Landlords don’t rent apartments to zombies.

I scratched the four-day stubble on my jawline and parked my mom’s Camry behind the brown brick walk-up. Home-Not-So-Sweet Home.

As I stepped into the cramped apartment lobby Sergei was waiting.

“The rent,” he said, his guttural Russian accent turning his words into a nonsensical de-REN. I paused, reluctantly meeting the bushy brows lowered ominously over his steely slitted eyes. Easy to translate.

I nodded and darted my own eyes to the stairway. One of these days my landlord would surely raise a heavily muscled arm and crash his ham hock fist into my face. Emitting my zombie grunt, I pivoted to the stairwell and rushed up, expecting Sergei to follow. Relieved when he didn’t.

It would be a brief reprieve. When my mom lived here Sergei only showed up once a month, but in the three years since she died, he’d pounded his frustration with my spotty payments onto my apartment door with increasing frequency, not budging until I opened the creaky steel barrier. Saying nothing, he’d hold out a meaty palm that looked like it could strangle me all by itself.

Back when I still had cash, I’d offer a wad of fifties and hundreds that he’d snatch up like grabbing cash from an ATM. Only the Will Lockhart machine was now empty, and Sergei looked as though he wanted to kick it into compliance. Kick me. Face flushed with fury, he’d study me with those hard gray pebbles, taking in my disheveled hair and sagging clothes. A gaze that told me exactly what he thought about me—a twenty-one-year-old slacker who clearly cared about nothing. A deadbeat. A zombie. And this was mostly true except for the one thing I cared deeply about: those last seconds with Mom. I relived them daily, the guilt as fresh and dangerously addictive as a drunk’s bleary-eyed yearning for a Bloody Mary the morning after a bender.

I deserved the memories. If not for me, Mom would still be alive.

I closed my eyes against the inevitable scene rolling through my mind. The flash of headlights slicing through my Honda’s dusky interior like a white-hot comet, too fast to stop, too bright to blink away; a violent force whirling me into its vortex. My neck twisting painfully, head hitting something hard. The car’s interior exploding into a slow-motion kaleidoscope. How I’d instinctively thrust my arm out to protect my mom, instant pain bolting from fingers to shoulder; glass shattering and raining down upon us like the stinging embers of trailing fireworks.

And then, the stillness. The church-like quiet.

I’d blinked into the silence as the noises trickled in—the hissing of the steaming engine, and a tinny song coming through the radio from somewhere under the car’s hood. A far-off voice belted out a twangy country tune. “Put on the bacon and the eggs, darlin’ . . .”

Mom and her country music. Mom and her . . . Mom. Head throbbing, I’d scanned the smoke-choked twilight. She was right where she was supposed to be, still hooked in place by her seatbelt, staring straight ahead, like she was listening for something.

“Mom? Are you all right?”

Beyond the jagged glass edges of her blown-out window I saw the lines of the truck through the smoky haze, the words “Barclay’s Bread” written in fancy red letters on its wide, boxy side. Mom said nothing.

Painfully bolted into our twisted metal cage, waiting for the Jaws of Life to extract us, I’d reached out, trying to touch her with my other hand, the one that still worked. If I could just shake her out of her trance.

But in those final precious seconds our bodies existed in the same world, I knew. She was already gone.

I shook my head, forcing me back to the present, wishing my mind could be like the Etch-a-Sketch Mom bought me when I was six. One harsh shake in each direction and the contents of the screen disappeared. But my mind retained in painful detail the truck driver’s distinctive profile, the beak of a nose angled down, a squinted eye and bulbous cheekbone lit up by his cell-phone screen.

As a kid, the thought of Mom dying had set waves of terror rolling through me. Not just because I loved her, but because a part of me always dreaded the day she’d be taken from me. Convinced it would happen but unsure of when, I’d spent a good four years waking up each night and tiptoeing to her bedroom door, peeking through the crack between the edge of the flimsy wood and the wall to ensure she was still in bed, alive. Ridiculous as it seemed, even then, it was understandable, given our track record. I mean, not long before my dad left us, just after my fifth birthday, we’d been a family of four.

***

Excerpt from MAYBE YOU LIED by Jennifer Sadera. Copyright 2026 by Jennifer Sadera. Reproduced with permission from Jennifer Sadera. All rights reserved.

FACTS:

1. The United States power grid is divided into three largely independent systems, considered one of the most complex machines ever built with over 160,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Large portions of the grid infrastructure are decades old.
2. Modern societies rely on electricity for nearly every critical system including: water treatment plants, fuel pipelines, telecommunications networks, hospitals, and transportation systems.
3. GPS signals are surprisingly weak and vulnerable to interference.
4. The largest blackout in North American history affected 50 million people in August 2023 involving eight states and Canada.
5. Small inexpensive drones can now carry lethal payloads.
6. The U.S. military (under DARPA’s OFFSET program) have tested drone swarm “curtain” formations.

Chapter 1

Friday, September 27 – 8:49 a.m. –
AIRPLANE #1 – Private Gulfstream Jet – Coast of Venezuela

The day was perfect for flying, sipping Russo-Baltique vodka—and an assassination.

In exactly eleven minutes.

Ominous black clouds churned miles beneath the Gulfstream cruising high above the Atlantic. Far away, 1,600 miles north, thick fog rolled across the runway at Tampa International Airport—with Air Force One descending on approach.

Tracy strode the cabin aisle, air thick with sweat and heavy leather. Her smartwatch pinged. Florida ground team: Eight minutes to launch. All good.

Fiddling with her charcoal pearl necklace, she eyed the dozen technicians, each tracking a sliver of the covert op. Right on schedule. She halted behind her lead coordinator, Boris, bent over a pulsing, colorful weather map.

When Tracy placed her hand on his shoulder, Boris stopped typing and adjusted his headset. She stood erect, arms crossed and chin high, her gold silk blouse complementing her team’s black combat uniforms like a leather-banded Swiss watch.

Seeds of anarchy thrive in a nation stripped of electric power.

The enormous gravity of today’s operation weighed on everyone aboard. Their goal: to plant kernels of chaos.

She clucked her tongue, gave a sharp nod and pointed to a green and yellow blob on his screen. “Tell me that’s not fog.”

Successfully executing their mission—polished for years—would bring infamy to her name and enter Tracy Daniela Ciacchella into the history books alongside John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. Not desirable, but exitus acta probat: the outcome justifies the deeds.

“It is, but ma’am, your yacht is in perfect position in Old Tampa Bay,” Boris said, a hint of a Russian accent slipping through on certain syllables. “All four hundred drones fully programmed, ready for activation and deployment from boat deck. We have new problem.”

A sitting US president hadn’t fallen since ‘63. Today’s mission was the culmination of years of planning, subversion, and digital sleight of hand. No bullets. No lone gunman. Just 400 Semtex-laden drones guided by a matrix of stolen GPS coordinates and a rigged FAA exemption buried three years ago by one of her assets.

