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) 📖

CHAPTER 22

Rozlyn was half an hour from her destination when her phone rang. It was Brook.

“Where the hell are you?”

“I’m . . .”

“Never mind, Get your arse back here, pronto.”

“Why?”

“Apart from the fact that I said so? We’re raiding the house on Curzon Street. One of those your friend told you about.”

“What! Now?”

“Yes, Now. One of those fancy people carriers turned up an hour ago, crammed to the gunnels. We want them before they’ve a chance to scarper. Meet me there.”

He rang off leaving Rozlyn to wonder if you could really cram a people carrier to the gunnels and what gunnels were anyway?

On a country road the task was now to find a place to turn around. A farm gate a mile further on afforded the opportunity if not quite the space. She dived in and then wriggled the car into a reasonable position for take-off. The farm gate was just past a bend in the road, she’d have to make the turn in one or risk something coming around the bend and broadsiding her. Reversing until her back bumper touched the gate, she made ready to be off, glancing, more from habit than fear of anything behind, into the rear view.

“What the hell?” She blinked and looked again, then got out of her car and stared hard across the broad, stubble field.

There was no one and yet, just for that instant she had been certain. She had seen Ethan Merrill together with that tall, red-haired man she had dreamed about at the dig site.

Rozlyn got back into the car, unable to shake off the feeling of disorientation. On impulse, she pulled a road map out from beneath the seat and traced with her finger the road she had just travelled, then, as best she could, tracked across country towards the dig site. A mile, maybe two across the fields, that was it. With all the bends and twists in the rural road, she had lost touch with its proximity. Could Ethan have gone there? Could he then have walked across that particular field just in time for Rozlyn to see him and with that other one too . . . the odds would have taken Douglas Adams to calculate.

“You need a holiday,” Rozlyn told herself. She had plenty of time owing that she never seemed to take and it was well overdue for her to go back across the pond to see her grandfather. Leave it too long, she reminded herself, and it might well be too late.

Impatient now with these imaginings, she swung the car back onto the road, cursing the inadequate lock that meant, despite her misgivings, she had to reverse and take a second bite. Rozlyn checked the road and glanced again into the rear-view mirror, then yelped in shock.

Turning to look into the back seat, she reassured herself that it was empty, but in that instant she had glanced into the mirror it had seemed that deep blue eyes had been staring back.

She’d stalled the car and was half blocking the carriageway. A horn blared loud and painful as a 4x4 hurtling round the bend had to track onto the verge to get around.

“What the fuck?” Rozlyn’s hands were shaking and her breathing ragged and painful. She managed to restart the car and complete the manoeuvre, driving away slowly until she regained control, her entire body shaking as though she had a fever.

The phone rang again. It was Brook, demanding to know how long she was going to be.

“As long as it bloody takes,” Rozlyn told him angrily and rang off before Brook could say another word.

* * *

As it happened, Rozlyn arrived in time to see Brook and a dozen other officers escort a group of frightened people from the Curzon Street house.

“Oh, turned up at last, have we? Get in there and give Jenny a hand. Second floor.”

With what? Rozlyn wanted to ask, but Brook was already yelling at someone else, so she decided not to bother. The house was cold: the radiator in the hall freezing to the touch, the stairs uncarpeted. Her footsteps echoed.

Jenny was in a second-floor bedroom with another officer, trying to make a young woman understand that they did not intend to hurt her. Crouched in a corner, she clutched something tightly to her chest refusing to move. Jenny knelt facing her. The bare boards were scuffed and worn, badly laid where they’d been lifted at some time for plumbing or wiring to be installed and the wood beneath Jenny’s knees was sharply splintered. Thread from her black trousers had caught, Rozlyn noticed, and the edges of the board made a hole in the knee. As she shifted position to get closer to the woman, she noted too the smear of blood she left behind.

“You’ve hurt yourself.”

“It’s these bloody boards. It doesn’t matter, but these were a good pair of trousers.”

“Send the bill to Brook. What’s going on here?”

“We got the rest out. This one panicked and ran back upstairs. I don’t know what she thinks we’re going to do.”

“We’re police,” Rozlyn said. “Who the hell knows what that means wherever she came from. She looks frozen.”

“Not surprised. It’s colder in here than outside. God knows when this place last had the heating on.”

“Obviously, our mysterious Mr T is a thrifty bastard.”

She moved forward and dropped down beside Jenny so she too was eye level with the woman and extended her hands slowly thinking that if Jenny couldn’t get through to her, she very much doubted her own chances. ”It’s OK,” she said softly. “No one will hurt you. No one will do anything you don’t want them to.”

“Except send her back,” Jenny muttered beneath her breath.

“Except that,” Rozlyn agreed. “Come on now, let’s go somewhere warm. Are we