The Last Twist in the Game

By Kari Kilgore

Heartache. Betrayal. Family.

Suzanne and Paul arrive to settle a loved one's estate. The final, bittersweet step of saying goodbye.
But an unpleasant surprise from an all-too-expected source awaits, leaving them both reeling.
And angry.
Will Suzanne take her chance to settle the score, no matter the cost to herself?

 

An excerpt from The Last Twist in the Game:

The Worst Possible Time for a Bad Surprise

Suzanne nodded along with Paul, then stood and managed to smile and shake hands.

She couldn't pretend she wasn't angry, and more worried than she wanted to admit. More about her husband than his thieving cousin.

\Paul might put on a good face with a horrible situation like this, for a while. And he would get through to the other side.

But after more than twenty years of marriage, she knew what kind of dark places he'd have to fight through to get there.

Sure, moving forward sounded encouraging.

Hopeful, even.

Inspiring.

It was the days, weeks, and possibly months before then that would test both of them to their limits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Nov 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201829155

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

The Last Twist in the Game

For everyone who does the right thing

Especially when they don’t want to

THE LAST TWIST IN THE GAME

KARI KILGORE

SPIRAL PUBLISHING, LTD.

THE LAST TWIST IN THE GAME

The small-town northern Ohio law firm went all out to make their conference room as welcoming and comfortable as possible.

Warm, real-wood paneling covered the walls, with bunches of heartwarming outdoor photos tucked in among black-and-white images of the town in days gone by. A long table made of some kind of darker wood, polished to a high shine, took up the middle of the room. The soft, rounded edges made it feel more like a dining room table than a space for discussing legal or criminal matters.

Even the chairs felt like they were designed to fit human bodies rather than only to look expensive. Burgundy cushions welcomed anxious or travel-weary flesh rather than forcing it into unnatural shapes and angles.

And Suzanne Coleman had never seen any conference room with a little nook off to the side with a hunter green sofa and two matching chairs, all piled up with pillows that matched the burgundy office chairs. Apparently used for folks who didn’t feel right at the table, or for meetings with big families, according to the office manager who’d shown her and her husband Paul in.

The conference room was just one obvious advantage of the combination of office space being dramatically less expensive than back home in Richmond, Virginia, and of a law firm using every inch of their sprawling home inside a big old brick warehouse.

Suzanne had done her best to dress down rather than defaulting to her usual sharp (and expensive) pantsuit and carefully professional upswept hair she wore most days at work. She still felt overdressed in nice linen pants, a blouse, and jacket. Paul did a little better, with dark khakis and a button-up shirt, but still looked like he’d swooped in from the big city.

Before half an hour ago, they both would have laughed out loud at the idea of a lawyer sitting across