A clean kill.

Boris nodded. “Not worried about fog, ma’am, but light rain, not good for drones. Moved in faster than expected.”

Each drone carried a two-pound brick of homemade Semtex.

Washington had talked counter-drone defense for years. But as was typical with US leadership, nothing actually got done. No productive decisions. Only political wrangling and posturing—mixed with unhealthy levels of toxic masculinity.

Incompetent politicians. Yet another reason to raise my curtain of death—weather permitting.

For the final time, Tracy confirmed the ground team in position. On her iPad, she tapped open the video chat app connected with her two generals: first, the captain on her yacht in Old Tampa Bay, Florida; and second, her trusted, longtime friend Bob Huffington—nicknamed

Huff—perched atop the Macy’s roof near I-275. Positioned a mile south, Huff had an unobstructed view of the final approach flight path for runway 1R at Tampa International.

Although Tracy herself was nowhere near Florida, both video feeds from her team streamed clean and crisp via satellite. Rolling fog thickened, obscuring her views.

“Wind speed?” she asked Huff.

“Twenty-two knots. For now, acceptable, but if gusts start pushing above twenty-five, our chances drop to ten percent.”

Getting Goldberg into place had been her masterpiece. After today, with President Whitehead out of the picture, Vice President Goldberg would give Tracy direct access to the power levers controlling the federal government. Her puppet would be in perfect position for the next phase of world domination.

It was now or never. Time for the all-important decision.

Even if the wind began gusting, the drones might still fly close enough to do catastrophic damage.

Tracy brought her iPad close and announced into the tiny speaker, “Green. Repeat, we are green for Operation Black Flock.”

On her screen, both generals nodded in confirmation. Now—shadowy iPad feeds showed Huff entering the launch code while workers on the boat peeled off a massive blue tarp to reveal a cargo container with four hundred off-the-shelf quadcopter drones—all made in China—packed inside a customized carbon fiber lattice. Each carried a two-pound payload of Semtex and a pre-programmed set of GPS-coordinated waypoints—latitude, longitude and elevation—to travel to.

“Gusts up to twenty-four knots,” Huff said, nervously tugging at his earlobe before giving her a thumbs up, indicating her ground team had programmed the drones and activated them. Assuming the weather cooperated, the small black machines would follow precise paths using exact signals from dozens of GPS satellites—all in working order as of five minutes ago, according to her inside man at the Department of Defense. Her DOD contact had also confirmed the Air Force One plane on descent was, in fact, carrying President Whitehead, not a decoy.

Boris leaned back in his chair, away from his laptop, and squinted at Tracy. “I still think we could have come up with a better name for this op.”

She nodded, anxiety rising, wondering whether the drones would perform as intended. “Perhaps.”

“How about Operation Kill Racist Xenophobic Pedophile?”

“Come now, Boris. Way too long.” Tracy gave a silent smirk.

A tiny matrix of red and green lights blinked on her iPad, communicating status from every craft, as propellers whirred, creating a bee-like buzzing sound crackling from the embedded speaker.

The swarm of drones lifted skyward and disappeared into the gray blur of rolling fog.

***

Excerpt from Blackout by J. Luke Bennecke. Copyright 2026 by J. Luke Bennecke. Reproduced with permission from J. Luke Bennecke. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Outside the Surgical Emergency Room

Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia

Kyle McMann groaned as she paced on the Grady Memorial Hospital Emergency Room ramp, her eyes tracking the incoming ambulance. She prayed this wasn’t another twenty-five-year-

old—her exact age—stiffened by rigor mortis, still cradling her crying infant son in her arms. She was haunted by the mother’s lifeless stare that sent shivers down her spine. Obviously, some evil bastard shot her close up as she held her baby.

Kyle had picked the short straw, as per usual. She was starting her career as an intern in the Surgical Emergency Room of Grady, the Mount Everest of U.S. shock-trauma centers.

Unlike most hospitals that had one ER, this godforsaken medical behe-moth had three: the Surgical ER, the Medical ER, and the Pediatric ER. Each had its own unique variants of traumatizing trauma.

It was dark by nine p.m. on Thursday, July 5th, and she shielded her eyes from the strobing reds and blues. It was her job to screen the incoming “clients.”

Though not specified in the hospital bylaws, inherent in the mission of the lowest of the low on the professional totem pole was ramp duty.

Aka processing the worst of the worst and pronouncing the dead bodies dead.

Didn’t get much grimmer than that.

Her mind flashed back to this morning’s thirty-one-year-old basketball phenom with bacterial meningitis. A day ago, a vibrant human being. Now approaching his maker with a devastated brain failing on a respirator despite the efforts of the best infectious disease minds on the planet.

She’d been there for five days, and already it was wearing her out. Facing the families.

The tears. The sobbing.

Parents collapsing.

It was like everyone fell from the tree of horrors and hit each branch on the way down.

Her fight or flight reflex kicked in, and she sprinted to the ambulance, sharp brown eyes focused, runner’s body whipping towards the EMS vehicle, coughing out the black exhaust that smacked her face-on and splayed her middle-parted chestnut brown hair in both directions. Staying on the driver’s side, she peered in as the BLS 911 Emergency Ambulance backed into the ramp.

“What is it?” she shouted as the driver rolled down his window.

“Bad one, doc. Bleeding like a stuck pig. A bunch of kids worked him over with bats and knives. You want to get in here fast.”

Kyle’s heart sank as she ran back and yanked open the rear door. She jumped in before the van came to a full stop.

Blood.

And more blood.

A vampire’s wet dream.

On the sheets. The floor. Smeared on the windows.

“Come on!” she shouted to the half-panicked tech staring at the abdomen. “Let’s get him inside.”

The two front EMTs ran around back and pulled the stretcher out. The group slammed through the steel and glass doors into the ER.

“WAIT A MINUTE!” Ellen Chu, the hard-as-a-rock head nurse, blocked their path and held up her hand. “What’s going on?”

Kyle spoke up from behind. “Let ’em through. We’re going to Trauma, stat.”

She pushed the stretcher, sweeping Ellen aside, then looked back over her shoulder. “And call Eli.”

The Trauma Room was halfway down the hall. It was larger than the rest, so more people could fit in to stabilize the endless stream of broken bodies in this war zone.

Kyle slipped in before the men and slapped the trauma room table. “Here. Let’s move him. One, two, three.”

They lifted the patient from the stretcher using the draw sheet underneath him.

He was light. Must be a kid, Kyle thought.

She peered into the open abdomen. The wound stretched all the way across the belly.

“Oh, man,” she cried as she catapulted back.

An arterial pumper squirted blood into the air, hitting her directly in the right eye.

Everything she learned drained from her mind. She went from flight/fight to freeze.

