Chapter One

Dying can bring out the best in people. It can also bring out the worst of secrets. Oh, not only about the dead—sure, that’s when everyone starts whispering about the dearly departed. No, I’m talking about the secrets of the living who are left behind. Sometimes, those people get brazen about their dastardly deeds when someone involved in those deeds dies. They don’t always keep them well hidden. Often, too, a death sheds too much light on too many people. Light others would rather not be in—like Wyle E. Coyote’s oncoming train in the tunnel. It can be too revealing for some. Blinding for others. One secret often leads to another. Another death. And by another death, I mean murder.

So, if you want to know who your friends are, or what they’re truly up to, kill one.

It works every time.

What makes me so sure? Murder is my thing. I’m a homicide cop in the historic Virginia city of Winchester. Winchester has a hell of a murder rate that most don’t know about. I know because I’ve solved more than twenty murders in the last few years alone. Well, seventeen to be precise. Three deaths were accidents and suicides—not something I tell stories about. But the other seventeen—phew, what a rush. As you can see, I’m an expert on the dead.

More about that later.

At the moment, it was a beautiful August afternoon in Winchester, Virginia. As always on these beautiful August days in Winchester, it was hot as, er, … it was hot. Luckily, instead of being in the dog days of summer, I sat in the air conditioning atop a stack of wooden crates in our local library, ogling the beautiful woman working across the room from me. Her auburn hair flowed around her shoulders like a silk veil, and her green eyes sparkled even in the dark. At thirty-eight, she had the hourglass figure a twenty-year-old would die for—and today it was wrapped in jeans and a denim shirt with her sleeves rolled up to her elbows. This lady’s charm and intelligence radiated an allure that stole my heart the moment I pulled her over for an undeserved speeding ticket back in the day. Sure, sure, it was unethical. Hey, I didn’t give her the ticket after securing a date.

Fortunately, the statute of limitations on cheesy pickup ploys expired years ago.

This lady was doing her best to ignore me—difficult as it was—though she wanted nothing more than to get lost in my affections. No, really, it’s true.

Full disclosure. This angel was formally Dr. Angela Hill Tucker, Assistant Dean and Chairwoman of History at the Mosby Center for American Studies, University of the Shenandoah Valley. Yep, my wife. Today, she was researching a new historical find in the Lower-Level Research Room at the Handley Library, a local historical landmark. The Lower Level is actually the library’s finished basement. Since it’s a classy place, they call it the Lower Level.

Angel sat at a cluttered wooden desk beside crates of documents discovered in a formerly undiscovered sub-basement at the Winchester Courthouse—another historic building. Yeah, I know, we have a lot of historic buildings in town. That’s because Winchester dates back to George Washington’s day, and we’ve played a big part in American history ever since. Anyway, she had just opened one of the six large, wooden crates to begin work. The first few items she took out were more of the same as many of the other crates—folded files tied with leather straps. There were a few land maps and surveyors’ drawings, and an old silver-plate photograph of a family standing around a horse carriage with grim, pasty faces.

Angel was in heaven—pardon the pun. She spent much of her life in rooms just like this one, doing what she was now doing—researching old stuff. Okay, it’s historically significant old stuff. The other part of her life she spent in pursuit of her real passion—trying to be a crack detective like me. Oh, I’m her real passion, too. But don’t tell her I said that. It’s our secret.

All day, I’d sat with my feet propped up on a crate, bored. I had on the same clothes as usual—blue jeans, running shoes, a blue Oxford button-down shirt, and a blue blazer. Angel once called my ensemble, ‘old guy sexy.’ I don’t know about the old guy—I’m only forty-one—but I’ll take the sexy part.

“Hey, Angel,” I said, stretching. “How about we go grab takeout?”

She ignored me. Not unusual. Not that she was so focused on her work, but because working at a small table across the room was her research assistant, Andy-somebody. She didn’t want to fluster him, so she just made believe I wasn’t around. We have this thing, you see.

“Hey, it’s a beautiful summer day. Maybe steaks on the grill and wine?”

She glanced up and gave me one of those “God, I want you” looks. Okay, maybe it was a “quiet, I’m working” look.

“Angela?” The thin, shaggy-haired assistant, Andrew Pellman, walked to the stack of crates beside her. He lifted one of the crates, grunted a little from the unexpected weight, and set it on the corner of her desk. “I’m done computerizing the inventory from crates one and two. Shall I get a head start on crate four while you finish crate three?”

“No, Andrew. We’ll keep to our process.” She saw his face melt into a pout. Me, I would have let him cry, but she was the kind soul in the family. “Oh, all right. Go ahead and begin. Follow our guidelines closely. One document at a time. Identify, inventory, and scan what you can. Photograph any that won’t stand up to the scanning process. Andrew, be careful—very careful.”

His face lit up. “Sure, Angela, I’ll be careful.”

