What She Knew

by Karen Long

Genres: General Fiction; Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Private Investigators; Traditional Mysteries; Female Sleuths; Noir; Romantic Suspense; Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

“ OMG what a start… I was hooked and devoured this book in one afternoon.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars With the sound of the doorbell, the past she ran from catches up with her. Baby on hip, Angela Myles hums as she lays out breakfast before the school run, when an unexpected knock on the door stops her in her tracks. But when she sees the familiar face through the peephole, she immediately tries to run with her kids out the back door. Because Angela knows her visitor, she knows why they’re here, and she’ll never give up her children. Hours later, as the police talk softly to Angela’s terrified children, trying to unpick her last moments, they wonder what other secrets she was hiding from those around her. And then another woman goes missing. How many more will pay the price for Angela’s silence? Absolutely unputdownable. A gripping, heart-pounding read for fans of Lisa Gardner, Rachel Abbott and Cara Hunter. What She Knew was previously published as The Cold Room. Readers love What She Knew : “ Wow, what a story, I love how each part of the story unfolds and I found myself guessing until the end trying to piece it all together. Karen has created one amazing jigsaw puzzle with this page-turner.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I absolutely and utterly loved this book and its top of my highly recommended reads. It’s an edge of your seat ride that will shock and thrill you.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I couldn’t put this damned book down, what an exciting book… Fantastic.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “ BRILLIANT.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “I couldn’t put this book down, it was a fascinating plot that was thick with so many twists and turns you will be dizzy.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “ Love, love, love these books!!!” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars “There are some books with the wow factor and this is certainly one of them.” Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

Release date: March 15, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Eleanor Raven had visited the abandoned fairground before but fortunately not under the same circumstances. She stood at its entrance and contemplated climbing the narrow steps and entering the dilapidated ghost train. The world she found herself in was silent and dark, illuminated only by a row of tea lights placed there by her killer.

The battered trolley car leaned precariously on several feet of rusted track, which disappeared through an arch into darkness. A canvas tarpaulin separating the ticket area from the ghost train was painted with overlapping images of ghosts. These were not tempered images of floating white sheets with darkened eyeholes; rather they appeared like vapid souls roiling straight from the pages of Dante’s Inferno, each face twisted into a rictus of pain and fear. Eleanor knew that if she looked more closely she would see herself emerging from the dark, alongside Lee Hughes’ other victims.

Her killer stepped out of the shadows, his nondescript features and slender frame at odds with the murderous chaos that enveloped him. Eleanor watched his arm sweep theatrically in a wide arc, drawing her attention to the surroundings. ‘This is all for you,’ he pronounced grandly.

She knew exactly why she’d been brought here. Lee Hughes was going to murder her and display her body as a testament to his artistic vision.

Just behind the arch, hidden by skeins of cotton gossamer, a large metal hook swung from a central wooden beam attached to a length of industrial chain. A carmine red lipstick and neatly folded transparent plastic bag, ready to display her corpse, had been placed on a small table.

For almost a year, Eleanor had balked at the sight of her killer. Her throat would close and she would feel a surge of panic as she tried to back away from her inevitable death. But this time, strangely, she felt completely calm.

‘Eleanor?’ came a distant voice. ‘Can you see the others?’

Slowly she looked around her and shook her head. ‘No, I think they’re gone,’ she replied.

‘Is Hughes still there?’ asked the voice.

She nodded, not taking her eyes off him.

‘Are you afraid?’ asked the voice.

She paused, trying to register her feelings.

‘This is important, Eleanor. Are you afraid?’

She paused and considered. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not anymore.’

Eleanor walked over to the canvas and began to tear it from its anchor points. Hughes let out a cry of anguish but she carried on, shredding the images with her hands. The faces of the dead – her dead – were beginning to blur and disappear.

‘What are you doing, Ellie?’ asked a familiar voice from her childhood.

She stopped and looked behind her. Hughes was gone and in his place stood a boy. The boy was naked and his skin bore the green and black bands of putrefaction. He looked exactly the same as he had on the day she’d found his murdered body, lying beneath a pile of rubbish sacks.

‘I have to let this go, Caleb,’ she said sadly.

