Artie and the Brown-Eyed Woman(2012)

Jan Christensen

Upon hearing a scream, Artie Applegate stops stuffing stolen merchandise into his athletic bag and looks out the window of the computer store he's looting. To his horror, he sees a woman being dragged down the New York City street by a big, burly man. When her haunting brown eyes meet Artie’s, they plead for help. Artie drops the merchandise, grabs his bag, and runs out the front door, the alarm clanging behind him. Before he can reach her, the woman is pulled into a limo, and it speeds away.

Artie soon finds out the woman is married to one of the city's top crime bosses, and Artie tries to forget what he saw. But the brown-eyed woman has ways to make him remember, and those ways may just get him killed.

A new entry in Jan Christensen's The Artie Crimes short story series.