring up the memory of that dead girl he and his father discovered the morning of the camp massacre.

Along the shoreline, where the cold water of Lake Clarke laps at the rocks and bankside like a soft kiss, Rumor pauses to catch his breath. The smell of mud and fishy water mixes with the crisp night air that smells both clean and repugnant to him. The full white moon is visible above, and its reflection ripples across the water. In the open, the cold wind cuts across the lake bowl. It stings Rumor’s face and makes his nose leak. He slides the sleeve of his jacket under his nose and sniffs back a glob of snot. The last time he stood there was the morning of the massacre at Camp Southwoods, when he was six.

Across the inlet of water, the steel cable tinks against the flagpole in the courtyard at Camp Southwoods. It’s a lonely, eerie sound that causes Rumor to shiver, as if a ghostly voice speaks from the past. The moonlight casts an eerie white glow across the rundown mess hall, tucked between two identical shotgun-style buildings—the boys’ and girls’ bunkhouses. The dilapidated structures stand out against the clear northeastern sky—though it’s about to be overtaken by the dark snow clouds rolling in from the South.

The ghost-town vibe of Camp Southwoods still resonates with residual energy from the grisly murders in the early morning hours of August 5, 1997. Rumor’s stomach churns as the vivid memory unpacks itself and his eyes drift to where they found the girl, washed up on the shore. She was lying on her side, facing away from them, her brown hair tangled with lake weeds, wet leaves, and interwoven sticks. On the back of her yellow T-shirt was a word in large red letters: COUNSELOR. Rumor thought she was sleeping. But when his father rolled her over to check on her, Rumor saw her pretty face was split from her hairline to her mouth, leaving a fleshy fissure where the axe had struck her. On either side of that gory canyon, two lifeless, milky-white eyes were locked on him in a death stare. An arrow was through the swell of her left breast. Deep lacerations scarred her forearms, and the first two fingers on her right hand were gone. She was from Camp Southwoods, just across the inlet—the torn and bloody yellow T-shirt with the camp’s name and logo affirmed this.

Rumor remembers screaming in horror at the sight of the dead camp counselor. Then, his father was next to him, hurrying them back up the trail to call the police.

Her name was Alice King, and how she ended up there raises the hackles on Rumor’s neck. He tugs his coat closer. But she wasn’t the only camp counselor found slain. Kurt MacReady, Virginia Steel, and Ted Charno also met their demise at the hands of fifteen-year-old Douglas Lee Carver, who, for reasons unknown, decided to hunt them down with a bow and arrow (taken from the camp’s archery range) before stealing their faces with a violent strike with an axe. Three of the victims, Rumor has learned in his research of the murders, were disposed of quickly. But Alice King had valiantly fought back. Sadly, she fell to Carver’s wrath by the lake before washing up a few feet from where Rumor now stood.

Since the murders, a local legend arose of a curse on Lake Clarke and a curse on Marburg State Park itself. Locals claim to see shadow people on the trails or around the camp, hear whispering and laughing, and see lights emanating from the rundown cabins. The lore has grown exponentially over the years. So much so that locals have reimagined an old nursery rhyme, “Bye, Baby Bunting,” to scare the bejesus out of one another for nearly three decades. Rumor knew it well:

Little counselor running,
Douggie Carver’s gone a-hunting
Gonna catch that counselor,
Gonna cleave that counselor,
Little counselor done running.

But those campfire tales are just that…tales. You have work to do. Rumor checks his watch. 10:55 p.m. Get your ass moving.

He continues to follow the trail south along the lake to an area known as Ice Fisherman’s Cove. It’s a favorite spot for ice fishermen to set up because the water freezes fast and hard in the winter. By a large oak tree leaning dangerously over the trail, Rumor drops the duffel bag and squats beside it. He unzips the bag and pulls out a gardening shovel. A battery-operated DeWalt drill with a three-inch wooden drill bit in its jaws. A 350 ml syringe. And a bottle of Tardon—an herbicide that kills woody plants. He drops to his knees at the oak's base and begins clearing away a small patch of earth with the shovel. The January ground is frozen and tough to dig up. Perspiration dampens his back even in the cold. But he’s persistent, despite the challenging work, and continues removing the earth until the oak’s root system is bare.

