Ann Stafford

Belize, 5:00 p.m. Alec Brodie snapped a picture and looked down at the camera. The light already had the bruised, late-day pallor of a place too tired to be cheerful. The glare felt less like heat than accusation, a harsh, judgmental eye from above. He squinted and brought one hand up to shield the viewer from the sunlight peeking through the trees. The canopy knitted itself into a cathedral of shadow; leaves clattered like dry prayers. He hoped to complete the mission fast and go back home to England. However, he wouldn’t stay for long before he had to leave again. Such was the life of a spy. His thumb…

Frank Temple poured himself a whiskey as the morning coffee brewed. He’d been drinking for two days. He took a sip and let the amber liquid burn in his mouth before swallowing, unable to shake the uneasy feeling, like a dark shadow hanging over his shoulder, whispering guilt from the corners of the room. He  knew it was there, could feel it, sensed it in the creak of the floorboards, in the way the dawn light barely pierced the heavy curtains. The old house felt like it mourned with him, but if he turned to look at it, it was gone. Drinking at dawn wasn’t the retirement Frank envisioned, no…

Sara Brodie hung limp against the restraints, her head bobbing to the left as the helicopter sliced through the clouds. The world outside was nothing but white and gray, a purgatory of mist and distance. The drug kept her quiet for now, but silence was a temporary mercy. Once it wore off, everything buried inside her would wake, too— the voices, the memories, the ghosts of what she’d done. Marcus’s eyes locked on the horizon, his senses honed, barely acknowledging the tense figures seated behind him. The chopper cut through the dense clouds with relentless precision, skimming dangerously close to the turbulent waves below and the high cliffs where the…