It was winter in Seattle when Eleanor Price first saw the girls—three of them, huddled behind the dumpster of the supermarket where she worked the night shift. The oldest looked barely fifteen; the yo…
The morning light spilled across the marble floor of the Cross estate. Lucian Cross, a man whose name was whispered in the world of technology and wealth, sat in silence surrounded by luxury that no l…
The fog over Carmel Bay wrapped itself around the Hawthorne estate like a veil, thick and watchful, as if the sea were holding its breath. Nathaniel Hawthorne felt it before he even opened his eyes. T…
My business collapsed on a Thursday morning, and by Friday night, my house was gone. Even now, it feels unreal to say it. One week I was the owner of Redwood Builders, a company I’d spent thirty-five …
The pen felt heavy in my hand as I signed the last page of our divorce papers. Across the mahogany table sat my ex-husband, David Reynolds, grinning smugly. Beside him, his new fiancée Amber—a twenty-…
Daniel Carter gripped the steering wheel as rain slammed against the windshield, blurring the streets of Seattle into gray streaks. After three relentless weeks of airports, contracts, and forced smil…
It was close to two in the morning inside the aging colonial mansion on the outskirts of Ridgewood when the quiet broke apart. A sharp, panicked scream tore through the corridors, bouncing off the wal…
My name is Beatrice Winslow, and I turned sixty two this past spring. I live in a modest house on the southern edge of Ashford, Georgia, where the trees grow tall and the cicadas sing like clockwork e…
The rumors began the same week the snow melted off the foothills surrounding Denver, Colorado, a slow thaw that seemed to wake not only the trees and sidewalks, but also the long sleeping whispers in …
Alejandro Valdés had spent years believing his life was perfectly under control. Numbers proved it. Contracts proved it. Boardrooms that always bent in his favor proved it. In his world, everything co…
The August sun felt like a warm hand pressed against the shoulders of everyone at Sequoia Park Plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Vendors called out about lemonade and kettle corn, a guitar player strumme…
I went to the hospital every day to care for my husband after he broke his leg. They said he’d slipped on the stairs at work. Surgery went smoothly. The doctors promised recovery would be slow but str…
Victor Reynolds wasn’t behind the wheel. His driver, Carlos, guided the black Mercedes S-Class smoothly over the cracked pavement, the luxury of the car clashing with the city outside. Victor leaned b…