Excerpt, The Catfish Murders

I sat there in my favorite chair in the living room, thinking of how much my life had changed over the past year.

First, my son was drafted to Iraq. I always prayed that someday, he would return home from the war, alive and in one piece.

The other thing that hurt not just me, but my daughter Stephanie, as well, was my divorce with my now ex-wife, her mother, Melanie. She had an affair while were on our third honeymoon in five years.

Our marriage fell apart not long after it began. Basically, the only good thing that came from the marriage was Stephanie. My son is my first child from a previous marriage, before Melanie.

Speaking of my sixteen-year-old daughter, sitting in the living room by myself was getting boring. I went into the kitchen and checked the time on the microwave.

6:53.

I had forgot to cook dinner, and I didn’t really feel like cooking anything now. I went upstairs and knocked on Stephanie’s door. I opened it to see her swaying her head back and forth, listening to music through headphones plugged into the laptop I got her for Christmas.

“Hey, kiddo. How does Chinese sound?” I asked her. She took one of her wireless earbuds out.

“What?” she asked.

“Get your shoes on. We’re going out for dinner,” I told her. She was excited as she put her shoes on.

I loved making her smile. It was the one thing that mattered to me more than anything in the world.