I. The Iron Sanctuary If you saw me on the street, you wouldn’t think “caregiver.” You’d think “felon.” You’d think “bouncer.” You…
His name is Marcus. He is six-foot-four, three hundred pounds of solid muscle, and looks like a topographical map of veins and scar…
The atmosphere inside the university auditorium was even heavier than the humid, oppressive summer heat outside. It was a massive space, thick with…
William Scott was the kind of man whose name made bankers sweat and developers dream. He was the king of Manhattan’s glass towers,…
Part I: The Ghost of the Back Bay The rain had stopped, but the December chill of Boston’s Back Bay was…
“Do you have somewhere to go?” he asked cautiously. I shook my head. I wasn’t lying. Since Margaret died, an enormous house wasn’t…
Part I: The Ghost in the Family Photo The digital world is a cruel curator of memories. For twelve years, I…
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…