Paper Ghosts

Chapter 1

Who the hell are you?

I slide my queen one space closer to his king. You know who I am.

He swipes his right arm, the one that still fully cooperates, across the board. A single, swift movement. Pieces fly, bounce off the carpet, rattle into corners fuzzed with dust from a past decade. I don t flinch, something I m practiced at. Neither does the only other occupant of the room, a deaf woman knitting an infinite patch of blue. Or green or gold or pink. It could be any color.

She doesn t have needles. Her hands work the air methodically while her invisible work piles up like an accordion. A wedding veil sits crookedly on the silvery threads struggling out of her scalp. The second hand on a plastic clock above her head jerks.

I ve wanted to rip that clock off the wall on every visit. Time for the people in this house is meaningless. No need to travel beyond the triple-locked front door or wonder who or what made the three long white scratches that run down its wood veneer. No good reason to think about the people who never visit you or the horrible things you ve done. So what if you can t remember that you never liked dark bananas or the canned laughter of I Love Lucy but now you eat one while watching the other?

I wonder what Carl is thinking. Maybe about how he d like to kill me. I m twenty-four, in the age range. White. Slender. People say I look like my sister. The difference is, she was lit from the inside. Dramatic. Gutsy. A performer. People drifted to her. Loved her. Carl drifted to her, and snatched her life.

Maybe he thinks I am my sister come back to haunt him.

I am the understudy, Carl. A shell of her, loaded with dynamite, set on revenge. The nervous one in the wings about to jump onstage. You and I, we will be co-stars.

I am also a perfect stranger every time I come here, or he s lying. Each time, he claims to forget my name. He won t answer when I ask why, in June, he is wearing a Christmas tie leering with Grinch

Julia Heaberlin is the author of the critically acclaimed Black-Eyed Susans, a USA Today and Times (U.K.) bestseller. Her psychological thrillers, including Playing Dead and Lie Still, have been sold in more than fifteen countries. Heaberlin is also an award-winning journalist who has worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Detroit News, and The Dallas Morning News. She grew up in Texas and lives with her family near Dallas/Fort Worth, where she is at work on her next novel.

You ll enjoy the journey and all its macabre side trips. You ll love the travel commentary written in Heaberlin s lean, muscular prose. . . . Signposts along the way warn of angst, secrets and deadly plot twists, but you ll never see what s coming. You ll step out of this fictional vehicle feeling like you ve been T-boned by an 18-wheeler. The Washington Post

A rich hybrid work that s at once a zany, dialogue-propelled two-hander, a murder mystery, a road novel, a pair of psychological case studies and a meditation on photography. It would make a fine indie movie, although screen adaptation would entail sacrificing Heaberlin s evocative prose. The Sunday Times (UK), Thriller of the Month

I kept thinking of [Patricia] Highsmith while reading Paper Ghosts. . . . Heaberlin anchors her books with troubled but endearingly badass women. . . . Like Highsmith, Heaberlin displays a keen grasp of casual cruelty that defines human interaction, not to mention a flair for stories in which no one least of all the protagonist can be trusted. . . . Texas has yet again bred a major American noir writer. D Magazine

[An] artful and elegiac psychological thriller . . . Heaberlin brilliantly combines travelogue with a heartbreaking portrait of the damage done by childhood. . . . [She] wields words like weapons, with each one chosen to heighten tension, underscore emotion, or foreshadow doom. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Entertainingly unnerving. The Dallas Morning News

Strong characterisation, haunting images, a wonderful sense of place, and some dark comedy make this travelogue-cum-psychological thriller well worth the read. The Guardian

Paper Ghosts is a riveting summer read that shows Texas in a powerfully intimate light. The Austin Chronicle

The emotion is amazing. The scenes and characters are both so strong and so believable. . . . Get ready to be terrified!