Cruel Comfort (Evan Buckley Thrillers Book 1) (25 page)

Trussed up in his best suit and a
black tie, Evan almost looked presentable when he knocked on Linda Clayton's
door a week later to accompany her to the funeral. His face looked a bit more
human, and now had more, what you'd call,
character
. His nose had been
set again - it would never be quite the same as before - and his chewed ear was
on the mend. Jacobson had done some excellent work on the front teeth that
Hendricks' head butt had loosened. He was going to have a mean-looking scar on
his forearm, which would impress the ladies, and he was still walking with a
limp. However, it was a small price to pay for what he had achieved and he was
more than happy to pay it.

Linda Clayton had finally got the
answers and closure she craved and, after the initial shock had worn off, the
improvement in her was a joy to see. He couldn't believe how good he felt about
himself for being the cause of the transformation. The gossip mongers had got
their comeuppance when the awful truth about Robbie Clayton's fate had come to
light. The gruesome aspects of the case had guaranteed it attracted national
media coverage. As a result, the previously recalcitrant life insurance company
had paid out with heart-warming alacrity. Linda had insisted on pressing a
generous chunk of it onto him, despite his protestations. On top of that, the
media interest had generated more enquiries than Evan could handle.

Hendricks had been patched up and
was in a secure hospital wing contemplating the rest of his life behind bars.
His buddy, Adamson, was still in his Hendricks-induced coma. It was fair to say
that it was of no concern to anybody whether he pulled through or not, although
plenty of people thought it would be best to pull the plug and save the tax
dollars.

Guillory came out of it looking good
and Evan had been happy to let him take most of the credit. They'd become
almost friends and he'd been the one to get him started after all. The kudos he
enjoyed was matched in equal measure by the decline in Faulkner's reputation.
Scandal-hungry journalists quickly unearthed the Faulkner-Hendricks connection
and he had a rough time of it, even though there was never any suggestion that
he had been involved in any way.

The same couldn't be said about the
unexplained fire that broke out and burned the two barns to the ground,
destroying the secret chambers forever. Whoever did it probably experienced
something similar to what the allied troops must have felt blowing up the Nazi
gas chambers—a sense of putting the lid on one more example of man's limitless
capacity for cruelty towards his fellow man. It seemed the emergency services
encountered some unusually heavy traffic on the way over—apparently they also
had a problem with their siren—and by the time they got there, there was
nothing left.

Then a neighbor said they saw a car
that looked a lot like Faulkner's in the vicinity at about the time the fire
must have started, and the police department went through the motions of sending
somebody over to talk to him. A lot of tongues wagged but in the end no one
really gave a damn. It cut down on the number of enquiries from people looking
to buy the place, now that the crazies would have to start afresh and build
their own torture chamber from scratch, but most people just thought good
riddance.

There'd been no sign of McIntyre and
Evan liked to think he'd had second thoughts about taking him on without
blindsiding him first —especially if he'd read the exaggerated accounts of
Evan's bloody, hand-to-hand struggle with Hendricks.

He couldn't remember feeling as good
for years. Life felt like there was something worth living for again. He hadn't
realized quite how much the sleazy work that he'd fallen into had been dragging
him down. Still, he wasn't completely out of the woods.

After the service a few people went
back to Linda's house. Guillory was one of them. Evan was relieved that the
odious Detective Donut didn't feel the need to pay his respects. Nobody stayed
very long and soon it was just the two of them.

'You seem very thoughtful,' Linda
said, laying a hand on his arm. She looked at him with her clear blue eyes, so
different from when he first met her.

'I suppose so. I've got a lot to
think about.' He dropped his eyes. He didn't want to get into a conversation
about himself. Not now, on an emotionally charged day like today. But it wasn't
his call.

She looked at him for a while longer
but he wouldn't meet her gaze. 'You also look like a load's been lifted,' she
said. 'It's hope, isn't it?'

He looked up sharply. She was
smiling triumphantly at his reaction. 'Ha! Not as green as I'm cabbage-looking,
eh?'

'Is it really that obvious?'

'No, of course not. You're a man,
you're tough. You don't wear your heart on your sleeve. You're a closed book.
Shall I go on?'

He shook his head. 'No need. You're
right.'

