by C. A. Larmer
Dying Words
(A Ghostwriter Mystery)
by
C.A. Larmer
Copyright 2013 Larmer Media
Cover design by Stuart Eadie
Edited by Novel Proofreading
& Elaine Rivers (with thanks)
Discover other titles by C.A. Larmer at Amazon.com:
Killer Twist
A Plot to Die For
Last Writes
An Island Lost
The Agatha Christie Book Club
http://www.christinalarmer.com
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License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Please Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
About the Author
Connect online
Prologue
Everyone in the room thought the old guy was dead and at least one of them was happy about it. But then he went and opened his eyes again, and the tiny, ponytailed woman who was quietly sobbing over his chest, drew back and gasped.
“Mah darleeng, you alive!”
He looked at her, this slip of a thing with oily black hair and deep brown eyes, as though he had no idea who she was and why the hell she was there. He glanced slowly around the room, to the other faces gathered at his bedside. Ah, there was his daughter, looking anxious as always, her husband standing behind her like a stunned mullet, and his stepson, bored and desperate to flee. Typical. Behind them all, loitering by the door was a young man in a royal blue uniform.
Now why was there a policeman here, he wondered? Oh, that’s right.
He tried to talk and his son-in-law stepped forward.
“Just relax, Berny, everything’s going to be okay.”
“Oh for goodness sake, let him speak,” snapped the daughter, grabbing her father’s hand with trembling fingers. “What do you need to say, Dad? Just spit it out.”
“Please, leave him be,” the other woman sobbed and the police officer cleared his throat.
“Did you have something to say, Mr Tiles?”
The old man tried to nod. “Get ... get ...”
“Yes?” said the officer, his eyes wide with anticipation.
“Water!” announced the son-in-law, reaching for the brown plastic water jug that had been placed on a table to the side.
The old man tried to shake his head, wasn’t sure he’d pulled it off. He was having trouble functioning and he couldn’t get the right words out. It was like he was stuck in wet cement, his mouth full of sand and gravel. A straw was now being shoved through his cracked lips and he managed to swallow a little which seemed to help. He tried again.
“Get Rah ... Rahhhh ...”
“Renata?” The daughter glanced back at the other woman with a frown. “Renata’s here, Dad.”
Still sobbing, Renata stepped towards her husband again, more tentative this time.
“I here, Berny, no you worry, I here for you.”
He groaned. This was going to be harder than he thought. Oh why had he been such a fool? If only he’d listened, if only he’d understood how important it was. What it meant to them all. He swallowed hard again and tried to sit up, but it was useless, nothing was working properly anymore.
The daughter choked back a tear. “Dad, we’re all here, we love you. Honestly we do. You need to know that.”
And you need to listen to me, he thought. All of you, you need to listen! But they were turning away now, talking amongst themselves. He heard the words, “Terrible tragedy” and “Not long now” and he felt his heart plunge.
He took a final, crackly breath, pulled his head up as far as he could from the pillow and said, “Roxy!”
“What?” The daughter swung around to face him, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed.
“Roxy Parker,” he managed this time, swallowing hard before adding, “She ... has ... it ...”
Then he slumped back with a final gasp of breath before descending into the darkness.
Chapter 1
Roxy Parker was busy gasping for breath when she reached her fourth -floor apartment, and that, coupled with one too many merlots, was probably the reason she didn’t flinch when she opened her front door and spotted the dark figure hovering by the window, a ghoulish silhouette against the distant moonlight.
In fact, Roxy’s first reaction was to laugh out loud. He looked like a poorly drawn character from a Scooby Doo movie, his hands held out like claws in front of him, his back hunched over, and what looked like grotesquely oversized ears drooping down on either side of his head. All that was missing was a pair of glinting yellow eyes and some fangs.
“What the ...?”
She didn’t manage to finish that sentence (let alone that thought) before the ghoul was rushing towards her like a Mack truck. She tried to step back but he was faster and clearly more sober, and she was barrelled over as he made a dash for the door. By the time Roxy pulled herself back up—no mean feat under the circumstances—he was gone, vanished into the night, and for a moment there she wondered if she’d just conjured up the whole thing.
Roxy’s entire body told her otherwise. Her heart was thudding like a jack hammer, blood thumping in her ears, prickles of fear racing through her spine and down her legs, which now felt like tree trunks as she stepped tentatively towards the open door.
Still gasping for breath, she peered out. Nothing. The corridor was dimly lit and deathly quiet, not so much as a swinging door or a puff of smoke to show that anyone had passed by.
