Midnight For Charlie Bone Novels & Stories

New York never slept. Not really. At two in the morning, the streets still pulsed with yellow taxis, flashing billboards, and strangers chasing things they couldn’t name. Dreams. Money. Love. Revenge. Sometimes all four. Ava Sinclair stood outside Club Rouge with her arms folded tightly across her chest, trying not to freeze in the brutal December wind. Her best friend, Talia, was still inside dancing with some finance guy who wore too much cologne and talked like he owned Manhattan.

Sky: “Dad says we might be here for a week. Kill me now.” Charlie stared at the message, wanting to write paragraphs back but settling for: “Hang in there. It’s safer.” He deleted three hearts before hitting send. The third day started like the others. Charlie was halfway through chapter twelve of the thriller. The main character had just discovered his partner was the traitor all along and that’s when he heard it. A car engine. Then another. Not the familiar rumble of Marcus’s SUV or any of the security detail vehicles. These were lighter, faster engines.

Only when forensics pried the data chip—the one I'd implanted to monitor the drug's effects—from the rotted tissue did the buried truth finally surface. … "Weren't all the contaminated remains incinerated?" a worker's voice, thick with fear, cut the damp air. "How… how is there one here?" In the profound dark, the sound jolted my consciousness awake. A soul, set in concrete for two years, saw fractured daylight again. The first voice I recognized was my brother's. "Christ, this place is still a bad-luck charm," he muttered, the familiar timbre now laced with a disgust that iced my spectral form.

Two years back, when Shirley came home from abroad, she gave a Patek Philippe watch to Matthew. Matthew was over the moon, wearing it all the time, even to bed, unless he had to take it off for something big like surgery. However, I just could not figure out who this well-off, polished man was. He caught on to my puzzled look, but instead of getting upset, he just smiled. "I'm Edwin." I froze. Edwin Gordon? How could that be? I remembered Edwin always had those super thick glasses, like the bottom of a beer bottle. He was the kid who did not have much, always eating just bread with margarine, skinny as a stick.

“True, her temper is rather fierce. With Aunt so gentle and kind, I’m afraid she’d never manage her. Better to end it.” Charlie offered no reply. A sliver of icy light flashed across his eyes and vanished. … Night folded over the estate once more. The day’s swelter had left the frogs and insects frantic, their chorus rising and falling as though competing for loudest voice. At the front steps, cars came and Candicet. After dinner Charlie visited his little niece, then returned to his bedroom with Jerry in tow to begin a trans-Pacific video conference. Rex had wandered off somewhere unknown. Phoebe remained in her daughter’s room; Dr. Hoover stopped by for half an hour and left.

SKYLA The city always felt colder after midnight – it felt like the darkness always found a way to strip the world of all its polite lies away, leaving only the raw, ugly truth behind. Leaving us with all the bitterness the day had to conceal. I tugged on my coat tightly, the night chill causing goosebumps to scatter across my skin. I keep my head down as I cross the empty space behind Charlie’s building. Ignoring the way my heart thumps rapidly against my chest as my boots crunch loudly against the gravel, a lonely sound in the stillness.

"So, how long do I get you before you guys switch your 'Sky' shift?" Knox, caught slightly off guard by my directness yet ever-ready with a cheeky response, said, "Funny you ask, because we have until after dinner tonight. Kael comes off patrol at 8, and I was supposed to pick it up." I leaned in closer, my lips grazing his neck, "Mmm, and Ky?" "He's on patrol as well... until midnight." Knox's voice trailed off as he realized the direction of my inquiries. Sensing the moment's potential, one we didn't get often enough, I stood and offered him my hand.

That was something he'd promised himself long ago. "What are you doing out here at this hour?" Charlie asked him, shuffling forward. He rubbed his eyes then glanced at his watch. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning, Central European Time. "I could ask the same of you." She shrugged. "I couldn't sleep. I just kept thinking about these riddles."

She dropped the phone on her lap, she remained in the same position while weeping. That night Richard didn't return to the mansion, Charlene woke up at midnight and found out she was the only one in the room. She stepped out of the room tiredly. She checked the rest of the rooms but Richard wasn't in any of the rooms. She checked Miguel in his room, he was sleeping quietly. Charlene wondered if he was in the mansion or he left, she had nothing to do but return to the room. However she couldn't get enough sleep throughout the night. The following day she got ready to leave the mansion, when she checked her phone there was a missed call notification on the phone screen, she turned off her phon

Charlie chuckles nervously, "...but you can sleep here tonight. I don't know if you're lost or anything but... Yeah. You can take the couch, okay?" The man looks up from his cup of chocolate. His eyes are wide and... Well... Curious. His light eyes—Charlie can't decipher the color under the dark—looks hooded and droopy. He keeps staring at Charlie before she flashes him one of her infamous please-don't-kill-me smiles before running up the stairs. Her eyes meet the small alarm clock on her nightstand. 2:46am blares. "Urgh!" Charlie groans. 'This week is definitely not her week.'