About the Author:
Jan Burke
Picture courtesy of Sheri McKinley Photography
Check out her blog http://janburke.blogspot.com/
Jan Burke’s fourteenth book, Disturbance, is the latest entry in the Irene Kelly series and a sequel to Bones, which won the Edgar for Best Novel. Her novels include Flight, Nine, and Bloodlines. She also wrote The Messenger, a supernatural thriller.
Her books have been on the USA Today and NY Times bestseller lists, published internationally, and optioned for film and television. She is also an award-winning short story writer. She has been the GoH at crime fiction conventions.
A forensic science advocate, she founded the nonprofit Crime Lab Project. She cohosts “Crime and Science Radio” with D.P. Lyle, M.D.
Apprehended
From the New York
Times bestselling suspense author Jan Burke comes a brand-new e-short story
with the added bonus of three short stories from the Eighteen anthology.Apprehended is a mini-anthology containing a brand new short story from Jan Burke: "The Unacknowledged," which features the fan-favorite investigative reporter Irene Kelly, back in her journalism school days. Also included are three short stories from the previously published Eighteen: "Why Tonight," "A Fine Set of Teeth," and "A Man of My Stature."
Praise for Eighteen:
"Astonishing…wry…these stories are sure to delight." —New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Deaver
"A delightful collection of page-turners. At turns chilling, funny, poignant—and always insightful. With these stories, Jan Burke’s at the top of her game." —New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman
EXCERPT from Apprehended:
I made
sure we were alone. That was actually the hardest part. After realizing that no
restaurant in the city would be free of people who might know Donna, I ended up
inviting her over for dinner on a night when I knew Lydia had an evening class.
Until two months earlier, Lydia and I had shared the place with another
roommate, but she had married over the summer. We had been putting off finding
another renter, but tonight I was glad for the lack of a potential
eavesdropper, enjoying the emptiness and quiet that usually had me thinking
that I was going to have to move back home again.
Donna
and I made small talk until after I cleared the dishes. She seemed a little
down. All the same, she was an easy person to talk to. I was fighting some very
cynical thinking about that as I pulled out some photocopies I had made.
I had
thought of going all Perry Mason on her ass, cross-examining her until she wept
and admitted her crimes. I couldn’t do it. The truth is, I liked her.
“I had
a special assignment given to me this week,” I said. “Do you know who Jack
Corrigan is?”
She
shook her head. My tone must have hardened, or my look, or—somehow I tipped her
off that the nature of our little dinner party was about to change.
“Well,
I suppose that doesn’t matter. I have a feeling that you do know who Cassie
Chadwick was.”
She,
who blushed so easily, turned pale. She looked at me with such desperation
that, for a full minute, I wasn’t sure if she was going to cry, run away, or
punch me. But she just nodded yes and looked down at her hands.
“If
she hadn’t harmed so many people,” I said, “I could almost admire her cunning,
not to mention her nerve. After running a number of other scams, she marries a
naive doctor from Cleveland, just happens to convince him that they should
visit New York at the same time a man from home is there—a man who is a high-society
gossip in Cleveland. She asks that man to give her a carriage ride, and has him
wait for her outside the home of Andrew Carnegie, a wealthy, confirmed
bachelor. She goes into the house, comes out thirty minutes later, and—this
part really interested me—trips as she’s getting into the carriage. Drops a
promissory note for two million dollars—a note that appears to be signed by
Andrew Carnegie, whom she blushingly claims is her father.”
She
stayed silent.
“Too
bad promissory notes aren’t what they used to be. Planning to borrow millions
based on phony documents, and cause a bank or two to fail?”
“No.”
“I
didn’t think so.” I let the silence stretch for a time, then said, “Who told
you about Cassie Chadwick?”
“Aunt
Lou, my great aunt. She grew up hearing stories about her. Aunt Lou claimed to
‘admire her brass’ as she put it. Aunt Lou doesn’t think women ever get a fair
shake in this world.”
“Is
Donna Vynes your real name?”
