Ten Hail Marys or not, it wasn’t right.
If half the things she’d read and heard about him were true, he didn’t deserve to live—not that you’d call what he was doing living. It wasn’t up to her, more’s the pity. The Lord would take him when he was good and ready and not before.
Great, she thought to herself bitterly as she tucked in the covers, looks like I’ll be cleaning up after you for some years to come.
She’d heard some of the so-called experts say you should talk to a person in a coma. They can hear you, can understand. It comforts them, maybe even helps with their recovery. Which is why she’d never breathed so much as a word in all the time she’d been caring—she almost choked on the word—for this patient.
Tonight, she couldn’t help herself.
Sheila looked out through the window into the main ward. Everything was quiet at this time of day, getting settled for the long night. Nobody was paying her any attention. She hesitated, a small thrill of apprehension in her stomach. What to say? She leaned over the bed, put her lips close to his ear, even though it made her skin crawl to be so close, so intimate.
I hope you rot in hell.
She stood up quickly feeling like a naughty schoolgirl who’s just got away with ... she couldn’t think what, she’d never done a thing wrong in her life. She smoothed the front of her uniform flat, her palms moist, thinking maybe she’d say something nasty every day. Perhaps help him on his way. On his way downstairs. She crossed herself quickly, the smile still on her face as she left the room and closed the door quietly behind her.
Sheila was leaving early tonight—only ten minutes—but ten minutes can make all the difference. If her husband Peter hadn’t been taking her for a special meal on this, their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, she would still have been in the room, not dabbing at her eyes and fluffing up her hair, making last-minute adjustments to her makeup in the ladies’ bathroom.
Who knows, it might have been at the exact moment she put her lips to his ear and whispered I hope you rot in hell that Jack Adamson had opened his eyes for the first time since he was brought in.
Now that would have put the fear of God in her.
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BOOKS BY JAMES HARPER
The Evan Buckley Thrillers
BAD TO THE BONES
WHEN EVAN BUCKLEY’S latest client ends up swinging on a rope, he’s ready to call it a day. But he’s an awkward cuss with a soft spot for a sad story and he takes on one last job—a child and husband who disappeared ten years ago. It’s a long-dead investigation that everybody wants to stay that way, but he vows to uncover the truth—and in the process, kick into touch the demons who come to torment him every night.
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KENTUCKY VICE
MAVERICK PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR Evan Buckley is no stranger to self-induced mayhem—but even he’s mystified by the jam college buddy Jesse Springer has got himself into. When Jesse shows up with a wad of explicit photographs that arrived in the mail, Evan finds himself caught up in the most bizarre case of blackmail he’s ever encountered—Jesse swears blind he can’t remember a thing about it.
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SINS OF THE FATHER
FIFTY YEARS AGO, Frank Hanna made a mistake. He’s never forgiven himself. Nor has anybody else for that matter. Now the time has come to atone for his sins, and he hires maverick PI Evan Buckley to peel back fifty years of lies and deceit to uncover the tragic story hidden underneath. Trouble is, not everybody likes a happy ending and some very nasty people are out to make sure he doesn’t succeed.
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NO REST FOR THE WICKED
When an armed gang on the run from a botched robbery that left a man dead invade an exclusive luxury hotel buried in the mountains of upstate New York, maverick P.I. Evan Buckley has got his work cut out. He just won a trip for two and was hoping for a well-earned rest. But when the gang takes Evan’s partner Gina hostage along with the other guests and their spirited seven-year-old daughter, he can forget any kind of rest. Only available at the moment to subscribers to my newsletter.
FALLEN ANGEL
When Jessica Henderson falls to her death from the window of her fifteenth-floor apartment, the police are quick to write it off as an open and shut case of suicide. The room was locked from the inside, after all. But Jessica’s sister doesn’t believe it and hires Evan Buckley to investigate. And the deeper Evan digs, the more he discovers the dead girl had fallen in more ways than one. Fallen Angel is exclusive to subscribers to my newsletter—you can’t get it anywhere else.
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BAD CALL – A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
Ralph da Silva has screwed up. Big time. He’s had four Tequilas too many for lunch and now he thinks he might have killed somebody—somebody important. Somebody with a lot of very unpleasant friends. The question is—can he get himself out of the country before they strap him to a chair and get the electrodes out. One thing is certain—he can’t afford to make another bad call.
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DEDICATION
To Rills Smills, without whom none of this would have been possible.
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James Harper, Sins Of The Father
Sins Of The Father Page 34
