Splintered

by Laura J Harris

  Splintered

  LAURA J HARRIS

  AuthorHouse™

  1663 Liberty Drive

  Bloomington, IN 47403

  www.authorhouse.com

  Phone: 1-800-839-8640

  © 2012 by Laura J Harris. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

  Published by AuthorHouse 06/04/2012

  ISBN: 978-1-4678-8241-5 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4678-8242-2 (e)

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Born and raised in the good old North-West of England, Laura J Harris grew up in Whitby, Ellesmere Port and had a fabulous childhood filled with laughter and fun and butterflies and candyfloss bunnies!!!

  She whole-heartedly blames this amazingly fun-filled childhood on her fabulously warm and caring family; particularly her patient and incredibly understanding parents and her wonderfully talented and ever-encouraging sister!

  The author attended Ellesmere Port Catholic High School until the age of eighteen where she gained thirteen GCSEs and four A-Levels.

  She then went on to study Drama and Writing at Edge Hill University, then wrote and staged her original psychological thriller, Forget Me Not© in 2006 before returning to education to study for a BTEC in Production Arts!

  Following this she taught Performing Arts at local college.

  Now that she’s all grown up, Laura is committed to becoming a full-time Writer, as was always her dream and ambition.

  She hopes that SPLINTERED will be the first successful novel of many.

  I’ve certainly had my set-backs in the past and I wouldn’t have managed to complete and publish this book without the help and support of some incredibly wonderful and loyal people.

  You will all know who you are, but I would like to thank specifically; my Dad for his trust and support and my Mum for much the same as well as her attentive and ever-scrutinising eye!

  Very helpful!

  I’d like to thank my sister for always being right where I needed her and for truly being the greatest sibling anyone could ever wish to have. I really do know how lucky I am.

  Thank you to all those at AuthorHouse that have guided me through this process. Thank you for your encouragement and facilitation.

  I also owe a great and monstrous thank you to Mark Billingham, without whose generous time, kind words and gentle encouragement this novel would not have been completed so readily.

  Finally, I need to thank my partner, Terasa, for all her support over the years. Not only for her trust and belief in me as a writer, but for the way she has helped me daily for so long and for simply being my best friend.

  Along with my partner comes my inherited little boy, who — though he won’t be reading anything like this for some time! — reminds me everyday why it is so important to stop and laugh at the world. I love you both.

  And very finally . . . thank you. I really appreciate you — yes you! — investing your precious time and money in me and I commend your incredibly wise decision in choosing to purchase this book!

  Thank you for your patronage, your faith and — of course — your support.

  Prologue

  Running, racing. Fast and wild. Just the way he liked them.

  He had been watching another; had his eye on another girl for the better part of the night. This scraggy bag of bones wasn’t a patch on the other one, but then that was probably why she had been left behind and the other snapped up.

  Snapped up by a hunter other than himself.

  This one was a real Bambi, taking her first fumbling steps into the world of grown-ups and lies. She shouldn’t even have been in that club. But, that was just his good luck.

  Sixteen-years-old. Chaste and trusting as the day she was born; poor foolish little fawn.

  A wolfish smile licked to his lips as he skipped off in pursuit once more.

  The brittle September branches cracked under his colossal strides, sounding ever-more like breaking bone as he imagined pressing himself against her young pelvis. What would his mother say if she knew he had such thoughts? That he had always had them?

  The repulsed look she wore so often on her good-neighbourly face flashed before his eyes.

  She would have disowned him so much sooner had she known even a quarter of the truly vile thoughts, wants, needs and whims that swamped the darker recesses of his overactive mind; that itched beneath the surface just begging to be scratched. Begging.

  He loved it when they begged and pleaded, offering to do whatever he wanted and to do it willingly. Promising they wouldn’t report it to the police, that they wouldn’t scream . . . if he would just let them go afterwards.

  But, he liked it when they screamed, or tried to scream at least.

  And no one ever heard them. Or, if they did, no one ever came to help. No, the majority of the local law-abiding populace would be tucked up in bed by now; locked away, safe and sound inside their cosy little homes.

  And they were deep in the cover of the forest now.

  He had used this spot before, liked it for its privacy and the way the sound dissipated. The way it simply evaporated. Brilliant.

  God! She was quick this one . . . but, there . . . she was beginning to falter.

  She went over on her ankle as the uneven, detritus-sodden ground gave way before her.

  She gasped in pain as she continued to push herself, stumbling on and on at an incredible pace; the faintest whimper of a stifled sob escaping every time her right foot had to bear her slight weight.

  He darted to the left taking the trunk of the fallen tree before him like a practised hurdler and coming up sharp in front of her. She anticipated; leaning into her right and surging through a tangle of nettles and brambles, their spiny fingers clawing at her bare arms and legs, catching and snagging the fine cotton and lace of her baby blue dress.

