CamCat Books - Summer 2023 Adult Sampler by CamCatPublishing

SUMMER 2023 SAMPLER • ADULT TITLES •

“BOOKS TO LIVE IN”

THESE ARE UNCORRECTED PROOFS.

PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL YOU CHECK YOUR COPY AGAINST THE FINISHED BOOK.

Excerpt from Citizen Orlov

Excerpt from Ladies’ Day

Excerpt from They Split the Party

Excerpt from The Horoscope Writer

Excerpt from Managing the Matthews

Excerpt from The Woodkin

All rights reserved. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 1281 E. Magnolia St., #D1032, Fort Collins, CO 80524. Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. To order, visit: camcatbooks.com/Bookstore-and-Library-Orders.

INTRODUCTION. CamCat Publishing, LLC, opened for business in 2019. Our founder, Sue Arroyo, launched the company for the love of story, those tales that bewitch and dazzle you, grab hold of you and won’t let go. She calls them Books to Live In.

’Cause that’s what she did when growing up. She was a bookworm who lived and breathed stories the way her friends would live and breathe the cool kid on the block or the latest rock star. To her, the characters in her books were the cool kids and rock stars. Who needs awkward teenage parties when you can live epic adventures, find romance, and save the day right there in your mind as you read that favorite book? You know, the one with the creased edges.

Sue is a self-proclaimed entrepreneur. CamCat Publishing is her seventh company. In early 2019, she sold her interest in her most successful business, Trident Technologies, and was able to turn her substantial business skills towards her life-long passion for books.

That’s not a surprise. Growing up, the books Sue read taught her that anything is possible. Anything. And precisely this belief motivated and sustained her as a female entrepreneur pushing that glass ceiling time and again. It was only a matter of time until she’d put her mind and heart and business acumen back to books.

Sue brings a fresh perspective to publishing, a strong desire to establish long-term relationships with both authors and readers, and a passion for a great story.

Therefore, CamCat Publishing is more than a publisher. CamCat Publishing is the sum of its readers and writers . . . and then some. We facilitate and engage in communication between readers and writers because that’s where the magic happens. We involve our authors and readers every step of the way—in the process of choosing the books we publish, the formats in which we offer them, even the way we advertise and publicize them.

But in all this, there’s one thing we never forget. Yes, books are products to sell, but they are something else, too. They are the expression of an author’s creativity and the touchstone for a reader’s imagination. When the two meet, something extraordinary happens. We walk in other people’s shoes and see the world anew.

We appreciate your time and the opportunity to earn that spot on your shelf.

Summer 2023 SAMPLER • ADULT TITLES • “BOOKS TO LIVE IN” Citizen Orlov................................................................................1 by Jonathan Payne Ladies’ Day............. ..................................................................23 by Lisa Williams Kline They Split the Party....................................................................41 by Elijah Menchaca The Horoscope Writer...... 59 by Ash Bishop ManagingtheMatthews...........................................................79 by Haleigh Wenger The Woodkin.............................................................................97 by Alexander James

Not every fishmonger can be a secret agent.

Journey to an unnamed mountainous country in central Europe at the end of the Great War. Enter Citizen Orlov, a simple fishmonger and an honest, upright citizen, who answers a phone call meant for a secret agent and stumbles into a hidden world of espionage and secrecy. Recruited by the Ministry of Security, he is sent on assignment to safeguard the king.

But Orlov soon discovers that his ministry handler, the alluring femme fatale Agent Zelle, is planning not to protect the king but to assassinate him. Caught in a web of plot and counterplot, confusing loyalties, and explosive betrayals, Orlov finds himself on trial for murder. Given the opportunity to clear his name, he finds that the lives of his friends, mother, and fellow citizens hang in the balance.

“The blend of action and picaresque buffoonery flatteringly calls Conan Doyle’s Brigadier Gerard tales to mind, and Payne pulls off a genuinely surprising conclusion. This auspicious debut announces a bright new voice in comic suspense.”

—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309010 | $26.99 | Releases 5/23/2023

Jonathan Payne is a British-American writer based outside Washington, D.C. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Novel Writing from Middlesex University, London. His short fiction has been featured at the North London Story Festival and in magazines including Turnpike, Twist in Time and Fiction Kitchen Berlin. Before moving to the United States, he worked for the British government on matters of national security. When not writing or reading, he can be found in the boxing gym. Follow him at www.jonpayne.org and on Twitter @jon7payne.

CITIZEN O RLOV

IN THE WORLD OF SPIES, HE’S A FISH OUT OF WATER.

JONATHAN PAYNE

CITIZEN O RLOV

JONATHAN PAYNE

CITIZEN O RLOV

JONATHAN PAYNE

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 101 Creekside Crossing, Suite 280, Brentwood, TN 37027.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309010

Paperback ISBN 9780744309058

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744309072

eBook ISBN 9780744309096

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309119

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

5 3 1 2 4

FOR

SONYA

PART ONE

An Account of the Attempted Assassination of His Majesty, The King

CHAPTER ONE

In which our hero meets a new and unexpected challenge

On a frigid winter’s morning in a mountainous region of central Europe, Citizen Orlov, a simple fishmonger, is taking a shortcut along the dank alley behind the Ministries of Security and Intelligence when a telephone begins to ring. He thinks nothing of it and continues on his daily constitutional, his heavy boots crunching the snow between the cobbles. The ringing continues, becoming louder with each step. A window at the back of the ministry buildings is open, just a little. The ringing telephone sits on a table next to the open window. Orlov stops, troubled by this unusual scene: there is no reason for a window to be open on such a cold day. Since this is the Ministry of either Security or Intelligence, could an open window be a security breach of some kind?

Orlov is tempted to walk away. After all, this telephone call is none of his business. On the other hand, he is an upright and patriotic citizen who would not want to see national security compromised simply because no one was available to answer a telephone

call. He is on the verge of stepping toward the open window when he hears footsteps ahead. A tight group of four soldiers is marching into the alley, rifles on shoulders. He freezes for a second, leans against the wall, and quickly lights a cigarette. By the time the soldiers reach him, Orlov is dragging on the cigarette and working hard to appear nonchalant. The soldiers are palace guardsmen, but the red insignia on their uniforms indicates they are part of the elite unit that protects the Crown Prince, the king’s ambitious older son. Orlov nods politely, but the soldiers ignore him and march on at speed.

The telephone is still ringing. Someone very much wants an answer. Orlov stubs his cigarette on the wall and approaches the open window. The telephone is loud in his right ear. Peering through the gap, he sees a small, gloomy storeroom with neatly appointed shelves full of stationery.

Finally, he can stand it no longer. He reaches through the window, picks up the receiver, and pulls it on its long and winding cable out through the window to his ear.

“Hello?” says Orlov, looking up and down the alley to check he is still alone.

“Thank God. Where have you been?” says an agitated voice, distant and crackly. Orlov is unsure what to say. The voice continues.

“Kosek. Right now.”

“I’m sorry?” says Orlov.

“Kosek. Agent Kosek.”

Orlov peers into the storeroom again. “There’s no one here,” he says.

“Well, fetch him then. And hurry, for God’s sake. It’s important.”

Orlov is sorely tempted to end the call and walk away, but the voice is so angry that he dare not.

“One minute,” he says, and lays the receiver on the table. He opens the window wider and, with some considerable effort, pulls himself headfirst into the storeroom, where he tumbles onto the

• 13 •

Jonathan Payne

floor. Picking himself up, he slaps the dust from his overcoat, opens the storeroom door, and peers along the hallway; all is dark and quiet.

With some trepidation, Orlov returns to the telephone. “Hello?” he says.

“Kosek?”

“No, sorry. I’ll have to take a message.”

The caller is still agitated. “Well, focus on what I’m about to say. It’s life and death.”

Orlov’s hands are shaking. “Hold on,” he says, “I’ll fetch some paper.”

Before he can put the receiver down, the caller explodes with anger. “Are you a simpleton? Do not write this down. Remember it.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry,” says Orlov. “I’ll remember it.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here it is. We could not—repeat not—install it in room six. Don’t ask why, it’s a long story.”

The man is about to continue, but Orlov interrupts him. “Should I include that in the message: ‘it’s a long story’?”

“Mother of God,” shouts the man. “Why do they always give me the village idiot? No. Forget that part. I’ll start again.”

“Ready,” says Orlov.

This time the man speaks slower and more deliberately, as if to a child. “We could not—repeat not—install it in room six. You need to get room seven. It’s hidden above the wardrobe. Push the lever up, not down. Repeat that back to me.”

Orlov is now shaking all over, and he grimaces as he forces himself to focus. He repeats the message slowly but correctly.

“Whatever else you do, get that message to Kosek, in person. No one else. Lives depend on it. Understood?”

“Understood,” says Orlov, and the line goes dead.

CITIZEN ORLOV • 14 •

Jonathan Payne

Orlov returns the receiver to the telephone and searches for something to write on. He remembers the message now, but for how long? He has no idea who Agent Kosek is, or where. Now that the caller has gone, the only sensible course of action is to make a note. He will destroy the note, once he has found Kosek. On the table he finds a pile of index cards. He writes the message verbatim on a card, folds it once, and tucks it inside his pocketbook.

Standing in the dark storeroom, Orlov wonders how to set about finding Agent Kosek. He considers climbing back into the alley, going around to the front entrance, and presenting himself as a visitor, if he could work out which ministry he is inside. But it’s still early and it might take hours to be seen. Worse than that, there is a possibility he would be turned away. He imagines a surly security guard pretending to check the personnel directory, only to turn to him and say, “There’s no one of that name here.” Perhaps agents never use their real names. Is Kosek a real name or a pseudonym? Orlov decides the better approach is to use the one advantage currently available to him: he is inside the building.

He lowers the sash window to its original position and steps into the hallway, closing the storeroom door behind him. All remains dark and quiet. The hallway runs long and straight in both directions, punctuated only by anonymous doors. He sees nothing to suggest one direction is more promising than the other. Orlov turns right and tiptoes sheepishly along the hallway, now conscious of his boots as they squeak on the polished wooden floors. He walks on and on, eventually meeting a door that opens onto an identical dark corridor.

As he continues, Orlov becomes increasingly conscious that he is not supposed to be here. He imagines an angry bureaucrat bursting out from one of the many office doors to castigate him and march him off to be interrogated. However, he has walked the length of a train and still he has seen no one.

