Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

"Rita says that sometimes he comes after her with a hammer at night," Maggie's mother whispered while she glanced around. Feeling safe, she continued, "He tells her she might not wake up in the morning."

"He's a wicked boy, my Harold," the old woman said, shaking her head, her fingers drumming out of control now.

"What's going on?" Harold yelled, hurrying back from surveying the skid marks.

"We're just chatting with your mom," Maggie told him. "That's not a problem, is it?"

"Not unless she's telling you lies," he said, a bit breathless. "She lies all the time."

Maggie thought it seemed a strange thing to say about one's mother, but Harold said it as casually as if it were part of an introduction, just another one of his mother's personality traits. He didn't, however, look as casual when he noticed Sergeant Blake approaching.

"Fu

O'Dell said. "That you're the liar."

Maggie wanted to catch her mother's attention long enough to shoot her a warning look. No such luck.

"What's going on?" This time it was Sergeant Blake's question.

"She says you beat her." Kathleen didn't back down from confronting Harold, probably feeling safe with Maggie standing between the two of them.

"Kathleen, you promised," Rita wailed at her, another panicked screech.

Maggie met her mother's eyes, again hoping to stop her, but she continued. "She said you've come after her with a hammer."

There was no grin on Sergeant Blake's face now, and Harold's had resumed a softer crimson color. This time Maggie knew it was anger, not embarrassment, and saw his hands at his sides, his fingers flexing and closing into fists.

"For God's sake," he muttered with an attempted laugh. "She says that about everybody. The old lady's crazy."

"Really?" Sergeant Blake asked and Maggie noticed that the young trooper's hands were on his belt again, but now only inches from his weapon.

"Two days ago she said the same thing about her mailman." Harold wiped at the sweat on his forehead. "For God's sake, she lies about everything."

Maggie looked back at Rita, who had pulled herself deeper inside the pickup. Now she had her cane in her shaking hands as if worried she might need a weapon of her own.

Maggie wasn't sure what happened next. It all seemed like a blur even to a trained law officer like herself. She had seen it happen before. Words were exchanged. Tempers flared and suddenly there was no taking back any of it.

She remembered Sergeant Blake telling Harold he'd need to go with him to the station to answer some questions. To which Harold said he had had enough of "this nonsense." Harold started to walk away, going around to the driver's side of the pickup as if to simply leave. Maybe a more experienced state trooper would have been more commanding with his voice or his presence, but Sergeant Blake felt it necessary to emphasize his request with a shove. Of course, Harold shoved back. Before Maggie could interfere, Harold lay on the ground, the back of his head cracked against the ripped metal of his own pickup. His wide eyes and that blank stare told Maggie O'Dell he was dead even before she bent over him to take his pulse.

Three hours later Maggie and her mother took Rita home, following the woman's directions, despite those changing several times en route. Maggie recognized her behavior as shock, and patiently waited for the old woman to issue a new set of directions. Otherwise, the woman hadn't said much. Back at the state police station, Kathleen O'Dell had asked her if there was someone they should call. Even after it was decided that Maggie would drive Rita home, Kathleen still kept asking if there was anyone who could come stay with her. But Rita only shook her head.

Finally they pulled up to the curb of a quaint yellow bungalow at the end of a street lined with huge oaks and large green lawns.

"I don't know what I'll do without that boy," Rita said suddenly. "He was all I had."

There was silence. Maggie and her mother looked at each other. Was it simply the shock?

"But you said he beat you?" Kathleen O'Dell reminded her.

"Oh, no, no. Harold would never lay a hand on me."

"You said he came after you at night with a hammer."

This time both Maggie and her mother turned to look over the seat at the woman who sat up in the back, grabbing for the door handle.

"My Harold would never hurt me," she said quite confidently, and she swung open the car door. "It's that wicked Mr. Sumpter, who brings the mail. I know he has a hammer in that mailbag. He's threatened to hit me in the head with it," she said without hesitation as she slammed the car door behind her.

Maggie and her mother stared at each other, both paralyzed and speechless. It wasn't until Harold's mother was climbing up the yellow house's front porch that Maggie noticed the woman no longer struggled. She was walking just fine, despite leaving her cane in Maggie's back seat.

Grant Blackwood

In his debut novel, The End of Enemies, Grant Blackwood introduced his hero Briggs Ta

Here, in Sacrificial Lion, Blackwood introduces Henry Caulder, a British spymaster who slips into cold war East Berlin on an impossible mission. In the balance hangs the fate of Europe, and perhaps the world. But Sacrificial Lion is not just a tale of espionage, it's also a legacy of sorts, for Henry Caulder is the grandfather of Blackwood's newest hero, Sam Caulder, who, fifty-five years after Henry's fateful mission, will find himself entangled in a manhunt that pits him against rogue spies, mafia kingpins, Washington's power elite and a billionaire intent on controlling America's future. Blackwood plans several Sam Caulder adventures.

For both Caulders, past and present, the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

But each man is up to the task.

SACRIFICIAL LION

Moscow, January 1953

Henry Caulder knew by the sound of their footsteps they were coming to kill him.

Whether the spectacle was designed to instill fear or to uphold the image of Stalin's inescapable grasp, he didn't know, but every inmate in Lubyanka Prison recognized the ponderous march of the guard's boots in the corridor. It was a terrifying sound and an impressive sight, but Henry had been preparing for this day, and now all he felt was a sense of completion.

At least three men-perhaps many more-had gone before him, each receiving a single bullet in the head from a Makarov pistol. As most prisoners do, each man would have screamed his i

The boots stopped outside his door. Henry took a last look around. His cell was a bleak cliche: no windows, a straw mattress and a brimming waste bucket in the corner. The walls were painted a mottled gray and pus yellow. His only illumination came from what little light seeped around the edges of the door. He hadn't seen sunlight in forty days. To his surprise, that's what he missed the most. More than the torture, more than the starvation, more than the cold, he missed being outdoors.