“My
married name, yes.” She was tracing patterns on the tablecloth with one of her
perfect fingers, still not making eye contact.
“So
you’re really a war widow?”
The
finger stopped moving. She looked up at me. “Oh yes. And my mother is dead.
John, my husband, sent home all of his pay—a little over a hundred and fifty
dollars a month at first. It was up to about four hundred when he was killed.
Just about everything he saved for us got spent on my mother’s medical needs.
But John also bought some life insurance through the service. So I had ten
thousand from that.”
“That’s
where the seven thousand comes from?”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “There was this neighbor of Aunt Lou’s in Cleveland. Her daughter
was about my age. Despite all my other faults, I’m not like Eldon, so I won’t
name her, if you don’t mind. Anyway, at the end of last semester, she dropped
out of school here. Looking back on it now, I think she was just really
homesick.
“But
what she told me was . . . well, once we got to know each other, she said the
reason she left was because Eldon Naff slept with her and then told the world
about it. She said she had been working as an assistant for Mr. Langworthy, or
rather to someone on his staff. She said it was Mr. Langworthy who fired her,
mostly based on Eldon’s gossip. I don’t know if that’s true, but I learned a
lot about Mr. Langworthy from her. Including the fact that in early September,
he was going on a Mediterranean cruise.
“And I
couldn’t help thinking about Mr. Carnegie and Mrs. Chadwick. Especially because
I never knew my dad. My mother always said my father died while she was
pregnant with me, but I think she was lying. Aunt Lou all but confirmed that my
parents weren’t married. So I am illegitimate, just not the child of a rich
man.”
After
a long silence, she said, “God, I don’t know how you did it, but I’m glad you figured
it out. It’s a relief.”
Link continuing the excerpt to
XOXOAfterDark:
Tried
With
a brand-new short story featuring Tyler Hawthorne from The Messenger,
plus three stories from Eighteen, this is the third of six e-short story
collections from New York Times bestselling suspense author Jan Burke.
EXCERPT from Tried:
At
this hour, although two other attendants roamed another part of the cemetery,
Tyler and Shade were alone in this section of the hilly grounds. Suddenly Shade
stiffened. His ears pitched forward and his hackles rose. He gave a low, soft
growl.
Tyler
came to a halt. Shade protected him, but the dog seldom growled at living
beings.
In the
next moment, the air was filled with what he at first took to be bats, then saw
were small birds, of a type Tyler had never seen so far inland. “Mother Carey’s
chickens,” he said, using the sailors’ name for them. Storm petrels. “What are
they doing here?”
The
birds fluttered above him, then a half dozen dropped to the ground before Shade
in a small cluster. The scent of the sea rose strongly all about him, as if
someone had transported him to the deck of a ship.
Shade
stared hard at them as they cheeped frantically, then the dog relaxed into a
sitting position.
The
other petrels flew away. No sooner had they gone than the six before him were
transformed into the ghostly figures of men.
They
were forlorn creatures, gray-faced and looking exactly as what they must be,
drowned men. Their uniforms proclaimed two as officers, the other four as
sailors, all but one of the British navy.
Shade’s
demeanor told him that these ghosts—unlike some others—would be no threat to
him.
“May I
be of help to you?” Tyler asked.
“Captain
Hawthorne?” the senior officer asked.
“I
believe the rank belongs more rightly to you,” Tyler said. “I was a captain in
the British army many years ago, but I sold out after Waterloo.”
“Yes,
sir,” the captain said, “I understand. If I may introduce myself to you, I am
Captain Redding, formerly of the Royal Navy. Lost at sea in about your—your
original time, sir.”
They
exchanged bows.
“You
are a Messenger?” Captain Redding asked.
“Yes.”
“We
are all men who drowned at sea. Many of those in the flock you called ‘Mother
Carey’s chickens’ are indeed just that. We come from many nations, taken by
that sea witch Mother Carey, yet death has made us all birds of a feather.
Little birds tell other little birds news of those such as yourself, and speak
of Shade as well.”
