Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Criminal.
Little Black Book
I was awakened suddenly by the piercing cold in my home. I sat up in bed and looked around, there was total darkness except for the light peering through my window from the neighbor’s back porch. As I let out a sigh, I saw the cold cloud of condensation right in front of my lips. It happened again I thought, they turned off the electricity. I was positive I would make it to the next payday. Yet here I am in this icebox house because I NEEDED to buy that dress, and that purse and those shoes too. Eight more days until I get paid and freezing temperatures on the horizon. I have no idea what I’m going to do. Last time I tried returning the items I bought I was so enamored by the beauty in the windows I walked out with more things! There is just something about those snow globe like windows that makes me want to swipe my credit card! “I’ll take one of those, that one too, and ohhhh that one in pink” I said to the saleswoman. She must have thought I was one of those fancy foreigners that comes to shop without looking at price tags.
By Nina Antonio5 years ago in Criminal
The Famous Black Book
Jennifer Desai was five feet eleven inches tall and a gorgeous girl. Jennifer held the Miss Washington DC title in 2018. A law student in her third year in 2020 at Georgetown University. She was married in 2015 to CEO Jayant Desai of Desai Cleaning Services LLC. Jayant was six feet four inches tall and a very handsome man too. A Punjabi Hindu from New Delhi, India, with humble beginnings. His parents were lower middle class. Bought up in poverty was always making quick schemes to become rich since childhood. He was the only son and had five younger sisters. Jayant's parents wanted him to go abroad and make a life for himself, with a good education. So they send him to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, to study. His parents mortgaged their ancestral home to get a student loan from the HDFC bank in India for Jayant's studies in the US. Jayant's parents, whatever they had, invested in Jayant's education. So they were in a lot of debt. Jayant got admission to Johns Hopkins University as he was brilliant and had good grades back in India.
By Dr.Afshan Hashmi5 years ago in Criminal
Old Money
Under the steamer the old wallpaper paste loosened and smelled like stale pancake batter. As Tracy worked her putty knife beneath the edge and peeled it back, a soft spot in the wall revealed itself – the plaster and lath beneath had been cut away creating a small void. Inside was stuffed a tight burlap-wrapped bundle. Surprised, she set her tools aside, worked it out, then turned to her makeshift workbench lit by the antique chandelier to inspect its contents. The burlap was brittle. Out tumbled two banded stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills, some loose bills, and a few newspaper clippings. Adrenaline jolted through her! The money was old, with blue stamps and blue serial numbers. The banding valued each stack at ten thousand dollars. Tracy instinctively looked around as if to protect her find, but she was alone. Her mother had recently passed and the house, essentially unchanged from the time of her grandparents, was in dire need of a refresh before she could put it on the market. She’d been slowly working on it in the evenings and weekends, making small repairs room by room, removing the hideous wallpaper and painting to make it presentable to a buyer.
By Tim Phillips5 years ago in Criminal
Cache Money
Drug dealers. Greg hated them. Well, at this point in his life, anyway. It was a different story twenty years ago. Back then, whom else could supply the weed, coke, uppers and downers that constituted his daily psychotropic diet? The dealers were his buddies, his bulwarks against sobriety.
By Michael Guerin5 years ago in Criminal
Where's my book?
Where’s my black notebook? May 8 1970 Rosa couldn’t believe what just happened, it happened so fast she wasn’t thinking and immediately regretted what she just did. Rosa was standing over her client Karen Broderick with Karen’s lamp. Rosa couldn’t believe what she had done, she slammed the lamp into Karen’s head and knocking the old woman down from her wheelchair, Rosa realized Karen was unresponsive. Rosa didn’t mean to do that; she panicked because Karen starts accusing her of stealing money out of her safe. Rosa was just a broke nursing assistant trying to get by in life, she thought her life would get easier if she went to community college. However, life throws curve balls and after working in the nursing field for nine months she already hates her job. She also can’t stand her client Karen Broderick Rosa was already tired of how ungrateful and disrespectful Karen was to her constantly.
By Natasha Johnson5 years ago in Criminal
Water
It was a rainy, cold night in New York. The cars were trailing lights along the busy streets. Mr. George’s heartbeat was thumping. His busy footsteps were loud, but nobody could notice it amongst the stream of people. His forehead was beading with both raindrops and sweat. He was in agony. He felt his body increasingly become warmer as the rush of the events raised his blood pressure. He was experiencing a shock to his system, but he did not know who to call, who to trust. The noise of the streets, the pulsating lights, and the circulating people all built him a sensation of vertigo. The only soothing element was the water – cool, gentle fall of the rain helping him breathe and place one step in front of the other.
By Léda Daróczi5 years ago in Criminal
Nottingham
Arthur was stopped by the bright lights and reflective vests of a construction crew. He thought it was odd that they’d be working, as he didn’t notice anything wrong earlier in the day, but nevertheless, he turned down a road he’d never travelled before to find an alternate route to the park. The park was nothing special, but it was relatively secluded and vacant. The occasional teenager would ride through on a bike, and the police would often stop for small talk, but on a Tuesday evening, everyone had more important things to do. Everyone else but me, apparently, he thought, as he turned down another unfamiliar alley.
By Devin Kennedy5 years ago in Criminal
Strangers, Secrets, and Games
It dawned upon her right then, as Hayden stood, shaking in the cold rain. She was clutching the little black book that the man in front of her had dropped, realizing just how infamous it truly must be if even she knew some of the names inside it's pages. Like a school roster, she couldn't read aloud in fear that if she did she would be marked, like the scarlet letter, having literally called out the names of those possibly involved in committing heinous crimes that she couldn't bear to think of, dare to speak of. She began wondering to herself a myriad of foolish, frightening thoughts. The first, being if those around her knew that she knew?
By Suzi Sevilen5 years ago in Criminal
The Smugglers Book
The Black Book It was 1981 and I was just a toddler when my parents left me on the top of Bennett avenue in Black Hawk Colorado. They gave me a $50.00 bill and told me to go find my Uncle Zeke at the local bar. I remember my mom telling me, "give him the money and tell him we will be back in two weeks, HB." This was the first of many adventures I can remember having in this small mining town over the next 40 years. You see, my father was a drug dealer, my mother was a hippy. These circumstances made for a very colorful childhood. I was not like the other kids; I knew way more of the world than most my age.
By Megan Clayton 5 years ago in Criminal
