GRIPPED (Romance Mystery & Suspense Box Set)
Page 10
“Who was it?”
His eyes narrowed at her and he reached up, plucking the cigarette from his mouth as he stared at her, hard and serious. The moment dragged on long before he finally spoke, his voice gruff.
“I can help you find out. Work with me,” he said.
Angela stared back at him, and even in her grief, she remained stoic as she wondered how far down the rabbit hole she was willing to go.
END
***
The Dangerous Men series continues in:
Strayed from the Path (Dangerous Men #2)
Path to Ruin (Dangerous Men #3)
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Note from the Author:
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Writing this novel turned out to be a trial beyond my reckoning. For years I’d worked hard and lived simple, with the long term goal of leaving behind the daily grind and pursuing my dream of becoming an author. So for fourteen years I occupied the same dingy little apartment to keep rent low. A side effect of that was seeing the neighbourhood around me grow harsher, crime go up and the other tenants shift to a rougher lot with each year.
I didn’t intend it, but partway through the novel’s completion I found myself beneath a particular neighbour who threatened the completion of the work entirely. To say they were noisy neighbours would be a ridiculous understatement. Even their cocaine dealing that brought sketchy sorts to my building – and pounding on my door mistakenly – night after night wasn’t the worst of it.
After months of their screaming, shouting, and physical violence, with frequent visits from the police, I discovered in the final stages of writing, the bane of my writing career was the most infamous convicted murderer in local history. A fellow that was known by name to everyone I knew or encountered.
The result of all those arduous months spent writing is my best work yet. Perhaps something of living beneath the constant, drug-fuelled fury of a murderer seeped into this, but only for the better I hope.
About the Author:
Alex Abbott is a former defence attorney who moonlights as an author of romantic suspense and erotic thrillers.
Alex focuses on giving fans tastes of darkness, pushing them to the limits while exploring criminal underbellies, corrupt billionaires, and the women who get wrapped up in events they don’t want to control.
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You can find the rest of the Dangerous Men series and all of Alex Abbott’s books on:
AMAZON
***
Belonging (Book One)
By J.S. Wilder
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER ONE
I felt numb as I sat in Brockwell Park repeating the words, “My stupid mother, that silly woman.” I had been there for over an hour as the realisation of my fate had hit me after collecting my results from the school. I thought that if I never passed, then it wouldn’t be so bad, but I passed with flying colours. I should have been getting ready to go to Oxford University in three weeks’ time. Instead, from the age of eighteen to eternity I’d be stacking shelves with my mother at Tesco Express, the local supermarket. Those late nights that I had repeatedly studied with the hope of going to Oxford—wasted. When I got my grades in the post, I read them and cried. I cried so much that the paper got wet, and I just threw it in the bin. Yep, two years of working like a dog to get the grades and I just binned it.
My teachers told me regularly that I would be the first student since the school opened fifty years ago to go to Oxford University. One other student gained entry to Cambridge University but never Oxford. Everyone was proud. No one in my family had ever been to university, let alone graduated. I wanted to set an example that as a woman you can achieve anything you want if you set your mind to it.
Within six months of dating, my parents were married. As an illegal immigrant from Ghana, he was keen to get married immediately. And my mum said yes to the first man who had ever paid attention to her, and she wanted out of this town.
When they meet, she was stocking shelves at Tesco, a chain supermarket. She had been doing it since she was sixteen. At twenty-one, Grandma and Granddad (God rest his soul) were getting tired of her not contributing more towards the bills or just moving out. After meeting Dad, she thought she had a way to move out and not be alone.
It felt like the perfect solution. At least that’s what she had told me.
The problem was Dad’s agenda was very different to my mother’s, so when he received his documents and British passport, he thanked the postman for his delivery and claimed he was going to buy bread. Mum thought it was weird because she had brought bread from work. She assumed that maybe he had finished it all. He did that sometimes, or so Grandma said.
At first, she called his phone a few times—no answer. Then, she called a few of his friends. He did that from time to time, said he was going to get a drink, and ended up at one of his Ghanaian friends’ houses, talking about the good times in Ghana. They all denied hearing from him.
The next day it turned into panic, the whole family was on the case calling the hospital and the police station. They reported him missing, but the police said it could not be official until after 48 hours. After submitting the report, within minutes the police called to confirm that he had indeed left to go back to Ghana.
He claimed that he hated living in the UK and it was not where he wanted to be. Everyone wished he had realized this before he got married, and especially, before he had a child. Mum never got over it. She expected one day he would come back home, which is what has caused my distress, and the reason I don’t qualify for a student loan or grant.
