Some One's There

by Diane Saxon

  It smashed into his hand, flicking the knife in an upward spiral.

  Disbelief registered in the hollowness of his eyes a moment before he pulled back his lips and exposed his perfect white teeth in a savage snarl, his handsome face turning ugly in an instant.

  When she thought he would launch himself at her, mania flashed across his face and instead he wrapped his hands around Carla’s neck. Her reddened eyes popped wide as she gasped for air through her nose while he squeezed, his arrogant gaze firmly locked on Jenna’s in a vicious challenge.

  Jenna raced forward, but Ryan beat her to it.

  In a straight-arm manoeuvre, he smacked the heel of his hand into Harper’s jaw to send him reeling backwards up against the kitchen sink as the young nurse leaned forward against her restraints and dragged in a desperate lungful of air.

  With both hands cradling his jaw, fury still flashed in Harper’s eyes. He pushed himself away from the countertop and, ignoring Ryan, centred his attention on Jenna, then launched himself straight at her.

  Heart clawing at her chest, Jenna pushed the panic to one side and stood her ground.

  Dark eyes focused, he came for her. She raised her fists and struck out, catching nothing but thin air as the blow from her right sent him careering onto the slippery floor covering to land in a crumpled heap at her feet.

  Mason flexed his fist, his lips curling with regret as he hissed in air. ‘This is becoming a painful habit.’

  Jenna’s lips kicked up in a bitter twist as she leaned over Harper’s inert body to check for signs of life. Thick blond eyelashes fluttered as she pressed her fingers against his neck. The man was proof positive that beauty was only skin-deep.

  “You know, Mason, just once I’d like to be allowed to hit someone myself.’ With a thin, rapid pulse that confirmed he was still alive, Jenna stepped back. ‘Cuff him. Read him his rights, DC Ellis.’

  Mason heaved a sigh. ‘More bloody paperwork. Why can’t the kid do it?’

  She glanced over her shoulder at Ryan, a weary smile on her lips.

  ‘Because DC Downey has his own work cut out.’

  On his knees, Ryan crouched at Carla’s side, his tone low and gentle as he peeled the brown tape from her mouth, allowing her hysterical sobs to escape. As tears streamed down her cheeks, Ryan wrapped his arms around her and rocked her gently while his crooning voice soothed her.

  Grateful for Donna’s cool, calm presence as she stood in the doorway of the hall and spoke into Airwaves, Jenna watched while Mason cuffed Denton Harper, the dull drone of his practised Miranda reading voice zoned out.

  Donna’s soft tones zoned in again. ‘We have everything in hand here. I confirm we do need paramedics and CSI.’

  ‘Juliette Alpha 77, please clarify. Do you need us to dispatch Firearms?’

  ‘Negative, Control, we do not, repeat, not need Firearms,’ Her dark brown eyes danced with amused relief. ‘Sergeant Morgan used her handbag.’

  52

  Friday 14 February, 02:25 hrs

  ‘He played us.’

  Jenna let out a disgusted snort. ‘He didn’t play us, Mason, that would indicate we had some kind of awareness of what he was doing. No, he manipulated us. Directed every minute move we made.’ She recalled when she met Denton Harper in the supermarket, felt the lurch in her stomach. The texts. The brush with fate. Only it was never fate. It was Harper.

  He’d planned it. Every moment of it. Even the packet of spaghetti. He’d left none of it to fate.

  The slow build of embarrassment heated her skin.

  When they went to court, it would all come out.

  She stroked her fingers over her phone. Only it wouldn’t all come out. No one would ever know the passing temptation he’d presented her with. Evidence was all that counted. Anything circumstantial held no water in court. And the evidence she was obliged to turn over showed nothing of her feelings, her fleeting indecision. Her temptation.

  Oblivious, Mason slanted her a look. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. He manipulated everyone. For years. He managed to manoeuvre himself into a position of trust nobody questioned. He had access to everything, Jenna. Everyone. He pulled people’s strings.’

