BLOOD STAINED an unputdownable crime thriller with a breathtaking twist (Detective Claudia Nunn Book by Rebecca Bradley (rooftoppers .TXT) 📕

the floor at his feet. The glass shattered at the side of her head, shards splintering off and embedding themselves into her arm and face.

His hand was tight in her hair. He twisted, increasing his grip, the strands digging into his skin. She cried out, a low complaint in the circumstances. He turned his body so he was bent over her, straddling her. Face to face. There was no coming back from this. If he let her go there would be a nasty domestic assault charge. How could he deal with that in his position?

It was as though she knew.

She reared up, fists and feet flying. She caught him between his legs. He sank down onto her. Knees buckling, a small grunt of air leaving his mouth as the pain in his groin caught him off guard and made his eyes water.

She punched out again and pulled her knees up with as much force as she could muster. Her breath coming strong and ragged. He leaned down close onto her to protect and gather himself. She continued to punch out and kick and squirm.

And then he did it.

A blinding blow to the side of her head from a fist she didn’t see coming.

‘Stop fighting,’ he grunted.

His weight was on her.

He raised himself up above her, pushing his elbow into her shoulder. ‘Stop fighting,’ he growled again.

‘Never,’ she breathed out.

He punched her hard again and her eyes fluttered in her head until they were still and she was silent.

He had to put his plan into action. He had to make it look like this was the Sheffield Strangler. If he killed her here and left the blood in the garage he risked being arrested, but once her body was found he would be exonerated. No one would expect him to kill and leave the blood in his own house. It would be easier to leave the blood than try to clear it up because everyone knew the CSU could find the smallest amount and he would never be able to clear up every single drop. Better to leave it all and claim someone is setting you up than try to hide it and be made to look like a liar at a later date. He’d never get out of that one.

She’d made this easier the minute she’d come home and told him the team thought they had connected with the Sheffield Strangler on the app. The killer took it slow on the app, really got to know the women and reeled them in. Gave him time for this plan to percolate in his head. Not that he thought it would ever come to fruition, but if he needed it then it was there.

He dragged her to the garage looking at her face as he did so, regret fleetingly passing through him. He’d loved her once. She was his wife. He’d left his first wife for her. But it seemed that he was not meant for a life with only one woman. Now she had figured it out she said she would take him for everything. She already knew which divorce lawyer she would speak with. He would be left with nothing by the time she was finished with him, she’d said, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. Not after he’d worked all these years and been put through one divorce already. A second one that was messy and brutal would destroy him. No, he would never let that happen.

She should have known better and walked away quietly.

In the garage he copied the slash mark he’d seen so many other times over the past six months. Her eyes flew open and her arms punched out as he made the initial incision, but he’d expected it and he was swift. He didn’t want her to suffer for all he wanted her gone. The life ebbed out of her as her heart pumped the life blood through her neck. Soon she was a lifeless corpse and he just had to bury her and copy the MO of the Sheffield Strangler, making sure she was in a place she’d be found easily enough. He didn’t want to be on trial for her murder. The husband, after all, is always suspected at first.

He laid a sheet of plastic in the boot of his car and drove to the location he’d decided on, burying her in a shallow grave by the moonlight that shone from above.

Then he went home, cleared up the glass on the kitchen floor, looked in the garage at the blood and decided to leave it. He called Ruth’s phone again as a worried husband would do and then he showered quickly, paying particular attention to his hands, fingernails and hair and then used Ruth’s hairdryer so when the cops came round they didn’t note damp hair and wonder why he’d had time to shower before calling the cops out on his missing wife.

It was time to call the police. Dominic took a deep breath. He was going to have to act the next period of his life like he’d never acted before. If he managed to get through it he would be free and clear to live the rest of his life the way he wanted to. He’d made a huge mistake marrying her. She should have remained a fling. The fact that he’d been distracted with Hayley the way he had, proved this to him.

The dial tone in his ear made his stomach twist. He wouldn’t need to put on a show. He would be genuinely anxious.

The call was answered. He stumbled over his words, ‘Hello . . . hi . . . I’m DS Dominic Harrison. I want to report my wife’s not here, she’s . . . I think she’s missing. I mean, she hasn’t come home.’ Perspiration slipped down the side of his face and he wiped