He rechecks his watch. 11:10 p.m.

Need to hurry this up.

With the drill, Rumor bores into the oak’s most prominent root. Once done, he opens the Tardon bottle, takes out the syringe, dips the wide plastic needle into the herbicide, and extracts a barrel full of blue liquid.

What was that? Footsteps?

Rumor searches the trail ahead but sees no one in the moonlight. It could be an animal. A deer?

The legend of Camp Southwoods, and its murderous boogieman, has lit his imagination. Stop it. There ain’t any ghosts in these woods. I’m alone.

Rumor shakes the silly thought away, plunges the 350ml of Tardon into the root, and empties the barrel. Drink it up. The Tardon kills the trees slowly over several weeks. He’s poisoned many trees around the park. Some are on trails like this one. Some in parking lots where a tree collapse could damage structures, costing the DCNR a lot of money in time and repairs. That’s just what Rumor wants. He refills the hole with dirt, replaces his equipment in the duffel bag, and stands.

Gazing upon the oak leaning precariously over the trail, Rumor knows it’s just a matter of time before it topples. He smiles jovially. Poisoning the trees is only one of the many subterfuges Rumor has committed around the park: clogging the toilets in the guests’ facilities, wrecking the well pumps so the park didn’t have water for drinking and cleaning, dumping trashcans, spray painting obscenities on the public pavilions. He even lit a few fires that burnt some acres on the park’s western side in late September. Maybe I’ll drill holes in the canoes this summer. Or put wasps’ nests in the garbage cans. Or poison the drinking water. He has little concern about someone getting hurt from his shenanigans: people are collateral damage. Pride flows through his veins, pure like holy water, warming him. He’s giving it to the man for stealing his father’s land.

But the warmth is quickly blown away as another gust of wind howls across the lake. Rumor shivers and looks at his watch again. 11:22 p.m. Time to get going.

He returns to where the trail winds back into the woods, past the Shoff Cemetery, and eventually to the parking lot. The desolate tink, tink, tink of the cable snapping against the flagpole at the abandoned campground cuts across the inlet.

Footsteps! On the trail again.

Someone is there! Cold fear shoots through him and tightens his chest like a clenched fist. I can’t get caught. Not now. Not when there’s so much more to do.

He ducks behind a large white sycamore and checks his watch. 11:29 p.m. The park ranger may be down there, checking for trespassers or even looking for him after finding his pickup in the Serpentine Trail parking lot. Or it might be a few local kids hiking to the abandoned campground to get high, drink, or make out. They might even tell each other ghost stories about Carver’s victims haunting the area.

Rumor peers around the tree and scans the trail from which he just came. No one lingers about. The tightness in his chest eases. Still, he tries to tune out the wind and focus on the sounds of approaching footsteps. But if they were there and not a figment of his imagination, they’re gone now. He lets out a slow, grateful breath and feels the tension in his muscles relax.

Rumor steps out from behind the tree. He’s about to turn away when he sees a human silhouette step off the trail and duck into the forest about twenty-five yards away.

I’m seeing things, he thinks, as his balls shrivel into his pelvis and goose pimples rise from his feet to his scalp. He’s heard stories about hikers seeing shadow people on the trail, ducking in and around trees. Is that what he’s seeing now? A shadow person? No! There’s no one out there. It’s the wind causing the tree branches to swing and the shadows to move, nothing more. He swallows. His throat is dry like dust. But you heard footsteps—twice now—and saw the shadow. Someone or something is out here with you. Maybe one of Carver’s victims? An unseen frozen hand clasps upon his lungs in a powerful, vicelike grip.

Fuck this!