'Of course I'm right. What you've
done for me makes you wonder if the same thing will ever happen for you.' She
paused and took his silence as tacit agreement. 'It's more than that, it gives
you hope that you
will
find out what happened...'

'To Sarah, yes.' She had no idea
just how right she was. He didn't know how long it would take, but he knew he
would eventually find the answer. 'But that's not all.'

'I know it isn't. It's given you
confidence too.' She was almost bouncing in her chair with enthusiasm. 'It
makes you feel that you can deal with it, whatever you find out. Sure, you know
how you
want
it to turn out, but you're not afraid of the other
possibilities.'

It made him feel good just to hear
her put it all into words. That was exactly how he was feeling. It wasn't just
what he'd achieved for Linda; coming through the ordeal with Hendricks made him
feel that he could now deal with whatever life threw at him. He grinned,
'You're amazing.'

'Not really. I've just been there.'
She smiled at him again, but it was more mischievous this time. For an
uncomfortable second he had a flashback to his afternoon with Barbara
Schneider, but then it was gone. 'I've just had a great idea,' she said.

'Let's get drunk.'

'So who's the mind reader now?'

'Not me. It's just that I can see a
hell of a lot of booze sitting over there and we're the only ones left to drink
it.' He tapped the side of his nose with his finger. 'I'm a detective,
remember.'

So that's what they did.

If you enjoyed
Cruel Comfort
,
you can get a FREE copy of James Harper’s psychological thriller,
Bad Call
—it’s
a
complete
novella (all 84 pages of it) for free, not just an excerpt.

Click here to get your free copy
of Bad Call

Carry on reading for an excerpt from
the latest Evan Buckley thriller,
Strip Squeeze.

Jesse stared in dismay at
the photograph in his hand and felt sick to his stomach. There was no doubt
about it—that was
his
johnson in her mouth. It wasn't too hard to work
out really, seeing as it was his stupidly grinning face right there above it,
nestled snugly between the other girl's firm breasts. He could clearly see the
scar on his lower abdomen, so it wasn't even his head photoshopped onto someone
else's body.

Trouble was, he had no
recollection of feeling as good as that looked any time recently.

He flicked quickly through
the other photos that had arrived in a hand delivered envelope earlier that
morning. It looked like he'd had a
really
good time. But he had absolutely
no recollection of any of it. It just wasn't fair. He looked at the envelope
again.
Jesse Springer
was handwritten across it in a rounded, obviously
female, script and that was it.

'Where are you, Jesse?'
his wife called out from upstairs. An icy hand poked its fingers into his
intestines. 'I've got your anniversary present here.'

He heard her start down
the stairs at a fast clip.

'I'm...' His throat had
closed for the season; his voice packed up and gone away. She was almost at the
bottom of the stairs already. Why the hell did she always have to run like an
excited kid? He swallowed and tried to clear his throat. 'I'm in the kitchen,'
he managed to croak.

What the hell was he
going to do with these photos? He heard her land in the hallway with a heavy thump
as usual.
Jesus Christ, you’d think she was six years old.
His hands
were shaking so badly he could barely get the photos back into the envelope.
One of them fell out onto the floor.

Shit.

There was no time to pick
it up again. He kicked it under the kitchen dresser, then lifted up his shirt
tail and shoved the envelope down the back of his pants, just as she bounded
into the room, wearing just her bra and panties.

‘Ta-da,’ She exclaimed,
throwing her arms wide.

His eyes bulged.
Goddammit,
 don't get horny now.

'What are you up to?' she
said, craning her head towards him. 'You look guilty as hell.‘ She wagged a
finger at him. ‘You haven't been playing with yourself have you?' She grinned
slyly and licked her lips.

'Of course not.' He
swallowed again.

'Are you sure? Your voice
sounds all croaky too.' She started advancing towards him slowly, the grin
widening, her eyes full of mischief.

He moved sideways so the
kitchen table was between them. Bad mistake. She thought he wanted to play.

'What do you think of
your anniversary present?' she said, doing a little twirl and then darting to
the side of the table. He jumped the other way.

'Pack it in, Diane. I've
got to go to work.'

Talk about a turd in the
punchbowl.

She stood up straight and
put her small fists on her hips which only made her pert breasts thrust further
towards him. He could see her nipples through the sheer fabric. He swallowed
thickly and thought about his tax return.

