Once Bitten: An Evan Buckley Crime Thriller (Evan Buckley Thrillers Book 17) by James Harper

Author:James Harper [Harper, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: James Harper Books
Published: 2022-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

30

Evan left his car in Lily McFadden’s parking lot, crossed the road, dodged a cyclist on the cycle path running parallel to the river, then sat on the grass looking out over the water. Looking up and behind him, he saw Ponytail still on the roof deck, now standing at the railings looking down at him. If he’d wanted to shout above the traffic noise and give the neighbors something to gossip about, he’d have called out, asked the guy what he made of it, because he had as much chance as Evan did of figuring it out himself.

His mind was having trouble getting a grip on what he’d just heard. Some temporary mental distancing was what he needed. Something to cleanse the palate of his mind, so to speak. He pulled out his phone, called Guillory. It went to voicemail, no bad thing. He left a quick message.

‘I was wondering how the jaw exercises are going. Call me if you need any help with them.’

It made him smile, even if he knew he’d be on the losing end of something. Then it was back to thinking, going through the points in his mind—accepting for now that a lot of it was conjecture.

Jodie Lister killed her husband, Jack, in order to be with her gay lover, name unknown.

The gay lover had hit her, split her lip to manufacture evidence to support the claim of an abusive relationship.

Jodie moved away—presumably with her lover—taking her daughter Faith with her.

Almost twenty years later she killed Baahir Gamal for covering up his own daughter’s murder.

A journalist who wanted to write an article on the murder, Lucia Petty, was prevented from doing so due to her editor being scared of inflaming anti-Muslim sentiment.

Two years after that, Jodie killed Daryl Busch, an alleged rapist.

The journalist Lucia advised Laurence Kent not to write about it.

All three killings were linked by misspelled accusations written in the victim’s blood.

A number of questions presented themselves.

Had the gay lover been involved in the second and third killings? Were they actually the second and third killings? Or were they the eighth and ninth?

Did Lucia know more than she’d told Kent about the second killing? Had that knowledge been behind her advice for him to drop the story? Advice that had turned into prophecy, given the subsequent attack on Mike Fontaine.

And while he was asking impossible questions, what happened to the lover? And where was Faith while her mother was busy killing misogynists?

The answer to a lot of the above lay with Lucia. That would be the same Lucia who hadn’t returned his call.

He tried again now. Unsurprisingly, it went to voicemail again, fate deciding that today, his role in life was to be the person everybody ignored. A more sensitive soul might have felt unloved. He left another message asking her to call him.

He spent a while going over the conversation with Lily, thought about her answer to his question about Jodie, how she’d called her straight-laced. It fit with her father being a judge, unless she’d rebelled.

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