Pellman was a meek kid in his mid-twenties. He was working on his doctoral thesis at the university, and Angel was his dissertation advisor. I didn’t like him. Not one bit. I have a sixth sense about people. When he was around, my BS meter pings like it does with politicians and faux car warranty stalkers. Andy was a new class of “some people” that I hadn’t labeled yet.

“I think you should call me Professor Tucker,” Angel said with an easy tone. “Let’s keep this professional. Okay?”

“Yes, Professor Tucker.”

“It’s not personal, Andrew.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

Angel flipped through a document and stopped. She retrieved another and did a comparison. Finally, she looked over at Pellman. “Have you seen any references to ‘M35W?’ Do you recognize it from anything you’ve done?”

“Why?” He walked to her worktable. “Is it important?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems out of place. Like some kind of acronym or citation. Can you check your new research engine tomorrow?”

“Sure, okay. It’ll give me a good test run on my changes to the algorithm.” His face beamed. “Thank you.”

Andrew’s doctoral studies used computers to perform detailed research traditionally done by historians and doctoral students. One day, that program he wrote would likely replace those researchers with keyboards and mice—the electronic kind, not the crumb snatchers. You know, like self-checkout machines at the grocery store. You do all the work, and they charge you the same price. Then, they’ll fire five clerks who the machines replaced. Great plan, Andy. I wonder how many historians you’ll replace with your gadgets.

“Thank you, Andrew.” Her cell rang, and she took the call. “Professor Tucker.” The caller had Angel’s complete attention. I knew that because she jotted some notes and checked her watch twice—all the while continuing to ignore me. So, it must have been really important, right? “Yes, of course. I’ll be right up.”

“Professor Tucker?” Andrew asked.

She glanced over at Andrew as she tapped off the call. “We’re done for the day, Andrew.”

“Is something wrong?” he asked. “I can help.”

“No, it’s fine. I have to meet someone up in the rotunda. We’ll start again in the morning.” She began straightening her papers and stuffing files into her worn, leather briefcase.

“Who?” he asked.

I said, “Never you mind, sonny-boy. You work for her, not the other way around.” I winked at Angel. “Millennials, right?”

She hefted her briefcase. “Something to do with our Apple Harvest research.”

“Okay.” He glanced at the crates of research. “Want me to gather up your research and get it to your car? There’s an awful lot here.”

“Actually, yes. If you don’t mind.” She gave him the keypad code for her Explorer. “Leave my briefcase and the files beside it here. The rest can go in my vehicle. Please make sure it’s locked when you’re done. Thank you.”

“Sure thing, Professor Tucker.” His face lit up. “See you in the morning.”

I followed Angel through the Stewart Bell Jr. Archive Room, into the Lower Lobby, and up the stairs toward the main library entrance.

“I don’t like him, Angel. He’s shifty.”

“Shifty, Tuck?” Finally, she acknowledged me. I wore her down. “No one says ‘shifty’ anymore.”

“It’s coming back in style.”

She grinned and whispered, “Is that your detective-senses talking or because he stares at me when he thinks I’m not looking?”

“He doesn’t stare. He ogles.”

“Yes, he ogles.”

“I can get Bear to check him—”

“No, Tuck. He’s fine. I don’t like it when you’re jealous.”

Me, jealous? No. It was purely a professional irritation I felt whenever Andy was around. Truly.

We reached the first-floor hall that led into the main library rooms. There, she made her way into the rotunda at the library entrance. She stopped beside a high-back wood bench where Library Lil—the bronze statue of a young girl reading a book—sat.

A tall, thin man about thirty stepped out of one of the meeting rooms along the west hallway. He glanced around before he headed our way. He wore dark slacks and a dark sport jacket over a white, button-down dress shirt that was untucked in that new-millennial style, and penny-loafers. He strode to us and looked around his entire trip.

“That must be Special Agent Kerns with the DOD,” Angel whispered. “He called just now.”

A fed? Interested in her research? I asked her that.

“I don’t know. He said it was about my Apple Harvest research and that it was classified. Go wait somewhere.”

“I am somewhere. I’m here.”

She gave me the evil eye, so I meandered to a bench nearby.

As Kerns approached, fingers began dancing up my spine—hot, pointy fingers. I didn’t like those fingers. Every time they did the mambo up my vertebrae, something bad happened in the next few beats.

Kerns reached Angel, proffered a hand, and said something with a serious, tight expression on his face. Then, he hooked a thumb toward the main entrance doors.

Angel shook his hand and smiled faintly, a sure sign she was unsure of him.

Those fingers reached the base of my brain and squeezed…

“Angel, get down!” I lunged forward and pulled her away from Kerns, down behind Library Lil’s bench.

Kerns stood there, frozen in an eerie mist. His arms shot out sideways, and he seemed to lift onto his toes. His face contorted into a stunned, painful grimace.

