Emily, Thrice Stone" selected by fiction editor Sarah Weinman to first appear in Shots Crime & Thriller Ezine in 2005.

Her big toes had turned black as two rotten bananas. Recoiling a half step, Rory left his handprints smudged on the window glass. He’d satisfied his curiosity. She was a doper who’d been street savvy to jab the spike into her toes and hide the telltale needle tracks. Stroking his chin, he paced back to the waiting lawn tractor, a Gravely that had seen its better days.

Before climbing aboard and cranking its ignition key, he shot a glance at the chapel’s vaulted window. That puffy and mottled but once fine-chiseled face had a familiar cast to it. Who was she? He snapped his fingers. He knew. Emily Something-Or-Other. Did she lie in there? He wanted to know for certain.

His boss, Old Man McCorkle crowed how he was able to keep the relic Gravely running. Acres upon acres of grass in the ground plaque cemetery beckoned. Rory shifted the bony balls of his ass on the steel seat, no back brace or cushion. After several weeks of busting his hump at Saint Anthony’s Memorial Gardens, he’d found a heartening sober groove. He set a goal to rack up the weeks with a perfect work attendance. Even when he stood at death’s door with the flu, he showed up to punch the time clock. He had a good reason.

He unhitched the cell phone from his belt and rang the house as he did several times during the workday. His fifteen-year-old daughter Melanie picked up on an early ring.

“How are you, honey?” he asked.

She sighed with drama like she always did. “Bored to tears.”

“Did you try the dial-up internet connection I got you?”

“Yeah, I used it, Daddy. Like I said, I’m bored to tears. When do you get off?”

“Five o’clock, the same time as yesterday and the same time for tomorrow. Did anyone buzz me on the land line?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked me because I forgot to jot it down. Your weird pal phoned early this morning.”

“Uh, which weird pal is that, honey?”

(End of the the story sample)