The Deadline Series Boxset

by Wendy Soliman

The nurse responded to the bell, checked Alexi’s vital signs and nodded her satisfaction. She spent a lot more time, a disgruntled Alexi noticed, checking Tyler out.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea and something light to eat?’ she asked, finally appearing to remember it was Alexi who was the patient.

  ‘What I’d like is to go home,’ she said, not very graciously.

  ‘The doctor will have to discharge you and he won’t do that until you’ve had something to eat and drink.’

  ‘Okay then, tea would be good. Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ she said, to Tyler, not to her.

  ‘You didn’t need to stay. That chair looks uncomfortable,’ she said when the nurse left again.

  ‘I’ve slept in worse places.’ He winked at her. ‘Besides, you’re getting VIP treatment. A private room with a police guard outside the door, no less. I had to lie and say I was your significant other, or else they wouldn’t have let me stay.’

  On the evidence she’d seen so far, Alexi figured he could probably have charmed the nurses into letting him do anything he wanted to, but refrained from saying so. She was touched that he’d sat guard over her all night, no matter what means he’d had to employ to make it happen. Churlishness was beneath her.

  ‘Tell me what happened after they brought me here,’ she said instead. ‘I want to know it all.’

  ‘It was pandemonium. At first the plod were a bit overawed by Fuller, what with him being akin to a local god. They seemed to think I was the aggressor and wanted to slap the cuffs on me.’

  Alexi spontaneously laughed, but regretted it. ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ she said, choking and reaching for the water. ‘It hurts.’

  The nurse interrupted them and placed a tray over Alexi’s knees. Rather anaemic-looking scrambled eggs and tea.

  ‘Eat up,’ Tyler said, holding a forkful of the unappetising eggs to her lips, ‘and I’ll tell you some more.’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  The eggs tasted as cardboardy as they looked but the warm tea soothed her throat and made her feel a little better.

  ‘It took me a while to make the uniforms understand what they were dealing with. Cosmo didn’t help, of course. When they took you off, he created merry hell because he couldn’t go with you. No one could get near him, except me, so I put him in my car—’

  ‘Did your upholstery survive?’

  ‘Of course. Cosmo and I understand one another completely. Anyway, I put him in the car, safe in the knowledge that no one would get near the papers I’d copied, or the diaries and stuff I’d already taken from the cottage, with Cosmo standing guard over them. Then I went back inside and patiently explained it all. Eventually…eventually,’ he said with an exaggerated sigh, ‘they realised what they were dealing with, got their act together, and a murder squad came out from Reading nick. They read Natalie’s mother’s letter, I then told them who you were and what Fuller had tried to do to you, and he was taken away in handcuffs.’

  ‘Damn, I wanted to see that.’

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart, but at least he’s now safely under lock and key. He was swearing blue murder when they took him away, asking all and sundry if they knew who he was, threatening to sue for wrongful arrest…all the usual bullshit. Wouldn’t mind a fiver for every time I’ve heard it. Then he seemed to realise he was in deep doo-doo and started demanding a lawyer.’ Tyler ground his jaw. ‘They were the first sensible words he’d uttered. He’ll fucking need the best brief money can buy.’

  ‘He hasn’t admitted anything, then?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘So, unless he tells them where he hid Natalie’s body, it might never be found.’

  ‘Shush, don’t get worked up. We’ll find her.’

  ‘I hope we do.’ She sighed. ‘Is that Natalie’s manuscript?’

  ‘Yes. Very poignant stuff.’

  ‘We need to get out of here. Cheryl and Drew—’

  ‘I went back there first and dropped Cosmo off. They know you’re all right.’

  They were interrupted by the doctor. He examined Alexi and wanted her to stay with them another day. She refused and so by mid-morning she was in Tyler’s car, on the way back to Hopgood House. The swelling in her knee had subsided sufficiently for her to be able to hobble under her own steam. She didn’t want to think about the bruises to her face and neck, to say nothing of the one forming on her belly where Fuller had punched her. Focus on the positive, she told herself. She had survived the attack, the bruises would fade and she would heal.

  ‘The police will want to talk to you once we get back,’ Tyler warned her as he drove. ‘The one at the hospital will have told them you’ve been discharged.’

  ‘That’s okay. I have a few things to say to them.’

