Scare Me To Death by CJ Carver (free romance novels TXT) 📕

can understand that, can’t you, Ricky? Imagine you’ve just turned sixteen, and were returning from a beautiful holiday in Morocco with your parents and little brother, and the next instant your aeroplane explodes mid-air and Mum and Dad are dead and your brother brain-damaged, needing full-time care until he dies. Then you discover the crash would never have happened if the Moroccans hadn’t been sold fake bomb detectors.’

Ricky’s skin had paled. His mouth was trembling. He looked close to tears but Lucy didn’t stop. She wanted to keep up the pressure.

‘Kaitlyn’s search for Flowers led her to you.’ Lucy decided not to belabour the fact he’d been a mark, he could work that one out for himself. ‘What I want to know is what she learned from you, and why it got her killed.’

At that, his head shot up. ‘I never talked about work. Not ever.’

Lucy narrowed her eyes at him.

‘I swear it. And she never asked…’ His expression turned distant as he accessed his memory. ‘Never. We talked about her horses, her motorbikes. Travel. Where we might go.’

Clever Kaitlyn, reeling Ricky in. Kaitlyn had been waiting until he was hooked, and then she’d get him to do anything she wanted, like get him to show her his books, a list of his clients, a lead to Helen Flowers. She’d rented the Airbnb with that specific goal in mind, Lucy had no doubt.

‘Whether you told her anything or not, it doesn’t change the fact that someone knew who Kaitlyn was and what a threat she posed.’ Lucy leaned back on her chair and crossed her arms. ‘I wonder who that might be?’

Ricky opened and closed his mouth. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on, Ricky. You can do better than that. Think. Who knew you’d met Kaitlyn? Who did you tell?’

‘Nobody.’ His eyes were wide. ‘Seriously, I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘Ricky…’ she warned.

‘Oh.’ His face cleared. ‘Except for Tomas. He’s my best mate.’

She just looked at him. Waited for the penny to drop.

When it did, he was horrified. ‘Not Tomas. No way. He was happy for me! Jesus, Lucy. Your mind is so twisted–’

‘If it wasn’t Tomas, then who?’

His eyes narrowed in the folds of his fleshy face as he began to think. Really think. Lucy kept quiet, giving him the space he needed to process everything she’d said and assimilate it into what he knew.

The minutes ticked past while Ricky concentrated.

Then a horrible look went over his face. Really horrible. He stared at Lucy as she stared back.

‘You’ve just thought of someone.’

He dropped his eyes. Shook his head.

‘Yes, you have.’ She leaned forward again. ‘Tell me.’

‘No,’ he whispered. His tone was panicky.

‘You’ll go to jail for them? Serve their sentence? For Chrissake, Ricky! They killed the woman you were falling in love with! They slashed her throat with a knife!’

He closed his eyes. He began rocking back and forth.

‘Tell me.’ Lucy gentled her tone. ‘Tell me, and we’ll get justice for Kaitlyn. I promise.’

At that, he raised his head. Met her gaze. After a long while, he said, ‘I’m sorry, Lucy. I just can’t.’

No matter how much she cajoled, begged and bullied, it had no effect. He refused to say another word.

43

Lucy spent the rest of the morning going through Ricky’s client list and Tomas’s known businesses to find no mention of her father anywhere. Nor of Neil Greenhill, person of interest to the police, aka Carl Davies. She still couldn’t get her mind around the fact that they were both the same person and that they were both Dad.

As she queued at the sandwich shop, she considered Helen Flowers and Neil Greenhill. She found it easier imagining Greenhill as another man and not her father, and it didn’t take long until she started looking at the case with less emotion and more brainpower.

Back in the office, egg mayo sandwich to hand along with a double-shot cappuccino, she reread the pages she’d copied at the SFO. With all the information laid out and streams of musing blue humming through her mind, she turned to the internet. God, she loved Google. All those newspaper reports from years ago; comment, views, quotes. She kept digging, absorbed in the past, Helen Flowers living the high life, Neil Greenhill a wraith of smoke behind her. Then a headline caught her eye.

Proceeds of crime recovered.

Helen Flowers, the evil woman who provided our British forces with fake bomb detectors in Afghanistan, has been convicted by the court in her absence. All her assets have been seized by the police and are now up for sale.

Apparently Helen Flowers’s factory, where the fake bomb detectors had been made, had also been for sale along with her Bentley Continental, Porsche, jewellery and mansion in Cheshire. The government had made a tidy £4 million but the Daily Mail reported that this sum was a song, and that the mansion alone should have cost its new buyers at least that amount.

Lucy dug further to find the mansion had been bought by a Mr and Mrs Fielding and the factory by HBS Property Developers, owned by a Mr S. Featherstone.

Her breathing faltered. You’ve got to be kidding. Stan Featherstone? Tomas’s father? Her dad and Stan had been friends years ago. Had Stan really bought the factory?

She picked up her phone. Dialled Tomas. She was surprised when he picked up. After the way he’d left the pub, tense and angry, she’d thought he might blank her. At least now she knew what he’d meant when he’d warned her to be careful. You dig too deep, you might not like what you find. Wasn’t that the truth? Seemingly out of nowhere a dagger of anger speared her lungs, so sharp she nearly dropped the phone. Had everyone known about Dad? Did the whole sodding community know he was a criminal?

‘DD!’ He greeted her cheerfully.

‘Hey, Tomas.’ Her voice was scratchy with a combination of rage and humiliation. She cleared her throat to try and dispel it. ‘How’s things?’

‘Muddling along, same as usual. A little bit of this.