• 15 •

Finally, Orlov sees the warm glow of lamplight seeping around the edge of another dividing door up ahead. He is both relieved and apprehensive. He approaches the door cautiously and puts his ear to it. It sounds like a veritable hive of industry. He takes a deep breath and opens the door onto a scene of frenetic activity. Banks of desks are staffed by serious men, mostly young, in formal suits, both pinstripe and plain; the few women are also young and dressed formally. Some are engaged in animated conversations; some are leaning back in chairs, smoking; others are deep into reading piles of papers. A white-haired woman is distributing china cups full of tea from a wheeled trolley. At the far end of this long room, someone is setting out chairs in front of a blackboard. Above this activity, the warm fug of cigarette smoke is illuminated by high wall lamps. Orlov hesitates, but is soon approached at high speed by a short, rotund man in a three-piece suit. He has a clipboard and a flamboyant manner.

“You’re late,” says the man, gesticulating. “Quickly. Overcoats over there.”

“No, no. You see,” Orlov says, “I’m not really here.”

The man slaps him on the back, taking his coat as they walk. “You seem real to me,” he laughs.

Orlov protests. “I have a message for Agent Kosek.”

The man rolls his eyes. “Do not trouble yourself regarding Agent Kosek. He is late for everything. He will be here in due course.”

He directs Orlov to take a seat at the back of the impromptu classroom, which is by now filling up with eager, young employees. Orlov is suddenly conscious of his age and appearance; his balding head and rough clothes stand out in this group of young, formally dressed professionals. He also feels anxious about being in this room on false pretenses. However, he need only wait until Agent Kosek appears; he will then deliver the message, make his excuses, and leave. He could still make it to the Grand Plaza in time for the market to open.

CITIZEN ORLOV • 16 •

The flamboyant man, now standing in front of the blackboard, bangs his clipboard down onto a desk to bring the room to order. “Citizens,” he says, “I would appreciate your attention.” The room falls silent, and he continues. “I am Citizen Molnar, and I will be your instructor today.”

Orlov turns to his neighbor, an earnest young man who is writing the instructor’s name in a pristine leather notebook. “I’m not supposed to be here,” says Orlov. The young man places a finger on his lips. Orlov smiles at him and returns his attention to Molnar, who is writing on the blackboard. Molnar proceeds to talk to the group for some time, but Orlov struggles to follow his meaning.

The instructor repeatedly refers to the group as recruits, which adds to Orlov’s sense of being in the wrong place. He becomes hot under the collar when Molnar invites every recruit to introduce themselves. One by one the impressive young recruits stand and detail their university degrees and their training with the military or the police. When Orlov’s turn comes, he stands and says, “Citizen Orlov. Fishmonger.” He is surprised when a ripple of laughter runs through the group.

Orlov is about to sit down again when Molnar intervenes. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us, citizen?”

Orlov says, “I have a message for Agent Kosek.”

“Yes,” says Molnar, gesturing for Orlov to sit down, “the agent will be here soon, I’m quite sure.”

Orlov’s hopes pick up some time later when Molnar says he wants to introduce a guest speaker. Orlov reaches inside his pocketbook to check that the message is still there. But Molnar is interrupted by a colleague whispering in his ear.

“My apologies,” says Molnar. “It seems Agent Kosek has been called away on urgent business. However, I’m delighted to say that his colleague, Agent Zelle, is joining us to give you some insight into the day-to-day life of an agent. Agent Zelle.”

• 17 •

Jonathan Payne

Orlov is disappointed at the change of plan, but perhaps this colleague will be able to introduce him to Kosek. Taking her place in front of the blackboard is the most beautiful woman Orlov has ever seen. She is young and curvaceous but with a stern, serious expression. Her dark curls tumble over pearls and a flowing gown. Several of the male recruits shift uneasily in their chairs; someone coughs. Agent Zelle seems far too exotic for this stuffy, bureaucratic setting. She speaks with a soft foreign accent that Orlov does not recognize.

“Good morning, citizens,” says Zelle, scanning the group slowly. “I have been asked to share with you something of what you can expect, if you are chosen to work as an agent for the ministry. I can tell you that it is a great honor, but there will also be hardship and danger.”

She paces up and down in front of the blackboard, telling them stories of her life in the field. Orlov is entranced; these real-life tales sound like the adventure books he used to read as a boy. There are secret packages, safe houses, and midnight rendezvous in dangerous locations. There are car chases and shootouts, poisonings and defused bombs. It is so engrossing that, for a while, Orlov forgets that he has no business here aside from finding Kosek.

As he focuses on Zelle’s lilting voice, Orlov is struck by a thought that has never before occurred to him in more than twenty years of fishmongering. Perhaps he is cut out for something more challenging, even thrilling. Perhaps, even at his age, he is capable of taking a position in a ministry such as this one where, instead of standing all day in the cold selling fish, his days would be full of adventure, danger, and even romance. Zelle’s stories fill his head with possibilities. But perhaps this is foolish. After all, he and Citizen Vanev have a good business and a monopoly situation, since theirs is the only fish stall in the Grand Plaza. What’s more, Vanev has always been loyal to him, and he has always tried to be loyal in return. Orlov tries to banish these silly ideas from his mind.

CITIZEN ORLOV • 18 •

When Agent Zelle finishes, spontaneous applause fills the room. The agent seems surprised, almost embarrassed, and gives a slight curtsy in acknowledgement. She turns to talk to Molnar as the class breaks up and the recruits begin to mingle. Orlov sets off in the direction of Zelle, but several recruits are in his way, now forming into small groups, discussing what they have just heard. Orlov attempts to get past, saying “Excuse me. Sorry. May I . . .” but by the time he reaches the blackboard, Agent Zelle has gone.

“Is everything all right, citizen?” asks Molnar, seeing Orlov’s distress.

“I really need to see Kosek,” says Orlov. “It’s very important. I have a message for him.”

“I’m sure he’ll be here, before induction is completed,” says Molnar. “He always likes to meet the new recruits.”

“That is what I was trying to explain,” says Orlov. He gestures in the direction of the window through which he climbed. He is about to explain his entry to the building, but thinks better of it. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

Molnar eyes him with a puzzled expression. “I assure you, citizen,” he says, “that we rarely make mistakes.” He brandishes his clipboard, showing Orlov a sheet of heavy, watermarked paper with a list of neatly typewritten names. Molnar runs his finger down the list ostentatiously, stopping in the middle of the page. “Here we are,” he says. “Orlov.”

• 19 •

Jonathan Payne

NOT EVERY FISHMONGER CAN BE A SECRET AGENT.

Journey to an unnamed mountainous country in central Europe at the end of the Great War. Enter Citizen Orlov, a simple fishmonger and an honest, upright citizen, who stumbles into the Ministry of Security, and consequently a hidden world of espionage and secrecy. His first assignment? To safeguard the king when he visits the scenic town of Kufzig. But Orlov soon discovers that his ministry handler, the alluring but-couldn’tpossibly-be-a-femme-fatale Agent Zelle, is planning not to protect the king but to assassinate him. Caught in a web of plot and counterplot, confusing loyalties, and explosive betrayals, Orlov finds himself on trial for murder. He has an opportunity to clear his name—but with his friends, mother, and fellow citizens’ lives in the balance, freedom comes at a high cost.

“ We could not—repeat not—install it in room six. You need to get room seven. It’s hidden above the wardrobe. Push the lever up, not down. Repeat that back to me. ”

Cover Design: Maryann Appel

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Illustration: Robin Olimb / LesyaD / Anastasia Vintovkina Fiction / Thriller USD$16.99 CAD$20.99 GBP£13.99

Heartache is par for the course.

Fifteen years after her troubled daughter Julie ran away from home, Beth Sawyer stumbles across a newspaper photograph of an up-and-coming teen golfer, who not only shares her last name, but also looks just like her daughter. Sky Sawyer couldn’t possibly be her granddaughter—or could she? With her sort-of-functional life spinning out of control—and let’s not get started on her soon-to-be-married ex-husband—Beth meets Barry, a fellow golfer whom she accidentally hits with her golf ball. Will he take her to court or to dinner?

When Sky Sawyer joins her high school golf team, she hopes that the mother she thought dead may still be alive and seek her out at the championship tournament. But when she discovers that the man who raised her is not her father and a woman claiming to be her long-lost grandmother appears, her world falls apart.

With Beth and Sky fighting to gain what they both had lost, will they finally get a second chance at a happily ever after?

“[A] compelling, emotional journey of grief, hope and above all else love. I couldn’t put it down.”

—Marlene Adelstein, USA Today bestselling author

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309157 | $27.99 | Releases 6/20/2023

Ladies' Day is Lisa Williams Kline’s second novel for adults. Her first adult novel, Between the Sky and the Sea, will be released in 2023. She is the author of a short story collection called Take Me, an essay collection called The Ruby Mirror, and ten novels for young readers. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, Skirt, Sasee, moonShine review, The Press 53 Awards Anthology, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, and Idol Talk, among others. She lives in Davidson with her veterinarian husband, a cat who can open doors, and a sweet chihuahua who has played Bruiser Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical. She treasures frequent visits with her grown daughters and their husbands.

L A D i ES’ D AY

CAN A ROUND OF GOLF BRING A FAMILY TOGETHER?

L isa Williams Kline

L A D i ES’ D AY

isa Williams Kline

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309157

Paperback ISBN 9780744309188

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744309195

eBook ISBN 9780744309270

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309287

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel 5

3 1 2 4

FOR JEFF—

L A D i ES’ D AY

WHO TAUGHT ME TO PLAY GOLF.

CHAPTER ONE AAA Beth

Beth went by the university to check her mail, and one of her freshman comp students was waiting for her in the faculty parking lot. Beth hadn’t seen her in class for weeks and had, in fact, given up on her. But now here she stood, in jeans and a T-shirt that looked slept in, shifting her weight from one dirty flip-flopped foot to the other.

“Mrs. Sawyer, I know I’ve missed some classes, but can you give me an incomplete?” One of her pierced ears was infected; the lobe was an angry red.

“You have an F, Tiffany,” Beth said mechanically, her heart beginning to pound as she unlocked her Civic door. That haunted look in Tiffany’s eyes—it was like Julie’s. And the way she resembled a wild cat yearning for escape. Beth had that sinking feeling she always got when a student self-destructed. Every battle she fought with a student reopened the battle she’d lost with Julie.

“Mrs. Sawyer, please.” The girl’s bloodshot brown eyes welled. “You have to give me another chance. I got kicked out of my apartment and I’ve been living in my car.”

“What about your parents?” Beth studied Tiffany’s face. So many of them lied. The lies they told were endlessly brazen and inventive. Not just the grandparents dying and dogs eating homework and computer malfunctions, but wild stories about crazed roommates and bizarre accidents. If only they put half that creativity into their essays.

“I can’t go back home. Please, just give me an incomplete. I have to get this grade to keep my financial aid.”

A bluish vein pulsed in the girl’s thin neck, and her slender fingers trembled slightly. When had she eaten last? Beth’s throat tightened, and she was carried back to that day with Julie. A day she yearned to have a chance to relive.