  ‘Stick to the facts. Emotional outbursts won’t help anyone.’

  She sighed. ‘Yeah, I know, I know.’

  The moment Tyler pulled his car into the forecourt at Hopgood House, Cheryl and Drew, along with Cosmo and Toby, came bounding out to meet them.

  ‘How are you?’ Cheryl asked. ‘We’ve been beside ourselves.’ She engulfed Alexi in a cautious hug. ‘You look…well, like you’ve been through the wars.’

  ‘You should see the other guy,’ she replied, giving Drew a kiss and cautiously bending to greet Cosmo.

  ‘Let’s get you inside,’ Tyler said, sliding an arm around her waist and helping her to walk the short distance.

  ‘So Fuller had no idea he actually had a daughter,’ Cheryl said when they were all seated around the kitchen table drinking tea. ‘Well, not Natalie, anyway. He has other kids with his American wife.’

  ‘Did Natalie’s mother pursue her dream and make it in three-day eventing?’ Drew asked.

  Alexi shook her head. ‘According to the letter she left for Natalie, her heart went out of it after the way she was treated at the hands of the Fullers and she saw a very different, ugly side to the equestrian world.’

  ‘I’ll just bet it did,’ Cheryl said, grinding her jaw.

  ‘Just like Natalie’s career choices were derailed after what Seaton did to her,’ Drew added. ‘No wonder Natalie was so determined to get her revenge.’

  ‘Laura took an office job and finished up marrying her boss; a widower old enough to be her father.’

  ‘She probably felt comfortable with an older man who was willing to look after her,’ Drew said pensively. ‘More in control. Natalie’s life was all about being in control as well. She must have inherited that trait from her mother. Two abused women doing what they could to protect themselves, and then fighting back.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alexi agreed, her voice hoarse, raspy. ‘They didn’t have any children of their own and her husband died ten years ago. Then, a year before Natalie moved here, her mother discovered she had terminal cancer. She’d never forgotten her only child, and set about trying to find her. She got investigators onto it, and they probably found out all the stuff that Tyler and I did.’

  ‘Did they ever meet?’ Cheryl asked, her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘No,’ Alexi replied. ‘I guess Laura figured it was too late to mend that particular fence.’

  ‘But she left that letter,’ Cheryl pointed out, ‘to be given to Natalie upon her death. She assumed Natalie would want to know as much as possible about her start in life and the reasons why her mother couldn’t possibly keep her.’

  Cheryl made it sound as though she desperately wanted to believe Natalie died fighting for justice for two generations. Alexi couldn’t fault her friend’s reasoning.

  Except that she could.

  Instead of blackmail, Natalie could have gone to the police, or better yet, to the media with all the information she’d gathered on Seaton and Fuller. Journalists of Alexi’s calibre would have cut one another’s hands off for a shot at that particular exclusive. Trial by media was way more effective nowadays, what with the odds being stacked so heavily in favour of criminals’ human rights. By going to the papers, Natalie would have been
viewed as the victim that she was. So too would the mother whom she’d never met, and Seaton and Fuller would both have done jail time. Because she turned to blackmail, she would be seen as a manipulative woman with a grudge to bear, keen to line her own pockets.

  ‘Do you think her mother’s soul-cleansing was the right way to set the record straight?’ Drew asked, standing behind Cheryl and absently massaging her shoulders with one large hand. ‘She was no longer around to answer Natalie’s questions, and couldn’t have known what the consequences would be. Sometimes sleeping dogs are definitely better left to their slumbers.’

  ‘Having read the letter several times, I’d say she was conflicted,’ Tyler replied.

  ‘Don’t the police have the letter?’ Cheryl asked.

  Tyler winked at her. ‘We…er, might have kept a copy.’

  ‘And all of Natalie’s childhood diaries, as well as the manuscript she was writing,’ Alexi added.

  ‘Best not to mention that to the police when they call,’ Tyler warned. ‘There’s nothing there that impinges upon Fuller’s culpability and we don’t want Fay Seaton to learn about her husband’s perversions from them. If she has to hear it at all, it would be better coming from us.’

  ‘How do you feel, as an ex-copper, about withholding evidence?’ Drew asked Tyler.