All she could see was that fountain of red shooting up from the patient’s pulsating bowel.

Where the hell was Eli?

Her stomach dropped from the sheer helplessness of it all.

Think, dammit. THINK!

Ellen poked her head around the corner.

Kyle looked up from the bowel, snapped out of her stupor, and wiped blood from her face with the arm of her white lab coat.

“Where’s Eli?”

“I told him to get his ass down here stat.” Ellen looked at the spurting blood, then back at Kyle and said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world: “Shouldn’t we start an IV?”

“Yeah, yeah, uh, good idea.” Kyle shook her head and mentally kicked herself. Four years of working her ass off, and she couldn’t even think of an IV? What kind of a moron was she?

“I’ll put in the IV,” Ellen said hard and fast, “but you’ve gotta get that bleeder, or he won’t last until Eli gets here.” The ambulance attendants backed off while Ellen tossed Kyle a large Kelly clamp, then ransacked the drawers for an IV.

“Kyle?!” she barked, “C’mon, let’s go.”

Kyle faced the patient, ready to save his life. Then she froze. Again.

Sure, she’d been through the surgical rotation, but only as a second or third assistant. She’d read all the books. But books didn’t shoot blood at you while you tried to stop them from dying.

It was her first week in the ER, for fuck’s sake.

She wasn’t even a real doctor yet. Real doctors knew what they were doing.

“Kyle, SNAP OUT OF IT!” Ellen shouted.

“Okay, sorry…” Kyle muttered as she sprang out of her stupor.

She pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and yanked the suction catheter from the wall. The long plastic tube slurped the liquid blood and dark clots from the open wound to expose a glistening bowel.

There it was.

The base of the bleeder.

She took the Kelly clamp and went for it. Blood splattered her face again.

Now it was in her left eye.

What if he had AIDS?

Or hepatitis?

“Damn!” She missed.

The blood was pooling.

And the bleeder was going down again.

In another second, it would disappear below the surface of a new red pond.

She went for it once more, holding her right wrist to steady her hand.

“Gotcha, you little bastard.” “What’s going on?”

Kyle squinted to keep more blood from rolling into her eyes as she growled at Eli, finally strolling in like the cool customer he was. “Nice of you to stop by.”

The second-year surgery resident leaned over to inspect the wound. “Looks to me like you’re doin’ a-okay to me, Newby.”

A clot dislodged from another severed vessel.

Blood spewed two feet and caught Eli in the cheek. “Okay, well, maybe you do need a little help from your friends.”

He wiped his face with a green towel and snapped on a pair of tan gloves. “Kyle, gimme the suction catheter. I’ll work here. You put a second IV in his other hand. Ellen, call the OR. Tell them we’re coming up stat.”

Kyle was happy to slide aside. She grabbed the patient’s right hand and smacked the back of it a half dozen times to raise a vein. It was no easy matter considering the scar tissue covering the vessels.

Strange. She’d given her little brother a scar like that once. Brian had been chasing her in the house, and she slammed the bathroom door on his hand as hard as she could.

The poor kid. She remembered it like it was yesterday. She’d cried for nights when she saw the skin torn back and the tears running down his little pink cheeks.

She stared at the patient’s face. Except there was no face.

No pink cheeks. Nothing close to normal human features. Only bloated purple lips, swollen shut eyes, and the disfigured pulp left by the vicious stomping. His facial bones had to be fractured beyond recognition.

Eli clenched his teeth, his casual nonchalance gone. “Son of a bitch!” “What? What’s the matter?” Kyle asked.

“Every time I grab a damn vessel, another pops up.” Even Eli, the king of chill, was sweating. Something he rarely did. “We’ve gotta get this bowel fixed, or we won’t have to worry about the rest of him.”

Ellen careened around the doorway corner on one hand. “They gave us the okay. Said to bring him right up.”

“Unlock this stretcher. LET’S GO!!!” Eli threw another clamp on the exposed gut.

The trio wheeled the stainless-steel stretcher as fast as they could into the main corridor of the ER, then down the dim hallway, with Kyle sprinting at the side.

She looked down at the abdomen. Blood was oozing everywhere. She ran ahead and punched the erratically blinking, red “UP” button. Twice. Three times. Four…Eli, Ellen, and the patient arrived in seconds.

Kyle’s foot tapped on the floor, and she bit her lower lip as she stared at the patient’s hand. Was she going to lose this one, too?

Her mind disassociated as she waited for the clanking elevator. She needed to stop after work to stock up on Fritos. Brian was visiting on Monday. Just out of tenth grade, this was his first solo trip by train. It was a wonder Mom let him come, especially for two days. She hated being alone since Dad died. But she’d finally relented when he expressed such a strong interest in Emory University. He so wanted to follow his big sister’s path, only on the veterinary side.

“No pulse,” Ellen said as she felt the patient’s neck and looked up from the head of the stretcher with wide eyes.

Eli reached for a confirming feel, then looked back toward the ER, hesitant for a moment.

“We gotta get him to the OR,” he decided. “Kyle, you pump. I’ll breathe him.”

Kyle jumped onto the stretcher and straddled the patient with her legs, half-standing, taking care not to put weight on the open abdomen.

Knees flexed, she pushed down on his chest with both palms, counting off one-per-second thrusts that forced blood through his oxygen-starved body.

One of the clamps slipped, and blood squirted, spraying the crotch of her white house officer’s pants over and over.

She kept going.

Unless they got this poor kid’s heart started again, he’d be a brainstem preparation in ten minutes.

Eli sighed deeply and shook his head. “Not good, guys. Where’s a phone to call a code?”

He glanced left, then right. “Not even a fucking phone?” Cells were useless down here.

Ellen scowled and ran back to the ER, mumbling something unintelligible, though her tone needed no explanation.

“I don’t think I’m pumping him well,” Kyle said between heavy breaths. “Why not?” Eli asked.

“There’s no support under his back.” “God DAMNIT!”

Eli dropped the breathing mask, pushed the stretcher against the wall for stabilization, and pulled a sideboard out from underneath. “Turn him so I can put this under.”

Kyle stopped her thrusts and, standing on the stretcher with her back against the wall, lifted the left side of the patient’s body while Eli tried to slip the flat board underneath. The awkward position set off horrific pounding in her head, but not before she had him halfway over.

“Almost. Just a little more.”

The patient’s shirt slipped up.

The birthmark!

The brown oval over his right kidney!

Kyle’s shocked mouth dropped open. Instead of pulling harder, she dropped him.

The patient fell back on Eli and the board with a thud.

Kyle’s head snapped back and slammed against the hard tile wall abutting the stretcher. She could hear a crack as her head bounced.

The birthmark. The mark on his back—Brian’s mark. And with the hand scars?

NOOOOO!!!

Eli yanked his right hand out from between the board and the stretcher and shook it.

