Excerpt from Graveyard Shift by M. L. Rio, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Nothing like a little light asphyxiation to calm a body down." The Pavlovian Chokehold had been deployed to such terrific effect over the years that nobody looking to keep their head attached to their neck got up to no good in the Box. Like the Pavlovian Charm, it tended to provoke excessive drooling.

"Watch what you say in front of Little Miss Woodward and Bernstein"—Hannah's eyes fastened on Edie—"or you'll find yourself on the front page tomorrow with all that suffocation and blood sacrifice taken out of context."

"Hey," Tamar said. "What happens in the graveyard stays in the graveyard."

"Sure about that?" Theo asked. He leaned over the side of The Hole. "Looks like there might be a dead man up and walking around somewhere."

"Or dead woman," Edie said, thinly. "Hannah looks a bit pale." So pale and gaunt she was downright cadaverous. Circles almost as dark as Theo's shiner hung under both her eyes.

"Me-yow," he said, and blew a smoke ring.

"Cut it out," said Tamar. "You all are worse than the students sometimes, honestly."

"I am a student," Edie reminded her.

"What did I do?" Tuck asked. Puffing and fidgeting, puffing and fidgeting.

"Did you dig The Hole?" Theo asked. "It's always the quiet ones."

"No, I did not dig The Hole." Tuck pulled his beanie a little lower over his ears. Embarrassed or annoyed or both. Tuck's every emotion manifested as a kind of nervous tic.

"So, who did?"

"We were just wondering that," Tamar said. "Before you interrupted." She turned back to Hannah. "What did you mean, it might be for somebody who's not dead yet?"

"Where better to bury the evidence? Nobody goes looking for a murder victim at the cemetery," she said. "If I were planning the perfect crime, I'd pick the plot beforehand, wouldn't you?"

"I love your sick mind," Theo said. "How are you still single?"

"Eat your heart out, Ivan."

"Sorry, I must have missed how we landed on murder," Tuck said.

"Occam's razor," said Tamar.

"Gesundheit," said Theo.

Tuck wisely ignored him. "Occam's what?"

"Occam's razor," Edie repeated. "The simplest explanation is the best explanation." It was a motto she'd tried to instill in her staff at the Times—along with the official motto, Salva Veritate. With truth intact. But the truth was never simple, seldom whole. She touched The Lump automatically. If Occam's razor had its way, she might have to have it and the larger lump of her left breast razored off. Goose bumps broke out up and down her arms.

"And murder is the simplest explanation why?" Tuck peered uneasily into The Hole.

"Can't be a legitimate interment because the church has been defunct for years," Edie recited. "Disinterment for medical research unlikely due to decay. Disinterment for historical research unlikely because, well, that would have been news, and I would have known." She knew she sounded like a know-it-all but had never figured out how to avoid that particular pitfall. She avoided Hannah's gaze instead.

"Maybe it's not news yet," Tuck said. "I mean, this can't have been dug before last night. We were all here, and no hole."

"Last night?" Theo said. "Can't have been dug more than about an hour ago."

"How do you know?" Edie asked, bracing herself for another idiotic joke. He and Hannah seemed utterly incapable of taking anything seriously.

Theo bent down, straightened up again with a handful of crumbling black earth. "The soil's still wet," he said, pressing it into a small, dense lump. Edie's fingers probed surreptitiously at The Lump beneath her arm again. Mortified she hadn't thought of that; astonished Theo had. He should have been dumber. Anybody that good-looking deserved to be dumb. "It hasn't rained for days," he added, brushing his hands off on his pants. "Whoever dug this did it very recently."

"Which means whoever dug this is probably coming back," Hannah said. "Probably soon."

Excerpted from Graveyard Shift by M L. Rio. Copyright © 2024 by M L. Rio. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.