A Fatal Gift (DI Olivia Austin Book 20): A fast-paced crime thriller by Nic Roberts

Author:Nic Roberts [Roberts, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

When the day came to an end and all the leads had been exhausted, Olivia and Dean went home together. Gabi was nowhere to be seen. The only one to disturb them was Briggs.

As soon as they walked in the front door, Olivia felt her stomach hurling with nerves, but she braced herself, wanting to be strong for when she heard what Dean had to say. She was conscious that it might change how she looked at him, but she had to trust him. He’d done more than enough for her to deserve that faith.

She made her way into the living room where Dean was sitting waiting for her and it reminded her of how Dean often cracked open a bottle of wine for them around this time. Presumably, he wanted to keep a clear head for this discussion.

“How does Gabi fit into all of this?” Olivia could see he was dealing with painful memories, but she was desperate to know how the persistent woman factored into all of this.

“Not yet,” Dean replied. “Despite what Gabi would like to believe, she’s not the centre of the story.”

“So,” she said, arms folded, taking a different but hopefully no less revealing route. “Let’s start from the beginning; I’m guessing you’re not a UK citizen? And your name isn’t Dean Lawrence?”

“It’s not my birth name, if that’s what you mean,” Dean replied. “It’s Deangelo Rossi. I’m from Sicily.”

She tried to keep a neutral face throughout all of this and not feel any betrayal that he’d lived with such a public lie for years. “You don’t have an Italian accent.”

“I should bloody hope not,” he replied with a half-smile. “We moved here when I was younger. I went to school here before we moved back there.”

“So, why did you decide to leave Sicily?” Olivia asked, returning the mild banter to lighten the mood. “You didn’t wake up in bed with a decapitated horse, did you?”

“No.” His face went serious again. “I never talked to you much about my parents. My mum—Bella—is one of the gentlest women you’ll ever meet. She always has a kind word for everyone. And she doesn’t have a negative bone in her body. It’s like she was born without crappy genes. I think you’d like her. I know she’d like you.”

She was flattered by the compliment and of being held in such high esteem. “So, why haven’t I met her yet?”

Dean sighed. “Because I don’t particularly like looking back on my past. That was a period of my life that I’d rather do away with. I can’t even enjoy the good things from those years without dwelling on all the negative shit I had to deal with. So, it’s easier to just leave it all in the past.”

“What kind of negative shit?” she asked hesitantly.

Dean went silent again.

All those years of deduction filtered through for Olivia, as she picked up on a glaring omission in Dean’s previous statements. “Your dad? He—”

“Was an arse-hole. I regret a lot of things from that time of life.

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