Scorched Heart (The Firebrand Series Book 4), Helen Harper [free ereaders .txt] 📗

will be found.’ He gazed at Lukas. ‘And if it is still alive…’

Lukas glanced at me and then at Boateng. ‘We’ll take care of it.’

I drew back my shoulders. This was my job. ‘We will.’

Boateng barked suddenly at Rothsay, ‘Robert! Don’t stand so close to the body!’

The young policeman turned white as a sheet and hurled himself away from Lazarus and the rest of us. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he swallowed hard. ‘Sorry.’

‘We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. You have to be careful.’

Rothsay nodded, his eyes wide. I suspected he would be having nightmares for some time to come; maybe all of us would. Still, at least DCI Boateng wouldn’t let anyone make the mistake of thinking the case was closed. Until we had absolute proof that the bugbear’s existence had been snuffed out, he wouldn’t relax. That was just as well because I couldn’t shake the sensation that this was far from over.

It was an odd feeling sitting in the back of an armour-plated vehicle that was usually used for transporting dangerous prisoners. The narrow benches weren’t particularly comfortable, and it didn’t help that I felt compelled to stare at Lazarus’s dead body in case the bugbear decided to make another appearance.

I still didn’t feel any guilt or sadness at having killed Lazarus, but neither was there euphoria or relief at having brought down a dangerous criminal. More than anything, I just felt tired.

I put my head onto Lukas’s shoulder and sighed as I pictured Lazarus’s eyes taunting me. The lack of the bugbear’s body and the overwhelming exhaustion weren’t the only reasons I didn’t feel like celebrating.

‘All these years,’ I whispered. ‘He’s been free all these years while Samuel Beswick paid the price for his crimes. He slaughtered my parents, and goodness knows how many others since then. And we let him get away with it.’

‘You know it’s not your fault that the wrong man was sent to prison, right? You were a kid, Emma.’

‘If I could have remembered something – anything – then maybe…’

‘You were five years old. This is not on you.’ He smoothed back my hair. ‘Has it occurred to you that this is what Lazarus wanted? He wanted you to suffer, to question everything and feel guilty. He might be dead now, but you’re playing into his hands. You don’t have to. This is not your fault.’

‘It feels like it is.’

‘It’s not.’

Deep down I recognised that, but it was still hard to shake off the gnawing guilt. I stared hard at Lazarus. In death he looked even more frail; his body was already sinking into itself as if it were shrinking before our eyes.

The van went over a pothole. The body jerked, even though it was strapped down. I jumped, and so did Lukas. We shared a grin born of both humour and nervousness. I gazed at Lazarus again and frowned. ‘His feet,’ I murmured.

‘What about them?’

‘They look small. The man who killed Patrick Lacey and Julie Mackintosh, and who waited in my wardrobe to kill me, he had big feet. He left plenty of boot prints to prove it.’

‘You said that at least one set of those prints had been left deliberately. He wanted you to find them. Maybe wearing a large pair of boots was another misdirection.’

‘Maybe.’ The back of my neck prickled.

‘What is it?’

I didn’t have words for what I felt. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m uneasy, that’s all.’

‘It’s hardly surprising, given all that’s happened.’

Yeah. I shuffled even closer to Lukas. He was probably right.

Laura met us at the entrance to Maidstone Hospital. I felt her eyes on me as soon as I stepped out of the vehicle. ‘I’m fine,’ I told her before she asked.

‘Uh huh.’

‘I’m not lying.’

‘Sure thing, Em.’

I gave her an exasperated look then helped Lukas cover Lazarus’s body with a sheet to conceal him from unwary passers-by before sliding him onto the waiting gurney.

‘So this is the man?’ Laura asked.

‘Man. Beast.’ I shrugged uneasily. ‘I don’t really know what he is. He might still be dangerous.’

‘He doesn’t look dangerous.’

I met her eyes. ‘You and I both know that the dead don’t always stay that way. Not these days.’ I explained about the bugbear.

Laura simply raised her eyebrows. ‘Huh,’ she said. ‘That’s interesting.’

‘Interesting? Not scary? Gruesome? Disgusting? Enough to make you turn tail and run away screaming, demanding that someone else performs what could be a life-threatening post-mortem?’

Laura grinned. ‘You know me, I like a challenge. And I didn’t run screaming from you,’ she added pointedly.

‘You probably should have,’ Lukas said.

She smirked at him. ‘You’re the one who sleeps with her.’

‘I do a lot more than that.’

I could feel my cheeks turning red. ‘Let’s get on with the examination, shall we?’

‘Slicing and dicing,’ Laura said with a brief grin. ‘My favourite thing.’

We followed her into the hospital and took the large lift down to the basement. Morgues were always in the damned basement. Maybe we liked to pretend that death wasn’t an intrinsic part of life; if we shoved it out of the way where we couldn’t see it, we could kid ourselves that it didn’t happen. Of course, that was easy for me to say because I’d died five times so far. Not one of those deaths had stuck. Yet.

The morgue was almost identical to the one where Laura usually worked and she’d obviously made herself right at home. We wheeled Lazarus into the first room and slid his body from the gurney onto the table.

There was still no sign of the bugbear, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I stepped back and lifted my crossbow, training it on Lazarus’s unmoving chest as if the creature were about to spring out from his ribcage in a splatter of blood and I was Sigourney Weaver.

Lukas appeared equally wary. He took up position at the door so that he could block the bugbear’s escape if need be. If the damned thing was still alive, we had to keep it contained.

‘So,’ Laura said, pulling on a pair