Series: For three years, sixty-eight-year-old Arthur Pendelton worked as a part-time handyman and cleaner for Silas Holloway, an eccentric neighbor who had not set foot outside his coastal Oregon cottage i...

Part 1 When Silas died quietly in his sleep at age eighty-two, his estate attorney summoned Arthur to the cottage and handed him a sealed [more…]

The automatic doors of the Tillamook First National Bank slid open, letting in a gust of crisp coastal air. Inside, the usual morning chatter and [more…]

The seaside diner smelled of stale coffee and sizzling bacon, a comforting everyday scent that felt out of place with the churning despair in my [more…]

“A phantom debt,” Marcus repeated the next morning, standing inside Silas Holloway’s cottage. The place was exactly as Silas had left it – meticulously clean, [more…]

Armed with the stack of forged wire slips, a tangible record of Greg’s deceit, I stormed back to his house. The sun was higher now, [more…]

The truth about Greg’s fraud, the $1,400 monthly siphon, had intensified my despair rather than alleviating it. The legal path was too slow, too convoluted. [more…]

The rain lashed against the windows of my small home, a rhythmic drumming that mirrored the frantic beat of my heart. Inside, the air was [more…]

The wind howled like a banshee off Cape Meares, whipping rain horizontally against the dilapidated boathouse walls. Inside, the air was cold and damp, smelling [more…]

Brendan O’Rourke’s eyes, as cold and grey as the storm-tossed sea outside, fixed on Greg Kincaid. Greg tried to speak, but only a desperate gurgle [more…]

On the exact same late afternoon, as the storm retreated and the clouds began to break, painting the western sky in hues of bruised purple [more…]