“Kyle! What the hell are you doing? Why’d you let go?”

The board crashed to the ground.

Kyle climbed down and grabbed the side of the stretcher, her head exploding with the worst pain she’d ever felt.

Eli held his hand and grimaced. “What’s wrong with you? Get moving, or he’s gonna die.”

“I—I can’t. I just can’t, I’m not, I don’t… I just can’t…”

“Why not?”

“I-I can’t.”

“Jesus Christ!” Eli uttered.

Then he shouted, “HELP, STAT!!! WE NEED HELP DOWN HERE!!!”

He hit a red wall alarm and climbed onto the stretcher. He pumped with his good hand while Kyle hugged the wall for support.

Brian.

Dear God, NOOOOO!

What was he doing here four days early? He never showed up anywhere early in his entire life.

Personnel poured from the stairways and into the hallway.

Eli jumped off and ran down the corridor, waving at the people pushing the stretcher back to the ER.

“Come on, move it, MOVE IT!”

Kyle stumbled after them in a daze. The seat of her pants dripped blood that splattered down to her green and white Nikes. Normally, the wetness would’ve driven her crazy. Now she watched and felt a cold nothingness.

While her head throbbed with an excruciating ache. As if it were on fire.

People ran past.

Someone was shouting in the distance. Bodies crowded the main ER.

Their faces were blurs.

She stopped outside the door to Trauma. Inside, it was alive with a flurry of activity, but the noises were far away.

Kyle stood alone, the Ghost of Christmas Past, looking in on people illuminated by the powerful overhead beams.

As she stood there wobbling, the noise stopped. Suddenly, the frenzied motion ceased.

White coats and pants came out singly and in pairs, silent, their heads hanging low.

Eli came last, biting his lower lip.

Only the solitary monotone of the cardiac monitor echoed through the door.

Kyle dropped back against a wall and slid to the ground, a hand pressing into each temple to try and hold in the jackhammer pounding inside her head.

Her mental and physical pains faded as she passed out into a black void.

Chapter Two

Seven Years Later

Pennsylvania Hospital, Eighth Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Graham Kurland, 6’ 5”, 230 pounds of sinew and muscle, strolled in the Pennsylvania Hospital parking lot like the former Purple Heart winner he was, a world-class warrior who’d traded his

weapons for a scalpel and become a rising star surgeon of the medical world, as well as a renowned transplant researcher. If you looked closely, you could see his assurance and graceful gait almost concealed the limp he’d had after a grenade’s shrapnel shredded his leg.

He was greeted by the occasional nurse who flirted, or a doctor who was in awe and/or jealous of the famous Dr. Kurland. But no matter how much attention he got—professional or personal—none of it ever went to his head. He either didn’t know or care how brilliant and easy on the eyes he was.

He was excited about the surgery he was scheduled to perform. A double renal artery in a recipient kidney. Much more difficult to implant than a single renal artery. So his XXL brain was working out each detail, making contingencies for everything that could go wrong. The donor kidney had two arteries supplying it, rather than the typical one. This anomaly made it more difficult to connect the donor kidney into the kidney recipient. Couldn’t be done without a great team. They were very good. But were they great? He thought so.

This was his last year of internal medicine residency. He had already finished his surgical residency and would be one of the select few in the country with Boards in Surgery and Medicine. He couldn’t have done it without his photographic memory. And his years as a kill-or-be-killed warrior. And a CEO who turned his dead father’s business into a cash cow. While raising his teenage brother.

BAM!

A car backfired loudly, like a shot being fired just outside the hospital.

Suddenly, Graham was in the middle of a raging battle in the desert outside Kandahar, missiles and bullets flying. Eddie Severs, his ride-or-die best friend, was by his side. Eddie took one step towards him, and the whole world exploded as he stepped on an IED.

Graham was thrown back, even as he saw Eddie blow up, blood and flesh flying as he screamed in agony and horror.

Graham felt a hand on his shoulder, and he whipped around, fists clenched, fire in his eyes, face full of rage, in full fight mode.

He snapped back to reality when he saw he was face-to-face with Nurse Beth Kelly, a fifty-something veteran of twenty-five years at Penn, the sweetest, kindest soul here. She was looking horrified at Graham’s hard, furious face, his body spring-loaded and ready to kill.

The look of terror on Nurse Kelly’s face jolted Graham back to sanity. He saw what he was doing and was overcome with shame and embarrassment. He forced his face into a disarming, charming grin.

“Sorry, Beth, oh my God, you scared the bejesus outta me. My apologies, I get a little wonky sometimes. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m really sorry.” Beth’s face changed from scared to neutral to thoughtful to understanding to kind. She nodded and smiled her sweet smile. “PTSD,” she said with an understanding nod. “My husband served in Desert Storm. Gee willikers, I

know trauma’s a killer. I hope to heck you’re getting help.”

“Oh yeah, I went through the program, I just get a little sketchy when I hear, uh…”

“Loud noises? Like a gunshot. Or a car backfiring?” she gave him a wry little smile. “I get it.”

“Thanks, Beth, I really appreciate that. Maybe we could keep this, uh, you know…”

She made a funny little locking-her-lips-with-a-key gesture and did a slightly silly mock whisper. “What happens at Penn stays at Penn.”

Graham laughed. Beth laughed.

“Shall we?” Beth nodded and gestured towards the hospital.

“Yes, we shall,” Graham said with his trademark aw-shucks animal magnetism as they walked through the parking lot and into the rest of their lives.

***

Excerpt from Invisible Justice by Gary Brown, M.D. Copyright 2026 by Gary Brown, M.D. Reproduced with permission from Gary Brown, M.D. All rights reserved.

Chapter Two

Detective Theo Barnes lit a smoke, a rare allowance to tamp down the adrenaline. His brain buzzed as the nicotine hit all the right spots while watching a squad car containing Andrews drive away. He texted his wife, reminding her today would run long. A few cases ago he’d forgotten and caught hell for missing dinner. Rayna was sexy when she was angry, but it wasn’t worth missing sleep to stay up arguing.

Once he hit the filter, he’d oversee the bag and tag efforts at the scene and head to the Charlottesville county jail for the interrogation. Raids of Andrews’ home and Senate office were executed simultaneously. The limitations of being in one place at a time drove him nuts. He inherently trusted his team of Virginia State Troopers. Just not as much as himself.

He had always been this way. Those aware of his origins don’t blame him. His unyielding dedication compounded as he aged, particularly in the four years since he’d taken over the Internet Sex Crimes Division. Convictions hang on the smallest detail. Considering how far he’d stuck his neck out, he’d be hip deep in every aspect of the investigation until prison doors slammed shut on Senator Andrews.

“You ever think about the irony of a sex crimes investigator who needs a cigarette after every bust?” said the blonde as she approached. Among many contributions, Shannon Williamson served as Barnes’ lure for the stings.

