Best Stories

The Bank Transfer “Mr. Patterson, do you mind if we talk in private for just a moment?” The bank teller’s voice was calm, but something in her eyes made me pause. I’d been standing at the counter for maybe two minutes, check in hand, ready to wire $75,000 to what my son Marcus called an…

A Homecoming Gone Wrong I gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary as I turned onto Maple Ridge Road. 3 days. I’d only been gone 3 days to bury my mother in Missouri, and somehow the entire drive back to Colorado felt wrong. Maybe it was grief stacking on top of grief, Mom following Sarah…

The Funeral Ultimatum I am Thomas Brennan. I’m 64 years old, and last Monday I watched six men in dark suits carry my younger brother’s casket out of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Boston. The organ was still playing when my nephew, Jake, appeared at my elbow, his cologne so strong it cut through the incense….

The Betrayal at Swedish Medical Center I never thought I’d wake up from heart surgery to find out my twin sons had sold my house, but there I was. Three days post-op in Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, still connected to monitors and drainage tubes, my neighbor Martha called my cell phone. “Bob, I’m so…

A Call from the Abyss My name is Robert, and I’m 63 years old. For the past 40 years, I served as a detective in the Chicago Police Department. I’ve seen the worst of humanity, solved hundreds of cases, and thought I’d seen every kind of evil there was. But nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me…

A Grandfather’s Nightmare My name is Robert Harrison, but everyone calls me Bob. If you’re watching this right now, I need you to take a deep breath because what I’m about to share with you is something that still makes my hands shake when I think about it. Something that happened in my own son’s…

The Search in the Storm “I’m will find help, Rex. I can’t, not in this storm. I’m sorry, out of…” “Hey, whoa, whoa there. All right, all right, I see it, Rex. Which way?” “I can’t see. Where are you, Rex? Where are you? Hold on, I’m here.” A Dangerous Path “I can’t see you….