Kathleen McNearney

Ulla rents a room in Peggy's home, and they don't talk much. They have very little in common, so it seems; Ulla is an introverted student beautician who drives a Buick that doesn't belong to her, while Peggy has become too old to keep her driver's license and too lonely to care about her own reputation. In want of company, Peggy makes emergency phone calls to local fire departments, and when there is no fire to put out, she offers coffee and nudity in consolation. Meanwhile, when Ulla is recruited into an intervention for a fellow classmate of hers-someone whom she hardly knows - she is thrown into a new set of circumstances that derails her role as a guest in a foreign home full of sound and silence. Leo, a Native American road striper for the department of transportation, remains haunted by something he can't talk about. While all of his co-workers come to him with their constant litany of everyday dilemmas...

Already branded an acting school drop-out, Oliver courts further indignation by serving as his aunt's live-in dog sitter and pool boy. Having reduced his (anti)social circle to his paranoid drug dealer and embittered best friend, Oliver is shaken from his stupor by the arrival of an alluring houseguest dealing with her own issues.

Haunted with nightmares of his wife's recent suicide and struggling to mend the relationship with his only daughter, Richard is caught as a witness to the violence of Abner Solvie. He finds himself at the mercy of a charismatic killer and plagued by his involvement in the city's recent murders. As Abner's new found protégé, Richard is forced to adopt the mind of his sociopathic mentor in order to protect the one he loves. Richard must decide if he's willing to kill in order to keep his daughter alive.