“Funny. Here I was concerned about Rayna raking me over the coals and you gotta toss in some Freudian shit to boot.” Defiantly, Barnes took one last deep drag and flicked the butt into the motel parking lot.

Barnes knew he’d hit the jackpot having her on the squad. A rising star at the FBI out of college, promoted early and often, she’d made it as a profiler. Then came her father’s stroke. Her mom passed on when she was in elementary school. With no caregiver, she came home to Charlottesville, signing on with the Troopers once he’d recovered.

“Deep psychological analysis of your soul is why you pay me so large.” She glanced up at him. “No matter how many times we do this, I’m always surprised at how much they cry. Between you and me, it’s my favorite part with these scumbags.”

“He thought you were fourteen and he got me instead. Your pigtails in those pictures sold it. Sorry you’re always the worm on the hook for these, but, well—” He shrugged.

“I’m thirty-five but look like jailbait. I don’t mind. I like the field action. But you’ll need to recruit a new carrot for these sickos. I won’t fit what they’re looking for much longer.”

Her hand rested on her stomach as she exaggerated a baby bump.

“Really? That’s great! You and Rick must be over the moon.”

“It’s a seesaw between thrilled and freaking out. Need you to keep me

level since you’re the parenting expert. I do wonder about the world I’m bringing the kid into.”

“One with another predator off the street. And as far as parenting goes, Rayna does the heavy lifting with the boys. I come off the bench to give her a breather. When are you due?”

“Thanksgiving. You’ve got me six more months, but don’t go giving my job away. I’m coming back.”

“Don’t know what I’d do without you anyways. Let’s make sure everything is tight as a drum. I can’t wait to sit across the table from this asshole.”

* * *

Barnes, having shed motel customer garb for a shave, suit, and tie, watched the shackled State Senator Andrews shuffle into interrogation. Of all the post-sting grillings, he can’t recall a suspect this calm. Andrews’ light, self-satisfied smile suggested a guy up for a promotion inside The tears he’d shed were a distant memory.

“You’re wasting your time. I’m not talking without my lawyer,” Andrews said.

Barnes reflexively clenched his fist. He paused before plowing ahead with the time-tested approach. “I understand why you’d want your lawyer. This is the worst day of your life. We’ve got you dead to rights. I’ll even allow that you’re sorry. I know you’re scared. We have chat transcripts of your conversations with the girl, the way you groomed her. All of it directly traceable to you.”

Despite his previous statement, Andrews can’t allow the challenge. “Maybe I don’t even need a lawyer. This is a set-up. It’s fake news. Nothing happened. In fact, she’s the one who led me on.”

Barnes shook his head and smiled. This revelation was his favorite part. “Actually, Senator, I was the one leading you on. But we both know you did the grooming.”

The initial review of Andrew’s home and office computers had returned zilch. Andrews couldn’t possibly know this. His slimy bullshit sourced elsewhere.

“I can prove that you thought she was fourteen and intended to have sex with her. When we parade the things you brought to the motel in front of a jury, the sex toys, the lube, and most damning, your secret video camera, they won’t buy your excuses. You know, people like you tend to have a rough go in prison.”

Andrews’ breathing hitched. Some of his cocky attitude faded. His head shook involuntarily. Barnes stood and put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, you’ll be ok. Can we get him something to drink here?” The guard brought a bottle of water.

Andrews drank and tried breathing deep. Barnes returned to his seat. “There’s no turning back the clock here. But if you help me, you’ll make things easier for yourself when you go before judge and jury. I can be a friend.”

Andrews snorted. “How kind. That was my first thought, this guy is my friend. Trust me, I’ve already got the right friends.”

Maintaining the good cop persona grew increasingly harder. “You’ve got one chance to help yourself and you’re blowing it. Confess, save us the trouble of a trial. How’d you locate those sites and chatrooms? They don’t pop up in a Google search. Come clean. Maybe we can close a loophole. You throw us that info and I’ll see that it earns points with the judge and the

District Attorney.”

“I have something to offer people much higher on the food chain than the local D.A. Prison isn’t in my future.” Andrews leaned back in his chair. “Lawyer, now.”

Now Andrews got the uncompromising Barnes, who’d walked through fire to get here. “Fine, lawyer up, but let me tell you this. There are a few ironclads in this life. Don’t mess with the church’s money, don’t piss off people who handle your food, and don’t ever, and I mean ever, threaten children. Even if you think prison’s not in your future, jail most definitely is.

You’re spending tonight in County’s general population and I swear every last inmate will know why. Sleep tight.”

Barnes trusted Andrews’ the worst visions were his best ally. He’d turned

the doorknob when he heard a sigh of resignation.

“Wait. I might know a few things. Maybe a couple of names. But then I want my lawyer. You swear to keep the animals away?”

“For the next few days,” Barnes pushed a pen and paper across the table.

* * *

Captain Butch Holland, Barnes’ commanding officer, stewed behind the two-way mirror. His bushy mustache resembled a walrus, matching his bulk. His police hat covered up his hair’s disappearing act. Vanity wasn’t quite enough to get him on a treadmill though. As Barnes entered the room, Holland’s face flushed, and he opened at peak volume.

“Happy? I ordered you, very clearly, not to pursue this. But you know better than everyone and look where we are. No confession, half a case, and a big pile of shit.”

Barnes eyed Holland with disdain. “I know better than you. We’ve got him because I do my job. You worry about kissing ass upstairs. I don’t give a shit if it’s a state Senator, an ambassador, or the goddamn President. He’s garbage and he’s going down.”

Holland had tabled his retirement, desperately hanging on to walk with a Major’s pension. He bristled at the accurate insinuation that he played the political game.

“You’ve got the Governor’s office breathing fire and I’m not taking heat for you.”

Sure, Barnes thought. The only thing you take is credit. He’d spent a lifetime internalizing beatings, verbal or otherwise, and spinning them out as motivation. It usually worked, as long as nobody undercut his integrity.

He balled his fist over and over. “You don’t have to take anything. We’re on our way. Sometimes it takes a minute, but they always break in the end.”

“Explain that to Colonel Prescott tomorrow. He’s coming down and bringing the Attorney General. Let’s see how Saint Barnes handles that.”

“Fine, Captain.” Barnes poured tabasco on the big man’s title. “I’ll promise you something. Nobody walks on my watch. See what happens to anyone standing in my way when I’m dragging someone to hell.”

Holland’s mustache twitched with the hint of a smile. “So, you say. Before the day’s out, I want the originals on all your paperwork and a full tick-tock. It’s going straight to the Colonel.”

The Captain’s smirk irritated him but frustration over the request took precedent. “Christ, let me do my job. I’ve got to get out to reinspect the house and office. Bureaucracy doesn’t close cases.”

The Captain pointed a pudgy finger. “Prescott demanded it. When the head of the State Police barks, you do it before he fucking bites.”

