The Book of Cold Cases

by Simone St. James

I swear to God I’d like the world to surprise me, just once.”

And the cycle went round and round, among four loving, well-meaning people who had no idea what else to do, and it was still going round twenty years later.

“Being a girl is the best,” she said, “because no one ever believes you’d do something bad. People think you’ll do nothing, which means you can do anything. I’ll show you.”

He had the easy manner of a boy who had known from birth that he’d own everything—knowledge that flowed in his blood. No one had ever told him no. No one had ever wanted to.

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

“He was married for fifteen years or so, but it didn’t work out. It never does with cops. They’re an ornery bunch, married to work, and most of them are uncouth and hard to stomach for long periods of time.

Aftershave, Beth thought, was one of the most important scents in any girl’s world. It was the smell of fathers, or uncles, or teachers, or priests, or husbands.

but the smell would be different on Detective Black, because sometimes aftershave was the smell of a man who wasn’t, and would never be, yours.

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.