  ‘He did.’ She agreed. Bitterness filled her soul. ‘Not least of all, mine.’

  53

  Friday 14 February, 17:25 hours

  As the day bled away, Jenna leaned her shoulder against the back doorframe of her home and tilted her head up to admire the ribbons of magenta and lavender streaking across the cool blue sky. A slow smile stretched across her face as she stared at it with optimism in her heart. It could only get better. The nights were getting lighter. Spring couldn’t be so far away.

  She flexed her naked, aching toes into the carpet of icy grass and sighed her pleasure. Peace settled on her.

  Soft, padded footsteps stole to her side and Domino burrowed his cold, wet nose into her hand. With an automatic move, she slipped her fingers along his muzzle to rest her hand on his head, appreciating the special satin texture only Dalmatian fur has.

  She drew the cool evening air into her lungs.

  Aware of another presence, she turned her head as Fliss stepped outside, a glass of white wine in each hand. As Jenna accepted the proffered glass, she curved her lips into a contented smile.

  ‘I thought you were seeing Mason tonight.’

  Fliss smiled back and leaned shoulder to shoulder with her, stealing her dog’s loyalty away from Jenna. ‘Not tonight, he said he was going home to sleep for a week.’

  ‘Ah.’ She felt the same herself. It wouldn’t be long before she slipped under her own duvet.

  ‘What about Adrian? We haven’t had chance to speak. How did your date go?’

  Jenna allowed herself a slow, soft smile, the memory of his seductive kiss still a wisp of a taste on her lips and the huge bouquet of yellow roses an elegant reminder.

  ‘Good.’ She took a sip of her wine. ‘It went very well.’ She sighed as Fliss leaned into her and took a sip of her own wine.

  ‘Mason and I—’

  Jenna jerked back. ‘Stop!’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I don’t want to know. Keep it to yourself.’ Jenna wrapped one arm around her younger sister. She’d seen the stunning white longiflorum lilies he’d sent, the house was overflowing with flowers. She gave Fliss a swift kiss on her temple. ‘Keep it to yourself.’

  Jenna tilted her head up and stared at the clear night sky. Sometimes it was too precious to share.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks as always to my daughters, Laura and Meghan, who give their undying support.

  My husband, Andy, who loves this book more than the first. Any errors in techniques and law are totally my own.

  My sister, Margaret, who believes in me.

  Although I have used real place names to give my story authenticity, all characters and their names are entirely fictitious.

  Once again to the Boldwood team for putting their trust in this series. Particularly my editor, Caroline, who whips me into shape to produce stronger and better storylines.

  More from Diane Saxon

  We hope you enjoyed reading Some One's There. If you did, please leave a review.

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  Read on for an exclusive extract from Diane’s first novel, Find Her Alive. Available to order now, just click the image below:

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  Chapter One

  Friday 26 October, 15:45 hrs

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  Felicity Morgan jammed her car into third gear and took the tight bend down the hill to Coalbrookdale with fierce relish.

  ‘It’s not right! It’s just not right. I’m twenty-four years old, for God’s sake, and still being told what to do
!’ She pounded the palm of her hand on the steering wheel and whipped around another curve.

  ‘Not even told.’ She glanced in the mirror, her gaze clashing with Domino’s. ‘Nope, she didn’t even have the decency to speak to me.’ She floored the accelerator and snapped out a feral grin as the car skimmed over the humps in the narrow road.

  ‘She texted me. A freakin’ text!’ She shot Domino another quick glance and took her foot from the accelerator as the car flew under the disused railway bridge, past the entrance to Enginuity, one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums.

  Guilt nudged at her. ‘I know. I know, Domino. We’ve barely seen each other since I moved in because of her shifts and my workday, but for God’s sake. A text? Really? She must have been so peed off to send me a text. It’s her version of not talking to me. She’s done it all our lives.’ Fliss blew out a disgusted snort. ‘What the hell did you eat this time? Her bloody precious steak? One of her fluffy pink slippers? Hah!’

