Havok Publishing

Mystery

On Reflection

No one in New York paid attention. He liked that.
He also particularly relished this post-rain sunshine.
Taking a deep breath, Dorian started toward the waterfront. This was his ideal way to start the day. It had been for a century.
Immigrating to New York had been his best move.

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The Man in the Glass

Count Wilde approached me one day with the deal of a lifetime.
He refused to reveal where he was from or how he got his wealth, but his technology was far more advanced than anything I had ever seen.
All he requested from me was room and board while he did his research.

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Harmony Star and the Reward Money

“Oh, good, I caught up to you! I was afraid I’d be too late. No, please don’t go—that door is always locked anyway, so you can’t get out that way unless you find someone with the right tune key. And there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

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Valerie Darling and the Case Before Her

A bejeweled ukulele strapped over her shoulder, Harmony Starr invites me inside her condo—at least in the sense that it has walls. It still feels like outside, with potted ferns and exotic plants dominating the living room. Chittering rodents and songbirds scurry and flutter among them. Certainly a creative use for her trust fund.

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Shining Stars

My attention shot toward the screen when a tall, willowy woman wearing an oversized orange sweater stepped into view of the security cameras. She lowered her ukulele as a magnificent bird soared out of sight. I watched the curious woman unlatch and open a small door camouflaged amongst the eucalyptus. My nose crinkled.

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Where the Fire Leads

“Uh, Harmony?”
Harmony dropped her ukulele with a clatter and glanced at the owl perched nearby. “Yes, Aldo?”
“You have an”—he tilted his head, blinking slowly—“an interesting visitor.”
Harmony leapt up. “Ooh, splendid! I adore the interesting ones.” She skipped to the oval door and flung it open. “Well, hello th—what

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The Mystery Mystery

I hit play on Officer Chase’s bodycam footage. The camera dipped as the officer knelt by a young woman sprawled on the roadside, her legs tangled in the wrecked tandem bicycle. An ambulance siren blared in the distance.
Blood seeped through her long blonde hair. Her t-shirt was the vivid orange of the

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Rabbit Stew

“Oh, dear! You simply don’t understand! If you let this girl roam free, the crime spree will never end. I fear for my life.”
Officer Luddick released a long sigh as he tried to maintain a neutral expression. He despised when anthropomorphic creatures came into the precinct. Last week, a wild-haired man-cub with his

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Alice Looking Into

Alice was feeling quite irritated with the world when she opened the front door and discovered a folded square of paper addressed to her upon the step. The message it contained looked like gobbledygook until she remembered she’d seen this sort of thing before. Holding it up to the mirror in the hall, she

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The Sleep Switch

The voices in the workroom rise until they carry out into the rest of the house, shattering my unpleasant dream.
“I never wanted it out on the market!” Father says, with more anger than he’s had energy for in a long time. “It’s not stable. Not finished!”
“There was nothing you could do

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Long Way From Home

Alice slipped her helmet over her close-cropped hair and took the shuttle’s controls. When she was younger, she’d tinkered with the helmet, adding a holographic program to alter size perception, virtual reality games, and other novelties, all operated by her wrist comm. If only the helmet possessed a feature that could rescue her from

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The Normal Festival

On the way to school, Alice told her sister all about her wild adventures in Wonderland.
“Too bad it was a dream.” Her sister shrugged.
But the memories were far too vivid. Could she really have dreamed an entire book’s worth of madness? Alice couldn’t convince herself otherwise. So, after school, she returned

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