Cut in Darkness: Chapter One PLUS an Even Longer Excerpt

Death didn’t break for a holiday weekend. Sometimes the body count actually increased.

So when a crowd formed in the vicinity of one of the Independence Day floats, I wasn’t surprised. In fact, as I jogged toward the disturbance to see if there was anything I could do to help, I was already coming up with a list of possible reasons for the crowd: some sort of dispute had broken out; someone had passed out from heat exhaustion due to the ridiculously high temperature; or, quite possibly, someo...