Most Popular

  • Gossip Girl Reborn

    Rebirth

    "Fate sure had a twisted sense of humor when Isabella Jeannet reincarnated as a disgruntled wife on the brink of divorce in a wealthy family. On top of that, she now had access to the Gossip System. In any case, the divorce didn't seem like a bad idea. After all, why should she hold on to her husband when she could be happily single and spend her money freely? So what if she knew she was being made a scapegoat? The sooner she got the divorce settled, the less she'd have to worry about her truth being exposed! Unbeknownst to Isabella, Alexander Quirk could hear all her thoughts and was utterly baffled. Soon, the once-reputable CEO's secretary had her crimes exposed and was hauled away by the police. Now that she couldn't go through with the divorce, Isabella had no choice but to continue being Alexander's wife. Her only comfort was that she'd always have the trusty Gossip System for company. Alas, the more secrets she discovered about the Quirks through the system, the more drama ensued. That was because everyone in the Quirk family could hear her thoughts! When Evian Quirk learned that the child she wanted to adopt was a product of her husband and his ex-girlfriend, she flew into a rage. She was forced into taking the adoption route because of her infertility, yet her husband used the chance to take advantage of her! Needless to say, she chased the ungrateful lot out of her life. When Christopher Quirk learned that he had mistaken the identity of his first crush and hurt his one true love, he knew he had to rectify his error. A few days later, he pushed away the impostor and rushed off to beg his fiancée for forgiveness. She was his soulmate, and no one else could take her place. When Rosalie Quirk learned that the man she wanted to secretly elope with was a liar and total sleazebag, she was shocked beyond words. She had been so touched by his gestures and believed he was her Prince Charming, yet it was all just a facade. Having wised up to the fact that her love was misplaced, Rosalie returned to school and dumped the sorry excuse of a man. Now that Isabella had had her fill of the Quirk family drama, she was ready to dive into other people's gossip. The Quirks, however, were more than eager to go with her. After all, who wouldn't love a good gossip?"

New Arrival

  • Echoes of the Dead

    Crime

    I’d been listening in on other people’s secrets. So far, more than twelve hundred of them. But today was different. What I heard wasn’t a secret. It was death. I was a hydrology tech with the Riverton City Water Resources Department. I worked at the river monitoring station about two miles downstream from Greenwood Dam. Every day, I logged water level, flow rate, turbidity, and keep an underwater sonar array—fifteen years old and cranky—running. That array was built to track fish migration. Then three years ago, after a software update, it started picking up something else. Human voices. Not speech. But the sound a body would make when it sunk and the vocal cords shivered one last time. Muffled. Short. Like a rock hitting a mud pit. Or like someone trying to scream underwater, with the river water flooding the throat and grinding the words to mush, leaving just one frequency—somewhere between 400 and 600 hertz, lasting 0.3 to 0.8 seconds—then dropping to zero. I knew exactly what it was. I’d heard it more than twelve hundred times. Every time a body drfited from upstream and passed the sonar array, the system would flag the strange vibration in the water and save a voiceprint file. For three years, this river had delivered an average of about 1.1 bodies a day—jumpers, drownings, the ones tossed in, and the ones no one would ever identify. I numbered them and stored them on a hard drive. I never called the cops. Not because I was cold-blooded. But because those recordings could be sold.

  • Corpse Smile

    Crime

    I'd cremated thirteen hundred corpses. But the one I handled today opened its eyes in front of the furnace door. I was a cremator at a funeral home. I'd been doing this job for eight years and seen all sorts of strange things—the body suddenly sitting back, the furnace backfiring and exploding, and family members crying until they go into shock. But I'd never seen a dead person open their eyes. Even more eerie, he looked at me and twitched the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a mere flicker, but a smile. The kind that said, "I knew you'd come." I instinctively stepped back and knocked over the tool cart. When I looked up again, the furnace door had already closed, and the flame ignited automatically. Through the observation window, I saw that person's body tumbling in the fire, like a live fish thrown into a frying pan. I wasn't sure if he was really alive. But I was certain of one thing—the death certificate of this person was forged by me. Because I needed his identity to bury another person.