She dug into her purse and pulled out a bar of Hershey’s chocolate she had packed for energy during her upcoming golf round and gave it to Tiffany. “How much time do you need?” she asked.

thirty minutes later, Beth sat down on the wooden steps in front of the rundown Silver Lakes pro shop to put on her golf shoes and wait for Margo and Vanessa. A late spring breeze ruffled through the hot pink azalea blossoms, and a few petals fluttered to the ground. Stray dandelions bravely popped through a sidewalk crack next to Beth’s foot. While tying her left shoe, Beth spotted another spider vein beside her knee and scrubbed her thumb over it.

She suddenly had to think of sitting on the couch with Julie and Paul when they were little, on Friday afternoons, watching some animated movie, her fingers tracing the fine, damp hair at her children’s temples. They would still be in that position when

Lisa Williams Kline 7 33 8

AAA

Mark arrived home. He’d come up behind them and put his warm, capable hands on Beth’s shoulders. She remembered it so clearly it could have been yesterday.

That was before.

When life was sweet and simple.

Paul had just told her the night before that Mark was thinking about marrying Ronda, the woman he’d been living with for the past few years. She’d always known that her husband would move on long before she could. She’d been dreading it for years.

Beth gave her head a good shake to force herself back into the present, when Margo pulled her SUV into the lot and stuck her head out the window. “Hey, girl! Ready to bring this course to its knees?”

“Oh, sure,” Beth said, grinning. Margo could always make her smile.

Margo, tall, thin, and athletic, with a long thick ponytail she’d let go gray, climbed out and headed around the back of her SUV to unload her clubs, then stuffed her golf glove into her back shorts pocket. “Now, should I accidentally on purpose forget to get a scorecard, or do we feel like higher math today?” Margo, a retired high school gym teacher and several years older than Beth, had kept her Maryland accent even though she’d been living in North Carolina for close to twenty years.

“Oh, let’s keep score, we’re not that bad.” Beth followed Margo into the pro shop to check in.

“Afternoon, ladies!” said Vanessa, joining them inside to complete their usual threesome.

As Vanessa leaned over the counter to grab a scorecard, Beth admired her slim, dark legs and glossy black box-braided hair, both of which made her look younger than her sixty years. “Did you girls notice,” said Vanessa, “that the Memberships Available sign by the club entrance has been vandalized?”

“Really?” Beth rolled her eyes.

LADIES’ DAY 7 34 8

“Somebody changed the p in memberships to a t, so it now says Membershits Available. Isn’t that the most juvenile thing?”

“Teenagers!” growled Margo. “Jean and I used to live on Bonner Lane and teenagers used to keep stealing our street sign because they thought it said Boner Lane. I wanted to say, ‘Hellooo! Spell much?’”

Beth laughed. “Have you ever known a time when Silver Lakes wasn’t having a membership drive?” In their small town of Solomon, there was the Old South Club for the old rich and the Country Day Club for the new rich. And then there was their Silver Lakes—the Groucho Marx of country clubs. People who weren’t rich and didn’t want to belong to any club that would accept them as a member.

“I don’t think I could play on one of those fancy courses with putting greens like velvet. Silver Lakes is just my speed,” Beth said.

“You would be referring to bumpy greens constantly under repair?” Vanessa shook her head, laughing.

As the three of them headed down the path toward the first tee, Beth patted her left pocket for her lucky ball and her right pocket for the ibuprofen for her joints on the back nine. Her old pull cart squeaked as it bounced along behind her. Sturdy yellow daylilies swayed in an overgrown bed beside the cement walkway, which badly needed power washing.

Margo, Beth’s friend and neighbor, with Mark’s support, had persuaded her to try golf. It was fun but also required intense concentration. It helped to push the obsessive thoughts out of Beth’s mind. Vanessa, who taught composition at the university with Beth, joined. Beth had always envied Vanessa’s no-nonsense, upbeat control of a classroom. The three women, none of whom had played before, had taken lessons together. They’d never found a fourth, though they’d invited others to join them at first. Fitting the weekly game around their respective work schedules, they became comfortable as just three. They complemented each other so well. Beth was perfectly content playing straight man to Vanessa

Lisa Williams Kline 7 35 8

and Margo. She had long accepted that she didn’t stand out in a crowd, neither with her reserved, quiet personality nor with her appearance—average height, slim build, and light brown hair that she occasionally highlighted to disguise the threads of gray. She loved the laughter caused by Margo’s outspoken wit, and she reveled in the attention caused by Vanessa’s beauty and confidence. And that’s the way it had been, for over fifteen years.

“Well, Silver Lakes isn’t as bad as it used to be,” Beth said. “Remember when we didn’t even have a porta-potty on the course and we had to go in the woods?”

“And instead of a snack bar,” Vanessa added, “they had that self-serve steamer with those wrinkled, green weenies?” All three of them made faces and laughed at the memory.

“Come on, let’s show this course who’s boss,” Margo said, teeing up her ball.

“I hear you, girlfriend,” said Vanessa.

Beth smiled. Being with Margo and Vanessa had lifted her spirits already.

The friends had a long-standing agreement that serious subjects had to wait until after the round, and so Beth didn’t bring up Mark’s plans to get married again until they had ventured into the parking lot. “I knew it would happen someday, but it still comes as a shock!”

Margo opened the back of her SUV and sat on the tailgate to take off her golf shoes. “After all the water under the bridge, do you really care?”

“No, I guess I don’t really care.” Beth put her ibuprofen and lucky ball back in the zippered compartment of her golf bag, knowing she sounded defensive.

“Yes, you do.” Vanessa threw her clubs in the back of her little red convertible. “But you shouldn’t. That’s ancient history.

Margo took off her visor and redid her gray ponytail. She gave Beth a pointed, almost pained look. “You do still care, don’t you?

LADIES’ DAY 7 36 8

Aww, Beth. Vanessa is right. That’s ancient history. Think how hard you’ve worked . . . how hard we’ve all worked . . . to put that in the rearview mirror.”

Beth looked away.

Lisa Williams Kline 7 37 8

Heartache is Par for the C ourse.

Fifteen years after her troubled daughter Julie ran away from home, Beth Sawyer stumbles across a newspaper photograph of an up-and-coming teen golfer, who not only shares her last name, but also looks just like her daughter. Sky Sawyer couldn’t possibly be her granddaughter—or could she? With her sort-of-functional life sinking into a full on mulligan—and let’s not get started on her soonto-be-married ex-husband—Beth meets Barry, a fellow golfer who she accidentally hits with her golf ball and who might just be Mr. Right.

With Beth and Sky fighting to gain what they both had lost, can they finally get a second chance at a happily ever after?

Cover Design: Maryann Appel

Cover Artwork: Frithjof Moritzen / Susan Wood Images

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Fiction / Women’s Romance USD$16.99 CAD$21.99 GBP£13.99

It sucks being someone's unfinished business.

The Starbreakers were heroes, until a tragedy broke them apart. Only now, years later, have they begun to make peace with each other. The rest of the world is a different story.

There has been a breakout in the prison known as Oblivion, and now the worst of the worst have been turned loose on an unsuspecting world. Desperate to contain the crisis, the right hand of the king has called the disgraced Starbreakers back into service. After all, they were the ones who put most of these villains away in the first place.

As the Starbreakers scatter to face friends and foes of the past, it's a fight for peace in the kingdom they call home, and a fight to protect the legacy they left behind. It's also exactly the opportunity their enemies have been waiting for.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309201 | $28.99 | Releases 6/27/2023

Elijah Menchaca has been writing and telling stories since he was five. He attended the University of Louisville where he minored in creative writing, discovered a love for Dungeons and Dragons, and got engaged. Elijah was inspired to write the Glintchasers series when he and his friends began to go their separate ways after college.

“A fast-paced and diverting narrative . . . ” Booklist for They Met in a Tavern

THEY PARTYSPLIT THE Elijah Mencha ca

The Glintchasers Series

THEY PARTYTHESPLIT Elijah Mencha ca

THEY PARTYTHESPLIT

Elijah Mencha ca

The Glintchasers Series

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027

camcatpublishing.com

is is a work of ction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used ctitiously.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, LLC, 101 Creekside Crossing, Suite 280, Brentwood, TN 37027.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309201

Paperback ISBN 9780744309225

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744309249

eBook ISBN 9780744309256

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309263

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Cover and book design by Maryann Appel

53124

To my Wings, who makes me feel like I can y.

OBLIVION

It was said that Oblivion’s architect had declared the prison inescapable. e prison was built on a tiny island in supernaturally rough waters; every cell constructed from oor-to-ceiling of solid iron. Its doors were sealed to open only at the touch of a guard. To test the architect’s claim, the emperor who’d commissioned it had the architect himself imprisoned inside.

He never got out.

Ink chuckled to herself, thinking about the story. Somewhere in there, she supposed, was a moral about being consumed by your life’s work. Most likely spun by someone who’d never worked a day in their lives but still felt the need to lecture others about it.

If it was true, she felt no pity for the architect. If he couldn’t rise above his own creation, that was his own fault, to say nothing of his poor choice of employer.

“High Inquisitive?”

Ink was dragged back to the present by the guard in front of her, who was nervously eyeing the cell she’d requested access to. is one had to be new. Guards who’d spent any real time in Oblivion were well past the point of being afraid of the place.

“Yes, thank you,” she said, waving him o dismissively. “You can go, I’ll call when I’m nished.”

e guard shifted nervously, like he was working up the nerve to say something, and Ink felt a wave of dread descend upon her. Hands folded, lips pressed together, she waited, silently daring him to say something.

“It’s against the rules for visitors to be left alone with prisoners.”

Now she knew he was new. Ink gave a sharp inhale, and the guard inched. Ink was beige-skinned with sharp, unnaturally blue eyes and hair that stood out against otherwise rounded features but perfectly matched the softly glowing glyphs on the sleeves of her thin—layered summer robes. She carried herself like a person of power—both the kind that made people listen to her and the kind that could turn people to ash with a ick of her ngers.

“Who dictated these rules to you?” Ink asked.

“ e warden, High Inquisitive.”

“And who does the warden work for?”

“

e . . .” e guard trailed o . To his minimal credit, he gured out where Ink was going with this. Oblivion was operated by the Academy. Its wardens and all personnel under them answered to it. And to all but a very select handful of people, Ink was the Academy. “Good day, High Inquisitive.”

Ink kept her face calm as the guard made a hasty retreat. It was important, she reminded herself, not to get too angry at people for what they didn’t know. Otherwise, she would never not be angry.

A dark chuckle echoed from inside the cell. “You love being in charge, don’t you?”

e prisoner was dressed in simple burlap, singed in several places. He was shackled by hand and foot, anchored to the oor with Old World chains.

e soft orange glow from his eyes and the stray embers that trailed o his skin and hair lled the dark interior. Even from the outside of the cell, the heat inside was palpable.

