The Girl Who Lied: An utterly gripping thriller with twists and turns to die for (Chief Maggie Riley Book 1) by Shannon Hollinger

Author:Shannon Hollinger [Hollinger, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803148854
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2023-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

41

MURPHY

Last night, when Murphy got home, Alma had been waiting for him. She didn’t say one word, just put a beer in one of his hands and a hot plate of food in the other. He’d wanted to reach out to her. Had wanted to hold her and let her hold him and maybe even make love until the world felt like a better place. Instead, he’d taken the food and eaten it in the garage, sitting on a cinderblock in front of a space heater.

At one point he’d seen Alma out of the corner of his eye, watching him through the window in the door. Again, he’d wanted to make some kind of gesture, some movement toward humanity. But he just kept staring at the coils inside the heater until they glowed bright, fiery orange. Like his anger.

Murphy had never wanted to be like his dad. He’d always aspired to be a loving father and husband. He had failed. And he could feel that failure rotting inside him like something from his father’s outhouse.

The truth is, no matter how hard he fought it, he’d always been able to feel that little bit of evil just under the surface of his skin, his father’s DNA, dormant, perhaps, but lying in wait for its moment to attack. Maybe he’d kept people at a distance for that very reason. Maybe they’d kept the distance on their own, sensing the foulness that filled his soul.

Murphy had spent the night in the garage, sequestering himself from the rest of the population for the benefit of humankind. He relived all of the most influential encounters with his father, the top-one-hundred countdown. Memories had played in his brain throughout the night. Try as he might, he couldn’t come to terms with what was happening.

His father was a wicked man, of that there was no question. Jack Murphy had stolen the one good thing from his life. He’d made a career of mistreating his son. Of making sure Murphy was aware of all his shortcomings, doing his best to make Murphy feel unworthy of being a part of the human race.

But of all the crimes Jack Murphy had committed, the murder of Chase Gibbons was not one of them. Anyone who looked hard enough into Jack’s beady eyes, two hard little shards of black coal, would see the truth. And that scared him.

In the morning, Murphy passed the boys in the hallway as he was leaving. They had flattened themselves against the wall, bare, thin shoulders pressed hard against the floral-sprigged wallpaper to avoid contact with the man who they knew as dad. Their wide eyes followed him until the door was shut between them.

They’d been terrified of him, like Murphy had been of his own father. The one thing he had tried to avoid in life had happened despite his best efforts. Murphy was now a carbon copy of the person he hated most in the world. His dad’s life was his life. His father’s future was his own.

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