‘Am I to go as well?’ he replied anxiously.

She took a step towards him and considered her lost friend. ‘I have to move on.’

‘I won’t exist anymore?’ he asked quietly.

She shook her head and closed her eyes, listening to the voice of her psychiatrist as he counted backwards from ten. ‘I don’t want to come here anymore,’ she whispered.

‘Please open your eyes,’ Caleb pleaded. ‘Look at me.’

But Eleanor Raven kept her eyes firmly closed. There would be no more conversing with the dead.

‘Three… Two…’ said Dr Seb Blackmore. ‘And on the count of one I want you to open your eyes… One.’

Slowly, Eleanor opened her eyes and focussed on her feet. She had lain in this chair every week since her attack at the hands of Lee Hughes, sometimes in a hypnotic state, sometimes just talking. Initially reluctant to comply with the decision that she needed psychiatric help, she had started to approach her anger, addiction to self-harming and inability to form a trusting relationship with anyone other than her ex-partner Mo, with increasing equanimity.

Seb gave her a few minutes to readjust before questioning her, watching for signs that the hypnotherapy had had an adverse effect.

‘What did you see?’ he asked quietly.

Eleanor sighed and readjusted her position. ‘I was at the fairground.’

‘Was he there?’ Seb asked, scrutinising her.

She nodded. ‘Yes, both Lee Hughes and Caleb.’

The psychiatrist waited.

‘I don’t want to keep them alive anymore,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m done.’

Seb twisted the beaded leather bracelets on his left wrist.

‘Are you still visiting Toby Adams?’ he asked carefully.

Eleanor sighed again. ‘I saw him a month ago and he’s requesting I continue with the visits. He claims he has new information for me.’

Seb nodded. ‘And how do you feel about that?’

Eleanor shrugged. ‘A little indifferent I guess. I don’t think he has any more hidden bodies. His last two confessions were duds.’

‘Is it possible that he doesn’t want to let go of you?’

She nodded. ‘He found out I had been… dead and…’ Eleanor fell silent.

Seb waited.

‘He found out that Lee Hughes had murdered me and was then obliged to restart my heart, so that he could kill me under more creative conditions.’

‘How did that feel?’ he asked quietly. ‘That’s the first time you’ve ever used the word “murder” to describe those events.’

Eleanor thought for a moment or so. ‘How do I usually refer to it?’

‘You say killed. It’s less emotive, more impersonal.’

‘There you go… I’m cured. Ready and able to sally forth and be murdered again, for the greater good of the city.’

‘Is that the only reason Toby still wants you to visit and interview him?’

Eleanor believed it was unlikely that Toby would be standing trial for the murder, preservation and display of a known fourteen women and three men over a twenty-some year period any time soon, because he was insane. He was being kept in the isolation wing of Milhaven maximum-security prison, where a dedicated psychiatric team from all over North America was producing papers on him by the ton. Eleanor had been encouraged to visit him as she was one of the very few people he would speak to – with everyone else he maintained a mulish silence.

‘I think he does see me as someone he would have liked to have as part of his collection.’

‘He’s a serial killer that confesses a desire that he’d had the opportunity to murder you.’

She smiled. ‘When you put it like that!’

Seb closed the gap between them and lowered his voice. ‘I think we’ve gone as far as we can in your rehabilitation.’

Eleanor looked at him expectantly.

‘I’ve signed you off the Serving Officers Psychiatric Assist Programme,’ he said. ‘Are you comfortable with that?’

She took a moment to process this information. ‘No more sessions?’

‘Unless you want to carry on that is?’ he teased.

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

Patrol officers Millie Goldsmith and Sonny Maitland had, between them, amassed over thirty-five years of active service, the greater part of this having been spent on the smoothing over of domestic altercations. So, when a call came in at 7.15 a.m. from an angry neighbour stating that, ‘The asshole at number thirty-four is raising merry hell… again!’ the two cops sighed and headed out on their last journey together.

