Author Archives: N

Deputy Michael Parker had been working the night shift at the station for eight months. He liked the quiet hours. He liked the way the radio crackled and the coffee tasted burnt. […]

Ethan had practiced his smile in the mirror that morning. The one that said “I’m ready.” The one that didn’t show how badly he wanted to leave this town and never look […]

Officer Marcus Reed had been on the Shoreham Police force for eleven years, and he had never liked basement inspections. The old storm shelters from the fifties and sixties were always the […]

Lance Corporal Ethan Hale had been standing at attention for twenty-three minutes while the old woman worked on the dress coat. The shop was called “Legacy Uniforms” and it sat two blocks […]

Lieutenant Cole Ramsey had walked this same dock a hundred times since he and Lena moved back to the coast. The marina at golden hour was usually the one place the badge […]

Captain Ray Malone had been a firefighter for thirty-four years when the call came in for the apartment fire on Cedar Street. He was forty-two then, still strong enough to carry a […]

The blackout had lasted eleven hours and twenty-seven minutes in the summer of 2000. Patricia Ellison had been twenty-six years old, working her third week as a 911 dispatcher on the overnight […]

Officer Ryan Cole had been working the accident reconstruction unit for fourteen months when the file on the 2006 ravine crash landed on his desk again. The original report had been thin. […]

Cadet Elena Coutee had been hearing variations of the same sentence since the first day of the academy. “You’re not built for this.” Sometimes it came wrapped in concern from the older […]

Staff Sergeant Marcus Clark had stopped keeping count of the days somewhere around month eleven of his third deployment. The forward operating base in the Helmand Province dust bowl had a way […]