For Rye Gavin Gardiner (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

slab into the mire of decomposition, dropping the scissors. Renata wrestled on top of her, grabbing the girl’s throat with a roar and slamming her into the rancid pulp. Thomas Wakefield sprayed across the concrete.

Unreality swamped Sandie’s mind as she gazed at the Cyclopean beast throttling the life from her; the sludge in which she was flailing hadn’t been human, and this monster wasn’t about to murder her. All she had to do was close her eyes and drift as the fluorescent tubes faded and the smell of death died. This hell would become a fading whisper, finally coming to an end. She let go of the monster’s claws and let her eyelids drop.

Her hand fell on the scissors.

Her eyes opened.

Renata reeled back as the steel entered her thigh. Sandie tore from the chaos and stumbled across the cellar, pain screaming through her knee as she lurched for the stairs. The woman’s howls filled the chamber as she was left thrashing in the pool of decay.

Sandie threw the door open and drove her weight against the bookcase, which slammed to the ground with the girl spread across its back. She gasped as if coming up for air.

There was a crash from the cellar. It wasn’t over.

The girl’s eyes shot around the room, first to the locked oak shutters over the windows, then to the padlocked kitchen door. She limped to the hallway, scissors in hand, and leapt for the front door.

Locked, of course.

She suddenly remembered the overhangs of the house’s exterior. Climbing from an upstairs window would allow her to drop from one of these overhangs, but she had to act fast. The mad bitch would soon catch up. She spat a mouthful of blood and reached for the banister.

Pain bellowed as Sandie heaved herself up the stairs, her severed finger’s crusty dressing falling off as she clutched the handrail. She moaned as her bloody stump knocked into the wooden knob marking the summit, then gazed down the corridor in disbelief.

It was like stepping into a different house. While downstairs had been cleaned to perfection, the walls of this upper level were caked in grime, the carpet was blackened with filth, and mildew crawled from the mouldy skirting boards. She locked eyes on the cobweb-curtained window at the end of the corridor, snapping out of her disorientation.

She dragged herself down the musty hallway, too scared to scream, too panicked to cry. Her eyes fell on cartoon animals adorning the door by the window. She ignored them, desperately retaining her focus on the task at hand. Upon inspection, she found the grimy window’s lock sealed with discoloured paint. A wail finally escaped her as she battered the lock.

Nothing.

Sandie dropped the scissors and lunged for a dusty side chair. She heaved it behind her before going to launch it through the glass.

It didn’t move.

She looked over her shoulder to find Renata’s hand grasping one leg of the chair, the other the scissors. Ink trailed from her eye socket over a broad grin.

Sandie thrust the chair back, sending Renata reeling as its leg speared her stomach. She seized this moment to hobble down the corridor stretching endlessly before her. Finally, her foot met with the top step of the staircase. She would descend, run, find a weapon, fight—

Her heel opened between the blades of the scissors.

The step creaked.

Her Achilles tendon snapped like overstrained elastic, the ground giving way beneath her. As she fell, she may have been dimly aware of the blood trailing behind from her heel, a little like the sack in the cellar. It left a trail, too, she may have thought. I’m going to become that thing. I’m going to die here.

She landed in a twisted jumble at the foot of the staircase, unable to move. She gazed as Renata floated from above, an angel of death. The angel grabbed her feet and dragged her through the house. As the ceiling of the living room turned into the ceiling of her cell, unconsciousness crept over her.

Death? Please, let it be death, she may have thought. Take me, God.

But God wasn’t listening. Worse was to come.

Sandie Rye would have known this.

31

Renata stood at the foot of the stairs, patiently waiting for a knock at the front door.

Rye had been right: she’d known he wouldn’t comply with her demands to stop Detective O’Connell in his investigation. Why had she wanted to see him if not for that? The teeth were a nice touch – she was getting good at this bunny boiling business – but the truth was that she had craved him. Not the same craving she’d felt previously, from before the love turned to hate, but a new kind. Hers was the craving a sniper felt for their target to enter their crosshairs. He’d become her life’s purpose, so it didn’t surprise her that she desired to see his suffering first-hand – those tears of anguish. Soon, she would witness the climax of his suffering, the very moment his world crumbled forever. Soon, she would witness the end, but first she had to make sure nothing would get in the way of her plan’s completion.

First, O’Connell.

‘I don’t know how this happened or what I’m—’ Renata had stammered into the telephone earlier, before thrusting the receiver to arm’s length as she’d been interrupted by a fit of coughing from the earpiece.

‘Sorry,’ Hector said, spluttering down the telephone. ‘Throat feels like it’s lined with nettles. It’s the weather. Seems like this storm’s been brewing for decades.’

Truer words had never been spoken.

‘I’ve been lying to you, Detective.’

A pause.

‘After all you’ve done to find my mother’s murderer, all I’ve given in return is lies. I’m so sorry.’

‘Miss Wakefield, take a deep breath. What lies? What are you trying to tell me?’

‘You were right, I am…was…romantically involved with