  ‘Evidence?’ Tyler looked suitably confused. ‘What evidence?’

  Drew laughed. ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Did Fuller admit to murdering Natalie?’ Cheryl asked.

  ‘Yes, he did to me’ Alexi replied. ‘But Tyler says that when the police took him away, he was denying everything.’

  Cheryl rolled her eyes. ‘Of course he was.’

  ‘And he’s probably got a fancy lawyer who will try and muddy the waters,’ Drew said, curling his lip in disgust. ‘If they find out Natalie was an escort, and they will, that will open a whole can of worms.’

  ‘That’s another reason why it’s better not to let the police see Natalie’s diaries and manuscript,’ Tyler replied. ‘It would cast Seaton in the role of alternative suspect. Especially if they delve into his financials and discover she blackmailed him, too.’ Tyler grimaced. ‘If I thought there was even an outside possibility that Seaton had killed her I wouldn’t hold anything back. But we know he’s only a rapist.’

  ‘Fuller’s lawyer will have his work cut out to cast doubt on his guilt,’ Alexi rasped, ‘because Natalie was very thorough. She’d managed to get a sample of Fuller’s DNA and paid a private lab to compare it to her own. There’s a ninety-nine point seven per cent chance that Fuller’s her biological father. Her mother also included a sample of her own DNA with the letter she left for Natalie. Thoroughness obviously runs through the female genes in that family. He won’t be able to talk his way out of that one.’

  ‘Where are those samples now?’ Tyler asked.

  ‘Being held by the lab that ran the tests, along with the original results.’

  ‘Hmm, she really wasn’t taking any chances,’ Cheryl said. ‘Good for her.’

  ‘There was a ton of cash hidden in the house,’ Tyler said, yawning. ‘The police have all that.’

  ‘Natalie took Fuller for a hundred grand.’ Alexi said. ‘The same amount as he paid for Super Nova.’

  ‘Kind of poetic justice, when you think about it,’ Drew mused, turning to the stove to heat up some soup for their lunch. Alexi suspected Tyler would coerce, bully or cajole her into eating it whether she wanted to or not.

  ‘Yeah, she only banked small parts of it and, I’m guessing here, laundered the rest through her business. That would be one of the reasons why she set it up, and explains why it was already in the black.’ Tyler shrugged. ‘I’d been wondering about that.’

  Drew nodded. ‘Most of her suppliers would be happy to accept cash payments, no questions asked. And the cash she did bank went into her personal account, below the bells and whistles threshold, because if she put it into her business account, she’d have to…well, account for it.’

  Drew served them with Marcel’s homemade soup and Alexi surprised herself by feeling hungry again. She cleared her entire bowl but refused seconds.

  Tyler’s phone rang.

  ‘That was the lead detective in the murder squad,’ he told Alexi. ‘He needs to come and talk to you. Might as well get it out the way. They’ll be here in an hour, which gives you time for that bath you said you wanted.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’d best hide this evidence,’ he said, pointing to the diaries and manuscript he’d brought back from the hospital and heading for the door. ‘And I have a few bases to cover. I’ll be a few minutes.’

  ‘Ty,’ Alexi said, her croaking voice halting him before he was halfway across the room.

  ‘Yes.’ He turned to look at her, his eyes dark and intense. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He looked surprised. ‘For what?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She cautiously shrugged. Even that small gesture caused half the nerve endings in her battered body to protest. ‘Let me see. Er…saving my life is probably worth acknowledging.’

  He swallowed, his eyes now glowing with an unfathomable emotion. He took a step towards her, as though he wanted to say more. Then he appeared to remember Cheryl and Drew were both there and the moment of mutual awareness passed.

  ‘Any time,’ he said flippantly.

  ‘Baby, that man has got it bad for you,’ Cheryl said as she watched him go.

  ‘He’s just being all macho, and feeling guilty because he thought I needed his protection and he wasn’t there for me.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Don’t go there, Cheryl. Not now.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Cheryl grinned unrepentantly. ‘I just want everyone I care about to be happy. Anyway, you’ll have one hell of an inside story to write when this is all over.’