“Beats living in chains,” Ink mocked. “Enjoying your stay?”

“What do you want?” Pitch spat.

“Lots of things,” Ink said. “ ere was an old shell sh place by the marina I wish would reopen. Some new perfumes, since mine are all starting to go bad. Somebody else to crack spellforging or to at least get it out of Phoenix. But

Elijah

Menchaca

2] 51

really, I’ve just had a long week, and I gured seeing you in a cell would make me feel better. And I was right.”

Pitch growled and lunged forward, immediately making his chains go taut as his eyes burned, and his shackles took on a dull red glow. Ink barked a single word in Arcania, and the chains crackled to life with electricity. He fell back to the ground, spasming.

“Down boy.”

Ink didn’t even attempt to hide the satisfaction in her voice.Even through the contortions and twinges from the shock, Pitch’s boiling fury was plain to see. And after all the trouble he’d caused and all the years of hell he’d given her—and Renalt knew how many others—that pointless, impotent rage was delicious to drink in.

“I am going to skin you alive when I get out of here,” Pitch spat. “I’m going to burn you to a crisp and piss on the ashes.”

“No You won’t,” Ink said “You’re going to sit in this cell until I gure out a way to get the Heart of Flames out of you, and then I will leave you to rot in here for the rest of your miserable, pathetic, angry little life. O cially, for all the murders and the assault on Olwin Keep, but mostly so you can nally stop being a pain in the world’s collective ass.”

“You think you’re so hot, don’t you?” he growled. “Little runaway girl, all grown up. I bet this brings back memories. Except now, you get to be the one on the outside of the jail cell.”

Ink’s hand twitched in the beginning motions of a spell before she caught herself. She was the one who got under people’s skin. Not the reverse.

“Except I’ve moved up in the world, while you’ve only gotten more worthless.”

“Don’t pretend you’re better than me,” he retorted “You act like you rose above. Like you stuck it to the world and now you’re the head bitch in charge. But you haven’t risen above shit.”

“When I left the Cord of Aenwyn, they begged me to stay,” Ink said. “ ey threw you out on the street like a rabid dog. And now you’re in prison and I own the keys.”

They Split the Party

2] 52 ]-

“And you love your job so much, you had to come visit me to feel better about yourself,” Pitch prodded. “What happened? Is the Principal of Magic School being mean to you? Or is it hitting you that after fteen years of running, you’re still just somebody else’s little servant?”

Ink almost took the bait, almost dove into a defense of her life and how she was not and would never be anyone’s servant. But she had nothing to prove here. eir situations spoke for themselves.

“You know, you’re absolutely right. I’m incredibly dissatis ed with my life, and you’ve cut me to my very core,” she said, every syllable stitched with sarcasm. “When I go home, I will sob into my warm dinner and silk sheets, unable to think about anything other than how much better o you are than me, eating rats and shitting in a bucket. Which doesn’t look that full. I’ll be sure to tell the guards they don’t need to clean it out.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Goodbye, Pitch.”

“Fuck you!”

He may have sucked some of the fun out this visit, but that was the only victory he was going to get from her. With a ick of her ngers, she shut the door slot behind her.

“Hey! Don’t walk away from me! Ink!”

His voice echoed through the halls of the prison, hounding her, and she smiled as his frustration grew. She was done here.

She called the guard back and graciously accepted the escort out of the cell block. He was still nervous, but now he was as scared of Ink as he was of the prison.

e thought put a smile on her face.

e warden was waiting for her on the way out. A tall, broad-shouldered man with no hair and a name she didn’t bother learning.

“I trust your inspection went well, High Inquisitive?” the warden asked. Ink seamlessly slipped into the lie of her o cial excuse. “Oh yes. You run atightshiphere,Warden.I’llbehappytoreturntotheAcademyknowingour most important project is in safe hands.”

Elijah Menchaca

2] 53 ]-

Her sentence was punctuated by a broad smile from the warden and a sudden ickering of the lightstone in the room. ere was a thud that reverberated through the walls and then a slow, building din of noise coming from the cellblocks.

Ink’s own polite, practiced smile vanished. “Provided you can explain that.” e warden went pale and frantically slapped the shoulder of the closest guard. “I’m sure it’s just a storm. We see quite a few of them in this region. I’ll send someone to con rm it; you don’t have to—”

Ink was already moving, grabbing her escort by the wrist and using his hand to open the seals on the doors as she made her way toward the commotion that was only growing louder by the second. e warden followed behind her, spinning desperate lies and reassurances she could see through without even looking the man in the eye. When she got back to the Academy, she was going to have him red.

Alarm horns began to sound, con rming what she’d already been dreading. Escape attempt.

“High Inquisitive, I must insist that you—” is time, the warden was interrupted by a haggard guard sprinting into the room, gasping for breath. e guard nearly ran face rst into them before Ink grabbed her by the shoulders, halting her in her tracks.

Recognition replaced panic on the guard’s face. “High Inquisitive! Warden!”

“What happened?” Ink demanded. ere was an explosion in the cellblock. She got free, started killing the guards and breaking open cell doors.”

“Who?” Ink asked.

e guard answered, fear in her eyes. “Kurien.”

Kurien. Of all the people locked away in Oblivion, it had to be to her. Even Ink’s blood went cold.

“ at’s impossible!” the warden shouted, even as he was ignored. “Her cell is warded against every conceivable means of escape!”

“How many are loose?” Ink asked, trying to get a grasp on the situation.

They Split the Party 2] 54 ]-

“ at’s just it, ma’am,” the guard said. “All of them.”

Everyone in the room fell silent. Ink felt her legs shake for a second underneath her until she forced them to steady. Every prisoner in Oblivion was loose. ey didn’t need panic. ey needed action. She started giving orders. Establish a perimeter on the cellblock. Get archers positioned to watch the coast. Call the mainland for immediate reinforcement. e warden tried protesting early on before Ink made it very clear that this was her prison now. When everyone had their orders, she personally marched back into the cellblock to bring the situation under control. e halls were chaos, full of everything from undead mutants to shapeshifting putty monsters. ey had to cut through plant roots as thick as trees and as hard as iron. Subdue mind-controlled guards rioting even more ercely than some of the inmates. Extinguish res that moved like living things.

In the end, it took a full day and a hundred lives to restore order to Oblivion. Academy mages, royal soldiers, and even the knights of the Seven Gates themselves all had to be called in. Dozens of prisoners—the most dangerous men, women, and monsters to curse Corsar with their lives—were unaccounted for. And Ink, at the end of it all, was left staring at a massive hole where Pitch’s cell used to be. is was going to cause problems.

2] 55 ]-

Elijah Menchaca

are sold.

Available now, wherever books

It sucks being SOMEONE ’ S unfinished business.

The Starbreakers were heroes, until a tragedy broke them apart. Only now, years later, have they begun to make peace with each other. e rest of the world is a di erent story.

ere has been a breakout in the prison known as Oblivion, and now the worst of the worst have been turned loose on an unsuspecting world. Desperate to contain the crisis, the right hand of the king has called the disgraced Starbreakers back into service. After all, they were the ones who put most of these villains away in the rst place.

As the Starbreakers scatter to face friends and foes of the past, it’s a ght for peace in the kingdom they call home, and a ght to protect the legacy they left behind. It’s also exactly the opportunity their enemies have been waiting for.

Cover Design: Maryann Appel

BE THE FIRST TO HEAR about new CamCat titles, author events, and exclusive content! Sign up at camcatbooks.com for the CamCat Publishing newsletter. Fiction / Fantasy USD$18.99 CAD$24.99 GBP£15.99

Illustration: Warmtail

Leo: You’ll step out the door, prepared for a normal day. But you’ll never reach your workplace. You will vanish, without a trace.

Who is the Horoscope Writer? It’s not Bobby Frindley. He’s an ex-Olympic athlete who has fast-talked his way into an entrylevel position at a dying newspaper. He’s supposed to be writing horoscopes, but someone has been doing it for him . . .

On his first night on the job, Bobby receives an email with twelve gruesome, highly-detailed horoscopes, along with a chilling ultimatum: print them and one will come true, or ignore them and they all will.

Working with a skeptical co-worker, Bobby investigates the horoscope writer’s true identity, but the closer he gets to the truth, the more the predictions begin to be about him. Has he attracted the attention of a cruel puppeteer? Or is it possible that, like any good horoscope, it’s all in his head?

“Ash Bishop immerses the story with grisly detective investigations and their powerful outcomes from the start . . . filled with realistic scenarios and satisfying twists.”

Midwest Book Review

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309294 | $27.99 | Releases 7/18/2023

Ash Bishop is a lifetime reader, loving all things mystery, science fiction and fantasy. He has been a high school English teacher, and worked in the video game industry, as well as in educational app development. He even used to fetch coffee for Quentin Tarantino during the production of the film Jackie Brown. Bishop currently produces script coverage for a major Hollywood studio, but he spends his best days at home in Southern California with his wonderful wife and two wonderful children. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University.

THE HOROSCOPE WRITER

ASH BISHOP

THE HOROSCOPE WRITER

ASH BISHOP

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744309294

Paperback ISBN 9780744309300

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744309317

eBook ISBN 9780744309324

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309348

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

5 3 1 2 4

In Memory of Robert Mulgrew

Teacher Extraordinaire

. . . and there is a Catskill eagle in some souls That can alike dive down into the blackest gorges And soar out of them again . . .

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

DETECTIVE LESLIE CONSORTE didn’t like being woken up in the middle of the night. In fact, he didn’t like it enough to have turned off his cell phone and taken his home phone off the hook. The desk sergeant, a busybody named Roman Stevenson, had felt the situation warranted sending a unit by his house to pound on his door until he had dragged himself out from under warm sheets, grumbling, groaning, and belching out every cussword in the English language, and a few based loosely on Latin roots: crapepsia, shitalgia, cockpluribus.

Stevenson hadn’t been wrong. Leaning on his car door and surveying the damage, Leslie dreamed of the stacks of paperwork headed his way. A fifth-year cop named Lapeyre, dressed in uniformed blues, approached, picking through the crime scene, not so much to preserve evidence as to preserve her clothes. Lapeyre was a handsome young woman, close-cropped hair of tight black curls, dark skin, driven, focused, taller than Leslie by at least a couple inches.

“It goes on for another three miles.”

“This is a grisly thing here.”

Leslie squinted his eyes, staring down the dilapidated Clairemont street. Clairemont was a rotten little housing project of about fourteen hundred units with dirt lawns, peeling paint, unwashed cars, rusted motor homes, and non-working boats. Most of the inhabitants had moved in decades ago when home prices were still reasonable. Now they clung desperately to their thin slice of the American Dream as their property taxes ticked higher and higher and their roads remained unrepaired.

