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    Scars
    Scars
    Scars
    Ebook49 pages43 minutes

    Scars

    By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    Rena lost everything when her husband and son died in a fiery car accident. Now she has only her daily swim at the rec center, where she hopes no one pays attention to her horrible burn scars.

    But someone noticed—the same someone who murders a lifeguard while Rena does her laps.

    Only Rena can identify the killer, but the identification might prove more difficult than it seems...

    "Kristine Kathryn Rusch's crime stories are exceptional, both in plot and in style."

    —Mystery Scene Magazine

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWMG Publishing
    Release dateFeb 13, 2019
    ISBN9781386554813
    Scars
    Author

    Kristine Kathryn Rusch

    USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

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      Book preview

      Scars - Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      Scars

      Scars

      Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      WMG Publishing

      Contents

      Scars

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      Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

      About the Author

      Scars

      Her solace: those weekday afternoons before the school got out and the children invaded the pool. For the last two weeks, the weather had been fair. Sunlight streamed in the floor to ceiling windows on the north and south face of the pool area, dappling the water with brilliant yellow light. Rena particularly liked the way the light filtered into the artificial blue depths below the surface. When she swam into such a patch, the water felt warmer, even though it couldn’t be.

      The pool was part of a rec center only four blocks from her new apartment; a fact that frustrated her more than the apartment itself. The apartment had three small windows facing south and east with barely enough room on the sills for her small collection of malingering plants. The counters were too low, the toilet too high, and the chrome bar in the shower always caught her in the back. More than anything, she hated the apartment’s silence, and hoped, at her six-month review, the shrink at the pain center would say she had recovered enough to care for a cat.

      By contrast, the pool was never silent. Not even when she was underwater. She heard the rustle of the filters, the splashing of the other lap swimmers, and the rhythmic bubbles caused by her exhaled breath. When she surfaced, she heard voices and laughter; the radio on a rock station she would never play, and the phone, constant and shrill against the echoy boom of the large room itself. She never paid attention to what happened on the decks. The fact that anything happened at all was enough for her.

      Saturday, now, Saturday was different. She never went to the pool on Saturday, saving its pleasures for the weekday, and for the pool attendants who were older. The teenagers who guarded the place on the weekends stared at her. They couldn’t hide their revulsion. The adults were more skilled at hiding their shock.

      But this Saturday her stereo’s tuner went on the fritz, sliding past each station she tried to tune in. For a half hour, she got Christian broadcasting mixing exhortations against sins of the flesh with some pretty good soft rock and then that too faded into static. She had seen all the movies on television, and she had no interest in sports. Her neighbors across the street seemed to be out of town: their little girl and mongrel puppy had not been outside all day—an event Rena lived for—the vitality, joy and love those two shared made her happy even while it made her ache.

      She could no longer stand the silence. She grabbed her swim bag, and let herself out the front door, promising herself that the stares would not bother her this time, would not ruin her solace.

      She walked, as she always did, head down, wincing each time a car whooshed by. Cars still frightened her. It had taken her nearly a month to get enough nerve to take the bus. Before that, she had had Meals on Wheels, and hoped that they never

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