Note: This is a sample from a fantasy thriller concept of mine. While elements of it ended up evolving into a different fiction project on my back burner, this serves as a good sample of what my writing is like. I am currently unagented.

Before Penny entered the diner, she cleared out the grit beneath her fingernails, even though there wasn’t any blood left there. She’d washed her hands probably fifty times since last night. There was no trace. Yet still, she dug, to make sure.

Her head buzzed, somehow both heavy and light, because she needed food. She sure as hell didn’t need a paper trail, but she did need food. Hence, the diner.

The bell tinkled overhead, and the smell almost brought her to her knees. It wasn’t like it was gourmet. It was a fucking diner. But a diner meant fries so hot they scalded the roof of your mouth.

I’m seven years old and my eyes are drowsy, and Sal is half asleep on my shoulder and Mom’s rocking Malcolm on the other side of the booth. The waitress who brings those fries is my hero. Those fries are the panacea for my road trip misery, a grease-shined beacon of hope in a musty Bakersfield truck stop.

This wasn’t Bakersfield, though, and the other three weren’t here. Sal and Malcolm—no longer little kids—were safe. Mom was not.

No, this was someplace close to Chico. Penny wasn’t used to being this far north. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to hit Oregon or swing a right into Nevada. She’d never been to either state, besides airports.

As far as diners go, she’d seen classier, but she’d also seen worse. There was a wood-paneled aesthetic going on; it could almost have been a saloon, if it were seedier, and if it weren’t for the bright cherry red of the booth seats. The quiet murmur of the TVs mounted on the walls created a hum of white noise that was oddly comforting.

Penny kept her shoulders hunched and her hood over her head. Riding the Greyhound from Sacramento had been a huge risk, and her hackles were up. She’d walked all the way to that motel. That place was a murder backdrop if there ever was one. Only reason she’d gotten a wink of sleep was, well, if someone broke in to try something, they’d see the blood everywhere. They’d probably run.

She found a booth near the back door. If she were feeling more clearheaded, she’d probably have kept a closer eye on the patrons. But the hunger in her belly was so desperate it was about to tear a hole through her stomach lining. So she gave the place a cursory once-over for cops and sat down.

Holding the laminated menu with her sleeves over her fingers, Penny studied the long-ass menu. How did they even have this much food in a diner this small? She needed to get her money’s worth. She didn’t have a ton of money left. It was going to run out.

She couldn’t let herself think that far ahead.

Eventually, a waitress clacked up to her, curly red hair piled on top of her head, swept up in a candy-striped kerchief. Penny wished she wasn’t wearing it. It reminded her too much of Grandma.

“You ready to order, hon?” she asked. Penny recognized the slight pinch between her eyebrows. She was worried about this kid here on her own, thinking Penny was younger than she was. Penny ducked her head before the waitress could get too good a look at her.

“Fries,” Penny said, as if she was ever going to get anything else. “Double order, please.”

“And a drink?”

God, she wanted the milkshake. It was overpriced. Water cost nothing. When people don’t have enough money, they build willpower, Penny thought. They don’t screw themselves over.

“Vanilla milkshake.” Penny pushed the menu toward the waitress. She scooped it up and walked away, and Penny let out a shaky breath.

Two days wasn’t enough to build willpower.

Her road trip memories weren’t isolated to the ones she’d went on with Mom. Grandma did it for Penny and her siblings a few times, after Mom’s death. Grandma understood how hard it was for them to be ripped away from Sacramento and into her custody. She’d lived in Los Angeles. A rough transition for twelve-year-old Penny, and her nine-year-old sister, Sal. Their six-year-old brother, Malcolm, too. Everyone assumed he was too young to get what was going on. He wasn’t. People forget how much of a lifetime six years is, especially when it’s all you’ve lived.

Grandma had tried, though. She’d known Penny and her siblings wanted to go back to Sacramento for visits to see their friends. She’d let them have milkshakes at every rest stop, the way Mom used to. Penny remembered sucking through the straw of one, racing with Sal to see how quickly they could drink it before brain freeze hit them. Grandma, smirking, had promised ten dollars to the winner. It ended in a draw, so each sister collected five dollars. Penny hadn’t even been mad. Five dollars got her the best chips at the vending machine at school. Sal, who did not own a set of keys, spent hers on a keychain.

