BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) by JANE ADAMS (best romantic books to read TXT) 📕

“How so?” Edmund demanded. He was watching his brother’s face. Comprehension and pity now dawning on his own.

“Because if your brother turned a blind eye to this, hoping that his wife would gain that which he could not provide, then he is complicit, if not in her death, then certainly in her infidelity.” He paused thoughtfully. “Cate told Hugh that the child could be his or yours. She gave no one reason to doubt you.”

Eldred’s jaw worked, but no words came out. Finally, he managed. “I had regard and respect for my wife. Cate . . . riled me often, but the fault was not hers. I had no wish for a wife and if the choice had to be made, would have chosen some woman who could fend for herself. Someone older, wiser. I had little to offer Cate and she soon learned that. For all that I respected her . . . I could not feel desire. I tried, Edmund, I tried and I consummated my marriage, but the victory of that was hollow. If she ran to Hugh de Vries, then Treven is right, I must take part of the blame. But I hold that he killed her and the child she carried gave him the more purpose and reason.”

“How so?” Treven questioned.

“She could have threatened to name him. Eldred could have demanded compensation.” Edmund suggested

“And had she done so, Eldred’s secret would be exposed. Hugh had . . . has no reason to suppose a more than half likelihood of the child being his and, if anything, knowing that she was pregnant would have given him further pause.” Treven shook his head. “I cannot see Hugh striking down any woman he knew was with child.”

“Was he so careful in battle?” Kendryk asked with seeming innocence.

“That question isn’t worthy of you,” Treven told him sharply. “A man might commit in time of war many acts that haunt him. I do not believe that Hugh, in cold blood, could kill a woman and her unborn child.”

“But you admit that my brother is within rights to call him to account?” Edmund demanded.

“I will admit that,” Treven agreed. “But I warn you, both of you. Should Hugh see fit to make counter accusation against you, Eldred, then that too must be heard.”

“And I will find oath takers enough to confirm my innocence,” Eldred replied with equal heat. “Can he expect the same. This stranger?”

Treven scowled at him, but he said nothing more. He turned to Kendryk. “You had better come with me,” he said. “Be witness to this.”

Kendryk rose and went with Treven to formally inform Hugh de Vries that he had been charged with murder.

CHAPTER 19

BILLINGTON. PRESENT DAY

“Do you know who it was?”

Mouse shook his head painfully. “He came out of the dark,” he explained.

“Dark? Mouse you were attacked at three in the afternoon . . .”

“I keep the curtains closed in the back room. He was waiting in the kitchen. The blind was down. I don’t like the neighbours peering in.”

Rozlyn sighed. “OK, Mouse, so he came out of the kitchen. You were in the back room?” She’d been about to say the mouse room.

“I’d just come in, see. I’d been out to the Co-op and when I got back I could hear them soon as I came in through the door. I knew something were wrong.”

“Hear them?”

“My pets. Scared they were, all squealing and squeaking and I felt one run past my foot so I hurried into them and he was there. Waiting.”

“Did he say anything? Did you get a look at him?”

“I told you, it was dark. He was big, that’s all I can tell. Bigger than me. Tall and wide and his hands . . . he squeezed my arms, picked me right up off the floor like I was a rag doll. Then he chucked me back against the wall. I hit the cages. The cages fell and the poor little blighters, they were everywhere, all over the floor and running around the walls trying to get away. He were bigger than me.”

Most people, Rozlyn reflected, were bigger than the Mouse Man. “Did he say anything?” Rozlyn asked again.

Mouse thought about it and then he nodded, wincing in pain. “He were asking about Charlie.”

“Charlie?”

“‘Where did he put it,’ he kept saying. ‘Where’s Charlie hidden it?’”

“Did he say what Charlie had hidden?”

“No. He seemed to think I knew what he were on about, but I didn’t, I swear I never knew.”

“It’s OK, Mouse. I believe you.” Rozlyn thought for a minute. “There’s no way Charlie could have hidden anything at your place without you knowing about it? Did he visit often?”

Mouse looked away as though suddenly troubled. Finally, he confessed. “Charlie didn’t like to come on account of my little pets. He said the way they smelt made him feel bad. So he never came. We was friends though,” he added emphatically, turning to look at Rozlyn once again, peering at her though his half-closed swollen eye. Even through the slits in the bruising Rozlyn could feel the intensity of his gaze.

“I know you were friends,” she pacified. “Charlie thought a lot of you, Mouse. He really did.”

“He told you that, Inspector Priest?”

Charlie had said no such thing, but he’d always talked about Mouse with a kind of concerned, big brotherly affection — despite the fact that Mouse was probably ten or twenty years his senior.

Rozlyn realised she had no idea how old Mouse Man was. She didn’t even know his proper name. She wondered how he’d been registered at the hospital. Jenny had left the ward number in her message, so Rozlyn hadn’t had to ask, but surely, he must have another moniker as well as just the Mouse Man?

She made a mental note to ask before she left. Somehow,