COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1), JACKIE ELLIOTT [most recommended books txt] 📗

The Devil sent Joseph McIntosh to tempt her.

Joe was charming and courteous. Sue was tall, awkward and a loner. She knew that boys avoided her because they were afraid of Fred. She didn’t mind. She had no idea how to talk to boys. Girls didn’t bother with her either. Sue plaited her long dark hair and covered her head with a scarf, just as her mother insisted when she was a little girl. She wore old-fashioned skirts that nearly touched the ground while the other girls were experimenting with bell-bottoms and miniskirts. She still had no idea why twenty-year-old Joe McIntosh, who could go with any girl in town, wanted her. Sue refused to speak to him. But Joe persisted, and she finally allowed him to drive her home in his new truck one day.

Sue had expected Joe to leave her alone when Fred burst out of the house in a rage. He pointed his gun at Joe and roared at him.

“I’m good for a headshot for 200 yards, boy. After that, I’ll shoot you in the gut if you ever come near my daughter again!”

Joe stood his ground.

“I meant no disrespect, sir,” he said, and to Sue, “I’ll see you again soon.”

And he did.

Joe McIntosh always got what he wanted, Sue thought. And eventually he got her. He made promises.

“I’m a hard worker. I’ll be a good provider,” he said, and Sue believed that God had sent him, despite Fred’s warning that Joe was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

When Sarah arrived, she held out her sweet angel as proof that God had blessed her union with Joe. Surely this innocent soul could not be the Devil’s work?

And then it all started to go wrong. Joe was at home less and less. The big house on top of the hill he had so proudly built was isolated. She wandered from room to room, touching the furniture, afraid to scuff the polished wood floors. Sarah was a difficult baby. Sue was exhausted and depressed after she was born. Her mother refused to help, afraid of Fred and his fists.

Joe became more distant. He loved the baby, Sue could tell, by the way he cuddled her and hummed soft tunes to her when he arrived home late in the evenings. Joe couldn’t understand why his young wife wasn’t happy. He asked her what she needed. Sue missed God. She missed the familiar structure, knowing that the rules would keep her and Sarah safe. She persuaded Joe to drive her to church in Coffin Cove. It wasn’t the same as Fred’s strict scripture teaching, but Sue liked the soft-spoken pastor who spoke kindly to her and made a fuss of Sarah.

For a while, Sue felt at peace. The constant worry she carried in the pit of her stomach, that she had angered her God and was on a path to damnation, subsided. Fred was wrong. The pastor was right. God was all-forgiving. He had blessed her.

When Sarah was four years old, Ruth, Sue’s mother, was waiting when Sue and Sarah left church. It was time, she said, for Sarah to go to school.

Fred’s granddaughter would not grow up a heathen. Not like the McIntosh family, Ruth said. They were drunkards and sinners. Sarah would attend Fred’s church school.

Joe was at first opposed to Sarah having anything to do with her grandfather, who had turned his back on his own daughter. But Sue was firm. It was an olive branch to her family, she said. Sarah should know her grandparents. Besides, she insisted, maybe her father was right. Sarah was being exposed to sinful behaviour. It was a low blow, Sue knew, but effective. Joe was struggling to deal with his younger brother, Brian, who would turn up at the house late at night, intoxicated and demanding money. It was not always a godly environment for a child, she argued. Joe relented. He was distracted by work anyway, working longer and longer hours.

Sarah met her grandfather for the first time when she was five years old. Wide-eyed but unafraid, she clutched Fred’s outstretched hand and the fierce preacher led the tiny child into his Bible school.

Sue seldom ventured into Coffin Cove. She divided her time between their house on the hill and the valley. Fred barely acknowledged his daughter but had formed a bond with Sarah. He hung a swing in the garden and pushed her higher and higher, the little girl laughing with delight. He took her for long walks along the riverbanks, pointing out wildlife and explaining the changing seasons and nature’s laws. The salmon in the river, he told Sarah, were God’s blessing.

Sue, comforted a little that her father had accepted Sarah so readily, could still not shake her feeling of doom. She tried to bridge the widening gap between herself and Joe. She made an effort. She asked questions about the business, waited to eat dinner with her husband, and even reached out for him in the middle of the night. Maybe another baby would help?

What a fool she had been! God was just waiting to punish her for her sins.

Joe took Sarah to work with him one Saturday morning. Sue watched them leave, heard Sarah giggle at one of Joe’s silly jokes, excited to be spending time with her daddy. Sue drifted around the house, unable to settle without Sarah’s presence. She stood on the deck, waiting to hear the rumble of Joe’s truck coming up the track. Early afternoon, Joe and Sarah came back. Sarah ran towards her mother, but avoided Sue’s outstretched arms, her hands balled into fists, and her blonde hair pulled loose from her ponytail and hanging round her tear-stained cheeks.

Joe grabbed Sue’s arm before she could go after her daughter.

“Eight years old!” Joe’s