The Armstrong Assignment (A Janet Markham Bennett Cozy Thriller Book 1) Diana Xarissa (the beginning after the end novel read .txt) 📖

the corridor. The lights had been dimmed, but Janet could see light coming from the open lift at the opposite end of the hall. As she got closer, she realised that there was someone lying on the floor, half in the lift and half in the corridor.

“Edward,” she gasped. She rushed forwards a few steps and then stopped and looked around. The hallway was empty. Feeling as if she might be making a terrible mistake, Janet pushed the button and broke off her connection to Bobby. Then she quickly found Inspector Caron’s number in her list of contacts.

Hiding in a random doorway, her eyes pinned on Edward, she waited anxiously for someone to answer.

“Hello?” The man had clearly been woken.

“It’s Janet Markham Bennett,” she said in a whisper. “I’ve found my husband, but he’s been attacked. I didn’t know who else to ring.” She rattled off the address for the hotel. “You need to come quickly and you need to bring as much help as you can. We’re on the top floor and there could be other injured people.”

“My dear Mrs. Bennett, I’m afraid...”

“Don’t argue,” Janet interrupted him. “Edward was trying to stop someone from getting murdered, and now the killer has attacked him and at least three other people. You need to get help here as quickly as you can. I have to go.”

She ended the call and then continued on her way towards Edward. Afraid to hope, she bent down and touched his cheek. It was still warm.

“Edward?” she said in a whisper.

He moaned.

Janet could see blood pooling behind his head.

“Don’t move. You have a head injury,” she told him. “I’m going to go and get help.”

Edward groaned again as Janet slipped the marble heart into his hand. She jumped as the lift pinged and then the doors to the second lift slowly slid open.

Theodore looked at Janet and Edward and frowned.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Janet said. “You have to help me. We have to get Edward to hospital, but we also have to help Bobby. Tony is in his room with him and he’s going to kill him.”

Theodore frowned. “What?”

Janet sighed. “Tony is behind all of the attempts on Bobby’s life. He’s in his room now, trying again to kill him. Edward came up to try to help and got hit over the head.”

The man looked at Edward and then back at Janet. “Let’s go and see what Tony has to say, then,” he suggested.

“We need to get help,” Janet replied.

Theodore reached down and pulled Janet to her feet. “On the contrary, I think we need to see what Tony has to say right now.”

Janet stared at him for a moment, and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. “You’ve been working with Tony,” she gasped. “You’ve been trying to kill Bobby, too.”

“And things have gotten increasingly complicated,” Theodore complained. “It seemed like such a simple plan.”

“I think you’ve said enough,” a cold voice interrupted.

“Tony, I wasn’t sure what to do with her,” Theodore said.

Tony shrugged. “Bring her inside. It’s turning into quite the party.”

Janet looked down at Edward and then quickly blinked back tears. He was going to be furious when he found out that she’d followed him. She just had to hope that he’d recover enough to be angry. Pushing that thought out of her head, she let Theodore drag her into Bobby’s room. Tony shut the door behind them.

Janet looked around and swallowed a scream. The nurse was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Janet could see a knife sticking out of her chest. Mr. Daniels was lying across one of the couches. While Janet couldn’t see any sign of any injury, she was certain he was unconscious or dead.

“Where do I fit you into the story?” Tony asked.

Janet looked at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Everything was all worked out and then you arrived,” Tony explained. “That’s a complication.”

“I can just go,” she offered.

Tony laughed harshly. “You’d go straight to the police and spoil everything. No, you’re going to have to die, too. I just have to work out how to make it all fit together.”

“What do you mean?” Janet asked. If she could keep the man talking, maybe help would arrive in time.

“In the morning, my darling Lucy will come up to see her father and she’ll find a horrific and tragic scene,” Tony told her. “I had thought that this guy here, whatever his name is, that he could be responsible for it all, but then Edward, the other security guy, he showed up. He’s a better scapegoat. Once I’ve finished in the other room, I’ll make sure these two are dead and then drag Edward in to finish setting the scene,” Tony told her.

“It’s all pretty complicated,” Theodore said.

Tony turned angry eyes to him. “If you’d have done things properly, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he snarled. “You wanted to make it look like an accident. Fine, great, wonderful, make it look like an accident, but you still have to actually kill the man. All you did was give him warning after warning that someone was trying to kill him.”

“You say that like I was the only one who failed,” Theodore snapped back. “Your attempts haven’t been any more successful than mine.”

“At least my attempts were genuine,” Tony replied. “Setting a fire in a corridor doesn’t count as a murder attempt.”

“You say that now, but it might have worked. I had the sprinklers and alarms on the floor disabled. He could have died from smoke inhalation if he hadn’t noticed the fire and called the front desk.”

“It was a stupid plan.”

“So was stabbing him on the airplane. Up until