The Lost Ones: A serial killer thriller with nail-biting suspense (Detective Jackie Cooke Book 1) by Marnie Riches

Author:Marnie Riches [Riches, Marnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803141459
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

Three hours later, as she was wheeled from the ultrasound department back to the maternity ward following her scan, Jackie found not her family but Shazia Malik waiting in her room. She was sitting in the visitor’s chair, clutching a balloon that said Get Well Soon!

‘Shazia, you’re so thoughtful.’ Jackie kept her disappointment to herself that it wasn’t her husband sitting in that chair.

Shazia blushed. ‘Oh, it’s no bother. But I wanted to come in and see how you were getting on.’ She’d covered her head once more with a fresh hijab, mercifully bearing no outward signs of having been in the crash apart from a supportive foam collar around her neck.

‘I’m fine. The baby’s fine. Nothing short of a miracle. You looked in on Dave?’

‘He’s sitting up in bed, complaining. Concussion, he said. They’re discharging him later.’

Jackie didn’t ask if Dave’s wife and children were by his bedside. She already knew the answer. If his mother could have hopped on a timely flight from Hong Kong, Jackie felt certain that she would. That’s how functional families behaved. ‘And Goodyear? The search?’

A grin so exuberant that it made the room feel brighter lit up Shazia’s face. ‘We seized his devices. Bob’s already had a look at his laptop.’

‘And?’

‘Child-abuse images. Thousands of them downloaded and an internet history that would make your toes curl.’

Jackie thumped the blankets in triumph. ‘Ha! I was right. Guilty as hell.’

The grin slid from Shazia’s delicately featured face. ‘Only one thing… And you’re not going to want to hear this.’

‘Go on.’

‘Goodyear’s got a cast-iron alibi for the time of Chloe’s murder. He had therapy sessions all afternoon and evening. He signed in and out. The Priory’s got him on CCTV, coming in at midday and not leaving ’til gone eight.’

Jackie sighed heavily. ‘Damn it.’ She closed her eyes and saw the family photos of Chloe with her mother and Matthew Gibson with his, that had taken pride of place on both women’s mantlepieces. Vulnerable young people for whom Jackie didn’t seem likely to get justice any time soon. ‘Get Goodyear into a cell as soon as he’s discharged and get him his solicitor. Tomorrow, I want to interview the son of a bitch first thing. There’s a connection between him and both murders, and I don’t want to let anything under the radar because I wasn’t thorough enough. Maybe he’s an accomplice. An accessory.’

Shazia looked down at her neatly trimmed fingernails. ‘Venables is on the warpath, by the way. She’s coming back tomorrow.’

Jackie rolled her eyes but held her hands aloft in surrender. ‘Of course she is. We wrote off a car, and two of her detectives are in hospital, including one’ – she thumbed herself in the chest – ‘who she’d explicitly told to stay put. She’s going to hit the roof. Now, did you get hold of those photos of the pub courtyard where we found Chloe?’

Shazia nodded and took out her phone. ‘Your pictures are the only ones on file, but these landed in my inbox just before I got here.

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