Unexpected Killers

By Annie Reed

From a deputy sheriff investigating the murder of a young woman at a 1950s dude ranch catering to guests establishing residency for a divorce to a woman trying to cope with the aftermath of a sudden, brutal attack…

From a daughter raised to protect her elderly father at all costs to a husband out to avenge the senseless murder of his wife…

Each of the five stories in this collection deals with the intrusion of sudden, unexpected killers into otherwise normal, everyday life.

See why  multi-genre writer Annie Reed is called a master of fiction that packs an emotional punch.

 

"One of the best writers I've come across in years." Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

"Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women." Dean Wesley Smith, editor, Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thunder Valley Ink
• Release date: Sep 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201732943

Annie Reed

Award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch calls Annie Reed “one of the best writers I’ve come across in years.”Annie’s won recognition for her stellar writing across multiple genres. Her story “The Color of Guilt” originally published in Fiction River: Hidden in Crime, was selected as one of The Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016. Her story “One Sun, No Waiting” was one of the first science fiction stories honored with a literary fellowship award by the Nevada Arts Foundation, and her novel PRETTY LITTLE HORSES was among the finalists in the Best First Private Eye Novel sponsored by St. Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America.A frequent contributor to the Fiction River anthologies and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Annie’s recent work includes the superhero origin novel FASTER, the near-future science fiction short novel IN DREAMS, and UNBROKEN FAMILIAR, a gritty urban fantasy mystery short novel. Annie’s also one of the founding members of the innovative Uncollected Anthology, a quarterly series of themed urban fantasy stories written by some of the best writers working today.Annie’s mystery novels include the Abby Maxon private investigator novels PRETTY LITTLE HORSES and PAPER BULLETS, the Jill Jordan mystery A DEATH IN CUMBERLAND, and the suspense novel SHADOW LIFE, written under the name Kris Sparks, as well as numerous other projects she can’t wait to get to. For more information about Annie, including news about upcoming bundles and publications, go to www.annie-reed.com.

Book preview

From a deputy sheriff investigating the murder of a young woman at a 1950s dude ranch catering to guests establishing residency for a divorce to a woman trying to cope with the aftermath of a sudden, brutal attack…

From a daughter raised to protect her elderly father at all costs to a husband out to avenge the senseless murder of his wife…

Each of the stories in this collection deals with the intrusion of sudden, unexpected killers into otherwise normal, everyday life.

The five stories in this collection show why multi-genre writer Annie Reed is called a master of fiction that packs an emotional punch.

One of the best writers I’ve come across in years.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Annie Reed writes powerful stories about strong women.

Dean Wesley Smith, editor of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine

Introduction

Missing Carolyn

Dead Things

Death at the Pines

Tin Can Man

Honor Thy Father

Copyright Information

About the Author

Introduction

I feel like I should warn you up front, dear reader: The stories in this collection are some of the darkest I’ve written.

That’s saying something when you consider prior collections in this series, like Unexpected Monsters or Unexpected Criminals, or even the stories in some of my earlier collections, like Crimes of Yesteryear and The Patient Z Files. Those weren’t exactly happy-go-lucky romps.

I like writing crime stories. Mystery stories in general are about imposing order on chaos. That’s what appeals to me. Stories about survivors of the zombie apocalypse or attacks by supernatural creatures might not impose order on chaos, but those crimes are one step removed from reality. That lets us examine the horrific crimes zombies and supernatural creatures commit at the safe distance of but that can’t really happen. Even stories about crimes that happened decades or centuries ago still have that one-step-removed feeling.

The stories in this collection are different. The crimes are contemporary, the stories somewhat bleak. Not quite noir, although Dead Things comes close.

These stories deal with the aftermath of unexpected killings. How survivors deal—or don’t deal—when murder from an unexpected source takes away a loved one. Takes away their safety. Or their sanity. The murders in this collection could happen—and probably do happen—in the real world.

Each of these stories imposes order, of a sort, on chaos, but it might not be the order the characters expect. Do the killers all get their comeuppance? You’ll have to read to find out.

