The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

listless breakfast, which I spend trying to avoid reading the headlines in other people’s papers, before returning to my hotel, once again at loose ends. Time to myself—I certainly have it now. I check my e-mail. There’s a note from my agent, listing seven different magazines and newspapers that would like to interview me about Milo. A month ago I would have been thrilled by the interest.
    I page through the other debris that has accumulated in my little corner of digital space. My in-box is filled with messages of support and curiosity, some of them from people I haven’t spoken to in years. One of them is from Lisette, offering condolences and asking if I’m coming to town. Just yesterday I was thinking that this wasn’t the kind of trip where there would be time for social calls, but her e-mail to me is kind—the surprise smile I was looking for a few moments ago on the street. I write back, briefly. “Yes, I’m here. Don’t know if I’m going to be wallowing in free time or busy every minute. If it’s the former, maybe we could have lunch …?”
    I consider going back to bed. Enough time has passed that I might be able to will myself to sleep. But then my cell phone rings. It’s Joe’s number; I remember it from yesterday.
    “Hello, Joe?” I say.
    “Uh, no.” It’s a woman’s voice. “My name is Chloe Treece. I’m Joe’s girlfriend.”
    “Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
    “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Frost, and I’m just noticing how early it is, but Joe mentioned he’d seen you, and I wanted to talk to you.”
    “All right,” I say. I wait. “Does it have to do with Milo?”
    “Yes,” she says.
    “Well, if you have any information that might help his case, please, please talk to his lawyer about it.”
    There’s a pause. “It’s complicated,” she says. “I’d like to talk to you first.” She surprises me by laughing softly. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to meet you.”
    This catches me off guard. So … what? She knows something about the murder, or she wants me to sign her copy of The Human Slice ? When I don’t answer right away, she goes on. “And if you want, I know where Roland Nysmith lives. I could take you by to see Milo afterward.”
    My blood speeds up. “He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to see me.”
    “Oh, please,” she says. “He’s just being a douche. Big stubborn guy—does he get that from you?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer, which is fine, because I don’t know what to say. “Come with me. We’ll go over there. Roland will be able to convince him to talk to you.”
    “All right,” I say evenly. “Where and what time?”
    “We’re in Pacific Heights,” she says. She gives me an address. “Can you make it around eleven? Joe will be out then.”
    “Fine,” I say. “See you then.”
    I hang up. I feel jubilant and terrified. I need to take a shower and figure out what to wear. I turn back to my computer and write a quick reply to my agent: “Please decline these and any future requests. I’m not talking publicly about any of this. Thanks, O.” I close my laptop and start getting ready for whatever comes next.

From the Jacket Copy for
CARPATHIA
By Octavia Frost
(Farraday Books, 2007)

I t’s 1935, and animator Oscar Clough’s life has reached a new low: his fiancée has left him, he’s drinking heavily, and the cartoon studio he works for is struggling in the face of competition from Disney and stricter censorship rules resulting from the new Hays Production Code.
As Oscar sinks into depression and uncertainty, unexplained images start appearing in the cartoons he has drawn: a playing card hidden in a garden of flowers; a bell drawn into the pattern of a woman’s dress; a ship’s oar nestled among the swirls of bark on a tree trunk. As the images accumulate, Oscar wonders whether he’s losing his mind, or whether someone is sabotaging his drawings, or even—perhaps—whether there may be supernatural