  She appealed in the mirror to her silent companion. ‘She said, “Don’t forget to walk the dog.”’ She pressed her foot on the brake and came to a halt, sliding the gears into neutral as the traffic lights halfway down the hill changed to red. They always did for her. Every bloody time. With a rebellious kick on the accelerator, Fliss revved the engine.

  ‘She called you a dog, Domino. She couldn’t even be bothered to write your name.’ She stared at the big, gorgeous and demanding Dalmatian in her rear view mirror. Her lips kicked up as a smile softened her voice. ‘How could I possibly forget to walk you?’

  An ancient Austin Allegro puttered through the narrow track towards her just as the traffic lights turned to green on her side.

  ‘Bloody typical.’

  Domino raised his head to stare with aloof disdain at the passing Allegro and Fliss sighed as the driver’s wrinkled face, as ancient as the car, barely emerged above the steering wheel.

  ‘There was only once, a few weeks ago, I forgot to walk you. You’d have thought Jenna would have understood. I was hung-over from my break-up drinking bout. You, my darling, were suffering the consequences of a broken home.’ She let out a derisive snort as she put the car into first gear and glided through the lights, back in control of both her temper and her vehicle.

  ‘Not that you ever really liked Ed. You were just being empathetic. You sensed my…’ she drew in a long breath through her nose, ‘… devastation. You sympathised with me. How was I to know you’d eat your Aunty Jenna’s kitchen cupboard doors off while I was sleeping?’ They still bore the deep gouged teeth marks. ‘We didn’t have any choice but to move in with Jenna. We couldn’t stay with him. He was too mean. He wanted me to get rid of you. Said it was him or you.’

  She flopped her head back on the headrest. Ed. The perfect gentleman, tender, gentle, an absolute charmer. To the outside world. Insidious, controlling arse to her. It had taken so long to realise his subtle intention to separate her from her mother, her sister, eventually Domino. The slick manoeuvres to keep her to himself. Unnoticed until her mother fell ill, when, in a flash, it all became clear.

  ‘Poor Domino.’ She glanced in her mirror to share the sympathy between herself and her dog as she slowed down to pass the stunning Edwardian building she worked in on her right. Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge School dated back more than two hundred years and had firmly entrenched roots at the centre of the Industrial Revolution. With the imposing cooling towers of the Ironbridge power station behind, they shared domination of the skyline from that angle.

  She blew out a breath, making her over-long honey-blonde fringe flutter away from her eyes, just for it to land back again in the same place as she pulled the car to a virtual standstill to take a closer look at the school. Closed for the day, except the few lights in the left side of the building still burning for the after-school club.

  A flutter of anxiety filled her chest. It hadn’t helped that she’d had such a dreadful day at school. The kids had run her ragged as she held on to her sanity with barely a thread of control left.

  Who would have thought teaching would be so hard? Yes, she’d appreciated, before she started fresh from university a year gone September, that teachers worked long hours, but who knew children could be affected by the phase of the moon? Until year six teacher, Sarah Leighton, mentioned it to her at the end of their particularly fractious and demanding day.

  Why did they have to have a full bloody supermoon in term time?

  She cruised to the bottom of the hill.

  Perhaps she should have taken a leaf out of Sarah’s book, gone home, poured a glass of wine and sulked in front of the fire until she was obliged to mark homework.

  Instead, she’d been forced out of her own house by a text. Not that it was her house, and therein lay the problem.

  ‘I love her to bits. I really do, Domino, but I’m not sure we can live together. Six weeks is probably the limit.’

  Fliss glanced in the mirror as she drew up to the mini-roundabout while Domino sat bolt upright in the boot, his proud head close to the rear window as he gazed out at the driver in the car behind. The woman smiled at him, just as everyone did when they caught sight of him, compelling them to give him the attention he was convinced he deserved.

  Attention Jenna never gave him as she’d never forgiven him. Nor Fliss.

  The constant reminders wore thin.

  As her temper surged again, Fliss whipped the car around the pimple of the mini-roundabout and then indicated left into the Dale End car park parents used when they dropped their children off at school.

