A Quiet Death
Page 1
Table of Contents
A Quiet Death
Praise for Cari Hunter
By the Author
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Epilogue
About the Author
Books Available From Bold Strokes Books
A Quiet Death
In book three in the Dark Peak series, things are looking up for Detective Sanne Jensen and Dr. Meg Fielding. Dating each other seems to be working, their families are behaving themselves, and the worst of the post-Christmas crime wave is over.
The discovery of a Pakistani girl’s body out on the moors changes all that. No one knows who she is, who hurt her, or how she came to be there. As pressure mounts on East Derbyshire Special Ops for a quick resolution, it becomes ever more apparent that the case won’t provide one.
With the Pakistani community closing ranks, and threads of suspicion reaching farther than anyone could have predicted, the investigation leaves Sanne facing an ordeal she may not survive.
Praise for Cari Hunter
Snowbound
“[Snowbound] grabbed me from the first page and kept me on the edge of my seat until nearly the end. I love the British feel of it and enjoyed the writer’s style tremendously. So if you’re looking for a very well written, fast paced, lesbian romance—heavy on the action and blood and light on the romance—this is one for your ereader or bookshelf.”—C-Spot Reviews
Desolation Point
“[Desolation Point] is the second of Cari Hunter’s novels and is another great example of a romance action adventure. The story is fast paced and thrilling. A real page turner from beginning to end. Ms Hunter is a master at an adventure plot and comes up with more twists and turns than the mountain trails they are hiking. Well written, edited, and crafted, this is an excellent book and I can’t wait to read the sequel.”—Lesbian Reading Room
“Cari Hunter provides thrills galore in her adventure / romance Desolation Point. In the hands of a lesser writer and scenarist, this could be pretty rote and by-the-book, but Cari Hunter breathes a great deal of life into the characters and the situation. Her descriptions of the scenery are sumptuous, and she has a keen sense of pacing. The action sequences never drag, and she takes full advantage of the valleys between the peaks by deepening her characters, working their relationship, and setting up the next hurdle.”—Out In Print
Tumbledown
“Once again Ms. Hunter outdoes herself in the tension and pace of the plot. We literally know from the first two pages that the evil is hunting them, but we are held on the edge of our seats for the whole book to see what will unfold, how they will cope, whether they will survive—and at what cost this time. I literally couldn’t put it down. Tumbledown is a wonderful read.”—Lesbian Reading Room
“Even though this is a continuation of the Desolation Point plot, this is an entirely different sort of thriller with elements of a police procedural. Other thriller authors (yes, I’m looking at you, Patterson and Grisham) could take lessons from Hunter when it comes to writing these babies. Twists and turns and forgotten or unconventional weaponry along with pluck and spirit keep me breathless and reading way past my bedtime.”—Out In Print
No Good Reason
Truly terrible things, as well as truly lovely things, abound in the mystery-thriller No Good Reason…After visiting America for her last two books, Hunter returns to the land of hot tea and the bacon butty in her latest novel. Our heroines are Detective Sanne Jensen and Dr. Meg Fielding, best mates forever and sometimes something more. Their relationship is indefinable and complicated, but not in a hot mess of drama way. Rather, they share unspoken depths, comfortably silly moments, rock-solid friendship, and an intimacy that will make your heart ache just a wee bit.—C-Spot Reviews
“Cari Hunter is a master of crime suspense stories. No Good Reason brings tension and drama to strong medical and police procedural knowledge. The plot keeps us on the edge of our metaphorical seat, turning the pages long into the night. The setting of the English Peak District adds ambiance and a drama of its own without excluding anybody. And through it all a glimmer of humour and a large dose of humanity keep us engaged and enthralled.”—Curve Magazine
“This novel is dark and brooding and brilliantly written. Hunter transports you right into the world she creates and keeps you firmly in the grip of the icy weather, craggy rocks and oppressive atmosphere.”—The Lesbian Review
Cold to the Touch
“Right from the beginning I was hooked. Hunter never gives the reader a chance to get bored. This book is intelligently written and gives you an action-packed adventure with great characters.”—The Romantic Reader Blog
“Hunter writes decidedly good stories. She combines excellent plot lines with crime drama and just the right amount of thriller to keep us on the edge of our seats. Each book feels distinctive, enjoyably new and refreshingly different to standard crime dramas. Fans of Sanne and Meg will love where she takes them this time. Cold to the Touch is more than strong enough to stand alone, but why miss an excellent series?”—The Lesbian Reading Room
A Quiet Death
Brought to you by
eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com
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Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.
