HELL'S HALF ACRE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 2) by JACKIE ELLIOTT (diy ebook reader txt) 📕

“If you don’t like it,” Jim had said, “complain to HR. Oh wait . . . that’s me.” He had beamed at Andi and pointed to the door. “Don’t come through that door again until you are completely healed. Body and mind.”

Andi had been to the counsellor once a week for three months to appease her boss and then found excuses not to go. Working was the answer, she told Jim. I’ll just get back on the horse, and I’ll be fine.

Reluctantly, Jim had agreed.

Andi rubbed at the scar on her thigh. A little over a year ago, a very dangerous man had shot her. She had been pursuing a story. It was her job, and she was bloody good at it, she knew that. But she was also impulsive (undisciplined, Jim called it) and inclined to cut corners. These bad habits, combined with terrible judgment when it came to men, had contributed to the loss of a glittering career at a national news outlet the year before. Andi had taken the job at the Coffin Cove Gazette — the only opportunity offered to her — and expected to be filing dull reports about city council meetings and garage sales for the struggling local paper. Coffin Cove was an isolated fishing town with a dwindling population on the east side of Vancouver Island and barely attracted enough tourists to keep the only motel booked through summer. The rest of the island, though, was a Mecca for surfers, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts.

The run-down town sullenly refused to go bankrupt and be swallowed up into the suburbs of Nanaimo, the nearest big city. Every year, the pulp mill located at one end of the Cove, combined with a handful of just-viable businesses and a crumbling residential infrastructure, scraped together enough tax dollars for another year.

When Andi first arrived, she couldn’t understand why Coffin Cove wasn’t overrun by developers, with all the cheap real estate available in the coastal town. But there was only one road in and out. There were few amenities, and frankly, the locals weren’t that friendly. They had regarded Andi with suspicion and sometimes downright hostility. She could attribute some of that reaction to her chosen career. People these days didn’t trust the media. But it was more than that. In some ways, Coffin Cove had closed itself off from the world. The inhabitants complained about the lack of stores, cell phone coverage, not enough work, and decreasing numbers of children keeping the elementary school open. But should an outsider point out deficiencies, the locals would bridle with indignation and mutter about the “good ol’ days” and “damn blow-ins”.

People reluctantly began to accept Andi after she had helped uncover the truth behind the death of a local teenager. Years ago, the drowned body of Sarah McIntosh, the daughter of a local businessman, had washed up on the beach. Andi had made it her business to solve the mystery, even going against the advice of her boss.

Andi’s story had started out as a clash between local fishermen and environmentalists and had ended up as a murder investigation. She had rediscovered her old tenacity as a journalist after being fired, and her relentless digging uncovered a link between this murder and a twenty-five-year-old missing persons mystery. Andi’s persistence had been rewarded by getting shot by the prime suspect.

“Your own goddam fault!” Jim had shouted at her, while she was lying in the hospital. “All this haywire bullshit got you fired once, and this time you nearly died!”

He had calmed down, and Andi knew that this man who had given her a chance and was now her friend was shaken by the events.

But his words hit home, and for months her confidence had been in pieces. Jim had only allowed her to cover local events when she first started back at work, and now she was beginning to think her old instinct for a good story might never return. As the nightmares lessened, worries about her future surfaced, and she often lay awake obsessing over the same questions. Was she still a good journalist? Had she ever been? And what was next? Just growing old and lonely in a tiny rented apartment writing fluff pieces?

Andi touched her scar again, remembering how difficult the last months had been.

“ANDI!” Someone thumped at the door.

She jumped and winced.

“Andi? Are you in there? Your rent is late again!”

Andi lay still with her eyes closed, hoping that Walter would go away. As she listened for his retreating footsteps, her cell phone trilled from somewhere under the heap of clothes. She dug around, forgetting her hangover for a moment.

Work.

“Shit.” Andi turned off the cell phone and slumped back on the bed.

“Andi, I know you’re in there.”

“Walter, I’m really sorry, I’m sick,” Andi called out. Well, she felt like crap, so it wasn’t a lie. “I promise I’ll bring you the rent later today.”

Silence.

She heard Walter’s steps echoing away.

Andi heaved herself into an upright position. She needed money, she needed to get out of this apartment, and the only way to do either of those things was to get back to work. Real work. And in the last few weeks, she’d finally got the whiff of a story. Well, it might develop into a story, Andi wasn’t sure yet, but it looked intriguing. She’d made a promise to help someone. Ricky Havers, the mayor’s forty-two-year-old son, had gone missing. The mystery had fuelled the Coffin Cove gossip factory, not least because Ricky owned the town’s first and only weed emporium, but so far there were no clues at all. Andi was investigating every angle possible, but the fact was, one day Ricky was at work and the next he was gone. There was no sign of a struggle and nothing missing from the store, not even cash. The local RCMP had conducted a few half-hearted searches, not willing to