(to go back to Part Nine, click here)
Ronnie stood in the parking lot looking up at his mom’s motionless body on his balcony, next to the man who saved him from Larry in the hospital bathroom. What’s he doing here? “Somebody help her!” he shouted. He started to run toward the front patio.
Doyle’s thick arm [...]

(to go back to Part Eight, click here)
“Slipped through your fingers?” Susan said.
“It’s complicated, really. We think he had somebody working for him on the inside. Somebody we haven’t identified yet.”
Susan held the gun box out to Puligi. “Hold this,” she said.
He almost dropped it. “Jesus, Susan. What the hell are you packing?”
“Ruger GP-100. Forty-five [...]

(To go back to Part Seven, click here)
Susan sipped her soda, the carbonation tickling her nose. She had mixed feelings about inviting Puligi into her home. When she had first met him at the hospital more than a year ago, he came across as a desperate man cruising the emergency room chairs for a date. [...]

(To go back to Part Six, click here)
Trena’s back hurt already from sitting up reading in her bed again. Harry Potter had been the perfect escape from thinking of what she was about to do. She ducked under her rucksack, full of two changes of clothes and two bottled waters, as she slung it over [...]

(To go back to Part Five, click here)
After she saw Kerri to the door, Trena returned to her room. Her framed collection of Brazilian postage stamps caught her eye. She remembered her grandfather, who got her interested in philately, and grew sad that she never would see him again. For about a year after Larry [...]