Rumor turns on his heels to bolt up the trail when a loose rock gives way, and his right foot slips out from underneath him. He loses his grip on the duffel bag, which slides from his shoulder into the dark somewhere, and falls hard on his right elbow. The impact with the unforgiving ground peels the flesh back, and the sting of cold air bites at the raw, bleeding wound. He stifles a scream. He can’t risk someone hearing. Through the discomfort, he pulls himself to his feet and darts up the trail toward the dark, concealing woods where he’ll be safe from…well, whatever it was that he saw duck off the trail.

He doesn’t stop or look back until he’s far enough from the shoreline, hidden deep within the woods where no one—man or ghost—can see him. He bends at the waist to catch his breath, to allow his heart rate to slow. It beats in his ears like a sinister drum. He now understands what it must be like for people who say they’ve seen Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster…

“A ghost,” Rumor whispers in the dark.

Of course, Rumor will never admit ghosts are real. Just like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are nothing more than stories made up by fringe outliers looking for attention. What he saw tonight were moving shadows, brought on by the wind and an overactive imagination. Rumor feels that the only ghosts down there are memories.

Then why were you running?

He doesn’t entertain this thought and looks at his watch. 11:40 p.m. Christ! I need to—

My duffel bag! It isn’t slung over his shoulder. You must’ve dropped it when you fell. His bloody elbow begins to thump with discomfort at his carelessness. How could you be so stupid! He can’t leave it behind. If found, the Rangers will easily link the tree poisoning and the vandalisms back to him because his damn name is stitched on the side.

No. Leaving the duffel bag isn’t an option.

Rumor gazes down the trail into the dark hollow and listens for footsteps again. But only the breeze blows through the trees, rustling what leaves remain on the branches. He’s positive that everything he’s experiencing—the footsteps, the shadowy figure—is a manifestation brought on by the camp’s violent history and his memories of that fateful day. His head was full of enough lore about Carver and Camp Southwoods to trick anyone’s brain into thinking someone was out there, maybe even following him.

Steeling himself against his fears—real or imaginary—Rumor takes a step. Then another. Soon he’s heading back toward the lake to find the duffel bag. In his mind, he keeps repeating:

They’re only stories.

***

Excerpt from Who's Out There by Westley Smith. Copyright 2026 by Westley Smith. Reproduced with permission from Westley Smith. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Atlantic City
Wednesday October 17
24 years later

Nine minutes to the finale.

Hand me a flower and I’ll transform it into a dove. Shoot me from a cannon and I’ll come out smiling. But lock me in the box and saw me in half, I’ll scream bloody murder.

Unheard of for a Moon – a member of America’s most famous magic family – to be terrified of that creaky old standard, the sawing box. But you’re hearing it now.

In exactly nine minutes, Charlie, our production manager, and Van, my friend and co-star, are supposed to reenact the famous Sawing a Woman in Half illusion as it was performed by Magnificent Morelli and his assistant Cleo West in this theatre during World War Two.

The classic poster hangs in the dressing room: a man with slick black hair and a thin moustache gesturing to a pretty strawberry-blonde who holds a Statue of Liberty torch.

Between them is the infamous sawing box. Black letters slash across the top of the poster:

MAGNIFICENT MORELLI! MAN OF MYSTERY

At the bottom:

NIGHTLY IN THE SCARLET ROOM WORLD-FAMOUS ATLANTIC CITY BOARDWALK

There’s one problem. Van should have been here two hours ago.

My best friend and other co-star, Stormie, and I managed to get through the show to this point because we’re used to working together and because even in the midst of frenzy, Charlie is an oasis of calm. We call it the Charlie effect. He quickly redesigned the order of illusions to make up for Van’s absence.

But Van still hasn’t shown up, so Charlie will saw me in half in Cleo’s original sawing box. This is not the contemporary sleek or transparent sawing box you see on a Vegas stage, but the real thing. Pure old-school; a deep, long wooden container that resembled a coffin. No openings for head or feet. No clamps for neck or ankles. The kind of box in which the magician’s assistant is completely locked inside, head to toe. If that’s not horrifying enough, this is the same box in which Cleo’s murderer placed her body.