“Tuck?” Angel cried. “What’s happening to him?”

Hell if I knew.

Kerns’ entire body vibrated and shuddered. He staggered backward and collapsed onto the floor, writhing. The lights above us flickered wildly and went out. The original iron, brass, and blown-glass chandelier swayed dramatically two floors overhead. Its lights flickered and went dark.

When I glanced back at Kerns lying on the floor, I cringed.

Blood flowed from his ears, nose, and mouth. It seeped from his eye sockets, where his eyeballs looked like soft-boiled eggs stewing in their sockets. His hands and fingers were dark red and bony. His face and neck had oddly sunk, and his skin looked like it had been draped over his bones as though someone had sucked the tissue and muscle from beneath. He looked like he had melted inside.

The only thing left of him was his clothes and a spreading pool of goo.

Kerns was dead, sure enough. He’d been murdered, too, right in front of Angel and a dozen people. I knew no one had seen anything. No one heard anything. No one knew anything. Me included.

Well, that’s not true. I knew something. Special Agent Kerns didn’t die of a heart attack because of a poor diet. He wasn’t killed by a sniper with a silenced rifle, a knife-throwing ninja assassin, or by an Amazonian’s blow dart. He died of something else.

What killed him, I had no idea. But it scared the life out of me.

***

Excerpt from Dying With A Secret by Tj O’Connor. Copyright 2025 by Tj O’Connor. Reproduced with permission from Tj O’Connor. All rights reserved.

Chapter ONE

The Corsican wanted him dead.

Of that James Flynn was certain.

Somehow, the assassin had infiltrated Her Majesty’s Secret Service as a security officer. Flynn didn’t recognize him at first. The killer had put on a few pounds and likely had plastic surgery, but what he couldn’t disguise were his eyes. His cold, dark, pitiless eyes. The eyes of a sociopath. The eyes of an executioner.

The only question was when.

When would the Corsican come for him?

He told his colleagues what he suspected, but they refused to believe him. They claimed his name was Thomas Hernandez and that someone else on the security team had recommended him. They also said they fully vetted him. But Flynn wasn’t fooled. He tangled with the Corsican before. The man was relentless. A cold-blooded enforcer who started with the Corsican mafia but went on to do contract hits for the Sicilians, the Albanians, the Serbians, and the Russians.

Instead of waiting for the Corsican to come to him, Flynn decided to flush him out. Force his hand. Expose him for who he was and why he was there.

Flynn dressed in black denim and a black turtleneck and waited until 2 a.m. to make his move. He kept to the shadows as he trod the deserted corridors. He had no weapon since lethal weapons of any kind were now forbidden at headquarters. A foolish rule put in place by sheltered bureaucrats who had no clue. Luckily, not even security could carry a firearm at headquarters. All the Corsican had was an expandable baton and a Taser. Even so, the man was lethal enough with just his hands and feet.

But then, so was Flynn.

Flynn heard footsteps ahead and ducked into a conference room. He waited and listened as the footsteps drew closer. As they passed the doorway, Flynn peered into the corridor to see the Corsican lumbering forward, quietly peering in room after room. Suddenly, he stopped. Flynn felt a jolt of adrenaline. The air was electric. The silence palpable. Could the Corsican feel Flynn’s eyes on him? Flynn knew that scientists have identified a specialized group of neurons in the primate brain that fire specifically when a monkey is under the direct gaze of another. Humans also appear to be wired for that kind of gaze perception. Predators like Flynn and the Corsican can also be prey and have developed a sixth sense to alert them to danger.

The Corsican turned and he and Flynn locked eyes for a moment. Before the hit man could take a step, Flynn took off down the hall in the opposite direction. He heard the footfalls of the Corsican as he chased after him. Flynn had his route all mapped out. Darting down one corridor. Then another. Running until he arrived at a door that led down to the basement and the guts of the building. Flynn had picked the lock after dinner, knowing that this was the night he would lure the Corsican to his end. He had a license to kill and could have used it anytime, but Flynn didn’t exercise that power willy-nilly. Only as a last resort. He didn’t want the Corsican dead. He needed to know who put the price on his head. Otherwise who ever hired the killer would continue to send hitters until finally one succeeded.

The building that housed HMSS was huge and had a substantial infrastructure. The basement utility plant had mechanical, electrical, HVAC, and plumbing systems that fed water, air, and electricity all through the facility. Flynn moved from massive room to massive room, staying just ahead of the Corsican. He needed to lose him and lay in wait. Flynn was confident in his abilities, but to come at a killer like that head-on didn’t make much sense. Why give your opponents any edge at all?

Flynn ducked into a room that housed all the electrical panels, distribution boards, and circuit breakers. Conduit snaked everywhere and Flynn found a metal door secured with a heavy padlock. Using two straightened paper clips, he quickly picked the lock. The door led to an outside area protected by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The security fence surrounded three giant transformers and two massive backup generators the size of semi-trailers.