This street was in particularly bad shape because it was smeared with blood, muscle, and bone. Someone had been dragged behind the bumper of a GMC truck. For about a mile.

“What are we looking at?” Leslie asked.

“Dispatch got a call at 12:03. A neighbor reported hearing screaming, squealing tires, and then a grinding sound. Desk jockey logged it as a domestic dispute, though I think that’s a bit of an underclassification.”

“That’s funny, Lapeyre. Any chance we can identify the victim?”

“It’s unlikely. There’s only about a third of the body left. It shook loose from the car down by the mesa.”

Leslie crouched in the street, running his hand over the drying blood.

“Radley found fragments of a jawbone on the next block over. We might be able to get a dental match. I also managed to extricate a patch of hair from the fender of the murder car. I’ve bagged it for a DNA analysis. A SID team is prepping the car for impound over on Derrick Drive. What do you want to do about this?”

“Let’s knock on a door or two,” Leslie suggested.

Leslie and Lapeyre walked up the nearest driveway. Leslie’s suit looked like he carried it to work in a plastic bag. The top button was loose on the shirt, his tie hung low, the edges of the cuffs were frayed, and the collar was badly wrinkled. Leslie believed it was possible to machine wash and dry his dress shirts.

Ash Bishop { 71 }

The collar, it seemed to him, was the only part that didn’t turn out so great.

Before they reached the door, Leslie pulled Lapeyre to a stop.

“I forgot something,” he said. He dug around in his pocket, finally drawing out a shiny, metallic object roughly the size of a billfold. He handed it to Lapeyre.

Lapeyre fumbled with it, trying to get it open with shaky hands. “Is this what I think it is?” she said.

“Congratulations, Detective. The captain passed word down to me as I was leaving work. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but I guess this is tomorrow.”

Lapeyre didn’t say anything else, but her eyes never left the badge. It reminded Leslie of his ex-wife’s expression when he’d first popped open the engagement ring box. “It’s a good moment, Lapeyre. You only make detective once, if you’re lucky. Enjoy it.” Leslie waited a moment while Lapeyre polished the badge on the front of her shirt. “Let’s solve this case, huh? After you, Inspector.”

“Are you going to show me how to grill a witness?”

“I will show you the ways of the master.”

The nearest house was a tiny three-bedroom, one bathroom with a rotting fence and a weed-strewn yard. Leslie knocked on the door. They waited a few minutes. Lapeyre pulled out her badge to look at it again, and Leslie told her to put it away. He knocked again, louder this time. No one answered. They moved to the next house, walking directly across the lawn. It was a small structure, probably close to seven hundred square feet. The roof was dilapidated. A Trump 2024 flag waved above the faded painting of a bald eagle, its wings stretching wide across the garage.

They knocked and waited. None one answered.

On the third house, a blonde woman in her fifties came to the door. She wore pajamas covered by a tattered robe. Her unwashed hair had a frizzy-fried texture Leslie always associated with the very

THE HOROSCOPE WRITER { 72 }

poor and the chemically addicted. She smelled of recently smoked cigarettes.

“Yes?” the woman said. She was rubbing her eyes and blinking at them.

Leslie knew Lapeyre was waiting for him to speak but he didn’t. After an awkward silence, Lapeyre finally said, “Sorry we woke you.”

“What do you need?” the woman asked; her voice held a slight edge.

“We were hoping you saw something tonight. There’s been a crime. Outside your home, all up and down the street.”

“That’s terrible. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

Leslie was irritated by her curt response, but he tried to remain professional. He leaned in and sniffed her. She smelled like very strong alcohol. Maybe 100 proof.

“What the hell are you doing?” she said.

“There was a brutal murder fifteen feet from your house,” he said.

“I didn’t see anything. I was sleeping.”

“The murderer dragged his victim through the street. He tore the victim’s body to pieces. His flesh is part of your asphalt now. It’s part of your street.”

“I don’t know anything,” the woman said. Her shoulders shook in a quick jagged motion, but she got them under control again immediately.

“You watched it from the window.”

“No.”

“I don’t know how much you saw, but it was enough to send you back to the kitchen. A decent person calls the police. Lets us get here in time to help, maybe. But you poured yourself a shot.” Leslie sniffed again. “Several shots.”

“Get out of my house!” the woman barked. “I’ll call the cops.”

Leslie idly waved his badge. “We’re not in your house.”

“I’ll call my brother then. He’ll kick your ass right out of here.”

Ash Bishop { 73 }

“Go ahead and call him. We’ll wait,” Leslie told her.

The poor, rugged blonde took a step back and pulled her phone from her pajama pocket. Then she lurched forward and struck Leslie with her phone-clinched fist. Lapeyre moved to interfere, but Leslie called her off with a curt head shake. With her other hand the woman clawed at him for a moment, like a sick bird, then she fell to her knees, crying.

“We need to know everything you can remember. The coloring, height, and weight of the victim. The same for the killer.” His voice softened. “If you tell us everything you saw, it will help you forget. I promise.”

The woman remained on the floor. Leslie pulled Lapeyre aside. “Get a statement,” he said. “Be as gentle as possible.”

“Yeah, right. Thanks,” Lapeyre said.

“I’m going to go check out the murder car. Join me when you can.” Leslie moved back out of the house without looking at the crumpled form of the woman on the floor, still sobbing. He walked slowly up the street to Derrick Drive.

He had been suffering from acute lower back pain for the last thirteen years. The cause had never been completely diagnosed, but Leslie figured it to be a combination of too many nights chasing lowlifes down alleyways, too many hours behind desks perched on cheap chairs, his tendency to buy his furniture and mattresses at thrift stores, and all the collective stresses of trying to keep a city safe from itself. The mileage of life. The pinching pain caused him to shuffle his feet when he walked, and he always appeared to be leaning slightly forward.

When he reached Derrick Drive, he followed the portable lights, flares, and flashbulbs to the murder car—which was, in fact, a murder truck. He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and pointed his belt light at the truck’s bumper. A SIDs guy, short for Scientific Investigation Division, was already swabbing at it with a Q-tip. Leslie

THE HOROSCOPE WRITER { 74 }

didn’t recognize him, but then as all the other departments felt the pinch of deep budget cuts, the SIDs were growing like weeds.

Leslie ran his light along the left side of the truck. He noted deep, jagged scratch marks in the faux chrome of the bumper, on the right fender, and just above the tailpipe. The SID was working over his shoulder on the taillight. Leslie told him, “It looks like the victim tried to keep up with the car long as he could. He must have been affixed to the bumper by something other than his arms. Make sure you run tests for trace elements of rope, tape, whatever the hell kind of epoxy could stick a person to a vehicle long enough to grind their bones to dust.”

“Of course.”

Leslie looked again at the long, snaking red swath as it disappeared down the street and around the corner. “No motive. Few witnesses. Not much left of the body. This must have made a hell of a racket, though. Make a visual record of the entire trail. Then call HAZMAT for cleanup. I don’t want people waking up to find this on their street.”

“You want to destroy the evidence?”

“No. Gather the evidence but do it quickly so HAZMAT can get this massacre cleaned up.”

“Are you sure, sir? Whitmire’s going to be pissed if we compromise—”

“You SIDs guys are supposed to facilitate our investigation, not run it. Guy gets butchered in the street, it’s still a case for the homicide detective, right?”

“Yeah.”

Leslie slid his hands into a rubber glove and gingerly felt around the back of the bumper. Something sticky transferred from the bumper to his index finger. He held it up to the light. It looked like candy from a toy store vending machine. He lifted it up for the pale man with the camera and the plastic baggies to see.

Ash Bishop { 75 }

“Got an idea of what this is?” Leslie asked him. It wasn’t quite the right texture to be brain or flesh.

The SIDs man shone a light on it, moving his face just inches from its quivering surface. Leslie turned his wrist to give him a better look, and it split, letting an inky mess free to run down onto his knuckles.

“Looks like sclera,” the man said, taking it from Leslie gingerly and dropping it into one of his bags.

“I made detective because of my tenacity, not my brains.”

“I’m pretty sure you found an eyeball, sir.”

THE HOROSCOPE WRITER { 76 }

Managing the Matthews

HALEIGH WENGER

Managing the Matthews

HALEIGH WENGER

Managing the Matthews

HALEIGH WENGER

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Paperback ISBN 9780744300116

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744309126

eBook ISBN 9780744310009

Audiobook ISBN 9780744309140

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Cover design by Laura Duffy

Book design by Maryann Appel

5 3 1 2 4

To my husband, Mark, for always being my real-life romance hero. And to the Jonas Brothers, who I’m sure are also very nice.

Being the manager for a trio of hot celebrity brothers sounds amazing until you’re the one thing standing in the way of their sleep.

Between the three of them—Ash, Jonah, and Ryan—I don’t get days off. Someone always ends up needing to be on set at eight a.m. sharp, no matter the day. Never mind that wake-up calls are most definitely not in my job description. Today, I have the unparalleled pleasure of knocking loudly on Ash Matthew’s bedroom door, waiting outside of it for an appropriate amount of time, and then beating on the door some more. It’s a blast. “Ashley! I know you’re in there! You have a photoshoot in fifteen! Fifteen min-utes!”

There’s not a single sound from inside his room. When yelling doesn’t work, I pull my cell phone from my purse and call him over and over and over. He doesn’t answer. Instead, a banging sound comes from inside his bedroom and the door swings open.

CHAPTER

> > > > > Kell

ONE

Ash looks me over through half-open eyes and then flops back onto the enormous California King in the center of his room. I toss my phone back into the bag on my arm and follow him in. “I don’t have work today,” he says, his words obscured by the pillow he’s planted his face into. His dark brown hair splays out to the sides, curling slightly at the ends. I tried to talk him into a haircut a few months ago, but it turns out he was right. Annoying, but right, that the longer hair suits him.

I put a hand on my hip. “You do have work.”

Despite the text I received at two a.m. letting me know that he didn’t think he’d make it in, I’m not letting Ash off t his easily. As his manager, it’s my job to keep on top of him about these kinds of things.

He grumbles something else unintelligible into his pillow. I sigh and lower myself to his bed, swaying slightly at the too-soft mattress underneath me. “You’re contracted. The movie is almost done. Just promo and then you’re off the hook for this one. And, come on, it wasn’t that bad. From what I saw of it, there were some really funny scenes.”

Ash lifts his head and glares at me, daring me to keep going with the lie. “I want out. I don’t want to be the romance guy anymore. Not for movies like this.”

He scoffs. “Bribery doesn’t work on me anymore. I c an buy my own pizza.”