Grandma’s smile, her fist pounding the table as she egged on their dumb little game, looped in Penny’s memory, images with no sound. Was she allowed to keep these? Had she lost the right to the warmth bundled into those old moments?

She wondered what her siblings would say. She wished, more than anything, that they were here.

But they couldn’t be. They’d share the blame. And it was Penny’s fault.

The fries landed in front of her. She wanted to say they smelled like a fresh batch, but she honestly wasn’t sure. They smelled this good because she was hungry. They could’ve been scraped from the bottom of a trash can and she’d inhale them.

“Honey, is anyone with you?” the waitress asked. Penny nearly jumped out of her skin. She’d thought the waitress had left.

“Oh, no.” Penny tried to put on an easy smile. It felt unconvincing. “I’m just on my way to Portland to see my boyfriend.”

She didn’t know what the lie was going to be until it came out. It was easier to lie without her siblings here. It was also harder.

“Ah. Where from?”

“Bay Area. I like the long drive. Lots of time to myself with my music.”

Penny wanted her to go away.

“All right, dear.” The waitress moved away from the table slowly, as if giving Penny time to stop her. “Just let me know if you need anything. We’ve got a phone, and free WiFi.”

Penny didn’t have the first one anymore, so the second was useless to her. She hadn’t been able to convince herself to throw her phone off a bridge or something. It was her phone. All her photos were on there. They’d probably uploaded to cloud storage, but it still felt like destroying the phone meant destroying everything on it. Penny gave it to Sal to keep safe. It wasn’t like there was anything incriminating on there.

Incriminating toward Penny, at least.

She was wiping the grease and crumbs off her hands when she noticed the napkin turning red.

Everything in her went cold. No, this couldn’t happen here. The other two times, it had happened at night, when Penny was sleeping. Getting drenched with it woke her up.

Knowing what she was going to find, and praying that she didn’t, she looked down at her hands.

Blood. It was rising out of her pores and settling on her palms. In a matter of seconds, Penny’s hands had gone from grubby with French fries to something out of a crime scene evidence locker.

Shit. She almost shoved her hands under her armpits, but stopped herself. She’d get blood all over the jacket, and then she’d have to get rid of it. Nothing of hers stained with this blood could fall into the hands of cops.

Because she was pretty sure it wasn’t her blood.

Penny lowered them onto the booth cushion instead, palms up. She didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t supposed to happen during the day.

Then she snagged on something coming from the TV. A man’s voice: “Penelope Reese.”

She lost all feeling in her legs. Penelope Reese. That was her.

“…the primary person of interest in this case,” the reporter went on. Or Penny assumed it was a reporter. He had the tone and cadence of one. She didn’t dare turn her head to look, in case they were showing a picture of her.

She strained to hear him. Lucky the TV volume was so low. No one was probably paying attention.

“Her siblings, Sal and Malcolm Reese, have been located in Carmichael, Sacramento, in the home of a family friend. They could not confirm Penelope’s whereabouts when asked. According to police, they will be brought in for questioning tonight, after the school day lets out.”

Christ, they’d found Sal and Malcolm fast. They couldn’t have tailed the car all the way from L.A. to Sacramento. Could they? Maybe they had. But then, they most likely would’ve caught up to Penny before she dropped her siblings off.

She hoped Sal and Malcolm remembered what to tell the cops. That they didn’t take any blame, or mention the finer details of how it happened. Fuck, if either of them ended up in jail, Penny would just turn herself in.

“She is believed to be not far from Sacramento county,” the reporter kept going. “If you think you may have sighted her, please contact the tip line at…”

That was when Penny saw it.

The waitress. Watching TV. Taking down the number for the tip line.

“For those of you just joining us,” said the reporter, “Van Nuys, California, is no stranger to crime, but you’d usually associate the neighborhood with gun violence and drug busts. The events of Tuesday evening rocked the nation when 82-year-old Florence Fox, grandmother to suspect Penelope Reese, was found gruesomely murdered in her home.”

The waitress locked eyes with Penny.

She balled her hands into fists and ran.