Part of Series
Detective Roese looked up, a strand of lank hair hanging across her face. Blood staining her bare hands and forearms, she kept her weight pitched forward, pressing down on the sucking chest wound, fighting desperately to prevent another tally on the list of recently deceased. “You can’t go out there. Best case, you never find him in the middle of all this. Worst, it’s a trap.” Outcomes Reed had already considered and dismissed, his faith placed in the inky black K-9 partner by his side. “Even a ghost leaves a scent.” Months into the new hybrid role that was created for Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner Billie, things have returned to some semblance of normalcy. A summer spent working the graveyard shift out of the 8th Precinct with the Columbus Police Department and only the occasional side job for the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations. A stretch allowing them to put the chaos of the spring behind them and to largely avoid any interaction with the governor who selected them for the role. Their moment of peace ends abruptly with a call to the small town of Piketon in the middle of the night. A request for outside presence to oversee an investigation into the sudden and inexplicable death of seventeen-year-old Bridger Van Cott. The star quarterback of the local high school team was found dead behind the wheel of his Trans Am six days before the season opener, the vehicle festooned in the colors of the team’s rival and first opponent. For a community still reeling from a tragedy of national proportions just a few years prior, the newest incident has the potential to become volatile. Reed and Billie’s first task is to tamp the simmering tensions and avoid. a collision brewing between neighboring communities, Their second, to determine what happened to the young man who was already awarded a full scholarship to play major college football next year. Someone with no known enemies or medical conditions and a crime scene containing no signs of a break in or struggle. A murder so perfect, it was almost as if it was committed by…a ghost.
Author
I originally hail from the midwest, growing up in the heart of farm country, and still consider it, along with West Tennessee, my co-home. Between the two, I have a firm belief that football is the greatest of all past-times, sweet tea is really the only acceptable beverage for any occasion, there is not an event on earth that either gym shorts or boots can't be worn to, and that Dairy Queen is the best restaurant on the planet. Further, southern accents are a highly likeable feature on most everybody, English bulldogs sit atop the critter hierarchy, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with a Saturday night spent catfishing at the lake. Since leaving the midwest I've been to college in New England, grad school in the Rockies, and lived in over a dozen different cities ranging from DC to Honolulu along the way. Each and every one of these experiences has shaped who I am at this point, a fact I hope is expressed in my writing. I have developed enormous affinity for locales and people of every size and shape, and even if I never figure out a way to properly convey them on paper, I am very much grateful for their presence in my life. To sum it up, I asked a very good friend recently how they would describe me for something like this. Their response: "Plagued by realism and trained by experiences/education to be a pessimist, you somehow remain above all else an active dreamer." While I can't say those are the exact words I would choose, I can't say they're wrong. I travel, live in different places, try new foods, meet all kinds of different people, and above all else stay curious to a fault. Here's hoping it continues to provide us all with some pretty good stories...
