by A D Davies
Number thirty-eight.
He had rehearsed a little speech, about how special Alicia was, how they wouldn’t have made the connections they did without her little computer of a brain. That, had she been another hard-arsed officer with a point to prove, Murphy wouldn’t have liked her half as much as he finally admitted he did. He remembered something she’d said when they first met: I’ll just be myself. You’ll fall in love with me and your change will happen all by itself. He looked at his jeans, stroked the area of skin formerly occupied by his moustache.
“The cow,” he said, and rang the bell.
Nothing for a long moment. Then the sound of running from inside, and Alicia answered in a rush. “Oh, hi! Sorry, I was in the loo. What are you doing here?”
She wore tracky bottoms and a Leeds United shirt, her hair in a ponytail. No makeup. Her eyes held more weight than when they first met.
She said, “I heard they were finally able to arrest Henry Windsor.”
“Nice greeting,” he said. “I’m fine, how are you?”
“Sorry. You look fine, so I figured you were. Love the top lip.”
Murphy shrugged his coat higher. “Cold out.”
“Oh, right. Come on in.”
He stepped inside. The Christmas decorations were a little over the top, but he expected no less. “They found James’s body last week and arrested Henry yesterday. Took some doing. Perverting the course of justice, bribing a police officer. They won’t make it stick that he was accomplice to Lawrence, though.”
“His lawyers will say he was being threatened. That he was a victim as much as the girls.”
“Could use that defence about bribing Wellington too.”
“He might just plead. There’s a lot of guilt in that man.”
Murphy didn’t expand on that. No more shop talk. “No Roberta?”
“She flew out to see her parents in New York. She’s staying there for Christmas and New Year.”
“And you?”
“I’m popping over to my dad’s tomorrow. You?”
He shrugged. “My niece invited me over. Darla has a new boyfriend she wants me to meet. Can’t imagine who that is. I can hardly wait.”
Alicia stood still, hands in pockets. He’d seen this before. Officers so traumatised they couldn’t bear to be around others from the job. But Alicia didn’t seem the type to be traumatised. She was too focused. Yeah, he thought that. He knew the dizzy stuff was an act, who she wanted to be. Even if she didn’t see it.
“I’m taking you for lunch,” he told her. “Not a request.”
She looked into the apartment, somewhere beyond Murphy.
“Come on,” Murphy said. “You can go like that if you want, but I’ll have to take you somewhere they think ‘classy’ means pictures of dogs playing snooker.” He pulled a green paper crown out of his pocket, one he took from a Christmas cracker. Placed it on his head. “It’s Christmas Eve, Alicia.”
A smile cracked on her face and Murphy felt himself mirror her. Her smile grew into a little laugh.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose I’d better make a little effort.”
She dressed quickly and skipped from the bedroom in beige trousers, a smart top, and flashing Santa Claus earrings. And when she slipped into her coat, she produced a sprig of mistletoe. Murphy bent down to accept the peck on the lips, felt a happiness he’d forgotten some time ago, and found himself hoping Alicia would find a nice man soon.
God, that made him feel old. Wishing a beautiful young woman a decent life rather than yearning to reverse his years, say, twenty of them.
With Alicia twittering about the nice new pub down the road, Murphy led her outside. The door closed, leaving the apartment empty.
And within the empty apartment, Alicia and Roberta’s decorations sparkled in the rays of sunlight through the windows. But no one was left to see them. Each room held a different array of tinsel, foil and lights. The living room, of course, was the most extravagant, with dancing reindeer and tree bulbs winking on and off. The only room to escape such adornments was the bathroom. Alicia had tried it one year, but as soon as it steamed up, the shiny rows of paper flopped to the floor.
It was in this room, however, that a foreign object remained. Alicia had been attending to it moments before Murphy called round. She put off using it until Roberta was away, and then again until she had a sherry or three inside her.
And here, perched on the edge of her bath, as Alicia sat opposite her friend in the pub ordering the Christmas special, a lonely pregnancy kit held onto its answer, and would wait patiently for her to return.
To see what happens to Alicia Friend next, pick up her second novel today!
In Black In White
Meet Detective Sergeant Alicia Friend: cop, analyst, cutie-pie.
She acknowledges she is an irritating person to have around at first but, when given a chance, all her colleagues fall in love with her. She can’t explain it, but it’s how she works, how she gets her best results.
And it is exactly how she must work when a British diplomat is murdered on US soil, and the UK Ambassador orders her to observe the FBI’s investigation.
Soon, the murders expand to encompass a wider victim profile, each confessing their politically-motivated lies on camera, and Alicia shows why her superiors overlook her quirks, and consider her one of the best minds in her field.
Drafting in her old partner, Alicia imposes her personality on the investigation, and expands the focus from a politically-charged arena to the madness of a psychopath who cannot seem to stop.
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Note from the Author
I just wanted to say a huge thank you for buying this book. If you’ve made it this far, I hope I am not being too presumptuous in assuming you enjoyed it. I also hope it means you will be happy to leave me a review.
Reviews are the lifeblood of up-and-coming authors, and as someone who is striving to make this a career, positive feedback on retailers, can mean the difference between an undecided reader hitting ‘buy’ and moving on to the next writer. If you have time, I would be truly grateful for an endorsement, no matter how brief.
