The Book of Cold Cases

by Simone St. James

No one cared that her parents were dead, that rich didn’t mean happy.

But some places hold you so that you can’t get free. They squeeze you like a fist.”

Her life, as she knew it, was over. There was some relief in that, because she hadn’t liked her life much. But what was waiting for her was not going to be any better.

When you share something like that with your sister, it never leaves you, for better or for worse.

And besides, I’d never claimed that my hang-ups made any sense.

I was tired of being so safe all the time. I was tired of being so afraid that I never lived my life.

I would have lost my sanity without my cat that week.

And then something changed. Maybe I got tired of the fear; maybe it just lost its grip. But instead of being afraid, I got mad.

Besides, even though Mariana never told the end of the story, Beth knew the sweet girl was the one who got eaten. The bitter girl was the one who survived.

Sometimes I think the only way to be someone is to do something bad.”

She looked like a pretty blond eighteen-year-old, but she was actually a loaded gun.

“That’s because we don’t always get to choose. In fact, we rarely do.”

“The question is,” the voice in my ear asked, “what makes a killer? Are killers born, or are they made?

It made no sense, but guilt doesn’t have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and choking you until you can’t breathe anymore.

I’d been thinking too long, too hard. I’d done nothing but think. Where had it gotten me?

“For waking you up—all the way up. It’s amazing what you can do when you stop sleepwalking through your own life, isn’t it?”