Showing results for "Crimes of the Heart" in Coming of Age

Harley McKenna is the only child of North County's biggest criminal. Duke McKenna's run more guns, cooked more meth, and killed more men than anyone around. Harley's been working for him since she was sixteen, dreading the day he'd deem her ready to rule the rural drug empire he's built. Her time's run out. The Springfields, her family's biggest rivals, are moving in. And they're coming for Duke's only weak spot: his daughter.

Six-year-old Rocky worships his older brother Paul - 16 and full of rebel cool, smoking cigarettes, driving around in his Nova blasting Neil Young - until the day Paul, in an ill-advised act of vengeance against their father, picks Rocky up from school and nearly leaves him for dead in the woods. Paul then runs off with his beautiful, fragile girlfriend, never to be heard from again.

The shooting of Sheriff Ben Carter was ruled as self defense. After a full investigation, all of his past crimes came to light within the public eye, and a lot of unsolved crimes and mysterious disappearances were laid to rest, and many local families finally got the much needed closure they deserved. Everyone except for Elnora. The painful memories she thought would fade with time still lingered on, and she knew they would never go away unless she faced her own inner demons head-on....

The hospital, long decayed and on the verge of collapse, had apparently cut corners at every opportunity; the drab gray walls were peeling, the linoleum floors warped and discolored, and, in some spots, smeared with blood. Blood stains left behind by other victims of Ben Carter's white slavery ring.

Elnora turned to stare up at the stars again, hoping deep down that if she wished - or prayed? - long enough - that all of this would end up having been nothing more than a bad dream, and she would wake up and Sonia would be alive and well, and outside in the back yard playing with her Frisbee and her father would be sober and her mother would be happy. But she knew better. Drunk is drunk and unhappy is unhappy and, in Sonia's case, dead is dead, and there was no in-between.