…Just as the car turned onto Fourth Street, he noticed a kid, maybe 12 years old, racing up the avenue. He was carrying a dingy-gray cloth sack. He stepped in front of the boy to stop him. The kid ducked under his arm and kept running...
Read MoreThe story you’re about to read is a love story told by a couple, Elizabeth and Del, who met at the start of World War II, fell in love and then, due to circumstances beyond their control, brought on by the war, were unable to see each other for three years. My name is…
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“Ken, I’m glad you could make it,” Tim said. His long hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. He has huge eyes and this morning they look bigger than usual.
“What’s up, Tim?”
“I’ve discovered something that will make us rich and powerful...”
Read More…He paused to look out the window for a moment. The last sound he ever heard was a faint whisper. A bullet from an AR15 rifle with a silencer pierced his forehead…
Read More…Vic loved to sit in his rose garden smoking Dutch Masters, 5.5-inch President cigars. He allowed himself one a day and two on special occasions. When he got sick…
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“I can’t take another day of this, I swear,” Rose Wetzel said, to no one in particular. Her oldest child, Marty, the one whose red hair matched hers, was sitting at the kitchen table perusing the sports pages while he ate cold cereal.
“Ma, why don’t ya tell Dad to break down and buy an air conditioner?”…
Read More“You don’t remember me, do you?” She had pulled up alongside him, about six feet from where he was watching the early news on the wide screen television. He looked relaxed in a soft leather chair in the TV room of an exclusive assisted living facility.
He barely glanced at her. “Nope. Should I?”
“Yes, I believe you should. It was…
Read MoreA woman had been found dead, apparently struck in the head by a blunt object. The crime scene team was busy checking for fingerprints…
Read MoreWhen he wasn’t there, she began to panic a little. She called out to him, “Mark, where are you?” No response. She turned toward the front door and saw her husband’s body lying in front of it. She ran to him and shouted his name. He was lying on his left side. When she turned him over…
Read MoreFreight conductor, Terry Preston felt the movement first, the squeaking wheels of the Northern Pacific freight cars as they rounded a curve. He didn’t want to open his eyes; his head was already pounding. Then he felt something drip on his forehead. A drop of water? He groaned.
“I thought they fixed that leak in the roof of this damn caboose,” he said. He rubbed the drop from his head and opened his eyes. Immediately he stood up. “What the hell?” His hands were red, his shirt and vest had red spots too, blood. He looked at the top bunk, not sure what to expect...
Read More“…Good morning, Myles,” Duncan said. “I was just giving Detective Brower here his assignment for tonight’s shift when a call came in to get someone from Homicide over to 1855 Old Hickory Place. Looks like some dame caught one in the left temple last night. Home invasion maybe.”
Myles looked at Brower and whistled. “You take that one. That’s a big money area…
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Ilaria sat at her tiny kitchen table staring into her espresso cup as if the dark coffee held the answer. She was waiting, again, for Il Postino, as she had waited every morning for six weeks.
She met Ray in her home town…
Read MoreI watched the short, but telling, scene from the tiny concrete slab that passed for my front porch. Nick, a menacing looking guy, the kind who always seemed to be spoiling for a fight, was walking away from his wife, Theresa. She stood there, her coal black hair in disarray, fighting a losing battle...
Read More...When I got to the coffee shop where the incident had occurred, two patrolmen brought me up to date. Two men, about the same age had been shot at close range. “The shooter probably knew these guys. As far as we can tell, Detective Laskey, nothing was taken,” Officer Bolton said.
“Any witnesses?”...
Read MoreI was sitting in the student center around noon, drinking coffee and waiting for my girlfriend, Andrea. I had a lot on my mind, mostly trying to figure out how I was going to pay my tuition for the next semester. My father left us in 1961, when I was 14, for some...
Read More“Elliott, where’s Kaitlyn?” Aidan asked.
“Not coming until the second half.” He tugged on his longish, red beard. “Maybe not at all.”
“What’s up with that, man? I thought you guys were tight again.”
Elliott walked into Aidan’s kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “This all you have, Bud Light?”
“You’re supposed to bring your own beer, Elliott. Remember?” Aidan, a tall, slim young man, was laughing.
“Right, I think Kaitlyn’s bringing it.”
“If she comes,” Aidan said....
Read MoreI saw her in the hallway in the factory where I worked part time. She was pretty. Her dark hair and tan complexion, got my attention. We said hello as we passed each other. Our eyes lingered just long enough to offer a hint that we might be attracted to each other. Working my way through college...
Read MoreDanny McMeekin was perched on his icy porch roof adjusting one of his Christmas displays, securing a large, red and green sleigh driven by Santa Claus. Two elves were along for the ride. He was fiddling with a reindeer head that wasn’t moving properly. One of his neighbors, a recent retiree named Earl, walked across the street and said...
Read More...Derner was bone tired and he had not had a shower for two days. Once his tractor-trailer was safely parked, he had to decide whether to eat first, or take a shower. He was so exhausted that he was tempted to skip both. Situated right behind his driver’s seat, his sleeper was very tempting. Then again, he remembered his bedsheets were stinky enough to keep him awake. Add one more thing to his to do list. No sleeping until he changed his sheets...
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Carrie opened her eyes and looked at the glow in the dark stars painted on her bedroom ceiling. Her mother did that for her when she was nine, a year before she died. She traced one of the stars with her finger, remembering what her mother said about them. “You can reach for the stars with your heart and your mind.” Her mother constantly encouraged her to be bold. She understood Carrie’s need to make her own choices, whenever the opportunity presented itself. Limited by her circumstances, she yearned for freedom. Self-doubt, a loving but overprotective father, and the facts of her life, made the kind of freedom teenagers took for granted, seem as unreachable as the starts on her ceiling.
She rolled...
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