  Oh, baby blue.

  Now more a wild horse than Bambi she panted forward, her chest rising and falling under strained breaths. What a way to celebrate your sixteenth birthday!

  Crack!

  The rock hit the back of her head and she crumpled to the dank forest floor.

  His aim was improving.

  He rolled her over, hard as the rock he’d thrown and aching for release.

  This ugly, little duckling had been a surprising tease, working him as no other had done in a very long time. Maybe for his next catch he would actively seek a sprinter. Maybe he would watch her train in the cute, little shorts that hugged the arse nice and firm and moved fluidly with her every movement.

  Yeah.

  He took the ever-present silver chain from his pocket and looped it around her neck, squeezing just tight enough to rouse her. She clawed his hands urgently, her eyes popp
ing open, large and glistening like a china doll; those near-dead eyes that still bore a facade of life behind them.

  She watched him, desperate, her hands falling away from his, away from her neck and the chain tightening around it. Down to the dank, forest floor.

  His brother’s silver tags glistened in the dark. He was never without that chain, and so he was never alone.

  They had always done everything together. Everything. Always. Matty was his whole world.

  Had been.

  He thrust harder and harder inside of her, fighting back tears for the loss of his brother; feeling her muscles clench around him as his grip tightened on the chain, his knuckles white; his head spinning.

  ‘Time to play.’ he whispered.

  Crack.

  Now he was truly inside.

  Chapter One

  08:13

  Friday 13th May, 2011

  Jonathan Prior paced the slim line of floor space that divided one half of the eight-by-ten-foot security office from the other. Computer monitors, printers, communication relays, heavily pinned notice boards and a mass of folders, logbooks and disassociated papers adorned the surfaces and walls of the poxy, windowless office.

  Prior had been informed, on more than one occasion, that it was for ‘ease of access and to show an active presence’ that Security was located mid-ship near the reception area. That it had absolutely nothing to do with squeezing as many top-notch, celebrity-priced suites and guest amenities into every other square inch of the ship.

  Golden Star Cruise Liners had a cheek really, suggesting that six men could work comfortably in such a confined space. But, it seemed his protestations would continue to go unaddressed.

  Just like being back in black.

  But, it was the no window aspect that really got to his back up. He headed a small team that were part of a crew sailing between England and the Caribbean; they worked hard — every day — to ensure the safety and security of the ship, the rest of the crew and the passengers . . . and yet they weren’t even entitled to a view for their trouble!

  It was a major sore point for the ex-DI as it had ultimately been the lure of the breath-taking views that had convinced him to hang up his shield, up-sticks and join the ranks of the Ianus in the first place.

  Well, something like that anyway.

  A nice view and a quiet life at sea, that’s what he had wanted. A world away from drug-raids and mobsters, from murders, paedophiles and gang violence.

  Prior had seen his fair share of bodies laid out on a cold, metal gurney. Been present at enough sterile and detached autopsies on innocent victims and cross-fire casualties to last him a lifetime. He dared not try and recount the number of Merseyside and Cheshire doors he’d knocked on to question a suspect or a victim, or to simply deliver the unfortunate news that no family — no matter who or what they’d spawned — ever wanted to hear.

  ‘Guv’?’

  It made him smile that, although he was no longer a DI in official circles, his team treated him with the same respect and trust he’d built up over so many years of hard work and through the many sacrifices he had made in simply being part of the police force. And it didn’t hurt that most of them were ex-coppers who knew the drill; an instant extended family. They knew when they could and couldn’t push their luck with Prior and he — for the most part — felt equally comfortable with them.

  He raised his eyebrows, simultaneously acknowledging and questioning the owner of the voice.

  Davies, a young officer — a Scouser with a wave of bleach-blonde hair and big baby-blues that made all the girls fall instantly in love with him — held a phone up in Prior’s direction, covering the mouthpiece as he spoke.

  ‘There’s a fella on the phone, says he’s your dad.’ he said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘Malcolm?’

  Marc Davies had previously enjoyed an active career working as a doorman in both Manchester and Liverpool before his move to cruise-line security. He was hard-working and enthusiastic, buffed and tanned as a well-waxed surf board and twice as preened.

  There were times he missed working the doors along Canal Street, checking out all the pretty boys as they checked into Babylon or Cruz. He missed being the centre of their alcohol-fuelled, hyper-sexualised, lavish, week-end attention.

  Life on the Ianus was different. A slower pace.

  Still, the pay was better than any other job he’d ever had and he didn’t have to pay for food or board. And he got to see the world.

  It was a fair trade, really.

