Felon E was her baby, her creation, her universe. While the world of true-crime bloggers grew exponentially, with new entrants on the scene almost daily, she was still number one, the top of the heap. Her blog echoed throughout the online world because of her accuracy, her tact and her compassion.

She utilized all the social networks to get the word out, and her fans did the rest. She’d come a long way from the crime beat at The Tennessean, though no one online had any idea who she was. Anonymity allowed her to utilize sources from multiple jurisdictions without complaint. The law enforcement folks she worked with knew they could trust her, that she’d never, ever reveal her sources. Her silence was golden.

She was admired by law enforcement, too. Many departments utilized her blog and announcements to get background out about hopeless or urgent cases, especially AMBER Alerts and Silver Alerts, work she was happy to do gratis.

To stay on top of the breaking crime news, she’d carefully cultivated contacts throughout the country, but her bread and butter came from friends in the 911 call centers. Major metropolitan areas, local county networks—she’d made deals with hundreds of folks. Those connections allowed her a jump on the competition. She had video and audio feeds live, an online police scanner running at all times, the Emergency Radio app on her iPhone, and an open policy from her contacts. They knew what calls were worth passing along to her. She accepted tips from the general public, too, but always, always confirmed with two sources before she ran her stories.

After a high-profile bank robber had written in to the blog and asked to surrender, the media had been keeping a close eye on Felon E. There had been requests from every major news outlet for her to appear on their shows to talk about how she could keep on top of the country’s crime, but she refused all interviews. She wasn’t in this for her own glory. She was in it because she wanted to help.

At least that was what she told herself, over and over again.

The blog was raking in the dough. The advertising she sold on the site, and so judiciously monitored, paid more than enough to keep her afloat, enough that she could afford to send her five-year-old son, Flynn, to the pricey Montessori school down the street. It was a luxury she never thought she’d be able to find the money for, and while the bills got paid, there wasn’t too much left for lavish possessions. No matter. Working at home meant no extraneous business expenses: fancy suits and gas and lunches out. No husband—and no desire to date—meant no need for overpriced cosmetics, and she didn’t have to fuss with her hair; the expensive highlights she used to maintain like clockwork every six weeks had grown out, and that money went to pay her grocery bill. It all balanced in the end.

She toggled her mouse and tried not to look at the picture wedged at the back of her desk. It was no use. Shifty as a sneak thief, her eyes slid over the faded photograph in its dented silver frame. A dark-haired man holding a small blue bundle, smiling broadly with paternal pride. He’d been gone a week later, leaving her to manage a newborn and a funeral. She swallowed hard and let her eyes drift away before she could make real contact, before the memories of him overwhelmed her.

Angels and death, missing fathers and harried mothers. The past clashing with the reality of her present.

She’d explained to Flynn time and again that his daddy was with the angels. It just doesn’t register when they’re so young. You can’t miss what you don’t know, and Flynn had never met the smiling young man who’d fathered him. All Flynn really cared about was Colleen paying him attention when he wanted it, and being left alone for “me” time when he desired. His newly independent streak worried her, hurt her fragile feelings when he pushed her away from the door to his room and said, “I need some time for me, Mommy.”

And pizza. He was passionate about pizza. Just like his father.

Flynn’s daddy was an on-the-rise young cop who’d been mowed down in the line of duty. One minute here, the next gone. They said it was instantaneous. That he died bravely. That he never knew what hit him. She’d been at enough crime scenes to know they were lying—gunshots didn’t kill you instantly, you lingered for several minutes while your organs got the message that they were no longer needed and shut down, one by one—but she’d nodded like she understood and hadn’t asked anything more.

She’d held her silence all this time, though his killer hadn’t been caught.

When Tommy died, Colleen was working at the paper, pulling down just about enough to cover the mortgage and little else. Though the foundation his coworkers had set up was flush, that money was earmarked for Flynn’s college fund. The day-to-day expenses of a single-parent family were astronomical, and she quickly realized that even with the hefty insurance settlement, her job at the paper wasn’t going to cut it.

She’d always been a crime buff, that was probably why she married Tommy in the first place. A cop whore, he’d called her, joking and laughing at her over dinner, his dark eyes dancing while he filled her in on his shift. After he died, some of the other brothers in blue had sat in his rightful spot across from her at the rickety kitchen table, relaying stories and keeping her spirits up while she draped a blanket across her body and nursed Flynn.

When her grief allowed her rational mind to surface, she knew she needed to find something more to raise her small family. She was a writer, after all, so she thought about writing a book. It would be fast, easy money; she could break into the market with a flashy true-crime story. Then one of her heroes, Dominick Dunne, died, and the extensive coverage of his career brought another thought to the fore. The idea of a crime blog started to germinate. She liked it. Quick and dirty. Instantaneous feedback, a running record. Like Dunne, she could be a voice for the victims, but she’d be behind the scenes, an angel of sorts. She preferred that no one knew who she was. She didn’t like to sign her real name to her work; she never aspired to fame, or attention. It was better this way. Safer.

Colleen started populating Felon E with stories, announced it was under way on a few true-crime message boards, and it took off like a shot. She was still surprised at how well it was doing; within a year of the launch, she was able to quit her job and dedicate herself to running the blog full-time. She’d underestimated the fervor civilians had toward the intimate, gory details of the crimes they were surrounded by. She had a fascination, but she was a cop’s wife, and a former crime reporter. She’d been caught up in the scene. Her readers were regular folks off the street, but bloodthirsty for all that.

She’d attracted a few nuts and the like over the years, but Tommy had taught her well. She could shoot the guns in the safe with the ease of many hours of practice, had the house wired to an elaborate alarm system. She knew self-defense techniques. She was smart and savvy and capable of disguising her whereabouts with the computer. She’d been a computer science major at MTSU before switching to journalism her junior year. That gave her two important legs up, an edge over other crime bloggers—the ability to code her site with lovely little traps for those trying to sneak in the back door, and the skill to do all her own web work, ensuring that precious anonymity.

So much for memory lane. She really should move that picture of Tommy—every time she looked at it, the whole scenario flooded into her brain. She really should. But she wouldn’t.

Colleen stood and stretched, then slipped into the kitchen, past the cabinet that needed some work—it was practically hanging off its hinges—to the refrigerator with its broken ice machine. She cracked the lid on her fourth Diet Coke of the morning and started thinking of the angle for the next installment of the story. Teenage boys from upscale Nashville neighborhoods didn’t go missing every day. But if she was going to make this story sing, she needed a scoop, something major. Something official.