“What the ...?” she said again before instinct took over and forced her to slam the door shut, secure the lock and find the nearest chair.
She fell into it gratefully and steadied herself. Had she just interrupted a burglar? And if so, why!? Of all the joints in all the land, surely he could do better than hers? She had nothing of value in her tiny unit, apart from some moth-eaten vintage clothes, a cheap, digital TV and her laptop.
Her laptop! Roxy got up and staggered into the sunroom, switching the light on as relief flooded through her. It was still on her desk. Thank God. It wasn’t a particularly fancy computer, but
it was home to several large projects she had been working on and she didn’t need the agony of trying to retrieve it all.
“Yes, yes,” she thought irritably. “I’m supposed to back up regularly but I’m also supposed to visit the dentist annually, and like that’s ever gonna happen.”
Roxy glanced at the clock, the reporter in her now taking over despite her intoxication. It was 1:22 a.m. That meant Big Ears had broken in some time before 1:20 when she’d arrived home. She hadn’t meant to come home. She was supposed to be staying over at Max’s place, but had decided at the last minute to head back to her own bed. She couldn’t decide now whether this had been good fortune or bad.
She breathed deeply and assessed the situation. It didn’t look like he’d taken anything or done any damage. There were a few cupboards open, and three drawers, but she couldn’t remember if she’d left them like that in her haste to meet her boyfriend for dinner that night. She wandered around unsteadily, checking all the drawers, her jewellery box, her little crystal bowl of keepsakes, and sighed with relief. Everything was in its place.
Had she only just interrupted him? And how the hell did he get in? She staggered back towards her front door. It didn’t look tampered with, but she was too nervous now to open it and check. What if he was still lurking around?
She thought of the cops. Should she call them? And say what?
“Hi, guys, there was this really creepy burglar in my apartment.”
“And what did he take, Madame?”
“Er, nothing ...”
“Well, do you at least have a description of this man?”
“Yes, have you seen the latest episode of Scooby Doo?”
She shrugged the thought away, scooped up her walkabout phone and dialled. After several rings, it picked up.
“I could’ve been fast asleep then, you know,” Oliver Horowitz said, his voice raspy down the line.
“Yes, and I could be on the latest cover of Sports Illustrated, but let’s stick to reality, shall we? I know you’re up, you’ll be up for hours yet. I have a problem.”
“And you wonder what keeps me up. Okay then, but first tell me, have you been hitting the turps again?”
She sighed. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“Okay, chill, I just like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Huh?”
“Normal Roxy or Sloshy Roxy. It helps.”
She ignored this. “I think I just got burgled.”
“You think?”
“Let’s put it this way. I just got home, there was a man lurking in my lounge room and he took off as soon as he saw me.”
“You sure it wasn’t Max getting a good look at you at this hour?”
“You’re hilarious. Can you take this seriously, please, it was very unsettling.”
There was a pause. “So you are serious?”
“Yes, Olie, I’m serious. I’m not into prank calling my agent at one a.m. There was some weirdo in my home. What should I do?”
“Christ! Are you okay?! Is he gone?”
“Bloody hope so.”
“Did you lock the door?”
“No, I left it wide open with a ‘Don’t be shy’ sign out the front.”
“Cut the sarcasm, Rox, I’m tryin’ to help. Did you get a good look at him?”
She thought about this. “Not really. He was largish, wearing a bulky coat of some sort, I think, weird long ears drooping down.”
“Long ears? What, like a rabbit?”
“Okay, it was dark, maybe I got that bit wrong. But it’s odd. He stared right at me, pushed me over in fact, but I can’t picture any of his features.”
“Perhaps Bugs Bunny was wearing a ski mask?”
She groaned. “Olie, this is serious.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Did he hurt you? Is anything missing?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“Want me to come over? I can be there in ten.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Oliver’s apartment was a quick stride away in a seedy suburb called Kings Cross, but she wasn’t in the mood for more visitors tonight.
“No, no, no. I can’t see how it would help, but thank you. I guess I just need to tell someone so I don’t wake up tomorrow thinking I’d imagined the whole thing. Look, sorry to disturb you, I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me, he didn’t appear to take anything , but I’ll double check. You attempt to get some sleep and I’ll do the same.”
“I’ll come over in the morning.”
“By morning you mean lunch time.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Oh, and Roxy?”
“Yes?”
“Check your fridge. Maybe he raided your carrot supply.”
