Lynn Combs

At her ninety-fifth birthday celebration, family matriarch Margaret Sullivan raises a glass—and drops a confession that silences the room.

“I killed a man.”

Her family laughs it off as dark humor, but Detective Erin Callahan, Margaret’s great-granddaughter, can’t let it go. The next morning, curiosity turns to obsession when she discovers that Daniel Keene—a dockworker who vanished in 1953—was real. His case, unsolved. His body, never found.

As Erin begins to dig, the lines between truth and memory blur. Was Margaret confessing to murder, or protecting someone else? Each answer unearths another lie, another buried name, and a side of her family Erin never wanted to see.

Torn between her duty as a cop and her loyalty as a granddaughter, Erin must decide what justice means when guilt and love have aged together—and when some secrets refuse to stay buried.

“Bloodlines and Burdens” is a haunting family drama of confession, consequence, and the weight of a single choice carried across generations.

This Story took First Place in the Show Me Mystery Contest at the 2025 OCW (Ozarks Creative Writers) Conference.