No one in my family had the financial substance to help me with my university fees, and if Mum had not lied on the application saying that Dad was still an accountant at the firm he left fifteen years ago, then I could have been entitled to some benefits. So I was stuck at home, with the best grades in the world, my dreams of being a statistician shattered by my mum’s mistake.
I tried to talk to her to find out why she did the most stupid thing in the world. Mum avoided the topic by working late every night to avoid me. I think she thought that if she did that then I would call Dad. No, I know that was what she thought, because that’s exactly what she said.
Every year, Mum tried a new tactic to win dad back. So when this opportunity presented itself to her, she took to it as readily as a waddling penguin on land that glides between the ocean waves. She didn’t care about the consequences and certainly didn’t care about my future university degree. She thought I was too ambitious, and the Wright women should stick to what they know—being cashiers at supermarkets.
Over the years, Mum had suffered from depression. She woke up every morning and believed that Dad would come back home. She dismissed the idea that he had left her for good and constantly excused his behaviour with the following responses: “He had to leave, his mother was sick, he will be back soon.” That was in the first year, and then it changed to, “His mum and dad are sick.” And finally, “They are doing some spells on him, voodoo. He doesn’t know what he is doing.”
Grandma told her to start dating again, anything to get her mind away from dad. Mum hoped that having a child would be enough leverage to get him to come back. Mum would ask Grandma to take me to the nursery, then school, and eventually, when I was old enough, I went to school by myself. Whenever she looked at me, it seemed to bring her to tears. I just seemed to resemble my dad more and more as I got older. I have the typical flat nose and round African cheeks. My eyes are light brown just like my mum. Pity she doesn’t see this as she looks at me.
I called dad just as she had wanted me to do. I knew it was hopeless and there was no point, but I did it nonetheless hoping for some kind of… closure. I was shocked by his response. I expected many things from him, but never this.
***
Dad had remarried. He had a new family, a new wife and two boys. Boys he claimed he would never leave behind. Shame he never felt that way about me. He broke my heart when I spoke to him. It took her days to track every family member to get his number. I hadn’t spoken to him for years when it was clear that he was never interested in speaking to me, but it was clearly a way for Mum to connect with him.
Grandma suggested that we stop calling him to see if there was interest. If only once Kwame would pick up the phone and enquire about his daughter. He never did, he had moved on in life from the moment he walked out of the door.
He reassured me that the best thing to do was to get Mum to change the application form. After all, they were no longer legally married, and he was no longer resident in the UK. Although, he was no longer resident, he still kept hold of his residency and had been building assets in the UK to help fund his ventures in Ghana. In the past, Mum had foolishly helped him with this scheme in a bid to win him back.
Now, with three weeks before Oxford, I was clear that nothing was going to change. There was no hope of ever going to Oxford or even being a graduate anywhere. I had two parents that were alive. Most people cherish that and count it as a blessing. I could only think of it as a curse, seeing as none of them gave a fuck about me.
***
“I just got off the phone with them and saying those words stabbed me like a machete,” I whispered to my best friend Dawn as we sat at the checkout, side by side.
“Debbie, I still can’t get over it, I mean, the whole thing is fucked up,” she replied as she watched the elderly couple slowly make their way to her till.
“I’m just glad me and Mum aren’t on shift at the same time.” As I waited for the old couple to reach Dawn’s cash register, I wondered if getting new bangs was a good idea. I needed a new look, to go with my new life, or perhaps it was my old life. The last few weeks, my mind had been spiralling out of confusion. I didn’t understand if this was my fate, and I was trying to run away from it by studying and going to Oxford, or was it that I just had parents that were conceited pigs, unlike Dawn’s parents. They were proud that their daughter wanted to go to a university. If only I had parents like hers. I held onto these thoughts until I felt sick.
During my break, I ran to the toilet and quietly sobbed into my uniform until I felt the phone vibrating. I wanted to ignore it. Grandma supports me completely and wants nothing more than for me to go to Oxford. She didn’t believe that the Wither’s women could do nothing more than stock shelves in supermarkets. Every time I stayed at her house (she calls me practically every night to come over), she felt frustrated and even more confused. Grandma would call every relation and talk to them about the matter with hope that one of them, maybe just one of them, would turn around some day and say yes, I would like to help.
She spent days and nights asking every family member with half a penny, but the response was always the same. “Can’t she change her application form?” or “I’m a bit tight this month, maybe next month.” Or “It’s not a life and death emergency, I mean, if she doesn’t go to uni, she will just end up like the rest of us, and we’ve all done all right.”
I thought blood was thicker than water until I picked up the phone. “Is this Deborah Withers?” Her voice had a nasal like quality or something and I didn’t recognise it. My curiosity started to take hold of me. Who was calling me?
“Yes,” I said quietly as I tried to hold back the tears and focus on why this person was calling.