He chuckled as he hung up and she shook her head at the telephone. Honestly, her literary agent had the sensitivity of a gnat. She looked around her now well-lit apartment and wondered what to do. Eventually, she gave up wondering and managed to find her way to bed, but not before double-checking her front lock several times, and sneaking a bread knife under her pillow. If Scary Bunny came back, he’d have more than Shaggy and the crew to worry about!
Chapter 2
Roxy’s first thought when she awoke in the morning was not of ghoulish bunnies or her thumping hangover, but of Max. Why, she wondered, with a pang of guilt, hadn’t she phoned her strong, strapping boyfriend of eleven months (and four days) last night instead of calling up pudgy, older Oliver who was about as useful with his fists as a feather boa? Was it because he lived so close, or was it something else, something deeper?
She decided not to let that thought develop—she was really good at leaving thoughts in the proverbial camera—and she struggled out of bed and into a shower, popping a couple of paracetamol on the way. She needed to work out what exactly had happened last night and she needed to do it minus a headache and plus at least one cup of coffee.
Ten minutes later, dressed in blue denim jeans and a floppy white T-shirt with the tablets denting the drumming in her brain, she padded into her kitchen and reached for her ancient Atomic coffee maker. As she made a good strong brew, she leant across the cabinet and chewed her lower lip, deep in thought.
A man had broken into her apartment. That much was clear. He clearly wasn’t interested in her, or her belongings, as far as she could tell. So what did he want?
She shook her glossy black hair, which now hung down past her shoulders in thick, chunky layers. He was obviously about to rob her, and she had interrupted him. It was that simple, so why did she need to make it more complicated? She stalked across to the front door, peered through the peephole to the empty hallway and then unlatched the lock. She slowly opened the door and looked out. Emptiness again. She studied the lock. Ah yes. It had been slightly jemmied, there was paint scraped off and there was a tiny bit of damage. She hadn’t noticed it when she let herself in the night before. She returned to her bedroom, retrieved her smartphone and then took a few quick snaps. Evidence, she didn’t know of what.
“Running out of sunsets?” a deep voice said and she jumped.
Max Farrell was standing behind her, his hands shoved into the pockets of his baggy trousers, a well-fitting, grey hoodie covering his long, lean chest, blue and white gym boots on his feet.
“Jesus, Max, you scared the crap out of me!”
“Sorry, just wondering why you’re taking photos of the most boring aspect of your apartment.”
“Does this lock look tampered with?”
He inspected it. “Maybe. Dunno, why? What’s happened?”
Roxy’s green eyes darted around then she pulled him in before shutting the door.
“I got burgled last night. Well, kind of.”
“What?” Instinctively, Max grabbed her into his arms and held her in an embrace. “This is why you should have stayed at my place.”
She ignored that comment, counted to three then pulled back just as the Atomic started spluttering like an old drunk.
“Want a coffee?”
&nbs
p; She switched the Atomic off and poured the murky brew into two cups, then added milk as she told Max exactly what had happened, deliberately omitting her late-night call to Oliver.
“So you phoned Gilda?” he asked.
“Gilda? No, of course not.” She reached for the sugar bowl and scooped two large teaspoons into her coffee then reconsidered and added a third. “Why would I bother a top homicide detective with something as menial as B&E? I mean, it’s not like he took anything or hurt me or even damaged the door. Although I will get that lock changed. I need something more heavy duty. He probably just jemmied it with a bloody credit card.”
“This is serious, Parker,” Max said and she eye rolled him. “You should have stayed at my place last night.”
“Yes, you already said that but if I had, he would have had free rein of the place, and I could be returning home today to a cleaned out apartment. Or a trashed one. Who knows?”
“Better than returning home to get trashed yourself.”
“I was already trashed, if you recall. That’s the last time I let you talk me into that second bottle of merlot.”
“Parker, this is serious.”
“I know, I know, but I honestly don’t think he wanted to hurt me. I mean, he could have if he’d wanted. I walked straight in, half tanked, but all he did was freak out and scuttle off into the night. Like the rat that he is. Or should I say bunny rabbit.”
“Sorry?”
“Don’t worry.”
“Still, it’s pretty scary. Maybe he’s a stalker.”
She sighed. “Max, this isn’t Hollywood. I don’t have a stalker. Listen, I can’t have you making a big fuss about this. I’m not even going to tell Mum because she’s even worse than you, so please, just chill out, okay?”
He stared hard at her. He was good at those hard stares—the clenched jaw, the piercing eyes. If he wasn’t so bloody attractive when he did it, she’d punch him. His jaw loosened.
“Fine. Want to grab some breakfast?”