Good publicity for a haunted theatre on Halloween, says Charlie.

At five-seven, I’m two inches shorter than the box. Stormie, coming in at a fraction under six feet and 190 pounds, can’t even squeeze inside.

Hanging right next to Morelli is our poster:

HALLOWEEN THRILLS, CHILLS & BLACK MAGICK! REBEL MAGIC
STORMIE, VAN, & LUCY BLACK WIDOW THEATRE, 13TH FLOOR – if you dare! MIDNIGHT CASINO, OCT 17 – NOV 10

Van and I flank Stormie – a magical version of Charlie’s Angels. As if instead of fighting crime, we resolve to change the world, one trick at a time. In the middle, Stormie towers over Van and me in an orange and black dashiki gown, enormous hoop earrings glinting through her copper- black hair that falls in long ropelike locks. On Stormie’s left is Van, a tiny silvery futuristic superhero who sometimes bills herself as ‘Kickass Korean Babe’ – spiked hair, jumpsuit, thigh- high boots with four-inch heels, and a gleaming knife in each hand. On Stormie’s right, I sparkle in my red-hot Miss Scarlett dress and stilettos. That’s me, on the corner of woo-woo and fuggedaboutit – a magic wand in one hand, a cannoli in the other.

Tonight is our opening night, and it means something big to all three of us: our breakthrough as sisters of magic, an opportunity to make our name in the good old boys’ world of magic, and for me, a chance to make my name without the Moons holding me up on stage.

Van wouldn’t miss this for the world.

Her silver jumpsuit is hanging on the wheeled rack, her knives ready for action. She’s not answering her phone, but during the intermission, she left Stormie and me a message: Emergency. Start without me.

Stormie’s golden-brown eyes were huge, her olive skin sallow, making the freckles stand out. ‘Emergency?’ Her voice is shrill. ‘That is not a Van word.’

‘An accident?’ ‘She’d tell us. No, it’s MLD.’

For the past couple weeks, Van has kept her new boyfriend on the lowdown. Boyfriend is normal – Van juggles men like her knives. Keeping him secret is not. Stormie calls him, ‘MLD,’ short for Mysterious Loner Dude.

‘Van would not miss our opening night for a guy, no matter who he is.’ ‘Then where is she?’ Stormie shook her fingers in my face. ‘Look at my hand. The girl’s giving me shpilkes.’ Whenever she’s emotional, Stormie brings out the Yiddish words her Jewish Nana taught her.

‘If by shpilkes, you mean bad vibes, I’ve got ’em too.’

Chapter 2

Seven minutes to the finale.

Backstage, hands trembling, I tug on Cleo West’s very own Stars n’ Stripes gown, slithering into the shimmering satin. Too short for me. Seams fraying – it’s been let out and tightened more than once. Cleo must have gained and lost weight during the war years.

I sit at the vanity, tightly clip my hair and pull on a long reddish-blonde wig. I hate wigs, they suffocate me and give me an instant headache.

Trapped, wrapped and bundled inside the constraints of hair and layers of fabric, my heart staccatos. When did the theatre get so cold? The scent of lavender crawls over my flesh, the sign that the Widow’s resident ghost, Cleo, is in the house. When you grow up with an Irish witch as an aunt, you accept the presence of ghosts. Doesn’t mean you like them, but you come to terms with sharing the space. According to Auntie Maze, ‘Cleo wants us to see the cracks and stains left behind by the past. When she slams doors or turns off lights, she’s saying, “Look! There’s something you’re not seeing!”’

I add final touch-ups to my stage make-up and check my reflection from every angle. I glimpse pinpricks of light in the mirror. Next to my reflection a woman’s face appears, rippling as if she’s underwater. Her fiery-gold hair wavers. Ice-pale eyes meet mine. Two Cleos in the mirror.

I grab the edge of the table. This is the first time she’s shown herself to me! Just in case she’s really there and I’m not losing my mind, I whisper, ‘You’re not real, Cleo. You’re dead. Look, I’m just pretending to be you for an hour, okay? Now please go away.’