Holland stormed from the room, almost steamrolling Shannon. An agile spin kept her from becoming roadkill. She leaned against a filing cabinet, the only furniture in the spartan room beyond two steel folding chairs.

“Congrats on another successful interaction with the brass. Never thought I’d see a detective with the best closure rate universally hated by the higher ups.”

Barnes seethed. “Fuck him and fuck the rest of them too. I’m not playing their games, I’m doing the job.” He kicked a chair and it slammed into the wall with a satisfying bang.

“Easy, I’m not the enemy. The martyr act won’t get you anywhere. You might consider playing nice.”

Occasionally, Shannon glimpsed behind Barnes’ carefully constructed wall. While he was certain it unnerved her, she still spoke her mind. “Sorry. Someone’s always gunning for me. Being the best doesn’t allow time for anyone else’s agenda. I’m not about to change.”

“Fine,” passing on a losing battle. “What’s our next move? I only heard Holland’s side. You solid on what we did today?”

“Andrews is a pervert. We’ve got enough, but tonight’s a paper night. Prescott’s coming and we make sure it’s watertight.”

Shannon frowned and rubbed her temples. “Holland wants to show everyone he’s got his thumb on us. I don’t care that he takes credit sometimes, but this is taking away from the real work. Damn him.”

A sly smile materialized. “Now who needs to play nice?”

“Shut up. I’m not the one with four reprimands for insubordination. You think Andrews will spill? It’s a long time since you didn’t get the confession right away.”

“It’s not insubordination when I’m right. Andrews dropped a few names, but I think they’re bullshit. He’d stick his hand in a pit of rattlesnakes to draw a get out of jail free card.” He paused. “A night or two in a cell will do it.”

But Barnes didn’t believe that. Three cigarettes and creeping concerns consumed his trip to the Barracks. He couldn’t shake the idea there was something rotten about this case, and not just around the edges. Andrews’ arrogance held court in his mind. What’s up your sleeve, you sick son of a bitch? What do you know about what’s coming my way I don’t?

***

Excerpt from Main Street Fringe by Matthew Lavoie. Copyright 2026 by Matthew Lavoie. Reproduced with permission from Matthew Lavoie. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

One

Gabriel Tanner

“Editor of and chief contributor to a country weekly” never made my top ten list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. For the longest time, I had only one item on that list—Rock Star! I toyed with adding a second item, maybe being just a hit-making songwriter, but the songwriting I did throughout the 1980s was so closely bound up with the Rock Star! idea that I couldn’t pull the two apart. If I didn’t become the next Bruce Springsteen, which I didn’t, I was unlikely to become the next Bob McDill—ditto on the didn’t.

So, with the Rock Star! phase of my life gone grumbling into my dreams, I left Nashville in the hot gut of August 1990, retreated, tail between legs, to Runion, my hometown in the North Carolina mountains, and the following January entered Runion State University, where I double-majored in English and Journalism. I took a part-time job as student reporter and all-around grunt for Sheldon Dean’s Runion Recorder. A couple years after I graduated, Sheldon decided he was tired of writing and offered me a full-time position as editor, keeping only the title of “General Manager” for himself. I accepted.

And so it came to pass that on a cold evening in early March, on the darker side of twilight, I drove toward the Lonesome Mountain end of Genesis Road, planning to swing around the back way into Runion. On regular mornings going to work, or any other time I was in a hurry, I drove down to the French Broad end of Genesis and took the river road up a short hill and onto Main Street, but I was dreading two hours minimum of sitting in a meeting at the Madison County Cooperative Extension Office complex, housed in the recently renovated Old Mill on Mill Street, and taking notes for a regular report to appear in next week’s paper. The room would be stuffy with heat and humanity, and to be honest, I was lollygagging.

This year’s March was looking like a lion-lamb version—in like a lion, out like a lamb. We expected to wake up the next morning to some serious snow and ice courtesy of Winter Storm Ulysses. The fields on my left and the woods on my right seemed to hold their breath in anticipation.

I rolled to a stop at the T-intersection where Genesis Road dead-ends at Jewel Hill Road, with Lonesome Mountain ahead and to my left, dark against the sky. My new Honda hybrid sat quietly, and still not used to its workings, I thought it might have died but relaxed when no warning lights appeared. Even though the temperature was in the upper thirties, I opened my windows and—with no other traveler sitting at my bumper and politely honking, as our mountain folk do—sat at the intersection with my eyes closed and my skin alive to the chilly air. I heard a few of last summer’s still-tethered leaves shivering in the boughs overhead and something scurrying through the underbrush in the woods off to my right. I think I could’ve engaged the emergency brake and gone to sleep, but I opened my eyes, suddenly uneasy and unsure why.

The headlights shown across Jewel Hill Road and lit the lower part of a hillside pasture beyond. A few head of cattle midway up the slope stood at the edge of the light and grazed on pale grass.

Not one to be unnerved by a bovine presence in the twilight, I strained my senses to catch and identify what raised hairs along my forearms and around the back of my neck.

To my left, a field rolled away in successive swells toward a wooded ridge standing blackly against the sky. Runion lay on the other side of that ridge, but somewhere between the town and me, yips and cries rose from the gathering dark. These joined together into an eerie howl of various voices that twisted around one another, broke apart, and swelled together again.

Coyotes.

When I was growing up in these mountains, coyotes existed only in old TV westerns. But they were voice-over actors only, strictly behind-the-scenes. They were soundtrack features. Technicians of ambiance. Nothing said a cowboy was alone in the darkening wilderness like the distant howl of a coyote. The cowboy would raise his eyes from the campfire and sit still and listen for a moment, alert to the wild. But it was never the coyote itself that frightened him. Maybe the coyote’s cry was a reminder of his loneliness and vulnerability—that if such a critter could be out there in the dark, then anything could be out there.

But in recent years, coyotes had loped out of the faded glory of Hollywood’s western and into our world, maybe crossing the Mississippi around Memphis and moving steadily east across Tennessee until they reached Appalachia and Runion. They were seen trotting along the edges of regional four-lanes or lying dead on twisting mountain highways. They stole cats and small dogs just beyond the lights of back porches. That evening at the stop sign, they yipped and yapped and cried somewhere out on the verge of a Runion farmer’s field.

Still, I thought, at least they aren’t wolves. Wolves, of course, were a different story. Send up the howl of a wolf into the night, and the cowboy would become focused on the beast, not on loneliness or vulnerability. The wolf’s howl menaced, threatened. Eyes might shine at the edge of the campfire’s light, followed by snarling close-ups. Then enter the legend of the wolf mixed with a man, and the beast achieved cinematic glory, jumping genres from westerns to horror, something coyotes could never quite pull off.

