A Picture and a Name

by Matthew A. Hamilton

All I had to go on was a picture and a name. She was last seen wearing baggy sweat pants and a Carolina Panther’s jacket. She was a sixteen year old runaway, missing for three months. When I found her, life on the street had made its mark and it was hard to tell if it was really her. Her branch-like fingers seemed to reach for my hand and as I made the call to tell them that I had found Michelle, her hobgoblin eyes, hollow and dark and mysterious, seemed to ask me why it took me so long to find her. It was my fourth murder case inside a month.

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Matthew A. Hamilton is a US Peace Corps volunteer serving in the Philippines. He plans to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing.