Spread Of Fear (DI Olivia Austin Book 34): A fast-paced crime thriller by Nic Roberts

Author:Nic Roberts [Roberts, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

13

Booth had been driving his nine-year-old son to football practice that day. It was supposed to be a day like any other. Come home, have dinner with his wife, and play with his young daughter before taking his boy out. As he told Tim and Nikki about his family, he mused on the mundane routine of it all. Simple things… good things. He wished he’d taken the time to appreciate it more while he had it. Because it was the last chance he’d ever have.

He was driving his son in the car when lightheadedness came over the detective and he struggled to stay focused. It wasn’t as though he were losing consciousness, more like he was intoxicated.

And before he knew it, the car wheel was not in his hand anymore. By the time he grabbed it again, it was too late to regain control of the vehicle, and the car had gone over the roundabout… That’s when he blacked out.

When he woke up, Booth had been in a daze as to what had happened, the flashing sirens he’d come to know so well in his career bringing his world back into focus. He was still in the vehicle, but his son wasn’t in the seat next to him.

He looked around frantically, trying to dislodge himself from the metal heap, calling out for his son.

And then he saw the ambulance, as well as the stretcher with a sheet over it, covering a shape that was far too small for it to be an adult.

Booth howled in grief, trying to tell himself this was just his mind playing tricks on him, that he’d wake up any moment… but the lack of feeling in his legs and the throbbing pain from everything above the waist told him otherwise.

When the officers came over, he was surprised to see they’d brought a Breathalyzer test with them. He tried to shove it away, insisting that he didn’t need it, that the most he’d had was a glass of wine with his wife. But they were adamant.

He didn’t think he was under arrest, but he was definitely treated like a suspect while he was in hospital. The doctors confirmed that his spine had been broken in three places as a result of the crash, and it was unlikely he’d ever walk again. But he didn’t care for his own shattered body. He just wanted to know what had happened to his son.

Tests were carried out, and they were convinced that he’d been drinking despite all utterances to the contrary.

When the tests came back, it certainly wasn’t a relief. It wasn’t alcohol that had been running through his system at the time of the crash. It was GHB, commonly known as a date rape drug. Booth looked back on the events of that day, trying to work out a possible time when someone might have dosed him.

While he was in hospital, shortly after it’d been confirmed which drug had been in his system, he’d received a visitor.

At first, he thought the visitor was another doctor given the medical get-up.

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