Arrived at the office for 8:15 am—boxes on desk. Andrei eyed the boxes and rose a brow. The other members of his team were on calls. Ryan looked away from his monitor while offering platitudes. “Set up your desk.” He mouthed. Andrei nodded and replied with a thumbs up. He put his bag on his ...

“Juliet Renee Andrews, don’t you even dare!” Nanny stormed her way over to the hospital bed, glaring at Mrs. Dubose, still glued to her chair in shock. “And shame on you Carol for making her think that way!” “She didn’t, Nanny,” Juliet soothed. “I’ve been thinking about this since he started showing up again. My ...

“Wait, wait.” You wave a hand in Charlie’s face, wishing there was a drink in your hand now. “He was eating the women?” Charlie nods. “Yup, he’d drag ‘em under and keep ‘em for a few years or so, then kill and eat them over the course of the next decade or so.” He frowns. “I ...

“So, did you find anything?” Charlie’s glass thuds to the worn table top, the ice clicking against the rim. “Not a damn thing,” he says, face scrunched up in vague annoyance. “There was nothing on that town that the museum didn’t already tell me. Went there on my first day.”  He frowned at the glass. ...

“You still want to hear all this?” Charlie asks. He’s switched to water now, offering to buy you a drink but not pushing when you decline. You motion for him to go on and he shrugs. “They found what was left of a body on my third day,” he begins. .     .     .    .     .     . ...

Part One It ends with a picture in a cold case file. A young woman, hollow eyed and limp, lying in a hospital bed. The ring finger of her right hand missing, gnawed off. Juliet Andrews was her name, also known as ‘Julie.’ She was hospitalized four days before her death, which occurred when she ...