EXCERPT 1
David looked around his apartment for a chore, a task, something to keep himself from thinking about facing his coworkers the next day. It was a tall order; he was a minimalist, freakishly neat. Everything was “in its place.” Sifting through junk mail was the thing he resented the most, so David forced himself to do it as penance for his milquetoast behavior in court.

Even though he knew recycling was the right thing to do—for the melting polar ice caps, the coral reef, all that—he hated the monotony of sorting through everything. He suppressed the urge to chuck it all into the same bin. Trash, like pretty much everything else these days, was unnecessarily complicated. Who knew for sure if the carefully categorized items ever even made it to the place where things could be salvaged and revived and turned into handbags made of candy wrappers, seatbelts, and pull-tabs. A documentary he’d watched had uncovered the fact that in at least one town, and probably many others, every single throwaway went to the landfill, whether the bin was blue, black, or green.

But he felt guilty when he didn’t do it, and he had enough things to feel guilty about. The incident at work, his useless behavior. Not picking Gayle up from the airport. He’d wanted to see her, especially after the upsetting day. On the brief phone call before her flight took off, he’d promised to meet her at LAX. But he knew he’d conjure up a reason not to be there. Airports were overripe with too much—too many people, too much movement, too many unknowns.

He rifled through the papers and envelopes. Deals on mattresses, Lay-Z-Boy recliners, chimney cleaning, and towards the bottom of one of the leaflets, the words “¿Me Has Visto?” He had taken Spanish from the voluptuous Mrs. Boyette in 10th grade, so the translation was easy. “Have You Seen Me?”

The pictures accompanying the plea were obscured by something from the Red Cross. He crushed all of the pages into a pointy, misshapen ball, then felt shame for not even glancing at the photo of the poor lost child. He opened the bundle back up and laid the paper on the table, smoothing the crinkled paper with his hands.

David focused in on the ad and saw his own face gazing back at him. He shook his head as if to shake the foolishness out.

“What the—?” His eyes locked on the image. “This. Can’t be real.” He leaned

further in and squinted. The technology had somehow managed to match his exact shade of brown. Although the nose in the picture was a bit too narrow, it was close enough. David had a full, close-cropped beard; the man in the picture barely had a mustache. Regardless, it was him, in a “computer-generated image of subject at thirty-six years old,” as stated by the printed words below the man’s, well, his, picture.

What the hell?

The photo on the left was a picture he’d never actually seen, but it was how he remembered himself at eleven years old, refusing to smile for the goofy school photographer. “Wuss happnen,” the photographer had said as David approached the stool, centered in front of a faded blue background. David frowned. The only people who spoke like that were characters on the old reruns his parents watched. But the photographer had kind eyes. After the photo, David smiled and held out his hand as he exited the bandroom-turned-photo studio. “Gimme five,” he offered, the way he’d seen it done on TV. It made the man’s day; he’d slapped David’s hand with enthusiasm. David was glad he had done it, this grand gesture. The photographer was married to Mrs. Dalton, the hard-faced 3rd grade teacher. He deserved a break.

But David was at a new school, living with his new family, by the time the batch of photos were developed and sent home in cellophane envelopes with his classmates. He’d never seen the pictures.

Until now.

EXCERPT 2
Any dead bank employee could tell you this simple fact—bulletproof glass only works if you’re standing behind it. So if you were like Olivia, just promoted to loan officer with a lovely desk out on the floor, you were well on your way to essentially becoming a sitting duck.

Olivia’s aunt brushed off her reservations as they sat in the orderly kitchen that night. Aunt Bernice was a no-nonsense woman; the shiny fixtures and appliances gleamed. “That’s got to be one of the best opportunities you’re gonna get without a college degree. Don’t you dare tell me you’re thinking about turning it down. You better accept that position like the smart girl I raised you to be.”

“I know, Aunt Bernice,” Olivia said, moving to the sink to rinse her teacup. “And you’re right. I already accepted the spot.” She wiped the sink with a yellow kitchen towel and folded it into a tight square, then placed it onto the counter.

“Well, good. You worked hard enough to get it.” The dilemma resolved, Olivia’s aunt returned her rhinestoned cat-eye glasses to her face, her attention back to her ledger.

Despite the increased paycheck and enviable benefits, Olivia’s initial anxiety about her new position never waned. She’d watched too many movies and was highly suggestible, easily spooked by the images she’d seen. She was drawn to crime thrillers, often centering banks, a morbid pull she knew wasn’t good for her. And the little measures she developed to soothe her fears—entering and exiting the establishment only in the company of other workers, fingering the panic button under her desk—didn’t have much of an effect. She tried to be as thrilled as Aunt Bernice was about the new position, but she would have done better to follow the older woman’s more relevant, oft-repeated advice: “Always follow your gut.”

Olivia’s final transaction was a simple one—to close the accounts of a nice-looking family who was moving out of state. They’d arrived at her desk with pointed looks, their identification documents at the ready, their slips filled out. She worked more efficiently than usual, wondering about their backstory. $75,000 was a lot to take in cash.

Olivia snuck long glances at the family as she handled their transaction. The mother had a soft, understated beauty. Something about her was fragile, almost sickly. The teen daughter was pretty, yet solemn. But it was the father’s face, the last one Olivia was to see in this life, that would have haunted her, had she lived. 

The robbers approached her desk with small guns in their outstretched arms. Some patrons gasped and others screamed, clutching the nearest stranger. The mother and daughter froze, but the father simply looked at Olivia with bemused resignation, a knowing that this was the end. As if he’d been expecting it. 

The handsome man had taken a visible and audible deep breath, slowly closing his eyes then opening them as a handgun was pushed into his neck. Olivia’s ears registered the shots as if they’d taken place far away, on another planet, and she felt the muscles in her own neck clench while blood spurted out of the man. Frozen, she watched the client’s body lean towards her and slump over, his eyes locked on a small, worn photo in his hand. The picture slipped onto Olivia’s desk and she studied the boy’s face, his gleaming eyes. But then the gun turned to Olivia, commanding her attention. The barrel’s diameter was smaller than the ones she’d seen on TV. But just as effective.