Flynn stood next to the door and strained his ears to hear approaching footsteps over the electrical buzz of the transformers. Faint at first, they moved closer. Careful. Slow. Stealthy. He saw a shoe as someone came through and Flynn took them from behind, using jiu-jitsu to slam them into the ground.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the man Flynn had face down in the gravel.

“Sancho?”

“Get off me, man.”

Flynn released his comrade-in-arms and helped him to his feet. Bits of gravel still clung to his face. “I thought you were the Corsican.” Flynn’s British accent had a touch of Scottish burr.

“His name is Hernandez,” Sancho said.

“That’s not his real name.”

“And I’m telling you, he’s not the Corsican.”

“Don’t let him fool you, my friend. He’s not who he says he is.”

“Then why’d he call me? He knows I know you. He knows we’re friends. He asked me to find you. Talk to you. Calm you down.”

“Perhaps he wants to take care of you too.”

“Take care of me?”

Flynn heard the Corsican call to them, his voice deep and resonant. “You okay in there, brother?”

“We’re good,” Sancho said.

The Corsican walked in with two other men. All three wore the blue security uniform issued to those who guard HMSS. The Corsican looked at Flynn with his dark, merciless eyes. “You okay, Mr. Flynn?”

“Tell them who you are,” Flynn demanded.

“Thomas Hernandez.”

“Who you really are.”

The Corsican rolled his eyes and sighed. “That’s who I really am.”

Flynn aimed an accusatory finger. “I know who you are. Born Stefanu Perrina in Porto, Corsica. Contract killer for the Unione Corse, the Cosa Nostra, and the Russian mafia. Wanted by Interpol for fifty-two confirmed kills.”

“I was born in Hacienda Heights.”

Flynn glanced at Sancho. “The man is a master of deception. It’s kill or be killed with men like him.”

The Corsican drew his Taser and the other two guards followed suit.

Sancho raised his hands. “Whoa, come on now. Easy.” He stepped in front of Flynn as the Corsican fired. The Taser darts caught Sancho in the shoulder and socked him with fifty thousand volts. He screamed in agony as his whole body seized up and shook. His legs gave out and he fell on his side, helpless and twitching.

Flynn dove behind a generator before the other two guards could fire. Each guard stalked him from a different side. Flynn clambered up over the top and launched himself from above, tackling the Corsican. He wrenched away his reloaded Taser and shot one of the guards in the crotch. The man went down with a shriek as the other guard fired on him. Flynn fell to his knees and the darts parted his hair before hitting the Corsican in the chest. The killer crumpled as Flynn sprang to his feet and pulled the Corsican’s expandable baton out of its holster. Flicking his wrist, Flynn fully extended the menacing club and turned to confront the last standing guard.

Someone grabbed Flynn by the arm and Flynn elbowed him in the face. Sancho staggered back, holding his bloody nose. “What the hell, man?”

“Sorry, mate.”

Flynn heard a Taser fire and an instant later, two darts hit him in the side. Fifty thousand volts took him to his knees as another guard fired another Taser. Those two darts hit him in the stomach. Flynn lost control of every muscle in his body. And then he saw the Corsican looming over him with his own weapon. He shot the darts directly into Flynn’s chest. Right over his heart. Now all three lit him up with electricity. One hundred and fifty thousand volts rocked Flynn as they shocked him with charge after charge until the world faded into a tiny aperture that slowly began to close.

***

Excerpt from Goldhammer by Haris Orkin. Copyright 2022 by Haris Orkin. Reproduced with permission from Haris Orkin. All rights reserved.

It was the last Tuesday of the month, our normal book club night, and we were gathered at my house—Selma, Alice, Tara, and me—settled in the living room, Moroccan rug plush beneath us, immersed in the decor’s eclectic mix of whimsy and Old-World aesthetic. This would be our last book club meeting, but it was more than that, really. It was a pulled thread in the carefully woven tapestry of our friendships that had begun in college and endured careers, weddings, our first-borns, and remained constant through affairs, divorces, and much worse …

***

Excerpt from What They Don’t Know by Susan Furlong. Copyright 2022 by Susan Furlong. Reproduced with permission from Susan Furlong. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

CIA Headquarters, August 16, 2004

Maggie Jenkins strode across the parking lot to the sidewalk that led her past the “Bubble,” the CIA’s white, dome-shaped auditorium. Just ahead, she paused at the bronze statue of Nathan Hale, the first American to be executed for spying for his country. A half dozen quarters lay scattered at his feet, left there by superstitious CIA employees hoping to garner good luck before deploying overseas. She fished around in her purse for a quarter, which she placed carefully atop Hale’s left shoe.

