I just read that a bunch of authors got a $1.5 billion settlement from Anthropic, the company that makes the AI chatbot Claude among other AI tools. Anthropic pirated a bunch of novels and used them to train their AI. After a court ruled it to be a copyright violation (the copying, not the training use) the company settled. I looked up my name in the database of authors used for the training and was disappointed to find my name wasn’t on it. I decided to ask Claude to write a short story in my style (the style of the Cliff Knowles Mysteries). Claude replied that it wasn’t familiar with that author but would use typical crime fiction elements. Here’s what it produced:
The Vanishing Witness
Detective Sarah Chen stood in the empty apartment, her breath visible in the cold air. The heat had been off for at least three days, maybe four. On the kitchen counter, a half-drunk cup of coffee sat next to an open laptop, its battery long dead.
“No signs of struggle,” Officer Martinez said from the doorway. “Looks like she just stepped out.”
Sarah didn’t respond. She was studying the coffee cup, the laptop, the jacket still hanging on the back of the chair. Emily Rodriguez hadn’t just stepped out. Emily Rodriguez had been scheduled to testify against Vincent Calabrese in forty-eight hours. And now Emily Rodriguez was gone.
The Calabrese case had consumed six months of Sarah’s life. Money laundering, racketeering, conspiracythe charges read like a greatest hits of organized crime. But it all hinged on Emily, a bookkeeper who’d kept meticulous records and finally found the courage to come forward.
Sarah walked to the window. Three stories up, fire escape access. She tested the windowunlocked. Her stomach tightened.
“Pull the security footage from the building,” she told Martinez. “Every camera, every angle. I want to know everyone who came and went in the last week.”
“You think someone grabbed her?”
“I think Emily was smart enough to keep her windows locked.” Sarah turned from the window, scanning the room again. Something wasn’t right. The apartment was too neat, too staged. No one lived this carefully.
Her phone buzzed. It was her partner, Detective Mike Warren: Found something. Meet me at Emily’s office.
Twenty minutes later, Sarah stood in the reception area of Meridian Financial, where Emily had worked before becoming a star witness. Mike emerged from a back office, holding an evidence bag.
“Security guard found this taped under her desk drawer,” Mike said, handing her the bag. Inside was a flash drive and a handwritten note.
Sarah read aloud: “If you’re reading this, I’m either dead or I ran. The evidence on this drive is everything, but it’s not what you think. VC isn’t the one I’m afraid of. ER”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Not Vincent Calabrese? Then who?”
Sarah’s mind raced through the case files, the witness interviews, the evidence chain. If not Calabrese, then someone close to the investigation. Someone with access. Someone who knew Emily’s every move because they were supposed to be protecting her.
“We need to get this to tech immediately,” Sarah said. “And Mike? Don’t tell anyone about it. Not the DA, not the task force. No one.”
“You think it’s one of ours?”
Sarah looked at her partner, someone she’d trusted for five years. In this moment, she realized she couldn’t be certain of anyone.
“I think Emily Rodriguez was smart enough to know the difference between running from a mobster and running from someone who’s supposed to keep her safe,” Sarah said. “And I think we have forty-eight hours to figure out which one it was before this entire case falls apart.”
Mike nodded slowly. “Or before Emily winds up in the harbor.”
Sarah gripped the evidence bag tighter. The laptop, the unlocked window, the too-perfect apartmentit was all misdirection. Emily had planned this. But the question wasn’t whether she’d run.
The question was what she’d discovered that made running her only option.
And Sarah had a sinking feeling that when she found out, she wouldn’t like the answer.
