She digs her toes into the sand as the warm sun wraps around her ankle like a blanket. Her sisters are playing in the water, Becca splashing around while Sarah plays footsie with waves. A gull shrieks loudly, beep, beep and she turns her head to watch it fly. Her eyebrows furrow. Since when do gulls beep?

Sand explodes in ( Read more... )

            The diner across the street from St. Dymphna's Center for the Mentally Unwell is like a hundred other diners in what was previously known as New Jersey. She sits in the bathroom stall, laptop open and carefully watches the flickering black and white images of hallways, the mess hall and the rec room blinking on the screen. Communication ( Read more... )

            The harsh glow of fluorescent lights illuminates the room. There's not much to see: concrete walls and a concrete floor, no windows, a peeling whitewashed door tightly closed. Inside, a sandy haired man leans against the far wall, warily surveying the room with cool blue eyes. A bespectacled woman with her smooth black hair in a tight ( Read more... )

Sarah is in woman's prison 'cause her fiancé was a scumbag cheat and if she could use her super secret rebel powers for personal gain, she would totally kick his ass. 'Least Becca's all right, though of course she worries about her youngest sister all alone in a strange new place.  She don't, doesn't know who her partner is this time ( Read more... )

            She digs her toes into the sand as the warm sun wraps around her ankle like a blanket. Her sisters are playing in the water, Becca splashing around while Sarah plays footsie with waves.

"Hey, Laur, you gonna come in? What's the point of bein' at the beach if you just gonna sit in the shade all day? It's a vacation!" Becca ( Read more... )

“The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,

Like some lost child”

She stands in the airport, tears in her eyes, his handkerchief clutched in her arms. There isn't any cross country communication allowed, expect for carefully screened letters. Laura makes the perfect picture of a woman bidding farewell to her ( Read more... )

            The one thing Laura had promised herself she wouldn’t do when she accepted his assignment was sleep with the target; kissing and hand holding, all that was fine, but no sex. She wasn’t a prostitute, and she wasn't so dedicated to the company that she would demean herself like that again. But Milton still didn’t trusts her, not enough to ( Read more... )

            The first time Laura kisses Milton is two weeks into the assignment. It was November, the leaves on the trees just changing colors, standing under a yellow oak on the university campus. It was a sweet, lingering kiss and Milton’s eyes were melancholy as he said that he would be going back to Canada in a month, and he wished they’d done ( Read more... )

            The woman was dressed in an ill fitting brown pullover and a black cloth skirt. Her frizzy hair was tied in a ponytail and thick rimmed glasses where settled on her nose. She carried books in her arms, and the old, grey wool carry all at her side was stuffed with more volumes. This was Laura Bryan, research assistant at the Clark ( Read more... )

            She kicks out with her heel, textured leather gloves pressed into the dirt for support as she follows through, withdrawing her leg abruptly and rolling out of the way as her attacker falls forward. She rises to her feet as he hits the ground, bringing her arms together in front of her, hands clenched. He is on his knees when she brings ( Read more... )