In just a few minutes, Maggie would learn whether her six-month deployment to the US embassy in Moscow had been approved. Even though Warner Thompson, the CIA’s deputy director for operations, had advocated on her behalf, there were several others, including an Agency psychiatrist and a team of polygraphers who were not convinced that she should be stationed overseas. She’s not ready yet, the shrink had opined, as if she were a piece of fruit not quite ripe enough for picking.

“Wish me luck,” she said to the statue as she turned for the entrance ahead. The CIA’s headquarters comprised two main buildings, both seven stories high, which were linked together by bright hallways with large windows overlooking a grassy courtyard. Maggie worked in the original headquarters building (OHB), which had been built some forty years earlier during the height of the Cold War. From the outside, OHB was a concrete monstrosity with no aesthetically redeeming value, at least in Maggie’s opinion. It reminded her of Soviet architecture—heavy on the concrete, light on the beauty.

And other than the expansive marbled foyer and the posh seventh-floor executive offices, OHB’s interior also was nothing to write home about. Every floor between the first and the seventh looked exactly the same—drab, hushed, windowless hallways lined with vault doors. Behind those heavily fortified doors sat rows of cubicles, a few conference rooms, and cramped offices here and there for mid-level managers.

Maggie pulled open the heavy glass entry door and ducked into a pristine lobby gleaming with white marble-clad walls. Ahead, the Agency’s bright blue logo covered a massive swath of the gray-and-white checked granite floor. To the right stood the Memorial Wall, which was emblazoned with black stars honoring dozens of Agency officers who’d perished in the line of duty. Maggie stopped and bit down on her lip.

The wall was an awesome, solemn reminder of lives given in the defense of freedom. Every time she walked past it, the sharp points of the eighty-fourth star—Steve’s star—ripped another gash in her heart. He’d been working under cover, so no outside friends or relatives had been invited to the ceremony. Warner had sat with her, stoic, as she clutched his hand and stared at the parade of speakers, not hearing a word they said.

She turned her gaze from the wall, slid her badge through the security turnstile, and offered a polite hello to the officer manning the front desk. She bypassed the elevator that she took every day to the fourth floor and made a beeline for the spacious employee cafeteria. In the far corner sat Warner Thompson, nose buried in the Washington Post.

“Morning,” she offered.

Warner rattled the paper and folded it lengthwise. “Coffee?” He pushed a Styrofoam cup across the quartz tabletop and smiled at her. His full head of hair had grayed considerably since last year, but it worked on him, enhancing his gray-flecked eyes and tanned complexion.

“Thanks.” Maggie sat.

“You ready?”

“I guess.” She sipped the coffee, still piping hot and perfectly sweetened. Warner knew her well. “What do you think they’ll say?”

“There’s no reason they should deny you the posting.”

“The psychiatrist thinks I’m obsessed with Zara.”

“He has a point.” Warner leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I told you not to bring her up in your evaluation sessions. If she’s still alive, we’ll find her, Maggie. I promise.”

“There’s no ‘if’ about it.” She waited until a man with a breakfast tray settled at a nearby table, then lowered her voice. “I saw her fleeing the farmhouse in Georgia. Who do they think set fire to the place after I escaped with Peter?”

Warner winced, obviously uncomfortable with the reminder of Peter, his former case officer, the one who’d been intimately involved in the murder of Steve, another case officer, and his protégé, nine short months ago. That Steve also had been Maggie’s fiancé made saying what he had to say all the more difficult. “The point is, the Agency needs to think that you’ve moved on from what happened in Georgia before they send you to such a sensitive overseas posting.”

“Moved on? Warner—”

He raised a hand to stop her. They’d had this discussion dozens of times since the previous November. Maggie had made it perfectly clear that there was no moving on, no closure, as people said these days, until she found Zara. “You know what I mean. You have to toe the party line and say you believe that everyone involved in Steve’s murder is dead. Period.”

“I still don’t understand why they won’t at least consider the possibility that Zara got away.”

Warner rubbed his forehead. “Because the Agency wants this to go away. A star operations officer was murdered by a terrorist and the terrorist is dead. It’s a simple, straightforward narrative. They don’t want the press finding out that another Agency employee and a senior US congressman were involved in Steve’s death. Everything is about the war on terror, Maggie. If the media found out that CIA and elected officials were mixed up with terrorists, there would be hell to pay.”

Maggie quoted the Biblical phrase inscribed on a wall in the CIA’s lobby. “The truth shall make you free.” She snorted. “The truth, unless it’s too embarrassing?”

Warner exhaled and shifted in his seat. “Both of us are lucky that the FBI investigation didn’t uncover . . . everything.”

He was right, of course. Last year, Maggie had destroyed classified documents and withheld other evidence from the FBI to protect them both. And Warner had been entangled, albeit unwittingly, with a Russian who had ties to both Zara and the congressman. Had the FBI known any of this, neither of them would be CIA employees today.