She stares at me through the glass. Her lips move. I lean forward, press my face to the mirror, straining to hear.

Cleo disappears, and a large black figure looms in the mirror. Moves closer.

I jolt to my feet and whip around.

A man wearing a black hoodie. At least he’s real, not a ghost. He pushes back the hood. Dark hair falls past his chin.

‘What’s going on here?’ he demands.

Shifting on my feet, I keep my hands low at my sides, ready to punch. ‘You need to leave now.’

He steps closer. He’s half a foot taller, his strong-boned face scowling, his eyes bitter as black coffee. ‘Where’s Van?’

‘Not here.’

‘She said I could come backstage.’

‘Who are you?’ Is he Van’s mysterious guy?

Stormie arrives, breathless. ‘You’re on in five,’ she says to me, and then slits her eyes at the stranger. ‘Elvis Jones! What are you doing here?’

This is Elvis Jones? Definitely not the cheesy overweight Elvis impersonator in a white jumpsuit I imagined when I saw his poster:

Elvis Jones Magic in Hell

Midnight Show No one will be admitted after the door is shut.

I found the blurb pretentious and, on principle, refused to see his show. If I’d known what he looks like, I might have taken a chance. He watches me with a sardonic grin as if he knows what I’m thinking.

‘Hi, Stormie,’ he says. ‘I’m looking for Van.’

‘She hasn’t arrived. Yet.’

He retreats toward the door. ‘I’m outta here.’

Stormie and I watch him leave, and she mutters, ‘What the hell has that girl been up to?’

‘I’m scared for her.’ I hear the words and wish I hadn’t said them.

‘Maybe her phone died, and she’s stuck somewhere. She’s gonna show up.’

***

Excerpt from Zigzag Girl by Ruth Knafo Setton. Copyright 2025 by Ruth Knafo Setton. Reproduced with permission from Ruth Knafo Setton. All rights reserved.

Tania moved fast, her shoes clicked sharply on the floor. She fished a five-dollar bill from her clutch and approached a housekeeper in the hallway.

“A roll of toilet paper, and in a discreet bag, please.”

The woman hesitated, but Tania’s eyes were steady, unblinking. She slid the bill into the woman’s shoulder strap with practiced ease.

“Take it,” Tania said softly. “In case someone accuses you of theft.”

The woman nodded.

Ruth led the way. Tania followed, her mind already ahead, calculating the next move. In the bathroom, she locked the door and leaned against the wall. She heard Judith’s groans.

“It’s me, Judy.”

“Tania?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

The air was thick with sweat and nausea, sharp like unchanged hospital linens. Tania handed Ruth the roll of paper and a small perfume atomizer.

“Tell her it’s from London. She’ll like it.”

Ruth nodded and slipped into the stall.

Tania stepped back into the hallway, then stopped. A girl sick and humiliated in a stall behind her. She caught her reflection in a wall sconce—lipstick fine, hair in place, eyes clear.

Decide now.

This wasn’t strategy. She wasn’t gaining leverage. And still, her feet moved.

When she returned, Judith was pale, shaken, but upright. Tania offered her the drink.

“Peppermint helps nausea,” she said.

Judith studied her. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing.”

“There’s no game,” Tania said. “You have to believe me.”

Judith hesitated. “You and your uncle seem awfully interested in my father.”

Tania unwrapped a mint. “It’s a secret,” she said. “Just not the kind you think.”

She leaned in. “The government wants something your father owns or controls. Sheldon’s the go-between.”

Judith stared at her. “That sounds shady.”

“It might be.”

Judith exhaled. “They spiked my drink. Esther and those girls. Laxatives.”

Tania nodded. “Brutal.”

Silence settled between them.

Tania met her eyes.

“Want revenge?”

Judith smiled.

And didn’t say no.

***

Excerpt from Eyes to Deceit: The Company Files by Gabriel Valjan. Copyright 2025 by Gabriel Valjan. Reproduced with permission from Gabriel Valjan. All rights reserved.