08.03.2021
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I didn't know if it was the unseasonal heat or the heavy work we'd done that day or Jake's scary stories or Miguel's empty bed that kept me awake in the dormitory that night, but I had nervous energy to spare. I would doze, but I'd wake up with a start and look over at Miguel's bed, the emptiness of it now explained, and then I'd check all of the other beds to see in guys were there. And sometimes they weren't, and then I'd speculate.
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31.01.2021
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Ian was on a roll. With the second draft of lyrics well under way and the melody writing itself, he knew he'd finally gotten it. He'd finally written a love song to rival all love songs. Honest, pure, impossible to ignore: exactly what he was going for. Becca had to listen to this. She'd have no choice but to love him and allow herself to be loved in return. He's just started mapping chord progressions when someone knocked on his door.
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31.01.2021
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I see Sean four mornings a week at the gym. He runs the treadmill and I swim, but our schedules are close enough that we arrive at nearly the same time and finish our workouts a few minutes apart.
I thought this a coincidence, at first. But I knew better when I got to know him, and learned to appreciate him in unimaginable ways.
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30.01.2021
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I was meeting close friends John and Ryan at the club. They were bringing Mark, a friend of John's from university who'd recently moved to the city. That might sound like they were trying to hook us up but I'd never needed their help. They knew I'd end the evening with him anyway, as long as he was reasonably good-looking.
He was better, but much too controlled for my tastes. The green-hazel eyes were calm and probing, all at the same time, the mouth with its thin upper lip and full lower lip didn't get a lot of exercise as if he thought through every thing before he spoke, not a single blond strand out of place.
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30.01.2021
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The name's Piper. Peter Piper. But I don't pick pecks of pickled peppers. I solve cases. I'm a private dick. That's a detective for those of you who don't know the lingo. A private eye.
It was a miserable Friday afternoon. Cold, damp, foggy. The weather was foul. And so was my mood. My bank account was dwindling at an alarming pace. I hadn't had a case in weeks. I was sitting behind my battered desk in my shabby office on the second floor of the Burke building, downtown. Way downtown. I was sitting there and I was worrying. If something didn't happen soon, I was in deep shit. I had bills to pay.
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29.01.2021
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Moodily I stared out the train window. The day before Christmas Eve. On the platform of the Boston station, couples reunited, kissing and hugging. Mothers cried and clung to fresh boys in uniform as they headed off to basic training. The war had changed things; the place was somber and not decorated much for Christmas this year.
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29.01.2021
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"I think it's wreckage of a ship. From the storm last night. It's not strange to find ship wreckage on the Cefalu beach after a tempest like that."
Two scouts, on their regular patrol along the Adrano coastline while the forces of the Prince of Madness sought to invade the island nation, had stopped on the beach, their attention arrested by shattered ship planking and tangles of shredded sailcloth washing up in the surf.
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28.01.2021
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I'd called to a friend's house to lay a carpet and found everything ready which was a good start, the floor was clear and ready for the underlay which went down quite easily on the rectangular floor which measured about fourteen by eighteen feet.
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28.01.2021
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I hadn't seen him in person for nearly three years, since shortly after he became Governor and I moved away to college. Mitch, to those close to him, had moved his family next door when I was sixteen.
They were really nice people, and neighbors. He had one son, Robert, which was in my class in High School, though I didn't know him well because he had transferred from another school.
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27.01.2021
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Several years ago I was a COP, a policeman in a city of about 250,000 in North Carolina. The DWI Checkpoints and enforcement had just started to gain popularity. One part of that program was to assign officers to work the streets on DWI Patrol, rather than checkpoints. We were assigned to different sections of the city or to watch a particular bar or nightclub.
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