This week we have an extended excerpt from the audiobook edition of A Flicker in the Dark,

a compelling eerie thriller from debut author Stacey Willingham.

Best-selling author Karen Slotter calls it, a smart edge of your seat story with plot twists he'll never see coming.

If you enjoy listening to Case Closed, you won't want to miss an excerpt from A Flicker in the Dark, read by Curissa Vacker.

There are so many subtle ways we women subconsciously protect ourselves throughout the day.

Protect ourselves from shadows, from unseen predators, from cautionary tales and urban legends.

So subtle, in fact, that we hardly even realize we're doing them.

Leave work before dark.

Clutch our purses to our chest with one hand, hold our keys between our fingers in the other, like a weapon,

as we shuffled toward our car strategically parked beneath a street light in case we weren't able to leave work before dark.

Approach our car, glance in the back seat before unlocking the front.

Grip our phone tight, point your finger just to swipe away from 9-1-1. Step inside, lock it again.

Do not idle. Drive away quickly.

I turn out of the parking lot adjacent to my office building and away from town.

I stop at a red light and glance in my rearview mirror, habit, I suppose,

winsing at the reflection. I look rough.

It's muggy outside, so muggy that my skin is slick with grease.

My usually limp brown hair has a bit of curl at the tips, a frizziness that only the Louisiana summer can achieve.

Louisiana summer.

Such a loaded phrase.

I grew up here. Well, not here, not in Baton Rouge. In Louisiana, though,

a tiny little town called Brobridge, the crawfish capital of the world.

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