Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Except the morgue.
You couldn’t pay me to go in there.
I flicked every switch I came across on my way down the hall to the living room. Nothing came on, so it looked as though I was in the clear. I even made sure the ancient wall phone didn’t have a dial tone or anything, and I smiled briefly at it as I hung it back on the hook.
Sigh.
That was such a satisfying click.
Hanging up on people on mobile phones just didn’t have the same satisfaction these days. If you slammed it down, you broke it. Those old phones could go through a tornado and there’d still be a dial tone if you picked it up.
I hummed to myself as I wandered through the living room. It really wasn’t that bad in here—perhaps it all looked worse than it was. Surely, it’d all be so much better when the windows were repaired.
It couldn’t look much worse.
I turned towards the sunroom and frowned.
There was a shoe by the window.
Was that there yesterday? I had no idea. I’d been so overwhelmed walking through here that I hadn’t paid any attention to little things like that, but why would there be a shoe?
A man’s dress shoe. Shiny, but smudged and dirtied with dust, sitting perfectly with the toe in a ray of sun and the laces all skewwhiff.
Something crawled down the back of my neck and trickled down my spine—a chilling, icy feeling that said I shouldn’t go any further, but the curious part of me moved my feet before I could stop it.
I crossed the threshold into the sunroom and slowly dragged my gaze from the misplaced shoe to the other side of the room.
Blood.
That was the first thing I noticed.
A lot of it.
Pooling across the floor—a huge puddle of deep red, coagulated at the edges. I traced the edge of the pool with my gaze until I landed on a pair of feet.
One shoe.
One shiny, black, dress shoe that matched the one by the window.
Nausea churned in my stomach, and my throat burned as bile threatened to escape, but I couldn’t look away. I clapped my hand over my mouth and just kept looking, kept moving my gaze up the body, across pressed black trousers to a familiar shirt that was soaked with blood, and the face.
The soulless, glassy-eyed, perfectly still face of Declan Tierney.
I screamed.
The noise was unnatural, and even though it was coming from me, it all but jerked me to life. Adrenaline flooded my body, making every single part of me shake, and I kept screaming as I traced my steps and ran outside.
Oh, my God.
What did I do?
Why was he dead? And why was he here? When did he get here? What was going on? What was I—
The police.
I had to call the police.
I rushed into the annexe, almost tripping on the stairs. My chest was tight, and I almost fell over again as I walked through the door. My co-ordination was almost non-existent, but I somehow managed to get to the kitchen counter, grab my phone, and unlock it to make the call.
I don’t know what I said.
It was all a jumble of words that fell out of me, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor, leaning against the cupboards behind me, unable to breathe.
Someone was shouting at me through my phone, but all I could hear was the silence as it dawned on me what I’d witnessed.
Declan Tierney was dead.
In my bed and breakfast.
And not just dead.
As far as I knew, you didn’t randomly drop dead into a pool of your own blood.
Usually, if you were that kind of dead, it was because someone else had a hand in it.
“Charlotte?” a vaguely familiar voice cut through my thoughts, but I couldn’t focus.
My chest burned, my nerves were on fire, and my stomach hurt with each heaving breath I took.
“Charlotte, it’s okay. You’re fine,” that same voice said soothingly. “It’s Jamie—Jamie Donovan. Do you remember me from when we were kids?”
I nodded, looking up. My eyes were watering, making my vision blurry, but I vaguely recognised him.
I knew the black-and-white uniform.
Police.
“Good. There’s an ambulance on the way, but I need you to start calming down for me, okay?” he continued talking in a calm, quiet voice. “I know it’s hard, but can you try breathing on my count for me?”
I nodded.
“One…”
I inhaled.
“Two...”
Exhaled.
“Three…”
In.
“Four…”
Out.
We kept going, even though I occasionally stumbled, and my breathing hitched back to the quick, uncontrollable panting of a few minutes ago. I didn’t know how long it took, but eventually it slowed to a normal level, and I was able to focus again.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, wiping under my eyes. “I—I found—”
“Shh, it’s okay. Just focus on staying calm for me, all right?” He smiled warmly, and I was hit with a flash of a memory of a boy I once knew.