I came out onto the sidewalk in front of my apartment building and turned right, running at an easy pace, but I could still already feel the sweat running down my back. I had lived in the District for close to ten years now, and Florida before that, but my body still hadn’t adjusted to exercising in the humidity. I suspected it still considered itself essentially Californian.

My building had a gym, and there were others in the neighborhood, but I had never liked the monotony of the treadmill. So outdoors it was.

I reached the path along the river and settled into a steady pace. With one eye on anyone approaching, I had enough attention to spare for my own thoughts. I had spent so much time thinking about what happened that night that it had taken on an unreal quality. At this point I wasn’t even entirely sure what I remembered and what had been suggested to me—from media reports, leading questions, or my own imagination. Parts of my memories were clear as photographs, but I knew how unreliable eyewitnesses could be.

I wasn’t surprised by the fresh attention on what had happened; it was the twenty year anniversary after all. It isn’t every day that five teenagers are killed in a bombing and knife attack, and the only survivor (that would be me) was bound to be the subject of some interest. I usually avoided members of the media like the plague they were, but this latest email had come from a reporter at a well-respected magazine, inviting me to a weekend gathering of people who were connected to the crime, with promises of a sensitive and in-depth exploration of what had happened. I didn’t really believe that part, but I figured that since I wasn’t going to be able to escape the attention, at least I could choose who got to tell my side of the story.

The message hadn’t mentioned any names, and I wondered who else was coming. Family members of the victims? The detective in charge of the case? I had the vague sense that he had resigned sometime later, under some kind of scandal. That might be a problem for me, if the theory was going to be that I had been protected by my dad’s connections on the force. Or maybe someone connected to the kid who built the bomb? That would be pretty awkward, which made it almost certain to happen.

I dodged to the edge of the path to avoid getting run down by a cyclist, and almost ran into a man crouched in the shrubbery, aiming an oversized camera at the trees on the other side of the water.

“Look! I think he’s going to go again,” he said, unaware of how close he had come to being kicked down the riverbank. Stopping seemed like the least I could do, so I followed his pointing finger.

A bald eagle swooped over the slow-moving water and came back up clutching a fish in its talons. The photographer followed it with his camera, clicking the shutter as fast as his finger could move until the bird vanished into the trees.

“That was his third try, and he finally got one. Do you think it’s a metaphor?” he asked, looking at me with a wide-eyed expression.

I shrugged. “Maybe he’s just hungry.”

She Left
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Release: May 2024
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Twenty years ago, she survived. This time she may not be so lucky.

On the night that changed everything, Amy Brewer walked out of a house party, trudging angrily away from the friends who made her feel like she didn’t belong. Within the next hour, all five of those friends would be dead.

The Memorial Day Massacre, as it came to be called, rocked their small California community and Amy―the girl who had walked away just in time―couldn’t escape the media circus…or the guilt.

Twenty years later, ten people with connections to the crime have been invited to a remote cliffside house by a journalist looking to do a story on the murders. But the group quickly learns the event is not what it seems. As a storm closes in and guests begin to die, Amy realizes there is someone in the house who knows more than they admit about what happened that night long ago… and they will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.

About the author
Stacie Grey is an author and fan of mysteries who lives in Alameda, California, with her husband and dog. As Stacie, she is the author of the thriller SHE LEFT, published May 2024 by Poisoned Pen Press. She also writes cozy mysteries as Daisy Bateman. In what passes for normal life, she works in biotech research. She mostly posts to Instagram and Threads, and occasionally writes a newsletter.