Grief is a funny thing.
I was driving the twins to school this morning when Queen’s “We will rock you“ came on the radio. It was about 30 or 40 seconds into the song when I was just hit with…
Author: Charles
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Release Day! Winter Flower is live
From the bestselling author of Just Remember to Breathe and The Last Hour, a shocking and poignant story of a family on the brink of destruction and the transformational events that could bring them back…
Winter Flower Now Available in print editions
After a more than three year wait, my newest book Winter Flower is now available in hardcover and paperback (ebooks release one week from today but are available for preorder). This book is different — at a little over 165,000…
Winter Flower, Chapter 9-1.
SPOILER WARNING: This preview contains a major story development. I don’t recommend reading unless you’ve been following all the previous preview chapters!!!
“Mrs. Roberts? It’s Agent Wilcox.”
“Yes,” I choked out.
“I’ve got some news.”
Time froze. In less than a second, my mind ran past all the incidents where Wilcox had given us news. When they found her car, with the broken phone. When they found the bracelet Lori gave her in Chase’s apartment. The weekly calls for a year, then less often since then. But he still called, and he almost always prefaced those calls with the statement, “I don’t have any news, I’m just checking in.”
Today he’d said, I’ve got some news.
…
Winter Flower, Chapter 8-3. Birthday.
“It’s her birthday,” I said.
I swear to God I wasn’t going to say anything. I wasn’t going to mention it. I wasn’t going to do this.
His face clouded, and he looked to the floor. “I know,” he said in a rasping voice. “Eighteen.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. It was too much to think he’d come over and hug me. And I didn’t know how to approach him. Not anymore. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.
“Do you think she’s still alive?” I asked.
…
Winter Flower, Chapter 8-2. Birthday.
Gemini: Want to talk about it?
I swallowed. There was some safety in the anonymity of being online. And I didwant to talk about it. I don’t know why, but I hadn’t told Mrs. Mullins or Hayley that it was Brenna’s birthday. Finally I responded: It’s my sister’s birthday. She turns eighteen today.
Gemini: And this is a problem because…
Tamara: She went missing two years ago, and we haven’t seen her since. …
Winter Flower, Chapter 8-1. Birthday.
I swallowed. True enough. It would be my second double shift in two days: this was a race weekend at Talladega, and our business was way up. Plus, today of all days, I did not want to go home.
It was September 14.
Today was Brenna’s eighteenth birthday.
…
Disgracing our dead on Memorial Day
I’ve been trying to articulate for days how deeply upset I am about the prospect of the President systematically pardoning people who have been convicted or are being tried for committing war crimes. I think…
Winter Flower, Chapter 7-2. Cole.
I gasped. Three or four years? How was that possible? How could I possibly do three or four years in prison?
My next words came out in a rasp. “What are my options?”
Brent shrugged. “We can offer to plea bargain to a lesser charge. You’ll still almost certainly get a felony conviction, but we might be able to get them down to vanilla assault. With luck you’ll be out within a year. That’s really the best-case … if you go before a jury and they wheel Chase Morton into the courtroom, you don’t stand a chance.”
…