Unable to wait, she carved her own language of love into the tree that was her body.

I remember my blood tasting the same then as it does now: Bitter and rich like Guinness. There was music in the way he hit me. My ears would ring well into the next day when he was sober enough to strike true. When the bottle robbed him of that, he made u

"Look, Ted, I'm on a timer. It's really hell here, you can't imagine. And I have a chance to get paroled early, if you do me a solid."

His own laugh, which Martinez had not expected, broke his bad-cop pose. Again, the mirror. The kid’s face was still sour with sass, barely concealing heavy worry, but there was something new in it. Relief, like the lonely show when company comes.

If you too have been damaged in the behind, you know, kicked in the ass multiple times, metaphorically or otherwise, you are encouraged to come forward with the evidence, while the tracks are still fresh.

In which Clint is sucked into a remarkably civilised but mildly deranged crime scene. There he encounters almost-blackmail, not-actually prostitution, probable-sex scandals, genuine-imposters & the very real theft of something incredibly important. Twice.

Jacabo gave the boy a can of beer with oxycontin and rat poison in it. He instructed the boy to drink and talk. Jacabo did this, fully aware that making ghosts was a costly enterprise.

She followed the husband. He headed north on seventy two for twelve miles, turned off at exit eighty seven b, slowed, turned, backed into a spot at a convenience store slash gas station, lights on, engine running. Precisely twenty seven minutes by her count,…