The four-year-old boy tore off the paper and pushed the sweet into his mouth. The toffee stuck to his baby teeth. He tried to extract it with a finger. The toffee stuck to his fingers and he began to cry.
The slap of the ruler across his knuckles caught him by surprise and momentarily stopped his whimpering. But once he felt the pain shoot up his hand, he screamed.
‘I want to go home!’
‘Shut up. Not another word. You’re upsetting the other children. Look around you. You’re a mean little boy, and if you don’t stop, I’ll stand you outside the door in the rain. You know there are bad people out there and the bad people come to take away naughty little children. Do you want that to happen to you?’
He sniffed away his tears and bit his lip, feeling the toffee still stuck to his front tooth.
‘I asked you a question. Answer me.’ Another crack of the ruler, this time on the desk.
‘No.’ He nodded vigorously. He did not want to feel that ruler on his hand or anywhere else again. He would be a good boy.
‘Put that wrapper in the bin and open your spelling book.’
He had no idea which one was his spelling book.
‘Come up here!’
Making his way to the front of the classroom, he tried fruitlessly to tear the sweet wrapper from his hand.
‘It’s stuck.’ With the piece of paper sticking fast to his throbbing fingers, he faced the teacher.
The ruler came down hard and sharp on his hand once more.
‘Get back to your seat.’
His first day at school was turning out to be even worse than life at home. As he walked back to his desk, he felt the warmth trickle down his leg and settle inside his white ankle sock. The ruler would surely visit him again many times, today and in days to come. He didn’t think he wanted to wait around for that. But where else could he go?
He spent the morning sitting in his wet shorts; he didn’t even go out to the playground when the other children left for their break. He stayed at his desk, opened his lunch box and munched on the bruised banana. The teacher sat at her desk at the head of the classroom, her eyes blinking with every movement of his jaw.
‘Come here,’ she said when the other children returned.
He looked up fearfully and the banana lodged in his throat.
Not wanting to feel the timber of the ruler again, he put down the fruit and made his way forward. When he reached her desk, barely able to see over the edge, she leaned forward and grabbed his hair. He shrieked when he saw the long-bladed scissors in her hand.
‘Your hair is much too long. You can hardly see out through it. You need a trim.’
He tried to say no, but the words stuck to the roof of his mouth like the toffee had stuck to his fingers. He loved his hair. Shoulder length. It reminded him of the photo of his mother. He had her hair.
The teacher waved the scissors in front of him before tugging his fringe. She looked at him triumphantly, a lock of his hair clasped in her hand.
‘Now I can see your horrible little face.’
Silently, he wished for the day to end.
Ragmullin in December presented itself as a beautiful place. From a distance.
Lottie stared out through the window at the early-morning sky. No hint of blue, just flat grey. Even the snow looked like gunmetal. The snowman her son Sean had built for her fifteen-month-old grandson Louis, stood rock solid in the garden.
It was too early to go to work. She forced herself to load the washing machine and then the dishwasher. Moving to the hall, she listened at the foot of the stairs. No sound came from above, so she returned to the kitchen and switched on the kettle.
Tea, rather than coffee, was her choice of drink at the moment. Too much coffee gave her the jitters. Waiting for the kettle to boil, she absently folded a stack of clean clothes, separating them into bundles for her three children. The girls were officially adults now. A few weeks ago, they’d celebrated Chloe’s eighteenth birthday. The party had been organised by twenty-one-year-old Katie and fifteen-year-old Sean. Sean was already taller than Lottie and possessed the same startling blue eyes as his father had. She was momentarily catapulted back to a time before Adam had died. Five years ago. Cancer. Too young. Too quick. Too hard to believe. Too long grieving until Mark Boyd had proposed to her. She’d dithered for a while, unsure what to do, but she knew she loved him. The night of Chloe’s party, she’d said yes to him, though they had yet to sort out the details, like setting a date and telling people. So far, it was their secret. Her choice.
The kettle purred. She fetched a mug and popped a slice of out-of-date bread into the toaster. Added bread to the whiteboard list attached to the refrigerator. Hopefully Katie would run to the shops later. Some hope, she told herself, and snapped a quick photo of the list in case she had to do it herself after work.
When the toaster popped, she took out the bread and chewed. It was dry. The tea tasted like sawdust. Feck it. She decided to stop on the way for a McDonald’s coffee, jitters be damned.