When I pressed the accelerator, the Honda whispered to life, and I turned left toward town. If I sat there much longer, I would be late for the extension meeting, during which one item on the agenda just happened to be related to the beasts of my T-intersection musing. . . .

***

Excerpt from Avalon Moon by Michael Amos Cody. Copyright 2026 by Michael Amos Cody. Reproduced with permission from Michael Amos Cody. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

With the hot sun blazing above, I strain my eyes as hard as I can to look downward, but the blade pressed against my throat remains out of sight. My pulse is racing, and my breathing is so fast I can only gasp. Is that a trickle of blood I sense slowly making its way down my neck, or is it my imagination? Below and to my right, a hand holds a well-worn machete handle. That hand is attached to the muscular forearm of the man standing behind me, ready to end my life any moment. I don’t know what he looks like—it all happened so quickly—but I know he’s a Black man with a thick African accent. He’s telling me to hold still. As if I would do anything other than that right now. I clutch the cell phone in my hand, wondering if I caught anything useful on the video I’d been shooting moments before. Is the camera still running? If my phone were found, the identity of the man holding me would be revealed to the authorities who were sure to investigate later—too late to save me.

Our guide and four others on the tour of the wildlife reserve lie dead on the bare earth ten feet away, each in a pool of their own blood. As I take in the scene, a second Black man holding a rifle shoots the veterinarian who had been speaking to us. Now with a large hole in his chest, the veterinarian, armed only with a vial containing an animal tranquilizer, staggers and falls.

I think of my husband, Quinn, thousands of miles away from this South African wildlife reserve—probably asleep, oblivious to the fact that he is about to become a widower.

The two attackers yell back and forth. They seem to be having a disagreement, but I don’t understand their language. The man with the rifle raises it. I wince and brace myself for impact, but instead of aiming at me, he fires at the rhinoceros in a nearby pen. Blood and tissue—hide, bone, and brain, I suppose—spray from the back of the animal’s head. I watch in shock as the massive creature emits a haunting wail and falls.

A fraction of a second later, another shot rings out, this one quieter. I freeze as the man standing behind me collapses. His machete nicks my arm before he hits the ground. A second shot is fired, and the man who just murdered the rhino falls.

Who did that? Am I safe? I’m shaking as I slowly turn, just as Ethan, the only other surviving member of our group, grabs my arm and yells, “Let’s go!”

With no time to think, I struggle to keep up as I let him drag me. I check my arm where the machete cut it—it’s only a superficial wound oozing a small amount of blood. Ethan tucks the large pistol he’s holding into his waistband while racing toward the dead rhino. My heart is already pounding when loud voices—African voices—approach from heavy brush close by.

Ethan stops and appears to think for a moment, as my heart revs so hard I feel my chest will burst. After the brief pause, he pulls me along again, but in a different direction, now heading towards the body of the dead man who shot the rhino. He drops my hand to search the killer’s pants pockets, pulls out a set of keys, then snatches the rifle lying in the dust nearby. Motioning me to follow, he dashes to the small parking lot and jumps into the driver’s seat of an open, doorless jeep that wasn’t there when we arrived. I don’t know this man, but I scramble into the passenger side as fast as I can.

Ethan guns the engine and heads out of the park. My mind is speeding as I struggle to fasten my seat belt, hoping I don’t fall out the side of the vehicle before I get it secured. Who is this guy I met this morning and know only as Ethan? All I know is what I can observe—he’s an average-looking middle-aged White man with a dark tan and thick black glasses, dressed in gray cargo pants. His belly is covered by a dull gray, loose-fitting, long-sleeve shirt with breast pockets and front snaps, hiding the paunch underneath. His gray bucket hat hides his hair, if he has any.

He told our group his name as we left Richards Bay that morning for the two-hour drive to the wildlife reserve in the eastern part of South Africa, where we would see several rhinos and witness the horns being sawed off of one. While the other travelers and our guide were lively conversationalists as we traveled the dusty roads, Ethan remained silent, seemingly uninterested in the scenery. I had written off this milquetoast of a man as someone who was there only because he wanted to take pictures to show people back home, hoping to convince them that he was an interesting person.

Now I’m wondering: Who carries a gun under his shirt when on vacation to view wildlife? And who would be able to fire it so accurately, so swiftly?

I finally snap my seat belt and study him. He stares ahead as he removes a device from his shirt pocket and places it on the dash.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“GPS device.” Moments later, he veers off the main road. Small trees and bushes snap under the jeep.

Not sure what to do, I ask, “What about those people? And the rhino?” Stupid, I know.

“They’re all dead. No time to waste. More were getting close to us.”

“More what?”

“More poachers.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

He glances at me as if I’m an idiot. “I just know.”

“Were you going to take the horns of that rhino?” I know it’s a crime, and I don’t want to sound accusatory, but I can’t imagine any other reason he would start to run toward the deceased animal.

His face tightens and his eyes narrow. “What if I was?”

Now I’ve gotten him mad. I need to change the subject. “Where are we going?”

“I’m getting us to a safe place.”

“I really appreciate what you’ve done, but wouldn’t it be best to head back to Richards Bay?”

“It’s not safe. There’s more where they came from.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Ethan reaches into his right breast pocket and pulls out a leather case a little larger than a credit card. He throws it my way, and it lands on my lap. I gasp as I lift the front flap and see his identification. His name isn’t Ethan, but his picture is on the plastic ID. The man sitting next to me is Spencer Crenshaw, and he’s an FBI special agent.

***

Excerpt from Rhino Horn Underground by Deven Greene. Copyright 2026 by Deven Greene. Reproduced with permission from Deven Greene. All rights reserved.

Chapter 4

TOMOKO WATANABE
Tokyo, Japan, January–July 2005

“Low interest rates punish savers.” —Bill Gross

THE HOUSE IN KASHIWA, CHIBA Prefecture, southeast of Tokyo, was a two-storied box with aluminum windows and clad in white mosaics. It had a grey-tiled roof and a tiny front garden. The wind was howling outside as Tomoko struggled to get up from her bed. It was six o’clock in the morning and still dark, and everybody in the house was asleep. She was loath to abandon the warmth of the heavy duvet, but today was her husband Akihiro Watanabe’s birthday, and she wanted to surprise him with a special breakfast.

Tomoko shivered as her feet, encased in thick white socks, trod silently on the tatami mat covering the floor. It was cold, even for January, and this was one time she wished there was heating in the bedroom upstairs. She put on her slippers, pulled on a heavy cardigan over her fleece pajamas, and went down to the kitchen.

The kitchen, Tomoko’s kingdom, was small, but she ran it like a tight ship, every utensil and small appliance kept in its assigned place.

She began to prepare her husband’s favorite menu: clam miso soup and omelet rolls. There was smoked fish left over from the previous night, as well as cooked rice.

After turning on the small heater and quickly swallowing a cup of hot tea, she put on her old blue-checked apron and set to work.