The small, semi-detached house in the Jamestown region of Toronto was unremarkable, except for the hideous yells and smashing sounds coming from behind the façade. Millie approached the front door and knocked, while Sonny gathered some facts and a great deal of opinions from the neighbour, Al Perkins, who’d called it in. This strategy, which was to cost them their lives, had been adopted early in their partnership. What they hadn’t considered was that the nature of this domestic incident was beyond either their fire or negotiating power.

The first bullet was delivered with astonishing accuracy from behind the closed front door, denying Millie Goldsmith the option of any evasive action. It entered just below her left eye and destroyed all eloquent brain regions before exiting through the lower right occipital lobe. The post-mortem conclusion was unequivocal: PC Goldsmith was technically dead before her body fell backwards and down the wooden porch steps.

Sonny, whose conscious self was desperately trying to keep pace with his body’s subconscious attempt to save him, watched as his hand unholstered his Smith & Wesson, prepped, aimed and began to fire steadily at the figure that had just emerged from the building. Unlike his partner, Sonny took his fatal bullet in the throat, which allowed him to savour several precious moments of introspection before the final tunnelling of his senses.

Al launched himself towards the furthest corner of his porch, skidded round to the side entrance of his home and dived under his kitchen table, grabbing the house phone as he lunged. However, his second call to emergency services was surplus to the stacked calls already being taken from Maple Drive’s other distressed inhabitants.

DI Eleanor Raven and her partner Laurence Whitefoot had been minutes away from the scene when the call came through, which placed them as the primaries when the dust had settled. Eleanor pressed her index finger into her left ear to block out the siren wail, Laurence’s imaginative swearing as he jockeyed the car through chaotic early morning traffic, and the persistent instructions emanating from their radio.

‘Are you listening?’ bellowed her commanding officer Marty Samuelson into her right ear.

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied.

‘You and Whitefoot observe, assist and keep out of the way of the firepower. I’m coming down.’

Before she could stress that this would probably be unnecessary and that the attendance of ninety per cent of Toronto’s emergency capability was more than enough to guarantee the best possible outcome, he disconnected.

Toronto, having learned the hard way that it was neither immune to, nor necessarily prepared for, situations involving stand-offs with high-calibre weaponry, had invested in an Emergency Task Force equipped to deal with these matters 24/7. The ‘high-risk’ tactical team, which had been deployed within seconds of receiving the alarm, was now descending onto the area in a fleet of black SUVs.

‘What’s your position?’ asked the team leader. Eleanor could picture him talking calmly into his headset as he scrolled through the data downloading onto his in-car screen.

‘We’re on Rowan Drive, heading for the back of the property,’ said Eleanor, adjusting the earpiece.

‘Okay,’ began the team leader, ‘we’ve got the negotiator and three overhead snipers getting into position…’ There was a pause as he received an update. ‘We’ll have 360° coverage on the house in the next five minutes but have no visuals or identification of either the occupants or the armed suspect as yet.’

‘Officers Maitland and Goldsmith?’ asked Eleanor through gritted teeth.

‘They’re gone.’

She cleared her throat.

There was a pause as the team leader read a new bulletin. ‘Okay, there’s a possibility that the shooter is a marine, a Lieutenant Eddie Myles. His commanding officer has confirmed he’s AWOL and he’s likely to be in possession of a C7 automatic rifle and a Browning 9mm.’ He ignored Eleanor’s despondent sigh. ‘His estranged wife Angela moved into the property nine months ago and there’s an active restraining order out on him.’

Eleanor massaged her forehead. ‘Children?’

‘Three all aged under seven. We’re calling phones now. Get me something I can work with.’

Eleanor held her badge aloft to the heavily armed task force officer approaching quickly from her left. Unable to see his eyes, or any other flesh for that matter under his grey-and-black protective clothing, she opted for clarity of intent.

Using hand signals, he gestured to the roof of the house. ‘You can’t be sighted if you keep to the area marked by the kids’ swing and the open gate over there.’

Eleanor made a quick check of the parameters and motioned to Laurence to move towards them.

‘Al Perkins is the neighbour who called it in and witnessed the shooting. Communicate only with team leader on one,’ he said, pointing to his radio. Then, giving her the thumbs up, the officer hoisted his rifle and moved silently along the side of the building until he’d lined up his offensive position.

