AUTHENTIC
CRIME FICTION

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REDACTED - Chapter 1

"We're going fucking east." My headphones reverberated in my ears from my outburst.

"Copy Bravo Three-Seven-One, east." The steady voice of the controller at the other end of the radio caused my heart to sink when I realized what I'd done.

"Roger, Control, that's a Charlie copy, Bravo Three-Seven-One, out." My stomach turned when I realized what I'd done but I didn't acknowledge cursing over an open channel on a military flight.

I looked down, confirming I was pressing the correct pedal for the plane's inter-communication system. "Dammit…why the hell are they sending us east? We just reported eyes on a possible target west."

"I don't know, Rooster, they probably want to know if there are more targets out there and want us to get eyes on." Our ever-astute co-pilot always knew how to read a situation.

"Ya think?" I rolled my eyes. "My point is, why, when our mission is to find suspicious targets on the Gulf of Aden, do they send us somewhere else when we actually find one?"

"No shit, man, but we just do what we're told. It's not like we can do anything about 'em if we find 'em," Navigator Glen Snuffer shrugged and looked at me with his sorry attempt at a deployment mustache from across the aisle.

"At least this mission's over water," I said. "If we have to drop a buoy it won't land in the desert."

Out my porthole window, the rickety skiff we'd just reported grew smaller on the sizzling brown sea as we flew away.

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THE MOTH - Chapter 1

It had been six months since Jolene Coburn last took a pill. One hundred eighty days. She'd regained some of the weight that she'd lost when Oxy mattered more than food, and she'd finally been able to use the bathroom like a regular person—not having to take extra pills just to have her body function as it should. But Jolene wasn't recovered. She wasn't completely healed. The emotional wounds were still open, dragging her back into the pit she'd crawled from. Sleep came sparingly, partly because of the continuing withdrawals from OxyContin but mostly because all she saw at night was the face of her dead partner, his eyes draining of life as his head lay facing her on the dash.

The smoke wafting out of the thurible next to the altar mesmerized Jolene. It wasn't until the person next to her spoke that she realized the Mass was over. She stood and joined the exiting crowd in the aisle, moving as slowly as molasses on a winter's day.

The woman in front of her received her blessing from bald Father Gallagher while Jolene cast her gaze to the frigid parking lot. Freedom.

Father Gallagher's eyes narrowed slightly over his robust gin-blossom nose, but he remained silent as Jolene passed by without stopping.

Outside, Jolene continued past the usual crowd of lingerers—old men and women who spent Sunday mornings gossiping about who wasn't at church. She walked along the sidewalk lined with orange and purple chrysanthemums. Her auburn hair blew back with the stiff October breeze as she stepped off the sidewalk toward her truck. A cold front had settled in the night before, bringing with it the first real frost of the season.

Jolene's 1990 Ford Ranger was right at home in a town where new automobiles were as common as Democrats.