Dig Two Graves by James Harper (best inspirational books txt) 📕

wanted him to call a nurse, tell her one of the patients had soiled themselves in their bed.

Blair wasn’t away long. He was surprised Merritt wasn’t with her when she returned. He’d have thought he’d want to have a word with his kick-ass Aunty Bella the big bad Marine. Then again, he was close to Bloodwell, so maybe not. All part of the family fun and intrigue.

He stayed outside while Blair went in to see her sister. He planned to discuss what she’d told him with Bella. But he had his reasons why he didn’t want Blair to be there when he did.

When she came out of the room, he got his own back on the unfriendly cop in a small way.

‘Come back to the house,’ she said. ‘I’ll fix you something to eat. Then you can stay the night. I’m not having you spend the night on your own at some hotel.’

He smiled at the cop, then pointed down the corridor, mouthed snack machine at him. Petty, but fun all the same.

It sounded like Blair had deliberately raised her voice when she invited him to dinner and offered him a bed for the night. As if she was aware of the cop’s attitude and had wanted to demonstrate her allegiance to him.

She told him the real reason as they went down in the elevator.

‘You might need an alibi.’

Gerald Bloodwell lived a quarter mile from the Carlson Residence as the crow flies. Evan could easily have walked. However, he lacked a dog to give him a legitimate reason to be walking the streets in such an up-market neighborhood late at night—ignoring the fact that the sorts of dogs owned by most of the local residents tended to be wrapped up in a cashmere shawl and carried around in a designer handbag.

Instead, they used Leon’s private car, a nondescript Toyota Camry. Leon dropped him on a gentle curve on Heath Street opposite twin stone pillars with lamps on top. There was a blue plaque fixed to the left-hand pillar with the house numbers. It also informed undesirables that the road between them was private and a dead end. Evan’s name wasn’t specifically mentioned on the plaque although he guessed that by the end of the night it might well be added along with his picture.

He went through the stone pillars, then immediately cut into the thick stand of mature trees and shrubs lining the private road. Before leaving, he’d studied the area on Google maps, saw how the road curved around on itself like a giant question mark with a turning circle at the end. By cutting through the trees he would arrive at the back of the house at the end of the road—the Bloodwell residence.

He made his way through the trees, stopped at the edge of the lawn leading up to the mansion. Immediately on his left there was a stone summer house bigger than his apartment. From there a flight of steps ran up to the terrace at the back of the main wing of the house. He ignored them, cut across the lawn instead, keeping to the deeper darkness in the shadow of the trees even though no light spilled out from any of the windows.

At the end of the lawn there was a large ornamental pond surrounded on three sides by the house. Beyond that there were a pair of patio doors leading into the only lighted room at the back of the whole building. He crept around the pond, stood off to the side of the doors, back to the wall. Waited. Listened. The sound of a radio or TV turned down low came to him through the glass. He risked a fast glance inside.

A man was seated at a table watching a movie on a laptop, a cup of coffee and an ashtray beside it. Evan recognized him. There had been four men involved in the original attack on Bella in the Jerusalem Tavern. The two who started the fight as a diversion, the man with the knife, and the fake Detective O’Brien who claimed he’d been watching from further along the bar. The man in the room was the one who’d started the fight.

A number of things went through his mind. It proved beyond doubt that Bloodwell was behind the attack. That was a relief of sorts. It retrospectively justified his presence creeping around in the dark behind the man’s house, his agreeing to do as Blair had asked. He was thankful that it wasn’t the fake detective or the man with the knife, both of whom he’d already attacked once before in the diner. And it suited his purposes down to the ground that the house was so big that the man on guard duty didn’t need to use headphones for fear of disturbing his slumbering employer.

He pressed his back to the wall again, looked around, saw what he wanted. Then he waited another ten minutes. Long enough for a second man patroling the house or taking a leak to get back. No second man appeared.

Satisfied, he retrieved a long-handled pond net from where it stood propped up in the corner. He laid it on the ground in front of the patio doors. At each corner of the pond there was a stone statue of a water nymph balanced on the low wall surrounding the pond. Not to his taste at all. Far too ostentatious. But useful, just the same. The nearest one was only a few yards away. He stood behind it, put both hands on its back, pushed gently. The base rocked, lifted an inch. It was heavy enough that it hadn’t been permanently fixed to the wall.

He gave it a hard shove. It toppled into the water with a loud splash. He let out a surprised yelp as it hit the water, loud enough to be heard in the nearest room but no further, already moving back towards the patio doors. He grabbed the net handle as