Vicious Visit (DS Leah West Book 8): A fast-paced crime thriller (DS Leah West Crime Thrillers) by Nic Roberts

Author:Nic Roberts [Roberts, Nic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

21

Clarissa Everett was sitting upright in bed, her hand going to the bandage wrapped around her forehead.

Leah burst into the room, followed closely by DC Hussein. “Oh, thank God,” Leah murmured as she moved in for a hug.

But to her surprise, Clarissa held up her hands as though to ward her off. “Don’t touch me,” she replied sharply. At first, Leah took this as a rejection of her, as though the journalist blamed her for the attack. But then Clarissa added, “I’ve got some DNA you’re going to want to get off me.”

She held up her fingers, stretching them out. “I managed to scratch the bastard’s neck.”

“Nice one,” Farah chimed in, impressed that a civilian had been able to fight back.

“Did you manage to get a good look at his face?” Leah asked, desperate for any kind of identification.

“Sadly, no, he had a balaclava on,” Clarissa replied, disappointed that she couldn’t offer more. “I did manage to stab him in the leg.”

Leah nodded, finally understanding the source of the blood trail.

“Hopefully, I nicked an artery,” she continued, feeling proud of herself. “If I had a decent head about me, I’d have stuck the knife in his throat.”

“Either way,” Leah assured her, knowing she had come closer than anyone else to finding the killer. “You’ve warmed him up for us.”

“I don’t suppose you have any idea why he came after me, do you?” Clarissa asked. “I figured it was somebody with an old grudge. I’ve made my fair share of enemies in my line of work.”

Leah could have lied at this point. She could have allowed Clarissa to believe that she had been the single target and been spared the guilt, her friend being none the wiser.

But she felt the journalist had a right to know. “We’re testing out a working hypothesis that perhaps the killer was trying to get at me through you.”

She waited for a long time for Clarissa’s response, to the point that the tension was killing her.

Finally, Clarissa said, “You’re a hell of a doom magnet, DS West, I’ll give you that.”

It took a moment for Leah to register the humour in her tone.

“What did you think I was going to do? Blame you for the work of some mad bastard? Do you want to do right by me? Get me examined and find the fucker. Times like this, I’m grateful I had nail extensions.”

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