  Astonishingly, that thought hadn’t even occurred to Alexi. Well, maybe not so astonishing, given that she’d just narrowly escaped being Fuller’s second victim. She held that thought as she turned to the kitchen mirror, wincing as she assessed her appearance. A dressing on her temple covered the gash where she’d hit her head on the bedstead. It hadn’t needed stitches and wouldn’t, apparently, leave much of a scar. There was already a dark reddish tinge surrounding it, caused by blood leaking from the broken capillaries beneath her skin. The same was true of her cheek, where Fuller’s hand had struck it so violently. She sighed, accepting those bruises-in-the-making would pass through just about every colour of the rainbow during the next few days.

  She instinctively touched the dark marks ringing her neck like an ugly collar and closed her eyes for an expressive moment, waiting for the nausea caused by delayed shock and visual realisation of her close escape to dissipate.

  ‘Come on,’ Cheryl said softly from behind her. ‘I’ll help you with that bath.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tyler ran up to his room, unable to absolve himself from blame for almost getting Alexi killed. He never wanted to go through a night like that again, sitting beside her bed, watching her the entire time just to ensure she continued breathing. She wasn’t even in intensive care so the professionals obviously didn’t think her life was in danger, but Tyler wasn’t taking any chances this time around.

  He didn’t think he’d ever be able to shake the image of Fuller with his hands around her neck slowly squeezing the life out of her. He had thought at the time that he was too late to save her. Fuller’s puckered face was tight with concentration, his eyes cold, emotionless, his expression chillingly determined. Alexi’s eyes were wide-open, dull and lifeless, and she wasn’t putting up a fight. The Alexi he thought he knew would fight a creep like Fuller every inch of the way, so he had to be too late.

  He never wanted to experience such a gut-wrenching feeling of failure ever again. He shouldn’t have left her to see the bastard alone. The fact that she wasn’t technically his responsibility, failed to ease his guilt.

  Sighi
ng, he phoned Cassie, gave her an abbreviated version of what had happened and told her she’d have to cope without him for a day or two. It wasn’t a request and Cassie didn’t put up a fight. Instead she offered to help any way she could, even sending her regards to Alexi.

  Next Tyler called his sister, told her the same story and warned her to expect a visit from the police.

  ‘They’ll check into Natalie’s background and will want to know why I got involved,’ he told her. ‘It’s best they hear the truth from me rather than thinking I’m covering something up.’

  ‘Of course you need to be straight with them. Don’t worry about me. I’m just so glad your friend survived.’

  ‘Me too. I’m going to see if I can find out who’s on the murder squad and get them to handle your side of things discreetly. Since they have their suspect under lock and key that ought to work.’

  ‘Thanks, Ty. And I’m sorry I got you into this.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’

  Tyler phoned Reading nick next. As luck would have it, there was a uniformed sergeant on desk duty; one who’d been there forever and owed Tyler a favour from the days when Tyler had been seconded to Reading as part of a fraud investigation. Technically, Tyler was a person of interest, as they say, in a murder case. Make that a potential murder case. Still no body. Anyway, the sergeant knew better than to talk to Tyler about an on-going investigation that involved him personally.

  He spoke to him.

  ‘Fuller’s being interviewed now,’ he said. ‘He’s lawyered up and so far hasn’t said much. How’s the woman he tried to throttle?’

  ‘Recovering, but it was a close call.’

  ‘I dunno.’ Tyler could imagine the sergeant scratching his balding head. ‘You think you’ve seen it all when you’ve been in this game as long as I have, but I never would have pegged Fuller for a villain. Far as most of the people in this neck of the woods go, the man walks on water.’

  ‘Some thieving toe-rag must have nicked his water-wings.’

  ‘Can’t trust anyone these days.’

  Tyler chuckled, told the sergeant he owed him a drink, and hung up. Then he sat back and had a good think about their conversation, more convinced than ever that if Fuller didn’t confess and tell them where he’d hidden the body he might well get away with murder. He would go down for rape of a minor and for the attempted murder of Alexi, but how long for? His brief would dig up all the sordid details of Natalie’s past. How she was adopted into a well to-do family but threw it back in her adoptive parents’ faces by absconding and living the life of an escort. How she then blackmailed her biological father until he was in danger of going under financially. But he had paid her because he felt so guilty and never would have harmed a hair on her head. Yeah, right! Everything would get spun, glossed over, and Fuller might not pay the ultimate price.