A black Mercedes-Benz S-Class pulls up in front of a modest, aging house in the working-class neighborhood of East Chicago, Illinois. The…
Chapter 1: The Ten-Dollar Difference I’m Rosa Martinez, and I’m seventy-eight years old. My world is the quiet, fluorescent-lit labyrinth of…
Chapter 1: The Collapse The man I knew as Tommy was a force of nature. Fifty-two years old, a career construction…
Chapter 1: The Palace of Glass and Grief The morning had begun like so many others for Adrian Cole. He was…
Chapter 1: The Fortress of Pebble Beach The air in Pebble Beach, California, usually carried the crisp, salty scent of the…
Chapter 1: The New Normal on Elm Street The neighbors on Elm Street, a quaint, older suburban street in Raleigh, North Carolina,…
Chapter 1: The Silence of the Magnolia Suites The silence in the Magnolia Suites lobby was not the quiet of peace,…
Chapter 1: The Weight of the Empty Suite The air in the Magnolia Suites lobby was thick with the scent of dust…
### Chapter 1: The Race to the Loop The cold, unforgiving air of a Chicago morning bit through the thin fabric of…
Chapter 1: The Race Against the Clock The alarm clock on Ethan Miller’s worn nightstand had gone off exactly two hours…