Inudgehisfootwithmyhand,butheswatsatme.“It’snotgonna happen. I’m not doing the photo shoot.”

Thedejectioninhisvoicehitsme,stallingmeforaquicksecond. Itsoundslikeheneedsavacation.I’llhavetocheckhiscalendar.Ash and I were friends in college, and when he told me that he was going into acting, it felt like fate: platonic, career-oriented fate. I was nearly done with my public relations degree and had a healthy obsession

Haleigh Wenger

“What if I promise to buy you pizza afterward?”

•] 89 ^•

with Hollywood. He got cast in a handful of quirky indie films, one of them took off, and he’s scored half a dozen romantic comedy roles since then. But lately, something has shifted, and more and more often I find myself here, trying to talk him into putting on pants and getting his ass to work.

Things were simpler before fame.

I flip open my phone and scroll through the online calendar while I talk. “I don’t know what to tell you, Ash. Ryan does action movies, you do romantic comedies, and Jonah does sports. I can put feelers out for more serious auditions, but for now—you signed the contract. You have to finish this out.”

“You’ll tell people I’m looking for different stuff?” He arches an eyebrow. He rolls to sitting and leans forward to balance on the edge of the bed. His gray eyes, just the tiniest tinge of blue at the edges, study me.

None of the producers we work with will be very happy with me, but I’ll let them know. I’m not going to make him lose himself over movies he hates. When we first decided to work together, we agreed: friendship before business. It may not be a motto that works for everyone, but it’s always served us well.

“Fine.” He winces. “But I already told them I’m pulling out. I can’t go to any more promo for this. It’s humiliating.”

I’m too late. “You already told them? You’re supposed to leave the communicating to me. I could have . . .” I trail off at the look on his face.

Whatever. It’s just one more Matthew mess to clean up. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with it.” I fake an unaffected shrug as I smooth one hand over his crumpled bed sheets. I bend to pick up a stray protein bar wrapper on the floor near my feet. There’s no point in getting mad when I can get the other thing I came here for: information. “Tell me about last night. How did it go?”

“You should have been there.”

MANAGING THE MATTHEWS •] 90 ^•

I arch an eyebrow, smelling a tragedy. There’s something about the way he says it: You should have been there because it is my job to know, after all. “What? What happened?”

Ash runs a hand over his face, messing up his hair even further. It only adds to his sex appeal, and I make a mental note to get him a new set of headshots featuring this longer, messier hairstyle. It’ll kill with the casting directors, even the new ones he’s looking to pursue.

He groans. “It’s bad. You shouldn’t hear it from me.”

I almost stomp my foot with impatience. If it’s as bad as his voice makesitsound,I’msurprisedIhaven’thearditalready,nomatterthe early hour. “I need to hear it, period. I don’t care who it comes from at this point. I’m here now, so spill.” With every emergency comes a seemingly never-ending cycle of damage control, and if I’ve learned anything in the past five years of managing the brothers, it’s that the sooner I start on fixing their mistakes, the better.

“Talk to Ryan.” Ash finally meets my eyes, and I see something there I don’t expect. Is that . . . pity?

Ryan’s name kicks my chest into double-time, and I slap a palm over my sternum. Great. Just, honestly, great. Sure, I suspected that he was involved the moment Ash said something, but to have it confirmed sets my stomach on edge.

I grit my teeth. “Ash. Please. You’re killing me here.”

“We were out at the bar last night. After the fan meet and greet, remember?”

I nod. I remember because I was the one who facilitated the entire thing. Except, thanks to a major guilt trip on my parents’ part, I couldn’t be there. Instead, I spent the day with my GI doctor and the night hosting my visiting-from-out-of-town parents before they caught a late flight. I was forced to listen to Mom bemoan that fact that I work too much for the hundredth time.

“Ryan spent all night with this one fangirl. She was sitting in his lap, and they were all over each other. Out of nowhere, he proposed.

•] 91 ^•

It was bizarre. I’ve never seen him act like that. I don’t even think he’d had that many drinks. It was like he pulled a diamond ring from thin air.”

I flinch but cover it as I stand. Maybe we can work out a deal if Ryan agrees to let her keep the ring. I lick my lips and half turn, nodding. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll go find the girl and take care of this. We probably should keep Ryan away from fans for the next few weeks, or they’ll all be expecting proposals.”

Ryan has done worse, like the bloody bar fight he got into with a fan’s husband last month. I’m not supposed to get my feelings hurt about him going out and doing things like this. Still, as his manager, it’s a nuisance.

But as just me, Kell, it feels like a betrayal.

Ash doesn’t laugh at my dumb attempt at humor. The space between his eyebrows furrows, forming a sharp V. “I doubt they will. Now that, you know, he’s engaged and all.”

The room freezes around us. “What do you mean?”

Ash gives his head a slow shake. “I told you. He proposed to this girl at the thing last night. Which means . . . Ryan is engaged. He says they’re getting married. Having an actual wedding. The whole big thing. He seems serious for once.”

“Serious about some woman? Who even is she?” My body flushes hot and then cold as a mixture of emotions hits me at once. I stutter but nothing comes out. I’m completely out of words.

“Just some fan who he’s been out with a few times. I don’t think anyone saw this coming.”

A hysterical laugh nearly chokes out of me. “This is ridiculous. Ryan wouldn’t . . . Ryan’s not . . .”

“I’m sorry, Kell.” Ash’s voice is soft but out of focus. “I don’t know what he’s thinking. But yeah, it seems real.”

“How could it be real?” Somehow, I find the doorknob, and I prop myself up on it with one hand. I thought that this was another

MANAGING THE MATTHEWS

•] 92 ^•

one of Ryan’s stunts. He does over-the-top public displays and then sends me in to clean up the ensuing chaos. None of the tabloidworthy escapades are real, though. Not wedding-planning real.

The floor spins beneath me as I try to gather my thoughts because this can’t be happening. Ryan getting engaged without so much as a heads up is a PR nightmare, but I will deal with it because I have no other choice.

Normally, I can deal with anything. But with Ryan, things are different, and there’s no way I’m letting him do this without having a serious conversation for once. Given our history, it’s way overdue.

•] 93 ^•

Nothing’s Real on Reality TV—Or is It?

Everyone knows Kell Simmons manages the Matthews brothers, the three hottest stars in Hollywood: action hero Ryan, romantic lead Ash, and sports star Jonah. But no one knows that she’s hopelessly in love with one of them.

As the brothers’ popularity skyrockets into the stratosphere, Kell finds herself wondering how much, if any, of the spotlight she wants, if it means foregoing real love for fun and games on TV.

Cover Design: Laura Duffy

Cover Artwork: Hugo Lacasse

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USD$16.99 CAD$21.99 GBP£13.99

Fiction/Romance

On the trail, anything can happen.

After secrets and betrayal shatter his marriage, Josh Mallory seeks solace on the Pacific Crest Trail, in the mountains of Washington. On the trail, he’s just another hiker. On the trail, he can outrun the memories. But this backpacking trip swiftly turns grisly when he comes across the body of another hiker who seems to have fallen to his death. Josh is forced to detour through a small mountain town, where missing hiker posters clutter the windows and residents show no interest in hearing about the dead hiker. Unease that something is not quite right chases him back to the trail.

But night falls too quickly and in his haste to get away, Josh becomes trapped on a mountain ridge beneath the light of a full moon. Feeling more and more uneasy, Josh soon realizes that he may not be alone on the mountain, and begins to fear that, like the missing hikers, he won’t make it out alive.

“The serpentine trails that twist and twine throughout Alexander James’ towering debut all lead to one destination: absolute terror.”

—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters

Hardcover ISBN 9780744302356 | $26.99 | Releases 8/22/2023

Alexander spent most of his childhood in southern Germany, and then went to culinary school in South Louisiana. He’s worked as a chef in everything from atrocious mall restaurants to a northern Italian farm-to-fork joint with Michelin dreams. He started writing because he’s only got another ten years or so left in his knees. When he’s not sweating through a crushing dinner service, he’s either drinking Scotch whiskey in front of his computer keyboard or backpacking . . . also with Scotch whiskey.

THE WOODKIN ALE X ANDER JAMES

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN ON THE TRAIL.

THE WOODKIN

ALE X ANDER JAMES

THE WOODKIN

ALE X ANDERJAMES

ALE X ANDER JAMES

WOODKIN

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744302356

Paperback ISBN 9780744302417

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744302424

eBook ISBN 9780744302486

Audiobook ISBN 9780744302615

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available upon request

Book and cover design by Maryann Appel

5 3 1 2 4

To my wife, who watched me disappear into the pages of this novel more times than I care to count.

Heck ‘em, puggerino.

Green-Eyes

He ’ d been rotting upwards of a week .

I found him by accident, buried in the depths of a hollow formed by tree roots on the riverbank. Pine sap perfumed the breeze blowing over the green-glass water, masking the sour-meatand-maggots stench of his corpse. I almost fell over him, leaning to refill my water in the river shallows. The smell sharpened, grew sweet, the way boudin does after it’s gone over.

The bank edge crumbled beneath my size twelves, sending me face-first into the shallows. When I came up for air, spitting water and profanities, I caught a glimpse of his eyes. Green as the moss covering the rocks beside him, swollen in their sockets like grapes. Most of his face had rotted away, skin curling away in tender holes where insects took little snacks.

I crab-walked backward, straight into the river in gut shock, slipping beneath the water with a sputtering scream. I forgot about what’shis-face in the struggle to catch myself from being washed downriver against the mud-slick rocks, pushing my way to the bank. I walked back to my pack, squelching water through soaked socks, approaching the nearby corpse inch by inch, covering my mouth with my bandanna. His extremities were intact—bloated and disgusting, but whole. His midsection was a different story. I could still make out the ragged ruin of his remaining intestines hidden in the depths of his hollow. Mountain lions always go for the gooey bits, and I’m sure if I was the curious sort and pulled him out to check, his kidneys and liver would be gone.

I wasn’t feeling that curious. I took deep breaths and pinched my nose to keep the bile simmering in my esophagus from coming all the way up.

His leg was bent beneath him, knee jutting a hundred and eighty degrees in the wrong direction. He must have slipped on the trail or overbalanced on his way down. Broke his leg a good two hundred feet from where anyone would have been walking, well-hidden by the pine trees, loose leaves, and scree. Probably tried to struggle back up the hill, but with that fracture he wasn’t going anywhere. So he tucked himself into the hollow to overnight it, recoup a little strength for another try in the morning.

And that was where the lion must have found him—sleeping and crippled. Pretty much sliced and served on a silver platter for your average mountain lion.

I clung to the facts. Broken legs, well-hidden. It made sense, everything made sense. Because in my head, someone screamed. A hole opened in my gut, and the familiar taste of adrenaline and panic flooded through. My fingers tingled, like they were being pricked with needles.

