"A woman in Bentley says the thief who stole her purse from her shopping cart also made off with a winning lottery ticket for $100,000. Lottery officials say they are paying special attention to people coming in to claim prizes."
"Finally, more about a story that still haunts this city, nearly two years later. Police say they may have some leads in their hunt for Devlin Smythe, wanted in the death of little Jesse Shuttleworth, who -"
Sarah scrambled for the remote on the kitchen table and turned up the volume.
"- was found dead in a refrigerator in Smythe's apartment. Police believe Smythe also went by several other names, including Devin Smythe, Daniel Smithers, and Danny Simpson. There have been reports of suspects matching Smythe's description in the Vancouver and Seattle areas."
"Jesus. Two years," Sarah said. "They always call her 'little.' Of course she was little. She was five years old, for Christ's sake." It was the most she'd said in my presence since the day before.
"Authorities in those areas are assisting local police in their inquiries. Coming up: Take a close look at those bills you've got in your wallet. They may just be counter -"
Sarah turned off the TV, dropped off her plate and cup in the sink, and went upstairs to brush her teeth before heading into the city. I refilled the kettle and plugged it in to make some coffee for myself. While the water heated I went into my study around the corner from that ground-floor laundry room, which was no longer the aphrodisiac it once was, booted up my computer, and opened the file folder next to the keyboard where I kept the pages of my manuscript. The word "Position" was scribbled across the otherwise blank title page, but that was just an inside joke. The real title, the one that would appear in the publisher's spring catalogue, was TechnoGod. There were 357 more pages under that title one, and only a last chapter to write and some proofreading to do before bundling it off to my editor.
I write science fiction, mostly, and you could probably figure this out by stepping into my study. Or else you'd conclude that I'm a thirteen-year-old boy trapped in the body of a forty-one-year-old man. Maybe you'd be right on both counts. The room is littered with SF kitsch. Star Wars figures, Terminator statuettes, plastic Jurassic Park dinosaurs from Toys "R" Us, a rubbery shark from Jaws, small diecast models of the various flying machines from the Thunderbirds puppet show, an assortment of Enterprises from all the Star Trek series and movies. My writing center constitutes the short end of a large L-shaped desk, while the long end is my modeling center. On this particular day there were two model kits on the go - a foot-long Seaview submarine from the 1960s television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and a resin model of Ripley, the Sigourney Weaver character from the Alien movies. I like building models of things - spaceships, submarines, futuristic cars - more than assembling models of people, but I've always been partial to anything related to the Alien flicks.