“So you think…” I couldn’t bring myself to finish saying what I’d intended.

Detective Johnson turned his attention back to the road just as the light changed. As we pulled through the intersection, he muttered, “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go tonight.”

Ignoring his comment I asked, “What about my things? You know, my equipment? And I left my purse on a table in the club.”

“Wait!” I said in a surprised tone. “A safe house? You mean like witness protection? What about my work? My apartment? What am I supposed to do with my stuff?”

“Slow down,” he said while holding his hands up to emphasize things. “We don’t know how long it’ll be, but I wouldn’t expect it to take too long. For now, anything you don’t have to have with you should stay here. I’ll have a uniform posted here as a guard, okay?”

“Will there be room for my upright?” I asked.

“I don’t know why not,” he responded before adding, “Which one is that?”

Chuck was checking his watch when the stranger approached him. “Those were a couple of nice looking ladies you had.”

Chuck immediately turned around. “What did you just say?”

Synopsis- Hiromi sees a fortune teller and goes to a casino in Macau, Gabrielle has a chat with Dr. Wagner and meets a close friend, Midori and Stewart Slater get very bad news, plus Operation Swan Song takes an unexpected turn.

The events you are about to read are real; however, some names have been changed to protect and respect the innocent.

Can Love REALLY Conquer All?

March 22, 2008

Love Requiem
By: Jane Barker

A half an hour, 45 minutes outside town, the hills begin to lift, and
if you know just where to look, you see the first blue line of
mountains reaching towards the sky. That's where he left the highway,
dipped and swooped through steepening hills, past trees that seemed to
grow taller, deeper green as we climbed. A gravel road following the

Lost, and found again
His wife has died, and his grief consoled only in his dreams. It is there that the woman he loved is closer to him than could imagine.

By late afternoon, I was feeling pretty sure I'd called it right to
come up here. I phoned the boss, reported not quite as optimistically
as I felt and told myself that I was clocking out.

The evening rush home had started, horns and rumbling of motors as
downtown spilled its people out for another night. I went the way the
red lights let me; to the corner where he'd said his store was. I

It was getting dark when I got there, and I'd managed to get off the
wrong exit, too, guessing downtown was where it wasn't, as I always do.
It meant an anxious tour through the dark and empty streets down by the
river, looking for a place to stay, finding nothing until I finally
passed an open space -- park or vacant lot, I couldn't tell and didn't

Sometimes, despite a breath of breeze across the inky river, the night air seemed almost liquid with the lingering heat ....

Halfway across the river, the ferry turns. The gulls, as always, surprised by the boat's movement now wheel and dive, complaining cries as they take up their stations once again. The turn means a breeze from a fresh direction can ruffle hair, feather the hem of the skirt that after all these months I dare to wear so that it dances round my knees.

Maybe what keeps us on our course is fearing how the shock of change will shake the people whom we know.

The fountain that my own fingers recall, nothing like this: Drawn from a pond, a puddle. But, oh, how I felt an ocean of you crashing in. Ocean: warm saltiness of life, thick with potential, humming with energy barely contained, condensed of beating hearts and fluttering gills and lashing tails of a million, of a billion tiny creatures saying: Live, live.

CONCLUDING INSTALMENT: A final confrontation between Masters and Sato at the top of the world. This is how it ends...

Masters' mission nears its conclusion as she penetrates the security surrounding Room 497. But Sato has a final surprise up her sleeve. Who lives and who dies...?

As she approached the office, Hiromi saw something amiss. Her office door was ajar. Hiromi walked straight into the room only to find someone seated at her desk.

“I don’t care, get out of my office now.”

Synopsis- Captain Slater continues her Swan Song mission while at the same time undergoing both physical and mental changes.

My sleep was peppered with nightmares. Okay, more like several variations of one nightmare in particular. Every time I’d get to sleep I’d see Joey either attacking me, or harming those around me, or in one case outing me to all his redneck buddies as a transsexual.

Jane Masters gets in deeper and deeper as her investigation into the Red Fist continues. And what is the secret of Room 497...?

Masters arrives in enemy territory...

The beginning of a new life for disgraced British Intelligence agent Anthony Pierce, 004, as he prepares to embark on a mission into enemy territory in a deep cover disguise he didn't expect to be wearing in his wildest dreams. The transformation begins...

I looked up at her, something didn't sound quite right. "Becky?" I asked her questioningly.

"It's a little disturbing Bill. Here, you read it."

Domestic Partnership by Jennifer Brock

Two lost souls seeking to improve their lives find a common solution, but a series of mistakes, bizarre coincidences, and confused identities leads them in an unexpected direction.

Christmas Eve

An act of kindness by an unhappy man changes lives in unexpected ways.

My entry into Bob and Erin's February Short Story contest

* * * *

“But what do I do? What of my family, work, my home? How can I go home like this? Change me back, please!”

“If this is what ye truly want, I will grant your wish. Ye did me a great favor; I will try to restore ye. Hold still, Evan, I’ve never done this before.” Evelyn began to chant.

“You’ve never done WHA …?!”