If you would like to be kept up to date with forthcoming developments, you can sign up at www.addavies.com/newsletter, where I will be initiating free previews, sharing news, even giving away books … but I will only contact you when I have something to say. You won’t be spammed with nonsense, and your email address will NEVER be shared with third parties.
Once again, thank you for buying this book – it really does make me happy to think I’ve brought even a small amount of pleasure to a stranger through my words.
A.D. Davies
@authoraddavies
authoraddavies
www.addavies.com
Novels by A. D. Davies
Adam Park Thrillers:
The Dead and the Missing
A Desperate Paradise
The Shadows of Empty men
Night at the George Washington Diner
Alicia Friend Investigations:
His First His Second
In Black In White
With Courage With Fear
Standalone:
Three Years Dead
Rite to Justice
The Sublime Freedom
Co-Authored:
Project Return Fire – with Joe Dinicola
The Dead and the Missing
* * * Available on all major platforms * * *
A missing girl. An international underworld. A PI who will not quit.
Adam Park is an ex-private investigator, now too wealthy to need a job. But when his old mentor’s niece rips off a local criminal and flees the UK, his life of surfing and travel comes to an abrupt end.
Using cutting-edge technology, Adam tracks the young woman and her violent boyfriend through the Parisian underground where he learns of a brutal criminal enterprise for whom people are just a business commodity.
But when
the men who run this enterprise feel threatened by his investigation, Adam is propelled to more dangerously-exotic locales, where he must fight harder than ever before.
To return the girl safely and protect the ones he loves, Adam will need to burn down his concepts of right and wrong; the only path to survival is through the darkest recesses of his soul.
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Three Years Dead
When a good man … becomes a bad cop … but can’t remember why…
Following an attempt on his life, Detective Sergeant Martin Money wakes from a week-long coma with no memory of the previous three years. He quickly learns that corrupt practices got him demoted, violence caused his wife to divorce him, and his vices and anger drove his friends away one by one. On top of this, the West Yorkshire Police do not seem to care who tried to kill him, and he is offered a generous pay-out to retire.
But with a final lifeline offered by a former student of his, Martin takes up the case of a missing male prostitute, an investigation that skirts both their worlds, forcing him back into the run-down estates awash with narcotics, violence, and sex, temptations he must resist if he is to resume his life as the good man he remembers himself to be.
To stay out of jail, to punish whoever tried to kill him, and to earn his redemption, Martin attempts to unravel the circumstances of his assault, and—more importantly—establish why everyone from his past appears to be lying at every turn.
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Rite to Justice
A dead cult leader. A federal cover-up. A devout cop will uncover the truth.
In the small town of Hope, Nevada, Detective Roland Recht is a deeply religious man trying to understand his place in the world. And his latest case, the murder of an isolated pastor, hits him harder than usual.
Killed within the Congregation of Saul’s compound, the only witness is Lizzie, the Christian cult’s newest and youngest follower, and it seems clear that a former member must be responsible.
But when Recht and his girlfriend suffer a personal and terrifying threat, it sends the investigation in a new direction, one that no one, not even his superiors or the FBI, wants him to pursue.
Rite to Justice sees a good man forced to choose between his career as a cop, and following his moral compass, whatever the consequences.
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Project Return Fire - By Antony Davies & Joe Dinicola
* * * Exclusively on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited * * *
An inadvertent trip through time... A battle to decide the fate of mankind… One chance to set things right…
Deep in the Juras Mountains, Johnathan Santarelli's team of Army Rangers investigates a radioactive anomaly. Suddenly Santarelli and his men are transported to 1945 in German-occupied territory!
Far from their loved ones, the Rangers want nothing more than to preserve the timeline and get home, but when an elite Nazi unit captures future technology, and the Rangers are confronted with younger versions of important people from their present, they question if this trip was a coincidence after all. Before long, the U.S. team realizes it has a higher duty: stopping the Third Reich from turning the war in Germany’s favor.
Before they return home, the team must battle the Nazis for the future of time itself…
Project Return Fire is a military time travel action adventure novel set during World War II. If you like bloody battles, soldiers in action, combined with the shock of being ripped through time, then you'll love this action-packed thrill ride.
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The Sublime Freedom
* * * Exclusively on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited * * *
A serial killer who thinks he is above the law.
A growing legion of “fans” who admire him.
A veteran detective will prove them all wrong.
When Detective Frank Russo moved from New York to LA with his daughter, he had two aims in mind: to raise Kim well in preparation for the real world, and to leave behind the city where he lost his wife to a serial killer. But Russo knows he is still too over-protective, and even resorts to spying on Kim’s internet use.
Now a serial killer emerges, prowling the back alleys of Los Angeles, inspiring an online following who call him “The People’s Assassin.” When Kim is sucked in to their circle - SublimeFreedom.com - Russo will do whatever it takes to bring him in.
Except the killer believes his money elevates him above the law, and as the legal system continues to protect him, his fan base swells along with the body count.
Hiding his nefarious spying activity from Kim, and pursuing this killer to the limits of his job, Russo risks all he has built since starting afresh. If he is to end the killing, save his daughter, and finally lay his past to rest, Russo must learn to trust in himself, in Kim, and in a system that has let him down too often.
The Sublime Freedom is a fast paced serial killer thriller, full of secrets and lies, featuring a detective who simply will not accept defeat.
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