I’ve been watching a lot of Bosch lately and reading a lot of short mystery fiction. It probably helped when I selected the stories for this collection. It certainly influenced the last short story I wrote.

The editor for my next short story assignment asked me to write about a crime that’s light-hearted and fun, and future Unexpected collections, including Unexpected Christmas, will include happier stories. I hope you’ll give the stories in this collection a read, but if dark mysteries aren’t your cuppa, I’ll understand.

We’re coming up on the holidays, including Halloween and Thanksgiving here in the states, not to mention Christmas. This season is my favorite time of the year. In the meantime, snuggle up with your favorite beverage while you read these stories about surviving the unthinkable. The heartbreaking. The unexpected intrusion of murder in an otherwise normal life.

Just be sure to lock your doors and leave the lights on.

—Annie Reed

September, 2021

Missing Carolyn

The house felt too big.

Alex still expected Carolyn to be there when he got home from work. His job took him into the city, an hour commute each way if the traffic cooperated, two if it didn’t. She always beat him home even if she had to make a last-minute run to the bank or the post office. The difference between working for a high-powered law firm in the financial district and a dental office in the suburbs.

He’d installed a motion sensor light over the front door and another inside the entryway. Too little, too late, but at least the house wasn’t dark when he keyed open the front door and stepped inside.

Cold and big and empty, yes, but not dark.

He should get a dog, someone at the office had said. Something to keep him company.

He’d heard the remark in passing. Watercooler gossip in the breakroom from people who probably didn’t know he was standing just beyond the door trying like hell to remember where he’d been going and what he was supposed to be doing.

The remark had stuck with him.

Get a dog. As if a dog could replace the woman he’d loved since he’d been a junior in high school. The woman he’d expected to grow old with. To travel the world with once they both retired. Wasn’t that the American dream? Work hard, live responsibly, and put away enough money to enjoy your golden years with the one person you couldn’t live without?

Welcome to the American nightmare.

Alex put his briefcase down on the tiled floor of his entryway next to the coat rack. The motion sensor’s blue-white light made the gray tiles and the off-white walls in the entry look ghostly cold and uninviting.

Except for the faint creaks of the house settling in the chill of the night, the only sounds were his own breathing and the scrape of his shoes on the slate tiles. The house was still full of their furniture, but the motion sensor light didn’t reach that far into the darkness. Except for the entryway table, he might as well have been standing in some stranger’s abandoned home. A place someone had slapped a fresh coat of paint on and put back on the market in the hope of finally catching a good sale.

The house even smelled stale.

No enticing aromas coming from the kitchen with a promise of a comfortable evening filled with good food, fine wine, and sitting on the couch together in front of the fire after a long, hard day at work.

They’d never had kids—both of them were too busy—and except for every other Friday night when Carolyn came to the city after she got off work so they could treat themselves to a well-deserved night on the town, they spent most evenings cuddled up beneath a fleece throw Carolyn had bought at one of the stores in the mall all the goth kids went to. Sometimes they made it to the bedroom, but sometimes they didn’t. Carolyn called the nights they made love on the couch their romance movie nights.

He loved their romance movie nights.

She’d laughed when she’d told him how the pierced and wildly tattooed clerk had tried not to look shocked when the frumpy, middle-aged woman had shown up at the register to buy a fleece for one of the metal bands featured on the store’s sound system.

Frumpy had been Carolyn’s word for herself. To Alex, she had always been the beautiful woman he’d stood next to in front of all their friends and pledged to love and protect for the rest of their lives.

The fleece had caught her eye as she walked past the store in the mall. She’d bought it because she liked the art. She thought it was pretty.

The artwork featured a skeleton crawling out of a grave.

That was Carolyn, finding beauty in everything.

He’d thrown the fleece away. The company he’d hired to clean up the house had gotten the blood out, but he’d still smelled it. Saw clots of it on the skeleton’s grinning face along with bits of things he didn’t want to think about.

He flipped on the light switch next to the front door, and