I Called to Say You're Dead & Other Tales

A mother is unnerved when her very observant five-year-old boy notices blood on the floor and on the lock of their large cedar chest. He asks why his Daddy is nowhere to be found. A man sitting on a park bench accuses a stranger passing by of murder and demands money in return for his silence. A game of wits ensues, which tests each man's nerve and resolve. A husband and wife in a troubled marriage, driving along a dark country road at night, feel a bump, as if they'd hit something crawling in the road. Only one of them wants to turn back to see if they might have struck a person. A young woman's solo hike in the forest is cut short when a bear destroys her campsite, and she must place her complete trust in another hiker who happens by and offers assistance. But as they walk together and converse, the woman begins to doubt that her rescuer is leading her out of the wilderness to safety. A naive eighteen-year-old's first love affair is with the wife of a hated high school teacher. The young man's discovery that she is being physically abused leads him to contemplate his teacher's murder. A woman asks a friend to help her seek revenge against a man who jilted her in college. Her plan involves luring him into a relationship on a dating website, but complications ensue when the friend's involvement takes an unsettling turn. An elderly man watches with curiosity a young couple across the room in a coffee shop, seemingly there on a first date. When the young woman abruptly leaves, the elderly man concludes that her suitor is a threat to her, and makes a fateful decision to follow him. These and other stories take readers down suspenseful paths where motives are murky, the guilty are confused with the innocent, and events often terminate in unexpected and disquieting ways.