Keeping low, Laurence approached the side door and let himself in. Al, who was still hunkered under the table, let out an involuntary scream. He instinctively made a tamping gesture with his hands. ‘It’s okay, Mr Perkins. I’m Detective Laurence Whitefoot and we’re here to keep you safe and ask you some questions.’

Al’s eyebrows shot up wildly on seeing Eleanor enter the small kitchen.

‘From the top, Mr Perkins,’ said Eleanor brusquely, indicating that he stand up.

Al inhaled and clambered out nervously. ‘The guy next door, he’s a marine or some such.’

‘Lieutenant Eddie Myles?’

Al nodded. ‘They used to live on the base but his wife, Angie, left him and moved in here with her kids.’

‘You know her?’

‘My wife gets on with her. She babysits the kids when…’ His voice trailed off and his face grew white. ‘They’re in there, aren’t they? They never went to school.’ He was becoming agitated.

‘We don’t know who’s in there yet, Mr Perkins. I need to understand what you saw and heard, up to and including when the two officers were shot and killed.’

Al nodded. ‘My wife went to work at six this morning but I don’t go in till later, so I tried to get back to sleep for an hour but the goddamn noise was coming through the wall…’

‘Could you hear what was being said?’ Eleanor asked.

‘He called her a whore. I could make that out. She was yelling back. Not screaming, just yelling.’

‘Did you hear the children? Were they crying or shouting?’ asked Eleanor carefully.

Al shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I would have…’ He paused, as if unsure of exactly what he would have done under those circumstances.

‘Did you clearly identify the man who shot the officers?’

‘Yes! It was him; her husband.’

‘Eddie Myles?’

Al nodded doubtfully.

‘What was he wearing? Could you see his face?’

‘He was dressed in combat gear. The green camo stuff and the biggest goddamn rifle I ever saw.’

Eleanor leaned closer to him. ‘How many times have you seen Eddie Myles before?’

Al was flustered; a line of sweat appeared above his lip. ‘Once. I saw him once – briefly.’

‘So why are you sure that the man you saw shoot the two officers was Eddie Myles?’ she asked, her eyes narrowed.

Al shook his head. ‘I can’t be sure but he looked like the guy the cops hauled off last time he came round and started yelling.’

Eleanor glanced at Laurence and they both listened to the silence, punctuated only by a distant siren. ‘When did the yelling stop?’

‘After the cops were shot.’

‘Tell me exactly what you saw.’

Eddie Myles finally opened a dialogue with his negotiator at 9.13 a.m. His voice was unwavering and his thought processes lucid, if not rational. He apologised unreservedly for the deaths of the two officers but he was apparently on a ‘war footing’ and, as such, collateral damage was inevitable.

The team negotiator had long since learned that the only feeling he would allow into his dialogue with an armed and dangerous suspect was his instinctive knowledge of when things were going to blow. So far, the tipping point hadn’t been reached.

After refusing to talk to his commanding officer, who was being flown in from the base, Myles offered to send out his three children but would not allow Angie to leave. His plan was for an unarmed female officer to stand at the bottom of the porch steps, next to the body of Millie Goldsmith, and receive the three children. Myles gave his word that the children and officer would be safe, but on the question of allowing what little remained of Millie’s bloody face to be covered, he was resolute. He said it would teach his children the consequences of their mother’s betrayal.

If it ensured their safe retrieval, the negotiator would go along with this. There was a team of psychologists whose task, over the coming years, would be to erase the horror of this day for the children; his only job was to save their lives.

Eleanor Raven removed her jacket and tightened the straps on her body protector while the team leader explained the procedure to her. She would be unarmed, as the team’s psychologist advised that a marine would look for concealed weapons and if Myles suspected she was carrying, he might kill her and the children. She nodded and tried to ignore Laurence’s increasingly anxious body language. The only thing she needed to focus on was making sure that the children – Becky, Sam and baby Aden – were escorted, as quickly and quietly as possible, across the 200 yards that separated the porch from the safe zone. Five armed assault specialists would cover Eleanor, prioritising the safety of the children and her above all other considerations.

Eleanor nodded. She was ready. She raised a warning finger to her partner and mouthed, ‘This is my job.’ A wafer-thin microphone and transmitter were taped to her chest and tested.

