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Pareidolia: Chapter Twelve

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

LEAH

Northwest Philadelphia | Sunday July 30th, 2000

There isn’t any moisture left in my head but somehow I’m still crying. Vicky, a neighbor two doors down, dragged me into her house and now we’re ducking under a living room window in case there are more shots fired and keeping an eye on whatever’s happening outside. Her son is in the kitchen, about to call the cops. I explain that under no circumstances should the police be involved, but I’m having trouble speaking. I’m trying to get it out between sobs that Dad’d never actually shoot anyone, and that anyway the gun was full of blanks. Vicky doesn’t understand me, or she does and she still isn’t going to risk it, and so we crouch between a La-Z-Boy and an end table. The trail into the woods is barely visible across the street and off to the left. Vicky is hugging me to her body. Her son has hung up the phone and is crab-walking back to the window.

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Pareidolia: Chapter Eleven

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

MARCUS

Northwest Philadelphia | Sunday July 30th, 2000

Leah’s distracted as she walks up the steps to her door, doing the backwards walking like her father. Something across the street has her attention. I look but don’t see anything. She asks if I brought anyone else with me.

“Christ, I hope not.”

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Pareidolia: Chapter Ten

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

(PART TWO)

MARCUS

Powelton Village, Philadelphia | Saturday July 29th, 2000

“OK, so you’re all set then?”

“Roger that. All set. All systems go. Christ on a cracker, I don’t want to do this.”

“No, I know.”

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Pareidolia: Chapter Nine

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

ZEKE

Powelton Village, Philadelphia | July, 2000

This turns out to be remarkably easy. Marcus comes over to my apartment the next day, and we find her within I want to say twelve minutes. Leah’s website doesn’t give a phone number, but the white pages do. There are only two Schaudts in the greater Philadelphia area, Barry R. and Josephine M. We try Barry first (my number blocked of course, Marcus and I huddling over my cell phone, on speaker) and she actually answers the call.

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Pareidolia: Chapter Eight

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

ZEKE

Downtown Philadelphia | July, 2000

The hotel lobby isn’t super busy. Marcus is pacing outside. I’m inside, enjoying the air conditioning, half hoping Marcus won’t cut and run.

I nearly spit out my gum when Todd taps my shoulder from behind.

“Let’s go.”

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Pareidolia: Chapter Six

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

BALERO

Society Hill, Philadelphia | June, 2000

So the book club. Finally going. I get off the bus and find my way to the appointed corner at the appointed time and find a hardy Daryl, he of the acne and the long black ponytail, just parking his car. He’s flanked by two breathless young beauties. This makes him look like a programmer or a rock god, because otherwise how could he ever…

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Pareidolia: Chapter Five

Enjoy this excerpt from my first novel, Pareidolia. The premise is available here, and the table of contents can be found here.

BALERO

Spruce Hill, Philadelphia | June, 2000

That Saturday afternoon at the convention center was enough to knock us out of our usual orbit and send us off to smoke our own stashes in private. No more Stoner Paradise adventures. This isn’t anything new, but it usually happens during the school year when academia presses down on Marcus like invisible furniture. I don’t know. Something changed in him that day. He became surlier than even I sometimes get, which is saying something. I decide to hang back and let him come around, which he does, and it’s nasty.

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