"Deception" is a thriller story about an older couple who find themselves in an intrigue involving a neighborhood break-in. The conflict between the two characters heightens when Marcy's husband, Kevin leaves town for a business conference, leaving Marcy alone and uneasy. When Marcy calls the wife of Kevin’s business partner and discovers he is not with Kevin on the business trip, she catches on to Kevin’s lies, and realizes he is cheating with his co-worker Cynthia. The climax comes when an intruder breaks into Marcy’s house with a gun, attempts to kill her, and she finally realizes he is none other than her husband Kevin.
You did a good job building the suspense in the story. I was constantly anticipating the next action or the next slice of information in this deceptive intrigue.
I think there are a lot of things you could work on to improve this story. I predicted everything from the first page, that Kevin was the burglar, and later, that he was cheating with Cynthia. While subtle hints are good, you could write in such a way that the reader still is left with a sense of mystery. This is probably a story that needs much longer than ten pages, so I’m not sure if it would be possible to drop subtle hints without giving plot twists away.
I think it would also be a good idea to reduce the number of characters, and to give more personality to just a couple characters (probably Marcy and Kevin, to begin with). The multiple characters that really play no role but to move the plot forward become mixed up and confusing, especially since some of them have names that start with the same letter (Candice and Cynthia and Clair). You also have some descriptions that are not needed, like when you are talking about the neighbor’s witness of the initial break-in. You say she said she thought she saw something, with a loud emphasis on the word. However, you don’t need the description of her speech that says it is loud, because you are already painting us that picture when you italicize the word.
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