A Quiet Death
© 2017 By Cari Hunter. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-816-0
This Electronic book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.,
P.O. Box 249
New York, USA
First Edition: January 2017
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover design by Sheri (graphicartist2020@hotmail.com)
By the Author
Snowbound
Desolation Point
Tumbledown
The Dark Peak Series:
No Good Reason
Cold to the Touch
A Quiet Death
Acknowledgments
Thanks and a dish of butterscotch Angel Delight to the BSB gang, especially Sandy and Ruth for dealing with all the tricky behind-the-scenes stuff, and to my editor Cindy for her feedback and advice. To Sheri, for the lovely cover. To Alena Becker, for her knitting prowess, and to Nikki Smalls, for ensuring that our new nephews have their own dragons. To all the folks who’ve read these books, sent feedback, written reviews, and happily chatted about grannies sucking eggs. And to Cat, for the endless hours she spends as a beta, but mostly for making sure that I never get lost.
Always
PROLOGUE
They were getting closer. She could hear boots squelching in the peat and the crackle of grit and heather being crushed underfoot. Thin beams of light zigzagged across the moorland, picking out little in the driving sleet but keen enough to make her squeeze deeper into the tiny gap she had found. The rough surface of the stones bit into her skin and ripped her kameez. She pulled at the cloth, trying to cover her bare legs, her face burning with shame even as she shivered.
The men were shouting to each other, their words inaudible but weighted with fury. The taller one scrambled onto a nearby rock, his torch flashing within inches of her toes. He never thought to look down, though; never imagined that she might be huddled, with her fist stuffed into her mouth, not six feet from him. He jumped back to the path and swore as his trainers sank into the mud. She watched him walk away, the heaving bulk of his form quickly blotted out by the mist. The voices became less distinct, swallowed up by the wind and the drumming of her pulse.
A long time passed before she dared to unfurl her fingers and hold her hand out, catching drops of sleet and licking her dampened palm to ease her parched throat. She repeated the gesture, but seconds later, she couldn’t remember why she’d done it, and she stared at her arm, baffled. The thrum of her heartbeat was slower now, the pain that had crippled her for days fading into a dull ache that might actually let her sleep. The rock felt warm when she leaned against it. She curled into a ball, feeling her mother run a hand through her hair and hearing Nabila sing the wrong words to an old tune. Reassured, she smiled and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER ONE
Taking the clatter of the Land Rover’s engine as her cue, Meg Fielding sparked a match and lit the candles on the kitchen table. Secured to their saucers with Blu-Tack and melted wax, one wobbled and the other wavered, but neither toppled over. She blew out the flame as it began to singe her fingers, and then she adjusted the angle of a fork. Something was still missing.
“Aw, shit! Napkins!”
The turn of a key in the lock threw her into a tizzy. She flung drawers and cupboards open before giving up and tearing off sheets of bargain-basement kitchen roll instead, which didn’t look too bad once she’d folded them into triangles and disguised them further by shoving them beneath the knives. Finally, she slapped a hand on the light switch. She’d sent Sanne a text making her promise to use the front door, and there was puzzlement in Sanne’s voice as she called out, “Anybody home?”
Crouching in front of the oven door, Meg squinted at her reflection and wiped a smear of mint sauce from her forehead before chucking her apron in the vague direction of the washing machine. When she stepped into the hallway, Sanne froze, her coat still hanging off one arm.
“Oh no, what did you do?” She sniffed the air, her gaze straying beyond Meg. “Did you cook? In my kitchen? I thought we’d talked about this.” She sniffed again, and her expression shifted from horrified to curious. “Bloody hell, something smells amazing.”
Meg beamed, not offended in the slightest. It was a few years since she’d almost burned down her own house, but the memory lingered. “It’s roast lamb. Your mum gave me strict instructions, and I’ve followed them to the letter.” She kissed Sanne full on the lips. “Happy almost four-week anniversary. Now go and get your jammies on.”
By the time Sanne came back down, Meg had started carving the leg of lamb. It was difficult to manage the knife whilst surreptitiously ogling Sanne, however, so she gave up on the slicing and devoted her efforts to ogling.
“You do look lovely,” she said, watching Sanne sieve peas by candlelight. Still pink and damp from the shower, Sanne had towel-dried her hair, leaving it spiky all over, and thrown on her pyjamas and bed socks. A month of proper meals, restful sleep, and stress-free cases at work had restored some of the weight she had lost, and the sparkle was back in her eyes. When she smiled, Meg was tempted to swipe everything off the table and simply sit her on top of it.
“Meg?”
Caught somewhere between a naughty thought and an absolutely filthy one, Meg blinked and cleared her throat. “Yep? What?”
Sanne eased the knife from Meg’s hand. “Dare I ask?”