Maggie waved to a coworker who stared from the nearby coffee station. Warner didn’t frequent the employee cafeteria, so his appearance was sure to raise eyebrows. She’d grown accustomed to sidelong glances inside the Agency’s walls. Everyone recognized her. The media had splashed her face all over television and the internet after Congressman Carvelli’s death. There were some who whispered about her using her fiancé’s death to advance her career. Fortunately, they were in the minority. Most who knew about her role in uncovering the terrorist plot considered her a hero, a designation she refused to embrace. Her actions may have saved thousands of lives, but her motivation had been personal—to clear Steve’s name.

He was no traitor, and she’d proven it.

Maggie glanced at her watch. “We’d better go.”

Warner nodded. They grabbed their coffees and headed for the elevator bank. “Remember, you believe Zara died in the fire at the farmhouse,” Warner reminded her on the way up to the fourth floor.

“That’s what I told the shrink last session, but then he talked to the polygraph people.” Since leaving the House Intelligence Committee to return to the CIA earlier this year, she’d endured three marathon polygraph sessions. Every time, the stupid machine registered deception in her response to questions about whether she intended to violate government policies for her own benefit. “Now he thinks I’m up to something.”

Warner shrugged. “Aren’t you?”

Maggie laughed despite herself. “Always.”

***

Excerpt from The Wayward Assassin by Susan Ouellette. Copyright 2022 by Susan Ouellette. Reproduced with permission from CamCat Books. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

APRIL 22, 2010
SAN ANTONIO ART CO-OP
SOUTHTOWN, SAN ANTONIO

The cloying stench of pot told the same old story.

With an irritated sigh Delaney Broward quickened her pace through the warehouse-turned-art-co-op toward her brother’s studio at the far end of the cavernous hall. On his best days Corey had little sense of time. Add a joint to the mix and he lost his sense not only of time but of responsibility. It also explained why he didn’t answer his phone. When he got high and started painting, he wanted no interruptions. His lime-green VW van was parked cattywampus across two spaces in the lot that faced Alamo Street just south of downtown San Antonio. He might be physically present, but his THC-soaked mind had escaped its cell.

Marijuana served as his muse and taskmaster. Or so he’d said.

The soles of her huarache sandals clacking on the concrete floor sounded loud in Delaney’s ears. “Corey? Corey! You were supposed to pick us up at Ellie’s. Come on, dude. She’s waiting.”

No answer.

At this rate Delaney would never get to Night in Old San Antonio, affectionately known to most local folks as NIOSA. Everyone who was anyone knew it was pronounced NI-O-SA, long I and long O, the best party-slash-fundraiser during the mother of all parties where her boyfriend would be waiting for her. “Hey, bro, I’m starving. Let’s go.”

Delaney’s phone rang. She slowed and dug it from the pocket of her stonewashed jeans. Speaking of Ellie. “I’m at the co-op now. He’s here.”

Share as little info as possible.

“He’s stoned again, isn’t he? I’m sick of this.” Ellie’s shrill voice rose even higher. “I swear if he stands me up again— ”

“Us. Stands us up.”

“Stood us up again. That will be it. I’m done. I’m done waiting around for him. I’m done playing second fiddle to his self-destructive habits. I’m done with his starving-artist, free-spirit, pothead schtick. The man is a walking stereotype. I’m done with him, period.”

Delaney mouthed the words along with her friend. She knew the lyrics of this lovesick song by heart. The childish rejoinder “It takes one to know one” stuck in her throat. “We’ll be there in twenty. You can tell him yourself.”

Ellie would and then Corey would kiss her until she took it all back. With a final huff Ellie hung up.

The door to his studio— the largest and with the best light because the co-op was Corey’s dream child— stood open. “Seriously, Corey. Think of someone besides yourself once in a while, please.” Delaney strode through the door, ready to ream her brother up one side and down the other. “You are so selfish.”

Delaney halted. At first blush it didn’t make sense. Twisted and smashed canvases littered the floor. Along with paints, brushes, beer bottles, and Thai food take-out cartons.

Wooden easels were broken like toothpicks and scattered on top of the canvases. Someone had splattered red paint over another finished piece— a woman eating a raspa in front of a vendor’s mobile cart, the Alamo in the background.

Delaney’s hands went to her throat. The metallic scent of blood mingled with the odor of human waste gagged her. A fiery shiver started at her toes and raced like a lit fuse to her brain. Her mind took in detail after detail. That way she didn’t have to face the bigger picture staring her in the face. “Please, God, no.”

Even He couldn’t fix this.

She shot forward, stumbled, and fell to her knees. Her legs refused to work. She crawled the remainder of the distance to Corey across a floor marred by still-wet oil paint, beer, and other liquids she couldn’t bear to identify.