The
dog gave a slight wag of his tail in acknowledgment.
The
captain went on. “The midshipman we bring to you is an American. Hails from
here in Buffalo. We approach you on his behalf.” He turned to the man. “Step
forward, Midshipman Bailey, and tell the captain your story, for we’ve not much
time left.”
“Aye,
sir.” The midshipman gave Tyler a small bow. “Thank you, sir. If you would be
so kind to visit my sister, who lies dying not far from here. In the asylum,
sir. The good one. We’ve all of us in her family done her a grave injustice.”
He looked down at his feet. “Many injustices.”
“When
were you lost at sea?” Tyler asked gently.
“Eight
years ago, sir, in ’63. In the War Between the States. Would have done more for
my country if Zeb Nador hadn’t pushed me overboard in a storm.”
“Do
you ask me to seek justice for you?”
“Not
necessary for me, Nador’s in the county jail here and will face trial for
murdering someone else. He’ll hang as well for that one as for what he did to
me.”
Tyler
was about to try to say something to comfort him, unsure what that might be,
when one of the other men whispered, “Hurry!”
Midshipman
Bailey nodded, then said, “Will you go to her, sir? Her name is Susannah. She
needs you tonight. And if you’d tell her Andrew sent you to her, and that she
was always the best of his sisters, and that he sees things clearer now, and
hopes to one day rest at her side—”
“Hurry!”
the captain ordered.
“Well,
sir, I’d take it as a great kindness.”
“I
would be honored to do so, Midshipman Bailey.”
“Thank
you!” he said, and had no sooner whispered these words than all six men again
transformed into small birds and rose from the ground. They circled in the air
above him, where they were joined again by the larger flock. He had thought
they would begin their long journey back to the sea, but they surprised him by
surrounding him and the dog.
Quite
clearly, he heard hundreds of voices whisper to him at once, “Storm’s coming!”
And
they were gone.
Shade
immediately headed toward the nearest gate at a brisk trot. He glanced back at
Tyler in impatience. Tyler hurried to catch up.
“There
is more than one asylum, you know. The closest is still under construction,
which leaves Providence Lunatic Asylum and the Erie County Almshouse—”
It
wasn’t hard to read the next look he received.
“I
apologize. Yes, Sister Rosaline Brown’s would be the ‘good one.’ And of course
you will know the way and of course you will be admitted, although large black
dogs, as a rule . . .”
Shade
wagged his tail.
Providence
Lunatic Asylum was operated by the Sisters of Charity, who had previously
established a hospital in Buffalo. They had arrived in the city just in time to
deal with the early cholera epidemics and were considered heroes by many. In
1860, horrified by conditions in the Erie County Almshouse and Insane Asylum, Sister
Rosaline Brown started the asylum, which attempted a more humane treatment of
the insane.
The
dog paused at the small building closest to the cemetery’s main gate. Tyler
understood what he was meant to do. Hailing the man who was keeping watch,
Tyler said, “A severe storm is coming. Please call the other men in.”
“Storm?”
the man said, bewildered.
“Yes,
it’s calm now, but I just saw a flock of storm petrels. Sea birds. The only
reason they’d be this far inland is if a hurricane had blown them here.”
He bid
the man a quick good night and wondered if he would heed the warning.
In the
next moment the wind came up, and trees began to rustle and sway. Shade leaped
into the gig Tyler had left tied at the gate. Tyler glanced over his shoulder
and saw the watchman gather a large lantern, and soon heard him calling out to
the others.
Link continuing the excerpt to XOXOAfterDark:
http://xoxoafterdark.com/2014/07/08/pocketstarenights-tried-jan-burke/?mcd=z_140714_Burke2_PSEN
Convicted
From New York
Times bestselling suspense author Jan Burke comes the fourth of six e-short
story collections.