“Probably best that you don’t.”
“Do you want me to finish the meat while you do something that doesn’t involve a sharp object?”
“Okay,” Meg said. “I’ll get the spuds out. Your mum told me to roast them in goose fat.”
Sanne’s deft carving paused, the knife suspended motionless in mid-air. “God, I love you,” she said.
*
Dabbing her lips with kitchen roll, Sanne surveyed the empty dishes. The table looked as if a plague of locusts had ransacked it. The interview she’d led first thing that morning had overrun by several hours, thanks to the suspect’s penchant for going off on fanciful tangents, and her lunch had been sacrificed to a detailed confession encompassing several major acts of terrorism and a murder committed in Denmark. When asked to point out Denmark on a map, he’d stuck his finger on Glasgow. The two Polo Mints she’d found in her coat pocket had only just kept her going on the way home.
“I had too many spuds. I think I might actually pop.” She stretched her pyjamas away from her stomach.
“Can you squeeze pudding in?” Meg asked, beginning to stack the plates.
Sanne snapped the elastic back into place. “I’m assuming that was a rhetorical question.”
As Meg added the final touches to a dessert she’d promised would knock Sanne’s socks off, Sanne wandered into the living room and poked a fresh log into position on the burner. Spring might be just around the corner, but the brutal winter had yet to ease its grip on the Peak District, and she had driven home on roads slick with wet snow.
Leaning back against the sofa, she stretched her toes toward the fire. She had been looking forward to coming home since Meg’s cryptic text. They hadn’t arranged anything specific for their night off together, and she hadn’t even been sure whether they would see each other, so the message had brightened an otherwise frustrating day.
She raised her head as Meg toed the door open and approached the sofa with her hands behind her back.
“Left or right?” Meg asked.
Sanne searched her face for a clue, but Meg’s expression gave nothing away.
“Uh, left?”
“Ooh, good choice. You get more sprinkles.” Meg handed her a glass bowl of butterscotch mousse and plonked herself down on the sofa.
Sanne laughed as she realised what the mousse was. “Angel Delight? You spoil me.”
“It’s Angel Delight with chocolate sprinkles, if you please.” Meg daubed a blob onto Sanne’s nose. “I would’ve made you something fancier, but peeling all those veggies took most of the afternoon.”
“This is perfect.” Sanne savoured her first taste. Angel Delight had been a guilty pleasure since childhood, and given that its preparation involved whipping a packet of powder into milk, even Meg could make it without incident. They ate in silence, their spoons ending up discarded on the coffee table as they observed the time-honoured tradition of cleaning the bowls with their fingers.
Still licking her thumb, Meg lifted her arm to let Sanne tuck into her. “How was your day?” she asked.
“Long. Uneventful.” Sanne took a deep breath and felt every tedious minute of her shift drain away. “But I can live with that for the moment.”
“There’s a lot to be said for uneventful.”
“Aye.”
Meg’s arm tightened around Sanne, and her finger traced a thin white scar on the back of Sanne’s hand, one of several that a multiple murderer had left her with. The three-month improvement notice attached to Sanne’s personnel file at the start of that case had two weeks left to run, and she was ticking each day off on her kitchen calendar, if only to remind herself how far she had come since then.
Meg nudged her gently. “Penny for them.”
Sanne squeezed Meg’s
hand, wondering how long she’d been quiet. “I was appreciating being happy. Nowt deep or meaningful, really. Just that.”
“So you weren’t composing romantic haikus or comparing me to a summer’s day?”
“No, I was thinking that I’m dead snug and content and that you smell nice.”
“I smell like lamb grease and goose fat, San.”
“Don’t forget the artificial butterscotch flavouring.” Sanne cupped the back of Meg’s head and kissed her. The sweetness coating Meg’s lips would have made her squirm in anticipation if she’d had the energy to move. Instead she groaned and slumped against Meg. “It’s no good. I am officially too full and too comfy to ravish you.”
Meg, who’d always been better at drama in school, gasped like a swooning heroine. “Only four weeks and already we’re victims of Bed Death.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Sanne poked a finger into her belly. “There’s no way you want sex right now.”
“Naw.” Meg patted at the sofa until she found the television remote. “Right now I want to find something brainless to stare at while you fall asleep in my arms.”
Sanne yawned. “That does sound lovely. But there’s so much washing up to do.”
Meg pulled a throw rug over them both. “Sod it,” she said. “It’ll keep till morning.”
*
Sanne woke just before her alarm to a room flooded with bright moonlight. Next to her, Meg was twitching in synch to a dream, but she shifted as if sensing that something had changed, turning to face Sanne, her fitful movements ceasing as she settled back on her pillow.