56 Days by Howard Catherine Ryan

Author:Howard, Catherine Ryan [Howard, Catherine Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Contemporary, Adult, Crime
ISBN: 9781982694654
Amazon: 1982694653
Goodreads: 57628810
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2021-08-17T07:00:00+00:00

From: RICH

Don’t see another way for now. Too dangerous. Get out of there.

Oliver was blinking at the words when a deafening wail started up from all directions: the fire alarm.

Which meant—

Panicked, he dropped the phone on to the table and hurried into the hall. Through the open bedroom door he could see that Ciara was already awake and getting out of bed, pulling on clothes and sticking her bare feet into her trainers.

He didn’t move, didn’t know what to do, couldn’t think.

It was as if Rich’s words had had some kind of immobilising effect on him, a verbal stun gun.

Don’t see another way for now. Too dangerous. Get out of there.

He was sure Rich was wrong.

But Oliver was equally sure that Rich could never be persuaded of that.

Ciara pushes past him and hurries into the living room. The touch of her body against him wakes him from his stupor, switching him into action mode, and he follows her. She seems frantic, wild-eyed, searching—

For her phone, it turns out, which is sitting on the coffee table not far from his.

Just as she bends to pick it up, the unthinkable happens: his phone lights up with Rich’s text message. He never actually opened it, so his phone is alerting him to it for a second time.

Oliver thinks his heart actually skips a beat.

But Ciara just picks up her phone and starts back towards him, towards the door. It seems like she didn’t even see it.

‘Where are you going?’ he shouts over the din of the alarm.

She points behind him. ‘Out!’

And then she pushes past him for a second time, out into the hallway.

This is his third fire alarm since he moved in, and his second middle-of-the-night one. The first time he did what he was supposed to do: he went outside. So did everyone else; the courtyard was soon filled with residents. He’d hung back in the shadows, head down, pretending to be enthralled by his phone. He’d avoided invitations to politely chitchat and ignored the opportunity to engage with any of his neighbours. He didn’t want to get to know any of them and he certainly didn’t want any of them to get to know him.

Forty-five minutes passed. It turned out to be a false alarm.

The second time it had gone off during the day, so he’d hesitated to leave. The door next to his own was a fire exit that opened on to the street; unless the fire was in his own apartment, he wasn’t in any danger. He figured the chances were there wasn’t even one, and he was right. Another false alarm. He watched the courtyard through the curtains until the residents who could stand the noise started drifting back inside and the others rolled their eyes and folded their arms and put their phones to their ears, presumably ringing the absentee management company. Then he’d gone into the bathroom, where the siren wasn’t as loud, put on his headphones and waited it out.

There’d been no need to take another chance.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.