Convicted is a mini-anthology containing a brand-new short story, “The Anchorwoman” featuring a young Irene Kelly, plus three stories from the highly acclaimed Eighteen print anthology: “Revised Endings, “Devotion,” and “The Muse.” Jeffery Deaver, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Kill Room, praised Eighteen as “Astonishing…wry…these stories are sure to delight.” And New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman says, “A delightful collection of page-turners. At turns chilling, funny, poignant—and always insightful. With these stories, Jan Burke’s at the top of her game.”
Convicted is a mini-anthology containing a brand-new short story, “The Anchorwoman” featuring a young Irene Kelly, plus three stories from the highly acclaimed Eighteen print anthology: “Revised Endings, “Devotion,” and “The Muse.” Jeffery Deaver, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Kill Room, praised Eighteen as “Astonishing…wry…these stories are sure to delight.” And New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman says, “A delightful collection of page-turners. At turns chilling, funny, poignant—and always insightful. With these stories, Jan Burke’s at the top of her game.”
EXCERPT from Convicted:
“So
at ten o’clock on Wednesday, five clowns—probably males—jumped out of a moving
van parked in the alley behind your house and started singing ‘Oklahoma!’—do I
have it right so far?”
“Yes.”
“Did
they seem to be looking up at you, singing it to you?”
She
hesitated, then said, “I’m not sure. They glanced in my direction every now and
then, but they didn’t stand still and serenade me. They moved around, danced,
and did high kicks and cartwheels.”
“Then
what happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“They
climbed back into the van and drove off.”
“Were
they all in the cab, or were some riding in the back?”
“Two
in the back.”
Illegal
and dangerous.
“Did
you see anything in the van itself? Furniture?”
“I
didn’t get a good look at the back. The angle was wrong.”
I
looked at my notes. What hadn’t I asked?
“What
about the van itself—Bekins? Allied? North American?—what moving company?”
She
was shaking her head before I finished. “Not a moving company. It was a rented
van. Las Piernas Rentals.”
“Well—that’s
a lucky break.”
“Why?”
“Local
rental company with three locations, all within town. If it had been one of the
nationals, the truck could have come from anywhere. License-plate number?”
“No,
again, I couldn’t see it from that angle.”
“How
big was the van?”
“Big.
I don’t know.”
I
tried to come up with vehicles to compare it with, which didn’t work with her,
but when I got her to say how much of the Mickelsons’ house the van had
blocked, I had a reasonable idea. Another idea struck me.
“Did
you see a number on it? Most rental companies paint numbers on their trucks, to
keep track of which ones they’re renting, I suppose.”
“I
looked for one, but it had a big piece of paper taped over it—like butcher
paper, maybe?”
I
hesitated, telling myself that I needed to separate latenineteenth- century
fiction from the present problem. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it out of my
mind.
“Cokie,
are there any banks or businesses on the other side of the alley?”
“There’s
a row of homes, that’s all.”
“Anybody
doing any kind of business out of a house that you know of?”
“No.”
“I
mean any
kind
of business. Any pot growers? Drug dealers?”
“No!
We did have a problem when Auggie and Andrea Sands lived at the end of the
cul-de-sac, but their mom kicked them out. That was about three years ago.”
“She
kicked them out for selling drugs?” Lydia asked.
We
had known the Sands twins in high school. Always in trouble.
“Kicked
Auggie out for selling drugs, and Andrea for banging her boyfriend in the
living room. Their mom came home early with a friend from work. Guess that was
the last straw.”
“How
did their mom find out that Auggie was dealing?”
“One
of the neighbors told her.”
“You?”
“No.
I didn’t want to mess with those people.”
“Do
Andrea and Auggie know you weren’t the one?”
She
frowned. “They should. They have no reason to think I would tell on them.”
I
exchanged a glance with Lydia and moved on.
“Anyone
in the neighborhood angry with you?”
“You
think singing clowns is a sign of aggression?”
“A
possibility, anyway.”
She
smiled. “I’m so glad you see it that way. My parents think it was something
fun, as if I have a secret admirer. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. It
seemed to me that someone wanted . . . well, to ridicule me.”
