Series: She is seventy-eight years old, Jonathan, and room and board in this enclave aren't free, my older sister Victoria said, wiping her manicured nails without looking up from her tablet.

Part 1 I had returned home to our family’s historic Buckhead estate three hours ahead of schedule, intending to surprise my mother with fresh pastries [more…]

The sudden downpour had come out of nowhere, a thick, gray curtain of rain that turned Peachtree Street into a blurry watercolor. My clothes, still [more…]

The grand oak doors of the Holloway estate felt heavier than usual as I pushed them open. The rain had subsided, leaving the air thick [more…]

The old clock above my workbench in the archive office chimed midnight. Dust motes danced in the single beam of light from my desk lamp, [more…]

The doorbell chimed with an almost insistent authority, startling my mother. Evelyn, who I had managed to spirit away from Victoria’s direct supervision for a [more…]

The faint wail of distant sirens still seemed to echo in the halls of the Holloway estate, a ghostly reminder of Julian St. Clair’s hasty [more…]

The drawing room, usually a sanctuary of quiet conversation, now thrummed with the low hum of polite chatter and clinking champagne flutes. Thirty of Atlanta’s [more…]

The lingering scent of ozone still pricked at my nostrils, mingling with the acrid smell of burnt paper. The only illumination came from the storm [more…]

The soft, insistent ring of my cell phone, miraculously still alive, cut through the heavy silence of the drawing room. It was Dr. DuBose, his [more…]

Victoria’s voice, when it finally came, was a raw, strained whisper, utterly devoid of its usual imperiousness. “My things. I need to get my things.” [more…]