“I have some excellent news for you. You start at Oxford on Monday, and we have been trying to get hold of you for weeks.”
“Yes,” I replied with the same flat tone. First, I wasn’t starting at Oxford on Monday, and secondly, I had my phone on silent most of the time, or I forgot to carry it round with me, pointless since no one important rings me. Lately, the only phone calls I received were from T-Mobile offering me an upgrade or Mum persuading me to fly to Ghana to change dad’s mind.
“Can you come by the school today? We need to go over a few things. After I heard about your change of heart and the reasons why, I want to discuss your application with you. Are you busy now?”
“I’m at work.” I was confused as to whether to hang up or keep listening to this person, who was becoming highly entertaining. What change of heart? They seemed to be more confused than I was and I found this amusing, which was strange considering the mood I was in and had been all day.
“What time do you finish?”
“Six.”
“Six? We can’t wait that long. I don’t want to jeopardise your work, but can’t you get off a bit earlier?
God, who is this woman? Maybe this was a practical joke and whoever was behind this would laugh if I just walk out of my job and leave.
The posh stranger clicked her tongue breaking the silence. Her impatience unveiled, “So?”
I became annoyed. First, the person did not introduce herself, yet they were telling me to risk my job. As the thoughts enter my mind, the stranger reveals the one thing that will turn my world around, the one thing that I have wanted for far too long. “If you come today, then we can make sure you start on Monday. Be at the headmistress’s office at four p.m. today. No later if you want to go to Oxford on Monday. Or you can just stay where you are probably stocking shelves and forget about all the hard work that you put in to get this far.”
I stood up in shock. I didn’t know what to do. Does this mean Grandma had managed to find a rich relative to pay my fees? If she did, then surely Grandma would call and not this stranger. Also, they wouldn’t be waiting for me at school, but at home or Grandma’s house.
It has to be a scam or a fraud, but surely, if this were a hoax, they would not be waiting for me at school. They would remain at some unknown place. Also, what kind of scam is this to pretend you have a place at university then take all your money at school?
There was no other way to think about this or describe it, so it had to be true. I needed to leave my job somehow and make my way to the school. I looked at my phone again, trying to figure out how long I’d been in the toilet debating about this situation. I have forty-five minutes to get to school, and I better start acting and stop thinking about how to do it.
CHAPTER TWO
In a matter of seconds of my arrival, the woman who phoned me demanded that the Deputy Headmistress start making tea and coffees for us all in the kitchen, which she gladly did as if she were her personal maid. Whereas, every time the posh stranger spoke, the deputy headmistress quietly agreed with everything she said, which made no sense to me.
“Sit down,” the posh lady ordered me. I was taken aback because the woman sat in the Headmistress chair. She walked as if she owned the place and commanded whomever she felt like bossing around.
It was clear that the headmistress was scared and frightened by this lady. She sat with sweat pouring from her forehead as she allowed her to sit in the headmistress chair. She seemed unable to speak, which seemed very strange and unlike her. Normally, I would expect that she would do all the talking and I would simply nod. Also, this thin lady not more than five feet four inches that sat in front of us, everything about her was to perfection. She had her hair twisted into a blond bob with no stray hairs. Even her nails were well groomed and her makeup professional looking and matched her red blouse.
As I listened and watched the chubby headmistress turning the ring on her hand as it dug into her chubby finger, she said, “
Yes, yes, we agree,” a few times. I was waiting for someone to explain what the meeting was about. All I had heard from the posh lady who failed to introduce herself was, “So, it’s agreed.” She then stood up and reached for her coat from the stand.
“What?” I asked bewildered for two reasons—what had been agreed upon and why was the posh lady wearing a raincoat during the heat wave in August.
She sighed and looked at me disapprovingly.
“I will pay your tuition fees, hall of residence fees, and you will have to work during the semester to pay for your living expenses.”
“Course,” said the headmistress frowning and shaking her head at me as though to prevent me from asking any more questions and from agitating the posh lady even further. I ignored her disapproval, because I needed answers. I had just left work with a stomach complaint and was unsure why I went to so much trouble to leave early.
“Because, I w-i-l-l be paying for it.”
“Oh,” I replied confused still unable to comprehend the events.
“Look, my name is Mrs Stephie Sparks. Each year we sponsor two students to be graduates. Normally, they are boys, but this year I decided it should be a girl. I picked you from a random list that was sent to my house weeks ago. The thing is my mother was sick and I had to attend to her, so I never had a chance to contact the school to tell them that you were the chosen candidate until now. “
“Which is just as well,” she continued as she started to laugh and pat down her coat as she wrapped it over her slender body, “because Ms Hutchkinson—”