The Whitehall Affair (Excerpt)

Author's Note

It's been three years since the traumatic event that changed Nora Wright's life.

She's become a shell of her former self, giving up her dreams of working the crime desk at a big paper like The New York Times or becoming an investigative reporter. Her life is crippled by anxiety that something bad will happen again.

But then one fateful night, she allows her best friend, Margot, talk her into attending a book launch party in the infamous Whitehall Mansion. It is there that she finds a mysterious photograph and everything in her life changes yet again.

In some ways, Nora begins to reclaim the life that anxiety forced her to give up. She has a story she wants to track down. She's uncovering old secrets hidden within Whitehall Mansion.

But we all know the saying - curiosity killed the cat.

And powerful people like to keep their power by burying everything that could bring them down.

What started as a way for Nora to learn more about her family history, the history of an iconic New York landmark, and herself, has taken her down a path that very well could end up with her death.

I actually started this story a couple years ago before I ever came up with the idea for "Something Wicked." I was walking home from work and Hozier's "Arsonist's Lullaby" came on my playlist. It started with niggle and two hours later (after putting the song on repeat and drinking a few glasses of wine on my balcony) I had the first chapter of this story and the barebones of the overall plot. It took a bit more work to flesh it out and though I got about half of it written, I ended up moving onto other projects and left this one sitting for about a year.

I finished it and was very proud of what I had done, but knew something was missing. So I went back and cleaned up some things and rewrote others. I'm much happier with this version of the story and I hope you all like it as well.

I own all the rights to this story and do not give anyone permission to use this story or to post or publish it anywhere - for free or for profit - without my express permission. If you see this posted somewhere other than Wattpad or Inkitt under my penname Emily Crewse Kalka, then it is stolen and should be reported.

Update April 16: As I have "The Whitehall Affair" on Kindle Unlimited, I've removed a vast majority of the chapters and am only leaving up a small excerpt. Plus, the version up on KU, Kindle and in paperback is a much more polished, edited version, anyway. Head over to Amazon to get your copy!

Content Warning: Mentions of violence and sexual assault. Some mild violence. Talks about mental health and trauma-induced anxiety. The main character suffers from anxiety/panic attacks.