The Masterpiece Murders

by E Senteio

About the Author: E Senteio grew up reading crime and horror fiction in the dim light seeping through cracks in a shadow-filled attic. After years of rummaging through hope chests overflowing with mystery and horror magazines, E began spinning dark tales from cobwebs. This award-winning nonfiction writer would rather write nightmares than niceties. Drop by Twitter and say hello @WriteTheWriter.

Excerpt

Highcrest is a crater of a town too small for its name. Everybody knew everybody, and everybody knew everybody’s business because the town was built all funky, and we were squeezed together like a litter of pups trying to get a teat. I tell you, before everything happened, it was 23 years of hand-to-mouth living, not that me and Ma ever went hungry, but life was no buffet of roses. Our house was old, the town was dirty, and the people were unpleasant. I don’t think many outsiders knew we were there unless they got a flat on the side of the highway and happened to look over the guardrail. Hell, when the bodies started showing up not two months after Ma took in the renter, well, it never dawned on me that it could be Arthur. I guess it’s obvious now, with so many people pointing it out over the years, but sometimes like they say, you can’t see a tree in a fortress.

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