  And it wasn’t as though the ship was ever in a deficit of cute boys. Or girls. After all, their passengers needed good entertainment and — as such — there was always a fresh influx of hot, new dancers, actors and performers.

  ‘Yeah, that sounds like my dad.’ said Prior, cutting through Davies’ train of thought and taking the mobile phone from his hand.

  He waited a moment before putting it to his ear. It seemed he was gearing himself up, preparing himself for the inevitable.

  Davies stifled a laugh and Prior clipped him lightly around the head.

  ‘Hi dad.’

  Though Davies couldn’t hear the counterpart of the conversation he could well imagine, from Prior’s unenthusiastic responses, the direction it was taking; So, how’s the job? When do you put to sea? Have you met anyone nice? Why this? How that? And when the other? Etc. Blah, etc.

  Prior’s tone was hinged somewhere between plain disinterest and an over-developed sense of duty, all whilst trying to feign some semblance of honest curiosity. It wasn’t working.

  ‘So, how is Stella?’ he asked.

  Davies smiled, raising an eyebrow.

  Prior rolled his eyes in return. What else was there to talk about?

  Stella was Malcolm Prior’s latest wife. And though he knew it shouldn’t really affect him anymore — a grown man who’d long since flown the coop — the ex-DI couldn’t help but feel a stab of guilty annoyance every time he thought about his father and her together in their lavish Cheshire Estate — complete with heated pool and stables that were Stella’s requisite — while his mum still lived in Birkenhead; in a two-up-two-down terrace with her boyfriend.

  Boy being the operative word.

  This was what annoyed him. Each of his parents was as bad as the other and the more he thought about it, the more it wound him up.

  Apparently, both his mum and his dad had slammed head-first into the fabled mid-life crisis at a synchronised speed. And while the cliché would have you believe that his father would have invested in a nippy, little sports car (something red and shiny and shaped like a penis), leaving his mum for a younger model, it was to Prior’s absolute surprise and confusion that very much the opposite had happened.

  Oh, his dad had gone out and bought a car. But, that wasn’t until two weeks after Terri Goodwin-Prior had left him to shack up with Danny-the-prepubescent-prick Macintosh following their secret, six-month affair.

  So, three weeks before his fifty-third birthday and four hours after wandering around Audi, BMW and Porsche dealerships, Malcolm Prior had stepped out onto a crumbling garage forecourt and invested five-hundred pounds . . . in an R-reg Renault Clio. One of the old ones that you could still tinker with.

  Even the then-DI Jonathan Prior could not have predicted that one!

  The seemingly ordinary, if not a little dull, but loveable accountant that Prior had always known to be his father was in fact no more than a family-man mask he’d worn for the past twenty-nine years; a persona he’d adopted since the moment Terri had begun flushing her pills down the toilet.

  Malcolm Prior was — in fact — a natural mechanic with an amazing mind for machines and engines, pistons and pumps.

  He quickly stripped the rusted, old bucket-of-a-car and with some oil and elbow grease (several new parts, a body-kit, sound system, decent paint-job and a lot of TLC) he’d completely overhauled, customised and sold the Clio on at a profit in under three weeks!

  And, now that he was no lon
ger required to play the part of the dependable bread-winner he swiftly put his heart and soul (not to mention his personal life savings and his share of the money from the sale of their family home) into his brand new customising business. He bought a yard and lock-up from which to work and began buying in Subaru’s, MR2’s, MG’s and all sorts.

  And to his son’s surprise — to everyone’s complete surprise — it took off!

  Four years on and Prior Custom was now a multi-million-pound business. Malcolm Prior now owned and managed no less than eighty yards across the UK and had just opened two more in L.A. and Miami.

  And in those last four years, he’d been married another two times.

  Fortunately — still being sensible old Mal’ on some level — he’d had a pre-nup drawn-up and signed by both parties prior to the wedding.

  Good job too, when it came to dealing with the divorce of his second wife!

  Still, credit where credit was due, Stella — wife number three — had been around for a year and a half now and she seemed to make his dad happy. They had been married for a nearly year, which was already double the length of the time compared to wife number two.

  Prior hoped that it really would be third time lucky. He didn’t think he could take another of his father’s weddings.

  ‘Good. I’m glad all’s ok.’ Prior continued, ‘Listen dad, I’m going to have to go. I’ve got checks to do before we can get underway and . . . Yeah, I will . . . Speak to you soon. Yeah, bye dad. Bye.’

  He hung up the phone and pushed out a great sigh of relief.

  No longer able to contain himself, Davies snorted out the laughter he had clawed to hold back for the entire duration of their conversation. He stood and moved past his boss, patting him on the shoulder as he went. ‘Well done, mate. Very well done.’