Welcome to Case Closed.

If you've been following along this season,

you've likely just finished listening to The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins.

Loved what you heard?

Today we have an early excerpt from Rachel's newest audiobook, The Storm. On Sale, January 6th, 2006. Take a listen.

Chapter 1, June 21, 2025.

43 days left.

AC is out in 217. Again.

It's not the best text to get before 6 o'clock in the morning, but I've woken up to worse.

So I just realized that the smoked tuna dip we had

last night had expired. Sorry. Hi, it's Nicole from the salon. Don't think you meant to send

this text to me, LOL. L.O.L. Jen, I'm fucking tired of talking about this.

It's done.

Don't contact me again.

I haven't deleted that one yet, and out of habit I pull it up again.

The words incongruous with my ex-boyfriend's smiling face under his contact info.

Chris sent that text more than eight months ago, and I've honored his wishes.

But for whatever reason, as I sit on the edge of my bed this morning, the sunrise tinting my

curtains pink, the wave softly shushing just outside, I find my thumbs moving across the screen.

About to go battle with the AC again, 217 remains cursed.

My thumb hovers over the send arrow even though I have no clue what this text might accomplish,

or even what I want it to accomplish. Okay, that's not true. I can already feel the summer bearing down on me, the weight getting

...