I
bent my head over my notes and hoped my hair hid my blush. I certainly felt
ashamed of my meaner thoughts about her.
“It
seems crazy to think that,” she went on, “but . . . it didn’t make me happy, it
made me feel as if I had been targeted, and someone went to a lot of trouble to
do it. I’m a little scared by that. But I can’t think of anyone who would feel
that mad at me. I get along with my neighbors. I’m one of the last young people
still living on our street, and I try to help my older neighbors. I visit them.
I run errands for them.”
A
passage in “The Red-Headed League” came to mind:
“As
a rule,” said Holmes, “the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious
it
proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are
really
puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to
identify.”
Easy
for him to say. But was there some commonplace crime hiding beneath all that
clown makeup?
“Cokie,
what would you normally be doing on a Wednesday morning at about that time?”
“Normally,
I’d be playing canasta with the widows.”
“I
hate to admit it, but I don’t understand.”
“You
know, the card game.”
“Yes,
I even know how to play it. Who are the widows?”
“Oh.
Three of my neighbors. One day Mrs. Redmond—she’s across the street and one
house down—mentioned to me how much she loved the canasta parties that used to
be held on the
street.
I talked to a couple of people about it, and long story short, we started
playing canasta at her house on Wednesday mornings.”
“Who
are the other players?”
“Just
two, Mrs. Harding and Mrs. Lumfort.”
“Who
knows that you do this?”
“Everyone
on our street.”
“So
because of the clowns, you arrived late?”
“No,
we didn’t have a game that day. Mrs. Harding was . . . out of town. Mrs.
Lumfort had a doctor’s appointment. Mrs. Redmond’s beautician had asked her to
move her hair appointment to that morning, so because it was just going to be
the two of us, she asked me if I’d mind just canceling. I told her it wasn’t a
problem.”
“You
hesitated about Mrs. Harding. What was going on with her?”
“Nothing.
She went to a lawyer’s appointment with one of her granddaughters. Kayla just
moved in with her.”
That
name was vaguely familiar. Why did I know it?
“Kayla
Harding?” Lydia asked. “My brother Gio used to date her.”
Gio
was five years older than Lydia, and the list of girls he dated in high school
was only slightly shorter than the list of female students in his graduating
class. The fact that he hadn’t been burned in effigy years ago spoke to his
abundant charm. Lydia claimed he genuinely cared about all of them, which
seemed unlikely.
“Kayla
ended up in prison, didn’t she?” Lydia went on. “Stole a car.”
“Yes,”
Cokie said, “but she’s been out for a couple of weeks now.”
“Friend
of yours?” I asked.
“No.
I know her sister better than I know her.”
“Mindy,”
Lydia said. “She’s our age.”
“Yes.
I’m not close friends with Mindy, either. I just see her when she visits her
grandmother.”
“Kind
of a Goody-Two-Shoes, isn’t she?” I said.
“That
can happen when you’re trying to show the world you aren’t like your
troublemaking sister, right?” Lydia said.
Cokie
and I shrugged.
“Think
of your sister, Barbara,” Lydia said to me.
“I’d
rather not,” I said.
“Mindy
is Kayla’s half sister,” the ever-informative Cokie said. “Their father is on
his third marriage. Widowed once, divorced once, and the third seems to be the
charm. So Mindy
just
claims that she’s ‘only’ a half sister when she gets annoyed at Kayla.”
“Told
you she was a bitch,” I said.
“Not
exactly,” Lydia said.
“Yeah,
well . . .” I glanced at my watch. “We’ve got a couple of hours to try to find
the Las Piernas Rentals location that rented out the van.”
I
used the Yellow Pages in the phone book to get the three addresses and phone
numbers of the rental places, then opened the Thomas Guide,
a book of detailed maps of Los Angeles County that only a fool would try to
live without. A lost fool.
Cokie
readily agreed to come along with me, but Lydia, thinking of the discomfort
associated with being the third person in a Karmann Ghia, opted out.
Link continuing the excerpt to XOXOAfterDark:
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