Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher - Sample Chapters

In the bright sunshine, Sam’s face was a flat gray.

The chief was right. Joe knew it. Sam knew it. She’d known three months ago that people were going to die, but part of her shut it out. She wanted to take the Cowl down herself, and damn the consequences.

No, that wasn’t true. Sam knew what would happen but was actually quite relieved that the bloodbath hadn’t been even worse. But whenever it came to the problem of the Cowl, some cognitive center in her brain started to skip unpleasant but necessary details. She had known people would die, but she went ahead anyway.

She felt sick. The chief was right. But more than that, she had no right, no right at all, to serve the city making judgment calls like this one.

Sam reached into her seconds-store suit jacket and took out a small black rectangle of leather. Sewn into the stiff material was the badge of the San Ventura Police Department. On the reverse, a laminated photo ID card. Sam offered it to her boss.

Gillespie looked at the badge, shaking his head.

“What do you think this is, detective? The Wire? You don’t get out of it that easily. Stop making meaningless gestures because you feel bad, and tell me what happened.”

Sam retracted the badge, glancing sideways, not at her partner but to see if any uniforms had been watching. She felt her face grow hot in embarrassment, but nobody was paying the trio any attention.

She quickly pocketed the ID and cleared her throat.

“The Cowl entered the bank by unknown means,