He fell. Broke his leg. He fell. Broke his leg.

 107 

Over and over. I stood up too quickly, suddenly desperate to put distance between him and me. The horizon reeled, and for a second I thought I would overbalance and dunk myself into the stream again. I had trouble breathing, as if I had sunk beneath a black tide. The sensation dredged up memories—memories I desperately wanted to keep buried. I hadn’t felt like this in over a decade.

Quick, before the tingling made its way up my arms, I looked away from the corpse. Five things I could see. The stream, green-glass water. A nearby rock, white and black like a tuxedo penguin. That pine tree, whispering to itself in the breeze. The mountains, the sun dancing on the water. Four I could touch, three I could hear. Two things I could smell.

Him. You didn’t get used to the smell of the freshly dead. I muscled past it, forced myself to think. Him, yes, and the warm pine-scented air rushing through the valley. The dry dirt of the trail, rising like smoke beneath my boots. Finally, I could taste bitter adrenaline on my tongue, a result of my heart slamming a sledgehammer against my ribs. Fear, prickling my skin. Fear of the nightmares returning. Of the screaming, deep in the pits of my mind. I’d only just started sleeping through the night a few years ago.

Breathe.

I relaxed, degree by degree. The grounding lessons with Dr. K still worked. I took a deep breath, then another. I was okay. A dead body was unusual, but it wouldn’t hurt me. The panic eased.

“I’m sorry.” The only thing I could think to say, and it came out pitifully empty, hollow.

Could be some ID tucked into a pocket somewhere, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to reach in there and roll him over for it. What skin I could see was stretched, turgid; it looked like it would burst at the slightest touch. If I’d see his skin split open and ooze whatever liquid lingered inside, I would lose my lunch.

My toes tingled; the muscles in my calves twitched with the urge to turn and run—run as fast and as far as I could. The familiar abyss

 108 

gaped open in front of me, but I stepped over it, smothered the memories before they could rise out of that darkness. Some things you left in the past. Bodies didn’t have any power over you, once they were dead.

Some lessons you only need to learn once.

I made a note of where I was so I could leave word with the next rangers station. I was pretty sure I’d passed Image Lake a few hours ago. I had to go off my gut and the blurry picture I’d snapped last minute of a map hanging in the rangers’ station at the Locks.

I negotiated my way back up the slope toward the trail, hunched forward so my backpack didn’t drag me back into the same fate as what’shis-face. Another four hours of sweat-slicked hiking waited for me.

Now, though, the trail changed. Now the whispering pine trees were voices, floating soft on the breeze. Faces hid in the deep-cut channels cutting into their bark, watching me. The prickling sensation stayed, tickling the small hairs on the back of my neck. Someone was watching me—I spun, as if I could catch them, only to see the trail.

Empty. Just me.

Every time I turned back, walked on, told myself I was being silly. I resettled my senses with the five-to-one grounding exercise Dr. K taught me all those years ago. But the trees still whispered and the faces still watched.

Just me. And the voices in my head.

I appreciated the shade offered by the towering trees; I was what my dad affectionately referred to as “Irish pale,” and the travel-sized bottle of sunscreen I’d begun with ran out four days ago. Currently I was in the “burn and blister” part of building up a natural tan. Not a cloud in the sky for miles—great news if you were taking the boat out on Lake Union or sipping cocktails on a Seattle rooftop; bad news if you were Josh Mallory, trudging pink as a lobster through the spine of the Cascades.

The Washington section of the Pacific Crest Trail was a bitch of a thru-hike. Towering volcanoes, plunging valleys, a hundred-plus miles

 109 

of hiking glory—and I needed every second of it. When I crawled up the side of a mountain, struggling for each breath and concentrating on keeping my legs from collapsing, I couldn’t picture Deb, standing in the kitchen looking like someone sucked all the wind out of her lungs. I couldn’t think about the cardboard box, crumpled in the bottom of the trash can. I couldn’t think about what waited for me when I’d finally emerge from the mountains.

Shit happens, right?

That’s what this trip was all about.

the car ride was as silent as a grave for the first three hours speeding south on I-5. Deb drove, white-knuckling the battered steering wheel while I stared at the corridor of marching pine trees passing in a blur. Against the pale skin of her hand, the pink diamond in her wedding band looked red, a coal ablaze. The space between us gaped, measured in miles. It wasn’t until we passed Chehalis that she tried again.

“Josh—”

“Nope.”

“Josh, God damn it, listen to me. This is such a stupid plan. You can’t go off into the wilderness by yourself for three weeks—”

I couldn’t listen anymore. I’d listened to her all last night, alternating between shrieking and pleading, and the night before that. And the one before that.

“Life turns on a dime.” I read that in King’s 11/22/63, which currently sat dog-eared and well leafed through on my nightstand. I chewed through books fast for an ex-football player and kid from Alabammy, but I always took my time with King’s stuff. Read them too fast and you miss things, and the man doesn’t put stuff in his books with the intention of you missing it.

No writer does, I guess.

 110 

Life turns on a dime.Which is a fancy way of saying shit goes sideways faster than you can imagine.

My life turned two nights ago because of a beer bottle.

Deb is a through-and-through believer in sustainability and recycling; she came by it honestly from a pair of patchouli-soaked hippies in Portland. We had an assortment of identical-looking bins lined up in the kitchen—plastic recycle, glass recycle, glass with paper recycle next to plain old paper recycle, compost, food compost. I put a few away (why not, thought I, it was Friday night) and it surprised no one when I tossed the bottle into the wrong bin. In my defense, in the South “recycling” meant filling your beer bottle with water so it sank to the bottom of the lake.

“Josh, that doesn’t go in there,” Deb said from the couch. She wasn’t even looking; she just knew.

“Shoot, no one cares.” I crossed to the fridge to grab a fresh one. “Want some more wine?”

“I care. Put it in the right bin. And no, I’m all right.”

I rolled my eyes and affected a thick, childish lisp. “But it’s all groth in there. I don’t wanna.”

“Tough titties, Puff Diddies,” she said, no sympathy given. She set her glass of white wine down on the coffee table, pushing herself up and toward the bathroom. “Do it anyway.”

“You know it’s Puff Daddy, right?” I bent over and lifted the lid. Luckily for me, I’d tossed it into the paper recycling, but my bitching aside, the containers were pretty clean. “It’s important to me you know it’s Puff Daddy.”

“You’re a Puff Daddy!” Deb cackled, leaning forward from her position on the toilet. I shot her a mock glare, and she grinned.

I burrowed through the rinsed-out milk containers, empty pints of yogurt, and thousand envelopes of junk mail. I snagged the first fingerful of glass I found and pulled. The beer bottle surfaced, half exposing a brilliant purple cardboard box I didn’t recognize.

 111 

“What’s this?” I tossed my bottle into the right receptacle and looked at the box, frowning. The bottom two-thirds were missing, the edges jagged. A green semicircle arced over the words Plan B One Step

My stomach dropped to my toes. My mouth tasted like old carpet. I played football in high school, plus a glorious season and a half at University of Alabama (roll tide roll) as a linebacker. In a game against Georgia Tech, I swallowed a beast of a hit from a soda machine with legs. I went down hard and he came with me, burying his helmet at mach-3 against my crotch; I wore a cup, but there isn’t a cup in the world capable of absorbing that much mass with no repercussions.

I earned an ambulance ride to the hospital, where a nice doctor with cold hands sliced me open and . saved my pocket rocket for further excursions into deep space. I forget the exact words—I’d been doped up on some heavy medication after the surgery—but the only complication arose around a bundle of ducts in my testes the doc needed to snip. He lost the battle but won the war, if you understand what I’m getting at. I’d felt so grateful I still possessed complete operation of my parts that I didn’t even mind I’d never have children. For a sophomore in college, that was pretty much an ideal scenario anyway.

“Deb?” My voice shook. Cotton stuffed my head; my brain wasn’t working right. “Sweetheart, what is this?”

“What’s what?” she asked without looking. She tied her sweatpants, not paying attention. The television blared in the background, angry white noise. I didn’t say anything; I didn’t trust my voice to work at that moment. When she finally did look up, she saw my face first and concern flashed across her baby blues. Then she saw the box.

Deb’s never been a good liar. We met my first year in Seattle, both incoming first-years for the massive soul sucker Amazon. She made fun of my Southern drawl, and I made fun of the half-dead bonsai tree leaning, drunk, on her desk. Two weeks later we went out on our first

 112 

date—dinner at RN74 and drinks at Canon, up on Capitol Hill. A year after that I proposed. Two weeks before I tossed my bottle in the trash, we celebrated our five-year anniversary. And in all our time together, she’d never once been able to tell a lie. It was one of the things I loved about her—she wore every emotion on her face, clean and crisp as if she wrote it on paper.

I saw utter, absolute shock, the mirror of mine, followed by a dismay scoring a dozen tiny lines in her brow. Her mouth worked, but no words came out.

Having time to reflect on it, I’m not sure what I wanted to hear. There’s a stillness that comes with certain things, big things in everyone’s life. Like everything in the world is reverberating, vibrating at a bone-deep level, and when it stops . the silence is absolute. I felt it the night I came home from a game in high school and found my dad weeping in the living room, holding a pair of Mom’s flower shears. He hadn’t been sober enough to put pants on and leave the house. I felt it the night I asked Deb to marry me, hunched against the pouring rain of a summer storm in front of her apartment. On our wedding day, when she filled the silence with “I do.”

I felt it that night, looking at my wife’s face. Because the box I held in my hands belonged to her, and I couldn’t have children. She mouth-breathed for fifteen seconds, staring at the kitchen floor. The huge, body-racking sobs came from within, building like a hurricane dancing on a ghost of breeze.

“Are you crying because you did something you regret?” I sounded like a robot, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Every breath I pulled into my tight lungs was a concerted effort. The world fell still, and we huddled in silence. When she looked up, it wasn’t sadness plastered across her face.

“I’m crying because my own fucking husband doesn’t trust me! How dare you—”

Ding ding, round one.

 113 

I don’t remember the fight that ensued. I remember it being bad, but the details stay fuzzy, as if I deliberately forgot them. That night and the two others after it blended into a misery of shouting and tears. But as it usually does with the really bad fights, it kept circling back to the same premise; a broken record, scratching at the needle. The same line Deb half shouted again in our car as we rolled down I-5 to the Cascade Locks on the Oregon border.

“You know, you have no real right to get upset at me. If anything, I should get upset at you. You don’t trust me! My own husband!” Tears in her eyes, her voice cracked.

I didn’t trust her, and my mistrust in her was an unbearable strain on our relationship. She found a ceaseless variety of different ways to phrase it, couched in a dozen different tones, but always with the same message. Over and over. She never once gave me a straight answer about the box and what, if anything, had made it necessary. No matter how many times I pressed. Always the lack of trust—my lack of trust.