  Despite her annoyance with her sister, she spared the school building another quick glance, the side view hindered by trees, but nonetheless stirring an affection in her. Steeped in history, it lent itself nicely to the quiet Victorian Town. She loved it, with its small community and less than two hundred pupils. Pupils who on a normal day were wonderful. They’d chosen not to be today.

  ‘We need to find our own place, Domino.’ His ears twitched, and he cast an unconcerned glance over his shoulder at her use of his name. ‘One closer to here, so I don’t have to travel twenty minutes to get to work. It means I could spend more time with you. If we lived on our own, I’d need to get home earlier because Jenna wouldn’t be there to see to you.’

  She stopped the car in the middle of the car park to allow the elderly couple to cross over from the wrought-iron gates leading to the Victorian tearooms and smiled at them despite the mix of lingering annoyance and melancholy.

  ‘I hate living on my own.’ It made her nervous, for no particular reason. It just wasn’t right to live alone. She needed someone to protect her from her unreasonable fear of the dark and her own vivid imagination.

  Fliss’s irritation cranked up again at the whine in her own voice as she circled her car around the almost empty car park and swung it with careless abandon into a space. She cut the engine and flicked the seat belt undone. Before Ed she’d never had such reservations. She was strong. She was capable.

  Her shoulders sagged. She hated to be alone.

  She shook off the self-pity, flung open the driver’s door and slammed it behind her before she strode to the back of the vehicle. She wasn’t alone. Not entirely. She had Domino. He was company enough. Surely.

  ‘Wait!’ she commanded as she opened the boot. She sensed the dog’s urgency, his desperate desire to run free, but he’d do as he was told, she had no doubt.

  She drew in a deep breath before she clipped the lead onto Domino’s harness. She pressed her lips to his forehead as she fondled one silken, floppy ear before she stepped back to allow him out.

  Bright and alert, all bunched muscles and restrained excitement, he bounded from the boot of the car and stood to attention, quivering in anticipation while she glanced at the people in the tree-lined park.

  She zipped her coat up to her chin against the chill wind and hunched her shoulders, determined to move and keep the cold out.

  ‘Which way shall we go, lad?’

  Mute
d voices floated across, an open invitation for her to join the others in Dale End Park. She chewed the inside of her lip, undecided for a moment, before she turned from the company of the twilight walkers with their idle chit-chat which she normally relished. They wouldn’t miss her, their unofficial dog meet was transient. If you turned up, you mingled. If you didn’t, no one questioned it. A nice crowd, but she needed her privacy.

  ‘This way, Domino.’

  If she allowed herself into their sympathetic fold, she’d be tempted to whine about Jenna, and if there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was disloyalty. She huffed out a breath. Her anger with Jenna would pass. Until then, she’d keep to herself. Allow the solitude to blanket her.

  She turned right out of the car park and strode out up the hill, past the small Co-op at the mouth of the Museum on the Gorge. It would be open until ten o’clock. Perhaps she’d nip in on her way home and buy that bottle of red wine.

  Sodium lights illuminated the town to spread their warm golden glow as she lengthened her stride and marched along the narrow footpath, puffing out small bursts of vapour as her breath hit the cool evening air.

  The Council had readied the flood barriers for erection along the Wharfeage, as the River Severn continued to rise after an unusually long, wet autumn. It threatened to break its banks early in the season, leaving a dull sense of foreboding for what the rest of the winter would bring. The town wallowed in an eerie quietness. The windows of almost all the premises overlooking the river dark, but for an occasional upstairs light on.

  Breathless from her overexerted stride, she paused halfway up the hill before crossing the Ironbridge. A town in the summer overflowing with tourists keen to witness the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the Ironbridge dominated the landscape with its iron structure pioneered by Abraham Darby in the eighteenth century. The plethora of museums drew people from all around the world. Somewhere for the locals to avoid. As a tourist town, however, devoid of visitors during the winter months, most of the shops had already closed for the evening.