BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) JANE ADAMS (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📖

bloated that there was barely room for the tubes feeding him oxygen. His lips, split and puffy, drooled a faint trace of pink spittle.

Rozlyn leaned back in the chair and tried not to remember that other time. The crash she’d avoided because she’d been late getting to her grandparents’ house and her parents, due somewhere else, had left without her. Had she made them late? Had they been rushing because of her and taken a risk, despite the poor visibility in the pouring rain, maybe driven that bit too fast?

Rozlyn would never know. They’d both been taken to the same hospital, placed in different wards. She’d drifted from one to the other all night long, trying to work it so that her time at each bedside was roughly equal as though they might be offended should she show any kind of favouritism.

Then it was just her dad, her mom passing at the dawn of that first terrible morning. Her dad had lingered for two more days until Rozlyn, her body aching with tension and grief and lack of sleep, had almost wished it could be over so that she could let go and rest.

That had been a random thought. One among many, but the guilt that had smothered her because of that casual emotion had haunted her since her father died. Somewhere in her consciousness, Rozlyn was aware that she had tried to make recompense for that momentary lapse ever since.

As she watched, Mouse moved. A mere twitch of the hands that then extrapolated to the rest of his body and he whimpered in his sleep, a wordless, despairing sound that had Rozlyn leaning towards him and touching his hands. Stilling them.

“Hey, Mouse Man. It’s OK. Nothing’s going to hurt you now.”

He was dreaming, Rozlyn realised. Maybe seeing in his nightmare what had hurt him so much in real life.

“Who did this to you? Was it this Donovan fella no one wants to talk about? Or someone sent by our Mr Thompson?”

Mouse relaxed and Rozlyn leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. First Charlie and now Mouse. Individuals for whom life was a big enough challenge without someone sticking the boot in. Or in Charlie’s case, something far more deadly.

Had they wanted Mouse dead? No, Rozlyn thought, not dead. They’d just wanted him to talk. What did they think he knew that they had to beat him for, and with such brutality? What could someone like Mouse Man possibly know or have that would trigger such a frenzied attack?

* * *

They had laid Cate down close to the hearth and Osric had taken charge, ordering more light so he could clean and tend her wounds, plundering Allis’s careful stock of herbs to find what he required. Treven watched as he pounded herb with honey and made a paste to spread on those terrible wounds, gently turning Cate’s head so that he could clean the blood from her hair and skin. He met Treven’s eyes and shook his head. There was nothing he could do. Gaping through the ragged edges of her flesh and bone, Treven could distinguish blood and brain. That she still lingered was miracle enough — or cruelty? Treven could not decide. That she had lived long enough to have spoken any words, never mind Hugh’s name, struck him as extraordinary enough to have divine purpose behind it and the thought of that filled him with revulsion and with dread. She had neither spoken nor even moved since they had brought her here and Edmund admitted that she had said nothing on the journey. Treven knew in his heart that she would not last the night.

Could Hugh have inflicted these injuries? He thought not. Hugh could be violent when the rage took him and in battle Treven would as soon have him at his side as a half dozen others, however well trained and brave. But that Hugh could attack a girl he claimed to have feelings for, attack her in such a brutal and personal way, Treven doubted. Whoever had struck Cate had done so from close quarters, though, and had come at her from front and side — he could only guess which blow had landed first. It pointed, in Treven’s mind, to her knowing her assailant. Had she turned to run, the blow would have felled her from behind, or at an oblique angle, not as this had done, smashing the temple and the socket of the eye. The right-hand side of her face was practically untouched. Blood and a little bruising, but nothing more.

Kendryk caught his eye and motioned him away.

“Your thoughts, King’s Thegn?”

Treven ignored the mockery. “The blows were hard and from the front. She saw who attacked her. I cannot be sure, but my guess is the second was struck after she had hit the ground. I’ve been witness to many such actions in time of battle. One blow to bring your foe down, a second to be sure they’ll not stand again.”

“I bow to your knowledge,” Kendryk said dryly, then nodded. “You may be right, though the instrument here was blunt, the wound not made with a sword.”

“Wood or stone would do just as well. She was found in woodland, the weapon could be one of chance. The impulse of a moment.”

“You suspect her husband?”

Treven looked back at Eldred, the man still kneeling at her side, the expression on his face unreadable in the firelight, shadows passing over his features as the flames licked wood.

“He knew about Hugh. What man would know and do nothing?”

“Would you have killed your wife for lying with another?”

“My wife would not.”

“But if she had?”

Treven eyed him warily, not sure where this was leading. He thought about Hild, remembered her laughter, the warmth of her skin as she lay beside him in their bed and he closed his eyes.

“I would have