Poor Aki, she was thinking, as she removed from the fridge the asari clams she had bought the previous afternoon; he really deserved some cheering up. Only eight months ago he had lost his lifelong employment, the first serious crisis in their marriage of twenty-two years. The electronics company he had given his all to for over thirty years had gone bankrupt after its main customer decided to outsource to China.

She rinsed the clams in cold water, rubbed them clean with a dishcloth, and set them aside to soak in salt water. She then filled a pot with water from the sink and blanched a leaf of kelp. When it had softened, she removed it with chopsticks and then put it back in the pot to boil for a minute or two before taking it out again.

Though Aki had found a new job quickly enough, Tomoko was worried. It not only paid a third less than his previous salary, it was a temporary job, with a contract that had to be renewed every six months. While Tomoko was, by nature, someone who took life’s setbacks with a pragmatic optimism, she felt helpless in the face of the loss of their financial security. As she added dried bonito flakes to the boiling water, she shook her head and pursed her lips at the injustice of it.

When the fish was cooked, she passed the broth through a fine sieve lined with a cloth. Discarding the scum, she sieved it again. And again. Inspecting the liquid for any telltale specks, she repeated the process until she was satisfied the broth was perfectly clear. She now reached out for the clams, soaking in their bath of brine.

Usually, Tomoko loved the ritual fuss of birthdays, especially her husband’s—the shopping for presents, the paper decorations and cards, the candles on the cake—but this year there wasn’t much cause for celebration.

She rinsed the clams and tipped them into the broth. Bringing the liquid to a boil, she skimmed it patiently. Once the clams had opened, she mixed in the miso paste, squeezing it through a small sieve with a spoon. The soup was ready.

Now for the omelets. What was more worrying, she thought, breaking eggs into a bowl with a deft flick of her wrist, was that his pension was gone. And the new job offered no pension at all. The bleakness of their future agitated her as she whisked the eggs with more vigor than necessary and poured them into the frying pan.

The omelets were done. When they had cooled a bit, she rolled them up into narrow, finger-shaped wraps and put them aside. Then she arranged the fillets of cold smoked fish in the middle of a long rectangular plate, which she decorated in one corner with a dollop of daikon radish infused with ponzu sauce. Finally, she heated up the rice and took out some nattō, fermented soybeans, everyone’s favorite.

She looked out the window above the sink. The heavy night darkness was lifting, and she could make out the falling snowflakes and the leafless branches of the cherry tree in their garden bending in the wind. A cold grey light was beginning to infiltrate the kitchen. She switched off the overhead lamp, figuring she could do without it now.

A brown Formica-top table with six chairs stood in a nook just off the kitchen. Poor Aki, she repeated to herself as she began to set it. At the age of fifty-three, there was little chance of his finding steady employment again. Although they never talked about it, she knew that, ashamed and frustrated, her husband was unraveling. His drinking binges had become more frequent, and he had taken to coming home at all hours. He was also becoming moody and short-tempered.

Only last week he had flown off the handle when she told him she was thinking about looking for a part-time job. He wouldn’t hear of it, he had responded angrily. Their son was still at school and needed her. Besides, what would their neighbors think? It was out of the question.

Though Tomoko knew his objections had more to do with his pride, she didn’t bring up the subject again. She vowed to herself she would find another way to help. But how?

Tomoko put down a small flower arrangement, teacups, bowls, and chopstick supports on the table. She had to find a way to help Aki. Whereas she could still take comfort in little things, he had just lost his entire world. She took a moment to align the chopsticks just so. Taking a step back from the table, she viewed the result with satisfaction.

Tomoko glanced at the kitchen clock squeezed between the toaster oven and a shelf. It was seven-thirty and all was ready. Plenty of time left for a leisurely meal before Aki left for the office and their son, Nishio, left for school. What a pity her daughter, Keiko, wasn’t there.

Tomoko brushed that regret away, together with a lock of her permed black hair that had strayed onto her forehead, and stood meekly at the entrance of the kitchen, waiting. She could hear her family coming down the narrow wooden stairs.

She bowed to her husband and her mother-in-law as they appeared, her face faintly flushed from her efforts, her shoulders hunched forward ever so slightly. “Ohayō gozaimasu,” she said, with the politest of greetings.

But Aki only grunted a barely discernible thank-you as he viewed the mini-feast she had prepared and sat down, noisily pushing back his chair.

Then he buried his face in the morning newspaper that Tomoko had laid, neatly folded, to the right of his chopsticks.

He was followed by Nishio. At fifteen, he was a tall and gawky youth, with a few wisps of dark downy hair on his upper lip and chin. He advanced towards the table and sat down in silence. He sat there sullenly, looking down under lowered eyelids, not once making eye contact with his mother. He consumed his soup in a few rapid gulps and hurriedly shoved some rice into his mouth. Then with a curt, barely mumbled good-bye, he got up and was gone.

“Don’t forget your bento box,” Tomoko’s voice rang out after him, “you must eat lunch!”

The third person at the table was Mishimo, Tomoko’s mother-in-law. It was she who owned the house, and after the death of Akihiro’s father some ten years before had given over most of the space to her son’s family, keeping only one room for herself. It was a situation not without friction. She had never liked Tomoko and was of the opinion that her handsome son could have found a better match than the daughter of a taxi driver. Or, at the very least, a prettier one. Though their exchanges were invariably on the right side of civil, Mishimo inevitably found fault with everything Tomoko did. But this morning was different. She spooned down the soup slowly, savoring every sip. “Excellent, Tomoko,” she remarked loudly. “Well done.” A compliment! Tomoko was touched to the bottom of her heart.

She then turned to her husband.

“Anata,” he said, using a Japanese term of endearment. “I hope you’ll be home on time for dinner. I bought a cake for tonight. And there will be eel as a main course.”

Aki didn’t shift his eyes from the newspaper. “No. I’m eating out.

Client dinner. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll be back late.”

If Tomoko was disappointed, she showed no sign of it.

“Akihiro-san. I also bought you a small gift,” she announced timidly. She had bought it out of her personal savings and had hoped to give it to him at the evening meal. She would have to give it to him now instead.

She went to the living room where she had hidden it. Coming back, she bowed respectfully and held out the package in her two open palms like an offering, saying “Happy birthday” in English.

Aki finally deigned to lower the newspaper and stared at the box wrapped in delicately folded bright blue paper, tied with a slender red-and-gold string. He reached out to take it. But instead of opening it, he put it in the pocket of his suit jacket.

“Have to rush now,” he said dismissively.

“It’s the lighter you always wanted,” said Tomoko. But Aki responded with a dead gaze of bitterness at the wall behind her. Suddenly, he jumped up from his chair with such violence that it crashed to the floor.

“Baka! You stupid woman! Kono ama, you bitch!” He exploded in an inexplicable fit of rage.