As they say back home, “If you believe that one, I have a bridge to sell you . . .”

But at this point I’d closed in on forty-eight hours with no sleep. I lived beyond emotion. Now I was dull, blunted to her tears and hoarse indignance. I turned around and ran my hands over my pack, pretending I couldn’t hear her. For my own self-preservation, if nothing else.

We sat in silence, staring at the other cars in the Locks parking lot. Listening to the tapping rain drive against the windshield, after another one-sided shouting match. After I checked my pack for the umpteenth time. After her misbegotten anger ran dry. We sat in silence.

I felt like I should say something to her, but the cotton still hadn’t left my head. I had no words.

“Will—when you’re done, can we . . .” Deb bit her lip, staring at her feet. Cleared her throat. “Do we have a chance, after you’re done?

I—I . . .”

There it was.

 114 

She’d never been able to tell a lie in all the time I knew her. I bit off the fury threatening my lips; ten o’clock already. I wanted to get twenty miles in before dusk. I opened the door, pulled out my pack, and left. The last thing I saw before the woods swallowed me was my wife, sobbing against the steering wheel.

i was two weeks into a three-week hike, walking roughly twelve hours a day. So for twelve hours a day, I played the events with Deb on a loop. Going over and over it, shredding it and examining it from every angle. Looking at the your wife is cheating on you sign hanging over my head lit up in neon.

So, yeah. It was nice to think about a dead guy for a change. As long as I played it carefully. I hunted for facts. Facts were safe ground, facts didn’t change. Facts didn’t disturb that long-closed box in my head.

Green-Eyes could have been a day hiker, up from Everett or Seattle, but the odds weren’t in his favor. We were a day north of Stevens Pass (the last time I crossed asphalt, by the way), and the nearest jump-off point for the Cascades. There wasn’t shit around for miles in the way of day hiking, unless you were coming in from Chelan, twenty miles to the east. He might have been making a bid for the summit of Glacier Peak, but if he was, he took a cockeyed approach.Athru-hiker made the most sense. Like me.

Well, sort of. True thru-hikers were the ones who did the PCT proper, starting at the Mexico border. As I was running away from my problems on short notice, I had to make do with the Washington part. Didn’t quite count.

My boss had been less than pleased about my sudden and nonnegotiable opt for three weeks of vacation starting immediately. The slippery fucker had probably replaced me already, but I didn’t care.

Alexander James

 115 

My job existed in the “real world,” and I wasn’t in the “real world.” This was the trail world, and we played by different rules here.

The valley closed in around me. The crunch of my boots on gravel suddenly seemed too loud.

“Seeing things, Josh. You’re acting all jumpy.” I thought speaking out loud would help, but I was all-the-way wrong. My voice floated, disembodied, like someone else’s. Someone I couldn’t quite see, lurking just outside of view. I stopped talking.

I wondered if Green-Eyes had a trail name. Hikers doing the “long haul” on the trail often gave themselves trail names. Ironclad, All In, Pine Tree, Rain, Lotus—it could be anything you wanted. Day hikers were a dime a dozen. Thru-hikers . . . those were a much rarer species. I rounded a bend and froze.

He sat on a petrified tree, shedding a tattered flannel that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in years. As if he were plucked straight from my thoughts and placed there. A present, just for me.

It’s easy to tell the difference between day hikers and thru-hikers. Day hikers were well fed and bouncy, chirping like birds about how nice the day is, or how heavy their pack felt. How excited they were to eat when they got back to town—that was a big one. Thru-hikers had an underfed look about them: too thin, eyes retreated into deep hollows, all sharp angles and dishevelment. Carved from wood. They didn’t talk as much.

“Hiya.” I waved, like he couldn’t see me, even though we were the only ones on the trail. Stupid.

He nodded in reply. Stared at me. Buried so deep in his skull, his eyes glinted like shards of glass in the sunlight. Watching. “Thru-hiking?”

I couldn’t tell him. That wasn’t how things were done in the trail world. You didn’t bring your problems to other people, you didn’t make them buy into your bullshit.

THE WOODKIN

 116 

Plus . what if he thought I did it? It wasn’t that far a stretch—we weren’t exactly close to a town. If someone came up to me talking wide-eyed about a corpse they found an hour behind them this far removed from civilization, the first thing I’d think was that I might be their next victim.

No thanks.

I swallowed the paranoia and fear crawling up my throat and shot for normal. How did normal people talk?

How the hell would I know?

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Got a name yet?”

“Switchback,” I said, feeling rather stupid. Like a kid in grade school introducing myself by the nickname I invented. His chapped lips spread mechanically, revealing a double row of shockingly white teeth. Twitching a little, like his muscles had forgotten how to move that way. He stuck out a hand.

“Boots. Good to meet you.”

We shook. His grip was brittle, like I might break it if I squeezed too hard. It wrapped around mine, engulfing my knuckles in his tanned and cracked-skin ones. He looked at me as if waiting for something. Something I should say or do.

“So, you, uh . . . you been on the trail long?” I asked.

“’Bout two months,” he drawled. Texas, unless my ears deceived me. Another good old boy from the South. I waited for a follow-up, something to keep the conversation going. Those Southern manners were imprinted deep in my bones; I couldn’t just abandon a conversation, once it started.

Nothing. He stared at me. Something lurked in his eyes. Curiosity, like I was a novelty toy fresh out of the cereal box. And something deeper, something with edges.

“What brought you out here?” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat.

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“Been wantin’ to do it for a while.” He shrugged. “Up and did it.”

A pause, growing like a thing alive.

“You?” he finally asked, a full ten seconds later. I felt like I might be going crazy. Maybe the shit with Deb was messing with my perception. Could be. Dr. K and I talked about perception at length, all those years ago. Every chance this dude acted perfectly normal, and I acted like the kooky one.

Breathe. Everything was fine. I was just fine.

“Oh you know.” My turn to shrug, smiling wide. “Just running from my life and problems.”

I meant it as a joke; something lighthearted. But my voice cracked halfway through, and the words floated between us, empty and cold. Ha-ha, my life is a trash-can fire of pain and lies, let’s all laugh at it together, amigo.

“That right?” He didn’t join in my pathetic laughter. He stared at me. I squirmed under that gaze. I took off my pack, sat on it and undid my shoe, pretending to hunt for another pebble just for something to do.

“Oh well, I mean . . . I was mostly joking. I’m just out here like you said. Wanted to do it forever.” I said it while I scrabbled inside my shoe, looking for a rock I knew good and goddamn well wasn’t in there. He stared at me, sitting on his log. I could see his arm bones in my peripheral vision, jutting through the too-thin skin.

Then, as though I imagined it, the edges in his eyes disappeared. Humanity flooded back into his face.

“Well.” He slapped his knee, shooting to his feet. Another smile creased his tanned cheeks, this one smooth and warm. “Think we might pound down some miles together, what say? Weather looks like it might cooperate.”

A good thing I was already sitting; the surge of relief made me weak at the knees. See? Perfectly normal. My perception skewed, that’s it. Just another hiker, and a friendly one at that. That simple, Josh.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

 118 

We ambled a good five or six miles together, talking about nothing of any consequence. He didn’t bring up why I came to the trail again— he probably saw the real answer on my face and learned his lesson. I swallowed any mention of Green-Eyes, kept him to myself. My own little secret. He pressed right to the top of my lips, sitting on my tongue like a foul aftertaste. A voice, whispering in my ear.

I didn’t even know what I’d say. What I wanted to say. It’s all a matter of perspective, that’s what Dr. K said. I just had to look at it a little differently. So I didn’t say anything. I talked about boot styles and brands like I didn’t have a care in the world.

The hours slipped past. Around late afternoon he turned off, saying he wanted to shoot for the summit of a nearby peak.

“Okay. Guess I’ll see ya.” I adjusted the pack straps on my shoulders. Every now and then it slid, pinching the skin.

“Guess you will.”

Too busy with my pack to notice the way he looked at me. Too busy thinking about the dead body to put the pieces together. Perception only fools you so far.

We waved good-bye. I watched him take the rougher, steeper offshoot trail, turn a corner, and disappear. I craned my neck for a flash of T-shirt between the trees but saw nothing. As if the forest swallowed him whole and left nothing behind.

“You’re being silly, Mallory,” I grumbled to myself. “Just downright dumb about it. So you found a dead guy. You’ll tell the rangers, they’ll deal with it. You got your own problems. Now come on, let’s get over that saddle before sundown.”

The trees dwindled two-thirds up the ridge. The trail steepened as I climbed, gaining fifty or more feet in elevation with every pivot. By the time I topped the ridge, sweat was dripping from my cheeks, and I heaved like a bellows, taking in the view.

The Glacier Peak Wilderness stretched to the horizon, forested in a carpet of pine trees. Here and there granite summits broke the

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green, splintering skyward. A hint of late-season snow lingered in the perpetual shadows. The sun hung three fingers above Glacier’s peak; five, five and a half hours of daylight left, by my estimate. I’d also forgotten my watch.

While the ranger I registered with back at Stevens’ Pass called my lack of gear “foolish to the point of suicide,” I preferred to think of it as minimalist. I backpacked and hiked as a hobby, so I already owned all the basics; tent, sleeping bag, stove, pack. Nuances like watches only detracted from the experience.

Or so I lied to myself.

The trail meandered along the ridge, rising to a pass between a pair of peaks overhead. Cloudy Ridge was aptly named; an edge of bruised navy curled around the slopes, hiding the summits from sight. The trail slipped beneath the cloud layer. It dropped into the valley on the other side, if memory served, where I hoped to find a decent campsite.

Chances were good I could get far enough away from the rain clouds to find some dry wood and get a fire going. A fire made any campsite infinitely cozier, everyone knew it. My fire-making skills sucked the big one, but what I lacked in technique I made up for in exuberance. The only luxury I had time to stick in my bag was my e-reader and a solar charger. Last night I’d read the first couple chapters of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and it had already hooked me hard; I looked forward to spending a few hours dusting off my elementary-school mythology while warming my socks with a toasty blaze. I hitched my bag up higher on my shoulders and began climbing. I even started to whistle when I had the lung capacity. Why wouldn’t I? The sun shone everywhere I looked, the wind soared. The corpses were behind me, one fresh and the other long-since buried. I could ignore them now.

Those were my priorities that afternoon. Remembering where the trail headed, getting to a campsite, and hoping for a fire and a peaceful

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evening with a book. I think back on that day and I suppress the urge to throttle the idiot who calls himself Switchback. He missed the sign. The huge, hit-you-over-the-head-sized sign. Screaming, in big, bold letters: watch out

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