Opening Lines – The Abandoned Flip-Flop

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It’s opening lines day! Wickeds, how would you start a story about the photo below?

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Sherry: A clue! If only I’d just stopped there because I’ll never be able to un-see what followed.

Julie: At first I thought it was abandoned. Then I realized it was still attached to the foot, and that the owner had been buried upside down. That wasn’t the only secret I found that day, in the alien ship landing site.

Barb: I ran into the mangroves as fast as my legs could carry me, losing my flip-flops one at a time.  I ran and then I swam until I couldn’t hear the dogs.

Jessie: Brent knew Kayla prided herself on her scavenger hunting prowess and that she would jump at his offer to host one for her birthday. He was certain she would be the first to find the flip-flop and when she did he would be there waiting for her.

Edith: Ginnie had said she would leave no trace of her victim. Yet there it was, for all the world to see. But I was better than Ginnie, and when I found her, I wouldn’t leave any blue flip-flop behind.

Liz: I thought I’d been so careful, but after all my digging and dragging of the body, I returned to the place where I’d entered the woods and found her flip-flop.

Readers: Give us your opening lines!

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Published by Cate Conte / Liz Mugavero

Cate Conte writes the Cat Cafe Mysteries and the Full Moon Mysteries. As Liz Mugavero, she writes the Pawsitively Organic Mysteries, the first of which was an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel. She lives in the Boston area with her rescue pals.

20 Thoughts

  1. “Over there, in the thicket.” Her partner pointed to the dense brush where the flip-flop lay, upside down, in plain sight. “You idiot!” She shouted. “We went to all that trouble to conceal the body and you left your flip flop behind!? How are we supposed to fetch it?” She stormed off in a huff, leaving her partner behind, struggling to catch up. “I’m sorry, Agnes, but I really had to pee and I lost my footing and it fell off. You try using the bathroom in the woods,” she said. But Agnes had already disappeared.

  3. It reminded me of the one of the exhibits at the forensics school. Except that it wasn’t dirty. Except that it was in the middle of a thicket where it was impossible to walk or run. It looked planted or at least set up as a red herring but I didn’t have enough time to think about it…unless there was no bottom under that muck!

  4. I’ve always hated flip-flops. They’re uncomfortable and have no support. The one in front of us was nothing special; blue and turned upside down. But I’d seen it before, or one like it, many years ago, in another state and on another case. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the killer that had eluded me back in Chicago was back. Here. And before this was over, we’d have enough flip-flops to start a shoe store.

      1. Thank you! If you liked my opening above for the flip flop picture, feel free to check out my cozy series available on amazon or through my website ElaineMackoBooks.com

  5. I always said that if I committed a crime, I should turn myself in right away because I’d leave a huge clue behind. Something like my blue flip flop I lost somewhere in the woods. Now, here I am hoping I can find it again before the police do and know the killer is me.

  6. A single blue flip flop lay amid the browns and blacks of the twigs and decaying leaves. It was glaringly obvious. It couldn’t possibly be a clue. Or could it?

  7. It all started as a romantic raindrop dodging walk in the woods…and then we found one blue flip flop and I knew our walk was taking a deadly turn!

  9. Crap! I knew I shouldn’t have worn flip-flops for this walk with Jeremy. Now one just went sliding off and down into the mangrove where I can’t begin to reach it. It can’t get any worse than having to walk all the way back in this muck with one barefoot. Or so I thought. That was before I found a couple more flip- flops with feet attached.

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