Completed Mystery 80,290 words

2020 Honorable Mention for Published Fiction Public Safety Writers Association Writing Contest

All Sheriff Chris Winters of The Crossings wanted was to get through the last few months of his term without any more murders or mayhem. It was not to be.

Right up to the Sheriff's back yard was an expanse of deserted land knowing locally as No Man's Land. Nothing ever happened there, until everything happened there.

It started with a group of local teens getting high on Jimson Weed, an easy mystery compared to the mysterious lights, UFO sightings, missing children, drug cartels and surprise bodies. And did the teens forget to mention their gold digging? Oh, yeah, rumors of missing gold caches that lure more than one group back out to the increasingly dangerous No Man's Land.

Now Chris must team with the Feds to save the teens all the while dealing with a shootout and hostage situation between the drug dealers and UFO hunters.

Retirement can't some soon enough.