Miss No One, Mark Ayre [romantic love story reading .TXT] 📗

a pen, they had written the slur in blood.

Abbie had no kit with which to DNA test the stand-in ink, but if she had to guess, she would say the blood belonged to Christine. Taken via the jagged, gaping hole in the young detective's throat.

Thirty-Five

Like the deck of a sinking ship, the world seemed to tilt. Abbie raised a hand to catch the door frame and somehow kept her legs from disappearing beneath her.

Breathe in, breathe out. Not that it did much. That word in blood seemed to glow, to pulse, but Christine's body remained still as stone. Deadly still, you could say.

There was no point checking for a pulse. With a sharp blade, someone had torn open Christine's throat and let the blood flow. The detective would have died long before her assailant wrote the message on the wall.

Her killer had committed this heinous act on the bed. The sheets, once sky blue, were soaked red. Somewhat absorbent, the duvet had drunk the blood and swollen into a grotesque misshapen creature beneath the dead detective. Beneath the kind young woman who had never wanted to live here. Who had left her family and everyone she loved to do her duty, to fight corruption and save lives. To become an (GRASS) informant. Anti-corruption officer. To work undercover well before she had the years of investigative experience under her belt to suggest she was up to the task.

She had done a brilliant job. A job she was so committed to, she continued to investigate, to do the right thing, even when her bosses pulled the plug on the operation.

In pursuit of the right thing, she had picked up a drinking problem, driven by depression and loneliness. But she was strong. When she returned home, she would have been honest about her addiction. She would have fought it. With the support of her loved ones, she would have beaten it. Abbie was sure.

Now she wouldn't need to. Now she was never going home.

Abbie wanted to rush to the bed, to sit beside Christine, to close the detective’s eyes and to tell her to sleep well. She wanted to do all these things though she knew it would mean nothing to the corpse. That kind woman was gone, but it didn't change how Abbie wanted to act around the body.

She was thinking of her sister. Her lovely Violet lost all those years ago.

Then she was pushing those thoughts away. Pushing back her instinctive reaction to the body. Trying to regain her focus on the job at hand.

Because her legs didn't want to work, Abbie shoved the door frame. The bedroom was empty of enemies. She propelled herself towards the bathroom, opened the door, and stuck her gun inside.

Toilet, sink, bin, shower. No bath. The shower screen was closed but transparent. The room was empty.

Abbie's phone began to ring. She jumped.

Taking a breath, she turned towards the front door, her back to the empty bathroom. From here, she could see the open doors to both living and bedrooms. She was sure there was no one here beside herself, Christine, and Ana, but you could never be too careful. She had her gun at her side, and if danger emerged, she would be ready. From her pocket, Abbie took her phone to see a number unknown both to the device and to her on-screen. She hit answer.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Ndidi, sobbing, on the verge of a complete breakdown. Removing the phone from her ear, Abbie took a breath. Fury bubbled like lava, ready to spew, but Abbie couldn't let it. Her breath was cooling. It calmed the magma's raging heat. Now was not the time for emotion. It was time to lock away human Abbie and release the cool analytical robot.

It took a couple of breaths, then she put her phone to her ear.

"I'm sorry," he was still saying. "So, so, sorry."

"Shut up," she said. Which indicated she had not quite got a grip on her fury. "You knew when to call. How?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to. You have to believe—“

"Ndidi, just shut up and answer my question. You've been told to call me, right? Did Orion ask you to apologise? I doubt it."

There was a long pause as Ndidi tried to get a hold of himself. Standing in the bathroom doorway, shaking, Abbie somehow managed to keep a lid on her rage. To keep quiet.

"He rang an hour ago. He knew where I was and that I was with Ana and Christine. He thought you were there too and told me I had ten seconds to kill everyonw, or he'd slaughter Isabella. He put my little girl on the phone and made her scream."

Abbie closed her eyes. She could almost hear the scream. It made her shudder, and this was her imagination. What effect would the real thing have had on the father of the child doing the yelling? Abbie could hardly imagine.

"The scream was a distraction," she said. "It made you forget we had leverage. The countdown was more of the same. Orion forced you to act on instinct and gave you so little time because he knew it would only take a second or two of rational thought on your part to undo his plan. All you had to say was you'd kill Rachel if he killed Isabella. You’d have been at an impasse. But the scream and countdown worked. Instinct circumvented your brain and you acted without consideration."

At first, Ndidi couldn't respond. He was still sobbing, still struggling to control himself. That was okay because Abbie hadn't been talking to him. Not really. She had laid out the situation for herself to help her control her anger. How could she expect Ndidi to engage his brain with his daughter's scream and Orion's countdown ringing in his ears? The terrified father never stood a chance.

Abbie saw all this, but she was struggling with rational thought herself. Although she had endeavoured to be a logical robot, emotion was overriding her