Pulling on her jacket, she tied a bobbin around her straggly hair and shoved it under her hood. As she left the house, she wondered what kind of humour Boyd would be in today.
Mark Boyd tightened the knot on his tie and appraised the effect in his tiny bathroom mirror. He wasn’t impressed with the image reflected back at him. His tightly cut hair was now more salt than pepper and his eyes betrayed last night’s heavy drinking. Sunken hollows emphasised his cheekbones. At his age, he knew he shouldn’t have sagging skin around his throat. He should get out on his bike for a cycle. But the weather was too cold and icy for cycling, he thought, ignoring the fact that he had a turbo bike folded up in the corner of his kitchenette. No, he needed to deal with the tangible issues in his life. For that he had requested a half-day off work. He hoped Lottie approved it, otherwise he’d have to go AWOL.
In the living area of his one-bedroom apartment he heard his friend Larry Kirby snoring loudly, his torso sprawled across the couch and feet plonked on the overflowing coffee table. Beer cans and bottles littered all available space. Boyd felt his bones creak and his skin prickle. He hated mess. Quickly he gathered up the cans and bottles, placing them in a sack for recycling.
Kirby stirred. Struggled to sit upright. ‘Where the hell am I?’ He glanced around, bleary-eyed, and ran a hand through his mop of busy hair. ‘Oh, Boyd, it’s you. That was some session last night. Where’s McKeown?’
Boyd shrugged and thought for a moment. They’d abandoned Sam McKeown, the newest member of their team, in Cafferty’s Pub when they’d left at … shit, he had no idea what time it’d been.
‘God only knows where he ended up.’ He placed the recycling sack on the floor beside his turbo bike. ‘Fancy a coffee? There’s a clean towel in the airing cupboard if you want to take a shower.’ He found a packet of paracetamol and swallowed two.
Kirby sniffed his armpits. ‘Don’t suppose you have a shirt I could wear?’
Boyd smirked. Kirby was twice his width. ‘What do you think?’
‘I’ll have that coffee, so.’
As Boyd busied himself making the coffee, Kirby said, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Despite a thundering hangover, I’m grand.’
‘You were pretty intense last night. All maudlin and depressed.’
‘I’m always like that, according to you.’ Boyd wondered what he’d been saying towards the latter part of the night.
Kirby yawned loudly. ‘Every second word out of your mouth was Lottie this and Lottie that. God, I don’t know what McKeown must have thought of you.’
Boyd brought two mugs of coffee to the living area and sat down opposite Kirby. ‘Was I that bad?’
‘Worse.’
‘Shit.’
‘Why don’t you put a ring on her finger? Anyone with one eye can see you two are meant for each other.’
Boyd felt the blush work its way up his cheeks. He’d been thrilled when Lottie had agreed to marry him, but they’d decided – no, he thought, she’d decided to tell no one yet, as it was too awkward with them both working in the same garda station. But all that was before everything else. He said, ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘I still have an engagement ring if you want it.’ Kirby laughed, then grimaced.
‘I can buy my own, thank you very much. When and if I need one.’ Boyd closed his eyes and ran a hand over his throbbing forehead. The paracetamol was taking its time to do the job.
‘Suit yourself.’ Kirby put his mug down on the table. Clutching his hands between his knees, he stared glassy-eyed. ‘I’ve no use for it now that Gilly’s … you know …’
‘I know, it’s bloody tough. Give yourself time to grieve.’ Boyd thought of Garda Gilly O’Donoghue, who had been murdered during the summer. Gilly was the first woman Larry Kirby had fallen for since his divorce years previously.
‘That’s what everyone says.’ With creaking knees and a raspy cough from too many cigars, Kirby stood. ‘Jesus, I stink. I’ll see you at the office. What the hell time is it now?’
‘Half past six.’
‘Ah, for Christ’s sake. Why’d you wake me at such an ungodly hour? I’ve time for a snooze before work. I’m off. See you later.’
As Boyd sipped his coffee, he spied a whiskey bottle lying on its side under the couch. He got down on his knees and picked it up; shook his head and went to fetch his Dyson.
The pigs were making an unmerciful noise in the sheds. Wind rattled the windows violently as another blizzard spun snow diagonally across the yard.
Beth Clarke took a mug from the cupboard and turned on the tap. Nothing. She tried again. Still nothing.
‘Dad!’ She shouted into the living room, where her father was furiously banging the keys of an old-fashioned calculator. ‘What’s wrong with the water?’
‘Frozen pipes, no doubt.’ His voice sounded faint against the thump of his fingers.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ She clattered the mug into the sink and checked to see if there was enough water in the kettle for him to make his tea later. Probably. Just.
‘For pity’s sake,’ he growled.
She turned round to find him standing in the doorway, one hand holding a calculator and the other clutching a sheaf of pages bleeding handwritten figures into crooked columns. He was dressed in yesterday’s clothes.
‘Were you up all night?’
‘Yeah, more’s the pity. I can’t balance this VAT return. Don’t suppose you could put this lot onto your laptop, could you?’ His voice cut in two with a cough and he doubled over, wheezing.
‘You suppose correctly.’ Bending down, Beth picked up her rucksack from beneath the table and hauled it onto her back. She smoothed her black skinny jeans down to her ankles and tied up a lace on her shiny red boots. ‘I’m off to work.
‘Work? Surely they won’t be expecting you in this weather.’
‘I’ve to attend the switching-on of the Christmas lights this afternoon. First, though, I have to visit the festive markets in town.’ She felt a rush of excitement. She loved writing features for the local newspaper.
‘You can’t drive that road in this weather. It’s nearly fifteen kilometres.’
‘As if I didn’t know,’ she said under her breath.
‘Give me a minute to throw on a coat. I’ll drop you into town.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She picked up her black puffa jacket from the back of a chair and dragged it on before realising she’d put it on over her rucksack. ‘Damn.’
As she rearranged herself, she heard the pad of her father’s bare feet trek to his makeshift office in the corner of the living room. He’s a lost cause, she thought.
Opening the back door, she was immediately assaulted by the high-pitched squeal of the pigs.
‘Don’t forget to feed the stock,’ she shouted, her words sucked from her mouth by the wind.
Carefully she made her way across the yard to her Volkswagen Golf. Bright blue. Her mother had bought it not long before she’d hightailed it off to somewhere it never snowed. Five years ago, when Beth was just nineteen. She paused. She’d heard that her mother had returned to Ragmullin, but she had no desire to seek her out.
The car door was frozen stiff. She breathed on the handle, hoping to defrost the lock. No such luck. She’d have to use the last drop of water from the kettle. Perhaps, when her father found it impossible to make himself a mug of tea, he might motivate himself to fix a few things around the farm.
God, but she hated living in the village of Ballydoon.
She firmly believed it was the absolute arsehole of nowhere.
It was a full seven minutes before Christy heard Beth drive slowly away down the frozen road.
‘That girl definitely has a streak of her mother in her,’ he mumbled to himself, and he didn’t think it was a good streak either. His wife – or ex-wife if he wanted to be pedantic – had always carried a devilish look in her eye, and did whatever she wanted whenever the whim took hold of her. He prayed to God that Beth wouldn’t leave him too.
A glance at the ledger told him there wasn’t a hope in hell of balancing the figures. Trying to keep the farm going was proving too much for him. He’d closed down the garage in the village, even though that hadn’t been of his own free will. He cursed the deal he’d done, but it had been necessary. He still couldn’t manage. Throwing down the invoices, he went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
He shook the kettle. Empty. He turned on the tap. Nothing. The pipes had frozen in the night.
‘Blast it all to hell and back,’ he said.
Fetching a carton from the fridge, he poured milk into a glass. Gulping down the cool liquid, he scanned the yard through the window. The pigs were unusually loud this morning. Feeling the weight of the world settling on his fifty-six-year-old shoulders, Christy Clarke tugged on his wellingtons, dragged his coat from the hook on the back of the door and went to investigate the frozen pipes.
‘Shut up, you fuckers,’ he yelled at the pigs as he passed the shed door.
The stairs got her every time. Not the number of them; there were twenty-one. No, it was their narrowness and lack of depth. Her toes stubbed every second step, and on a couple of occasions, while perfectly sober, she’d climbed the last three on her hands and knees. Today, because the lift was out of order yet again, she took them slowly, the weight of her life settling into the soles of her feet.
At her apartment, Cara Dunne inserted her key in the lock. Inside, she leaned against the door and watched her breath hang in the air. She slipped off her damp shoes and shook out her coat before hanging it up, then walked past the bathroom to the open-plan living area. It was bright on one side and dark on the other, where there was no window; just a green wall with one drab painting.
Putting her hat on the radiator, she found it was freezing. Damn. She checked the thermostat; it was on the highest setting. Something wasn’t working. What a day for it to happen.
She sat in her armchair and switched on her phone to locate the caretaker’s number. She couldn’t remember his name. Mills or Wills or something like that. Her brain was dulled from the pain she’d suffered in the last few months. Most of that pain, she had to admit, was in her heart, but it metamorphosed into her physiology like a metastatic cancer, racking her with spasms without warning. She’d taken time off work. She was due to return next week. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Nothing had been resolved. And he was still out there, laughing his head off and telling lies about her. Another pain shot up her chest and she tried to control her breathing.
Her eye was drawn to the old brown suitcase nestled on the shelf beneath the television. A suitcase of someone else’s memories. A suitcase that had travelled everywhere with her in the years since she’d headed to Dublin to study to become a teacher. A suitcase battered and broken. Like herself. Gosh, she thought, I’m such a cliché.
She made her way into the bedroom, stripped off her damp jeans and placed them on the radiator. Cold. Ah, the caretaker.
Opening the wardrobe, she caught sight of the dress. Hanging under clear plastic at the end of the rail. Mocking her. A dress she would never wear. Why had she kept it? She had no idea of anything any more. He had stolen every last original thought from her brain and then abandoned her with a laugh. She felt acid lodge in her throat and thought she might throw up. But she swallowed it back down, like she’d have to swallow her pride and face her friends and colleagues. One day. Soon. Or never?
She shrugged away the thought and took out the hanger with the plastic-covered dress. She would try it on one last time, then it was headed for eBay.
A creak. Somewhere in the apartment.
She paused with the gown weighing heavy on her arm. What had she heard? She listened. Nothing. Must be the radiators.
‘I’m really going mad now,’ she said aloud.
She laid out the gown on the bed and whipped off her shirt. She undid the zipper on the cover and lifted out the diamond-studded satin garment. Her eyes filled with tears for a day that would never arrive. Holding out the dress, she stepped into it. The cool material sheathed her body like a second skin as she gently tugged it up to her shoulders, breathing in as she stretched to pull up the side zip.
There it was again. The creak. A door. Opening.
She’d locked the front door, hadn’t she? Apart from her bedroom, the only other door in the open-plan apartment was the bathroom. In the wardrobe mirror she watched her face turn pale and her mouth open, an unuttered yell lodged in her throat.
With the dress hampering her feet, she crept into the living room.
‘Anyone here?’ she said, hoping no one answered her.
Nothing. No one.
She looked in the small kitchen. Empty.
Another creak, and the bathroom door opened.
She backed up against the cold radiator.
There was someone in her apartment.
Lottie sat with a screen of spreadsheets in front of her, driving herself demented. End-of-year budget returns were imminent. She hadn’t even completed the November performance sheets. She hated figures. Hated reports and files and computers. But she also knew this was an integral part of her job as detective inspector in the town of Ragmullin. A point hammered home constantly by Acting Superintendent David McMahon.
‘Concentrate,’ she said, hoping that her own voice would drum motivation and conviction into her brain.
‘Talking to yourself again?’ Detective Sergeant Mark Boyd stood at the door to her cubbyhole office.
‘Good morning.’ She pushed the keyboard away from her. ‘You look like you were on the beer last night.’
‘You should see the state of Kirby.’ Boyd lounged against the door frame.
She had to admit he didn’t look too bad, but she was astute enough to recognise the dark circles under his eyes. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Nothing that the hair of the dog won’t cure.’
She looked out over Boyd’s shoulder to the main office. ‘He’s not in yet. Surely he didn’t find a pub open at this hour of the morning?’
Kirby’s workspace overflowed with paper, files and food wrappers, but there was no sign of the man himself. Detective Maria Lynch was on maternity leave until January at the earliest, so Detective Sam McKeown had been transferred from Athlone. The big man with the shaved head was sitting at his desk, banging away on his keyboard. Lottie liked Sam, even though she had yet to make it her business to find out more about him. Hopefully he could remain part of the team when Maria returned to work.
‘I’d say he’s on his way,’ Boyd said. ‘He left my place this morning before I did.’
‘It was a big session, so.’ A twinge of jealousy crept into Lottie’s voice. They hadn’t asked her out with them. But why should they? She was the boss and maybe they wanted a boys’ night out. It rankled all the same.
‘Why the sour puss?’ Boyd folded his arms and leaned one foot back against the wall.
‘Must be from looking at you standing there doing nothing.’
‘Ha! It’s because we didn’t ask you out with us, isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s not!’ But she grinned. Boyd could always read her mind, and while it was uncanny, it was a little unsettling.
‘We went to Cafferty’s to watch a match, and you know how it is, one pint led to another and then another.’
‘I remember the days well,’ she said, recalling the years after Adam’s death when she’d drowned herself in alcohol. It had taken time, but now she was alcohol-free. Almost. She just needed to hold herself together. To care for her family and protect them.
‘What have we on today?’ he said.
‘November reports are overdue.’
‘I’ve dispatched mine.’ His face creased smugly.
‘Of course you have.’ If she had half of Boyd’s organisational skills, she’d be chief superintendent by now.
‘Do you want a hand?’ He unfolded his arms and moved towards her desk.
‘No thanks.’
‘I’d have them finished in half the time. Let me help you.’
‘I can manage, thank you very much.’ She hadn’t meant to sound so sharp, but some days she couldn’t help herself. She was about to say something else when the phone rang.
After she’d finished with the call, she stood and pulled on her jacket.
‘Get your coat,’ she said.
‘Where are we going?’
‘There’s been another suicide.’
‘Why are we needed?’
‘This is the second in three weeks, Boyd. Maybe something is going on.’
‘Something is going on in that daft brain of yours. You’re making up conspiracy theories now.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll bring McKeown.’ She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
‘Okay, okay,’ Boyd said. ‘I’ll go with you.’
‘Fine. But you better quit with the smart comments.’
She pushed out past him and caught sight of the glint in his eye as her hand brushed his. She’d felt it and he felt it too. That sudden thrill of physical contact. No matter that it was fleeting and unintentional. It was there. And she had to admit, she loved it.
Kirby shoved his kitbag under the desk and attempted to dampen down his unruly hair with shaking fingers. The shower in the locker room only spouted out cold water, and even that hadn’t done much to stem the ache gripping his head and the churning of his insides. He looked at McKeown to see if he’d heard the rumbles coming from his stomach. But McKeown had his head down and seemed not to have heard anything. Good.
He rested one foot on the bag, and as pain shot through the other, he hoped his overindulgence last night had not reignited his gout. It was a blasted pain in the neck, he thought; or rather, in his foot.
‘Where’s the boss?’ He waited as McKeown raised his head to peer over the computer. Jesus, he looked fresh, and here was Kirby himself looking like something out of date that you would shove in a bin.
‘Gone out.’
‘I gathered that. Where?’
‘Heard mention of a suicide.’
‘Didn’t you work a suicide a few weeks ago?’ Kirby scrunched his eyes, trying to recall the case.
‘I did. Nothing suspicious.’
‘Who is it this time?’
McKeown stopped what he was doing and stood. Leaning over Kirby’s desk, he said, ‘I don’t know who it is because I wasn’t informed, and for your information, I’ve enough reports piled up to high heaven to keep me more than busy without getting involved in stuff I’m not wanted in.’
He sat back down. Kirby revised his opinion. His colleague, like himself, was in the throes of a hangover.
The apartment blocks at Hill Point had been constructed during what was widely called the Celtic Tiger boom years. The project had been an exciting one for the midland town of Ragmullin. But once the complex had been built, despite the fact that it offered multiple housing units, it was evident that Ragmullin could have done without the blot on the landscape. The saving grace was that it was the only high-rise building in the town. If you didn’t count the twin-spired 1930s cathedral casting its shadow downwards and outwards, visible no matter where you stood.
The block they were looking for was easy to find, with two squad cars and an ambulance parked haphazardly outside.
Boyd parked the car. Lottie jumped out and walked on ahead. Inside she found the lift out of order and had to take the concrete stairs to the third floor.
In the narrow corridor, two redundant paramedics lounged against a wall, a folded-up trolley between them. A uniformed guard stood outside the apartment door.
‘Good morning, Garda Thornton. Bring me up to date,’ Lottie said once she got her breath back. She pulled on protective gloves and booties.
‘Good morning, Inspector.’ He didn’t need to consult his notes; he was what Lottie termed an old hand on the job. ‘The next-door neighbour on the left-hand side there reported the incident. I sent her back to her own flat with an officer. I had a look inside and something looks off.’
‘Off?’
‘Once you go in, you’ll see for yourself.’
‘Have you called SOCOs?’
‘I thought you should assess it first. Everyone and their mother has been through there at this stage. It might be a straightforward suicide, but … I don’t know. The deceased is called Cara Dunne. Her body is in the bathroom.’
‘Has a doctor attended?’
‘Been and gone.’
‘Did you interview him?’
‘Yes. He says the woman is dead.’
Lottie waited until Boyd arrived. He was out of breath, which was unusual for him as he was a fitness freak. While he pulled on gloves, she pushed the door inwards. From her initial glance, she could see it was a small apartment. A navy coat was hanging on a hook in the narrow hallway. She ran her hand over the garment. Damp.
She moved inside. Putting off the inevitable, she walked past the bathroom containing the body and stood on a square of brown carpet that designated an open-plan living area with a kitchenette to the right. She pushed open the nearest door and peered in. A compact bedroom. Bed neatly made up. A cotton nightdress was folded on the pillow. Bedside cabinet and wardrobe. Venetian blinds shaded the window. A pair of jeans was lying over the radiator. A red shirt looked like it had been flung on the bed. Plastic, used for protecting clothing, was crumpled up on the floor.
She walked back to the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar. She pushed it with the tip of her finger. It moved only a little. She squinted in through the slit. White ceramic bath with a corroded shower head. Toilet and sink. The cream tiles on the floor were wet. Other than that, nothing seemed out of place. But … the smell. She recoiled at the acidic odour of urine.
‘I can’t see the body,’ she said.
‘Behind the door,’ Boyd told her.
She eased around the half-open door. Stepped into the small space. As she turned, she stopped. Her hand flew to her mouth and she felt her knees weaken. A gasp escaped through her fingers.
Behind the door hung the body of a woman with a black leather belt wrenched tight around her neck. Her mouth was open, as were her eyes, pinpricks of blood dotting the whites. Her throat was scratched intermittently where the belt had cut into her skin. Her arms dangled by her sides; her hands were clenched in death. Lottie had seen death do unimaginable things to the human body, but this was grotesque. She shook herself to remain professional.
Guessing the age of a dead woman was not easy. To her trained eye, however, Cara Dunne looked to be in her mid to late thirties.
A dress of white satin, studded with diamonds that sparkled under the light, draped the hanging figure like a shroud. It reached her ankles, where bare feet peeked out. From the puddle on the floor, it was evident that Cara Dunne had wet herself in her dying throes.
Lottie dragged her gaze back to the dress. A wedding dress. New. Unworn. Until now. A price label hung from a zipper just under the victim’s arm. She wanted to touch the dress, to feel the smoothness of the material between her fingers, but she didn’t move a muscle, just allowed her senses to formulate what might have happened in this small, non-descript bathroom, with its black mould creeping along the tiles above the bath.
The smell of death was so strong in the small room that Lottie tasted it on her tongue. She studied Cara Dunne’s face. Smooth skin, no wrinkles. Was that from death, or had the woman’s skin always been like that? Her hair was blonde, short and straight. As Lottie’s eyes travelled upwards, she noticed that the other end of the belt was tied tightly to a chrome valve protruding from the wall above the door to the right. A six-inch-high three-legged stool lay on its side in the corner behind the door.
A question burned a line through Lottie’s brain. Could this woman have hanged herself? On first impression, it appeared likely. Had she been jilted? Or had she changed her mind and decided this was the only way out of a wedding? Lottie had a suspicion that all was not as the image projected. Garda Thornton was right. Something was off.
A knock on the door and Boyd said, ‘Can I come in?’
‘There’s no room in here. Wait until I come out. Call SOCOs. Ask for Jim McGlynn.’
She squeezed back out into the hallway. While Boyd made the call, she glanced around the living room again, searching for signs of a disturbance, but couldn’t see a thing out of place. A hat lay on the
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
