I roll out of bed and snap on Lola’s leash. She doesn’t need one; she’s happy to stick as close by me as possible. Sometimes Lo cries in her sleep and can’t settle until I wake her up with pets and assure her that she’s with me for keeps, that she never has to go back to the ring where she lost her ear, or to the sweltering backyard where she lost seven puppies. No, the leash is for my neighbors, who look askance at Lola’s well-muscled shoulders, at her stump of an ear and the scars that mark her face and shoulders. I don’t discourage them from keeping their distance. Their fear gives me reason to avoid their questions, their friendly greetings, an invite to a block party slipped into the mailslot. No one comes to my door. Perhaps they hear Lola’s low growl of warning – or perhaps that’s in their imaginations. But no one comes.

The streets are still empty, the sky that luminous pearl grey that passes for dark in L.A., the real city of lights. Crows call to one another from the roofs of the townhouses that overlook the wooded bike path, and a young guy with a shepherd passes, the slap of his trainers on asphalt making a sharp counterpoint to the dulcet notes of Samara Joy emanating from the phone strapped to my arm. I don’t wear headphones when I run. Yeah, I’ve got a seventy-pound pittie at my side and an MK3 folding knife tucked in my front pocket. But I’m still a woman and I keep my wits about me when I’m on the street.

We head down Exposition Boulevard. We’ll just have time to watch the sun spread light over the grey ocean, transforming it to something magical and alive. If there aren’t any tourists around yet, I’ll kick out of my sweats and catch a few icy waves. Lola hates it when I do that; she paces the shore until I come back, then greets me as if we’ve been separated for a decade, dancing and barking like a sleek brindle clown. It might remind her of harder times, times we slept on Malibu Beach after foraging for supper in trash cans by the Country Mart, or in a tent beneath the Las Lagrimas Bridge.

I kick a can off the path and Lola turns to look at me without losing her pace. I run about six miles an hour; I could do eight comfortably but I’ve noticed that lately after a run Lola’s tired, wanting only to stretch out in the sun and sleep. When I adopted Lola – stole her, if you want to be a stickler – when I adopted her two years ago she’d already carried at least two litters and had spent time in the fighting ring. The vet thought she was six or seven then, so. Yeah. The average pit lives ten or twelve years.

I’ve had a lot of losses in my life, but Lola’s going to be a tough one to move on from. For now, it’s enough that she’s by my side, counting on me, letting me count on her. We slow to a walk as we hit Barnard Way. Lifeguard Station 26 glows white against the pale sky. I stop to take a pull from my thermos, then fill Lola’s bowl at the public sink I used to drink from. A few huddled figures rest on the sand a quarter mile down the beach. A fruit vendor struggles to pull his cart off a beat-up pickup truck, cursing in Spanish.

We head toward the waves.

It’s Not Even Past
Genre: Short Story Crime Fiction Collection
Release: June 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

A PhD candidate who can quote Shakespeare, Beaudelaire, and Louis Leakey with ease, the brainy but naive librarian we know as “Cam Baker” must go on the run, trusting Witness Protection to keep her alive as she jumps from one alias to another, always just a step ahead of her ruthless ex and his cartel henchmen.

Hiding her intelligence and education, Cam accepts menial jobs that will let her stay on the down-low, experiencing the best and worst of the human condition along the way. From her first placement as nanny to two over-achieving teenaged girls in Billings, Montana to her final adventure living rough on the streets of L.A., Cam solves murders, confounding her WITSEC handlers and the handsome police detective who tries to befriend her.

It’s Not Even Past takes Cam from a shack in the mountains to the sunlit beaches of South Carolina and Hawaii, from pastel sweater sets to hacked-off yoga pants and a tattoo. But even as she grows sarcastic and street-wise, Cam never really loses her innocence, and gets her heart broken more than once.

With three inclusions in “The Best Mystery Stories of the Year,” these tales, many of which first appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, will have readers checking the backseat and behind the shower curtain as Cam’s erudite, intellectual persona slips away and a cynical, world-weary woman takes charge of her own life—nearly losing it in the process. This collection includes two new, never-before-published stories from the early and final days of the “librarian on the run!”

Meet the author
Anna Scotti’s short stories have recently been finalists for the Macavity, International Thriller Writers, and Derringer Prizes, as well as for the Ellery Queen Reader’s Choice Award, and have been selected three times for Best Mystery Stories of the Year. She’s also a two-time Claymore finalist. A former journalist and former schoolteacher, Scotti currently teaches grammar, creative writing, and poetry online. Learn more at annakscotti.com.