Eleanor walked with Laurence over to the safe zone and waited in deafening silence for the command. There was nothing more to be said.

At the team leader’s nod, she raised both hands over her head and began to walk slowly towards the front porch of 34 Maple Drive. She allowed herself a momentary glance at the body of Sonny Maitland, which lay sprawled across the path leading to Al Perkins’ house, noting that his hand was still locked around his weapon.

Millie Goldsmith had not been spared any dignity in death. Her legs were spread-eagled on the steps, the remains of her head acting as a wedge on the bottom rung, preventing her body from sliding onto the ground.

Eleanor stopped and waited. She could feel the sharp nag of lactic acid building up in her raised arms and an overwhelming desire to close her eyes.

Cautiously, the door inched open, revealing a child’s hand at the midpoint and above it the muzzle of what was, in all probability, a C7 semi-automatic rifle, identical to those aimed back at it.

‘Stay calm and lower your breathing,’ said the team leader into the microphone as he monitored Eleanor’s raised heartbeat, which echoed through everyone’s headset.

The child’s hand slid back through the crack in the door, leaving only the rifle and a dark shadow.

Suddenly, the negotiator’s tone and body language changed. ‘You have my word.’ He nodded to the team leader and cupped his hand over the phone, ‘He’s releasing the three children.’

Eleanor was trying to control her breathing in an effort to lower her increasing adrenaline levels. She didn’t want the last representation of her living self to be seen shaking uncontrollably.

The barrel of the rifle slid back inside as the door opened slowly. The children were still in their pyjamas, with red eyes and hair mussed from sleep. None of them looked back as they took in the scene. The eldest child Becky held the baby on her hip, just as her mother would have, her right hand firmly clamped around her younger sister’s.

‘Becky, my name’s Eleanor and I want you to walk towards me.’ She tried to smile and relax her features into an expression that would make the girl feel safe but felt the wrong muscles working.

‘Don’t move forward,’ warned the team leader in her earpiece. ‘Coax her to you.’

‘Becky, I need you to walk over to me, so I can take you somewhere safe,’ Eleanor said carefully. But the child was frozen to the spot, her eyes glazed and uncommunicative.

‘You have to get her to walk towards you,’ said the voice in her ear, with greater force.

She tried again. ‘Becky, the baby’s getting cold. Can you bring him over to me so I can get a blanket and some warm milk?’ She fought the urge to lunge towards the children and grab them.

Becky pursed her lips and squeezed the baby closer. His face was buried in his sister’s shoulder, a fist balled tightly around her long, dark plait.

‘She’s in shock, Raven; you need to get her to move,’ said the team leader.

‘Becky, I want to make you safe but you have to walk towards me. I can’t climb the steps.’

Becky’s eyes began to focus on her.

‘I can’t come to you. You have to bring Sam and Aden to me. Do you understand?’

Becky nodded and spoke to her sister. ‘Don’t look at the sleeping lady, Sam… Do you understand?’

Sam stared back at her and began to cry.

Eleanor nodded encouragingly to Becky. ‘We’re going to walk towards the big black car behind me… just us, okay?’

Becky furrowed her forehead and glanced back at the door, which was still slightly ajar. She faced Eleanor. ‘Is Daddy coming too?’

Eleanor swallowed and listened to the team leader say, ‘Not just yet…’

‘Not just yet,’ she repeated. ‘When you walk past the lady, I’m going to pick up Sam and carry her. Will you tell her that it’s alright? I don’t want to scare her.’

Becky whispered to her sister.

‘Hurry it up, Raven!’

‘Ready?’ she asked.

Becky moved tentatively towards the steps, pulling her sister with her. Eleanor was aware that her raised hands were lowering, eager to grab the children as they moved within reach.

With excruciating caution, Becky led them down the steps, keeping her sister’s face pressed into her chest, so she couldn’t see the dead officer, but the baby was slipping and she had to relinquish her handhold to reposition him.

In the fraction of a second that she was adrift, Sam turned on her heels, ran back to the front door and began to hammer on it, sobbing for her mother. Elea. . .