Ghost Roll — Julia Keller

Bell Elkins, prosecuting attorney and small-town heroine of Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Keller's A Killing in the Hills, Bitter River and Summer of the Dead, faces one of her most challenging days in this exclusive digital short story. Featuring an exclusive extract from her new full-length novel Last Ragged Breath.

For Bell Elkins no day is ever the same.

But on this day, for the third day running, Bell has woken up from the same dream. A dream about a boy needing her help, reaching out to her. Bell, always unable to help.

Already unsettled, she becomes embroiled, in her role as prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, in an investigation into a couple running a local day-care centre, and Bell suspects that her day is only going to get worse. A suspicion that is compounded when she's forced to confront a friend's treachery and a ghost from her past.

No day is ever the same, but will Bell be forever changed by this one?