He sat with his back against the wall. His long legs clad in paint-splattered jeans sprawled in front of him. His feet were bare. His hands with those thin, expressive fingers lay in his lap. Deep lacerations scored his palms and fingers.

Her throat aching with the effort not to vomit, Delaney forced her gaze to move upward. His T-shirt, once white, now shone scarlet with blood. His blood. Rips in the shirt left his chest exposed, revealing stab wounds— too many to count.

Delaney opened her mouth. Scream. Just scream. Let it out.

No sound emerged.

She crawled alongside her big brother until she could lean her shoulder and head against the wall. “Corey?” she whispered.

His green eyes, fringed by thick, dark lashes that were the envy of every woman he’d ever dated, were open and startled. His skin, always pale and ethereal, had a blue tinge to it.

Delaney drowned in a tsunami of nausea. “Come on, Corey, this isn’t funny. I need you.”

Her teeth chattered. Hands shaking, she touched his throat. His skin was cold. So cold.

Too late, too late, too late. The words screamed in her head. Stop it. Just stop it. “You can’t be dead. You’re not allowed to die.”

Mom and Dad had died in a car wreck a week past her eighth birthday. Nana and Pops had taken their turns the year Delaney turned eighteen. Everybody she cared about died.

Not Corey. Delaney punched in 9–1–1.

The operator’s assurance that help was on the way did nothing to soothe Delaney. She sat cross-legged and dragged Corey’s shoulders and head into her lap. She had to warm him up. “Tell them to hurry. Tell them my brother needs help.”

“Yes, ma’am. They’re en route.”

“Tell them he’s all I’ve got.”

CHAPTER 2

TEN YEARS LATER
NASH RESIDENCE, SAN ANTONIO

Real men didn’t cry. Not even during a reunion with a beloved truck.

Swallowing hard, Hunter Nash wrapped his fingers around the keys, concentrating on the feel of the metal pressing into his skin. He cleared his throat. “Thanks, Mom. For keeping it all these years.”

His mom didn’t bother to try to hide her tears. She wiped her plump cheeks on a faded dish towel, offered him a tremulous smile, and bustled down the sidewalk that led from the house on San Antonio’s near west side where Hunter had grown up to the detached two-car garage in the back. It had housed his truck for the past eight years. Almost ten if he counted the two years it took for his case to go to trial. He had no place to go in those years when he’d allegedly been innocent until proven guilty. His friends no longer friends and his job gone, he had no need for transportation.

The door to the garage was padlocked. Mom handed him the key. “My hands are shaking. You’d better do the honors.” She stepped back. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”

“I did my time, Ma.” As a model prisoner he’d earned time off for good behavior. It was easy for a guy to behave when he spent his days and nights scared spitless.

“I know. All those nights I’ve lain in bed worrying about you in that place, whether you were safe, if you were hurt, if you were sick.” Her voice broke. “I can’t believe it’s over.”

“Me neither.”

It wasn’t over. In fact, it was just beginning, but she didn’t need to know that. His determination to prove his innocence would only worry her more. A divorced mother of four, she’d raised her kids on a teacher’s salary and an occasional child support check from the crud-for-brains ex-husband who showed up once every couple of years in an attempt to make nice with his kids. She deserved a break.

The aging manual garage door squeaked and protested when Hunter yanked on the handle. He needed to do some work around here, starting with applying some WD-40. The smell of mold and old motor oil wafted from the dark interior. Hunter slipped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust. A layer of dust covered the 2002 midnight-blue Dodge RAM 1500, but otherwise it remained in the pristine condition in which he’d left it the night he said goodbye and promised he’d be back. “My baby.”

More tears trickling down her face, Mom chuckled softly. “After you finish reintroducing yourself, come back inside. I’m making your favorite chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, pineapple coleslaw, and creamed corn. Your brother and sisters are coming over after work. Shawna’s bringing a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Melissa’s contribution is three kinds of ice cream, including rocky road. She said it seemed appropriate. I hope you haven’t lost your sense of humor. And you know Curtis. He’s all about the beer.”

The last thing Hunter wanted to do was celebrate with his sibs. Mel and Shawna had visited faithfully at first, but less as the years rolled by. Curtis never showed, even though Fabian Dominguez State Jail was only a few miles down the road from San Antonio.

Nor did Hunter want to explain why he’d sworn off alcohol. The conditions of his parole included monthly pee tests— no alcohol or drugs, but that part of his life was over anyway. It had been easy to comply in prison, obviously. Whether he could maintain his sobriety in the beer drinking capital of the country remained to be seen. He’d do AA if necessary. “Mom— ”

“No buts. They’re family. They love you. You need to live life, enjoy life, make up for all you’ve missed. You haven’t even met most of your nieces and nephews. Did you know Mel is expecting another baby in August?”

“Yes, I— ”

“Today we celebrate your new job and your new life.”

His bachelor of fine arts with an emphasis in drawing and painting from Southwest School of Art might once have allowed him to teach art in one of the school districts, but not anymore.

It didn’t matter. The prison chaplain had hooked him up with Pastor James. The preacher ran a faith-based community center that served at-risk youth. He’d hired Hunter to teach art to those who’d already had their first brush with the law. He figured Hunter could teach life lessons at the same time he introduced them to art as a way to channel their anger at the hand life had dealt them. Learning what happened when a guy got off track would be the lesson.

Even though Hunter hadn’t gotten off the track. He’d been shoved off it. By an eager-beaver, newbie detective; a green-as-a-Granny-Smith-apple public defender; and an assembly-line justice system.

He would get by in this world that had hung him out to dry. Especially knowing Mom had his back. She had that don’t-mess-with-me teacher look in her burnt-amber eyes. Like her sixth graders, Hunter knew better than to argue. It felt good to know she remained in his corner. When everyone else had hit the ground, scattering in opposite directions, she never budged in her belief that son number two could not be a murderer. She’d brought him up better than that.

“You’re right. Give me a few minutes.”

She patted his chest and stretched on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek. Her lips were chapped, and the wrinkles had deepened around her mouth and eyes. Her long hair had gone pure white during his years away. “Take your time, sweetheart.”

Hunter gritted his teeth. After years of looking over his shoulder, bobbing and weaving around hard-core convicts who’d as soon shank a guy in the shower as look at him, he didn’t know how to cope with nice. With sweet. With love tempered with wisdom and a hard life.

“One day at a time.” That’s what the prison chaplain had told him. “Get through the next minute, the next hour, the next day.” That’s how he did eight years at Dominguez. This couldn’t be any harder. He opened the truck’s door and slid into the driver’s seat. The faint odor of pine air freshener greeted him. And citrus.

More likely that was his imagination. Delaney’s perfume simply could not linger that long. Move on. She has. She did. To her credit Delaney held on as long as she could— until the guilty verdict. Then she was forced to move on. She couldn’t be blamed for that.

Hunter picked up the sketch pad on the passenger seat. In those days he kept one everywhere. Just in case. The first page. The second. The third. All drawings of Delaney. Sweet Laney eating a slice of watermelon at a Fourth of July celebration. Laney rocking Hunter’s newborn nephew in a hickory rocker on the front porch. Laney in a bathing suit sitting on the dock at Medina Lake. Laney with her soulful eyes, long sandy-brown hair, and air of sad vulnerability worn like a pair of old jeans that fit perfectly. That too-big nose, wide mouth, and pointed chin. Corey might have been the angelic beauty— totally unfair— but Delaney’s face had character. She had a face Hunter never ceased to want to draw and paint.

And kiss.

He turned the pages slowly, allowing the memories to have their way with him. Meeting at a party Corey had thrown when Delaney was a senior in high school. Their first date, ribs and smoked chicken with heart-stopping creamed corn, potato salad, coleslaw, and jalapeños at Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q followed by dancing at Leon Springs Dance Hall.

She had danced with the abandon of a small child. As if she didn’t care who watched. Her face glowed with perspiration. Her green eyes sparkled with happiness. His two left feet couldn’t keep up, but she didn’t mind. She twirled her peasant skirt as she flew around him, her hands in the air, her curves beckoning.

Hunter closed his eyes. Her softness enveloped him. Her sweetness surrounded him.

He needed to see her again. He needed to talk to her. Somehow he had to prove to her that she was wrong about him. Whatever it took. He laid the sketchbook aside. “Come on, dude, let’s take a ride.”

He stuck the key in the ignition and turned it.

Nothing. Not even a tick-tick-tick. He tried a second time. Nada. “I’m an idiot.” He patted the steering wheel. “Not your fault, man.”

The truck hadn’t been driven in years. The battery was dead. He might be able to jump it, but more likely he’d need a new one. Batteries cost money.

One thing at a time. He’d waited this long.

Hunter slid from the truck and eased the door closed. “I’ll be back when I get my act together.”

In the kitchen Hunter found his mom peeling potatoes. She pointed the peeler at him. “You can’t imagine how good it feels to have you home.”

“You can’t imagine how good it feels to be here.” He landed a kiss on her soft hair. She smelled of Pond’s cold cream. The same old comforting scent. Life had changed but not her. “I’m gonna take a walk. I need to blow the prison stink off.”

“Enjoy. They redid the walking trail at the lake and installed new outdoor fitness equipment.” She waved the paring knife in the air. “But don’t stay too long. You have company coming.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He pantomimed a mock salute and headed for the front door.

One thing at a time. One step at a time. That’s how he’d get his life back.

***

Excerpt from Trust Me by Kelly Irvin. Copyright 2022 by Kelly Irvin. Reproduced with permission from Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.