'You said you've got the
day off. It's our anniversary. You promised.' The playful voice had been
replaced by something a little more whiney. Nothing good ever came after the
you
promised
accusation either.

'I just got a text from Adams. I've got to go in.'

'Show me.'

He frowned. 'Show you
what?'

'The text, dummy, what do
you think?' Whiney was morphing into semi-aggressive.

'Don't be ridiculous.'

His phone was sitting on
the kitchen dresser. She saw him look at it. He didn’t stand a chance. She
danced across the room and snatched it up before he could move.

But he wasn't paying any
attention to the phone by then. A feeling of panic overwhelmed him as he stared
in horror at the corner of the photo he'd dropped, poking out from under the
dresser. He was sure it was inching its way out as he watched. Maybe there was
a draft coming from somewhere. He couldn't get to it without her grabbing hold
of him. She'd probably grab his ass and feel the envelope. She hadn't seen it
yet; she was too busy scrolling through his messages.

'There's nothing here
from Adams.' She threw the phone onto the table.

'I deleted it.'

'Yeah right. You'd cut
off your right hand before you deleted anything, Mr. Jesse-OCD-Springer.'
Semi-aggressive was turning into sullen. He could see it was about to turn into
a full scale argument. Sometimes following her mood changes was like trying to
keep your eye on the ball in a tennis match.

'Look Diane, it won't
take very long, I promise.'
All I need is a little time to scream and bang
my head against a wall
. 'We can still go for lunch at that ludicrously
expensive place you like.'

The sullen look on her
face gave way to the mischievous grin. She moved round the table towards him
again. He moved away, keeping the table between them. It was back to being a
game again.

'Are you sure you haven't
got time before you go,' she said, leaning over the table and pushing her breasts
out towards him. 'Just a quickie on the table?'

He looked down at the
display being offered to him. At any other time he'd have jumped at the chance.
But all he could think of was the photograph stuffed down the back of his pants
with his head resting between some other woman's equally inviting breasts. And
his johnson in her friend's mouth.

'The quicker I go, the
quicker I'll be back,' he said, grabbing his phone from where she'd dropped it
and making a dash for the door. 'I won't be long—I promise.'

She didn't bother trying
to stop him; just pulled out a chair and sat down at the table and rested her
chin on her hands. He hated deflating her like that, spoiling their
anniversary, but what choice did he have? She stared straight ahead and didn't
say anything else as he opened the front door and let himself out. He could
only pray she'd go straight back to bed in a huff. He just hoped she wasn't
pissed enough to start drinking without him. They kept the booze in the kitchen
dresser.

***

Jesse rested his head on
the leather steering wheel of his new BMW M3 for a few moments before driving
off. He loved this car, but today it might as well have been a twenty year old
wreck for all he cared. He only drove a couple of blocks and parked up again.
He pulled the envelope out from the back of his pants and shook the photos out.
He flicked through them a couple of times but he couldn't tell which one he'd
dropped. At least it wasn't the first one—the one with him enjoying (but not
remembering) a nice BJ. He stared at it for a few minutes hoping that something
would come back to him, but his mind refused to play ball.

His phone beeped in the
silence of the car, making him jump, as a message came through. He hoped it
wasn't Diane. He wouldn't need to read it to know what it said. He picked the
phone up but it wasn't from anyone in his contacts. He opened the message and
read it anyway.

'We hope you enjoyed
looking at the photos. Please confirm you have received them. Do not ignore
this message or we might have to send copies to Diane.'

He groaned inwardly. He
couldn't believe it. He was being blackmailed. What on earth was going on?

'I've got them,' he
texted back.

He leant back in the seat
with his head on the headrest and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and
then another. Unfortunately it didn't all go away.
So much for that shit
.
His phone beeped again.

'Good. It looks like you
had a nice time. You should have done because you spent enough money. You were
very generous. Don't complain when you see your credit card statement or we
will be in touch with Diane. xxx'

He let out a strangled
laugh. If it had been anyone else on the receiving end he'd have loved the
kisses—a blackmailing bastard with a sense of humor. This was getting stranger
by the minute. He didn't remember being with the girls and he definitely
wouldn't spend money to get them. Even if he said so himself, he was a good
looking guy and he'd never needed to pay for it and he wasn't about to start
now. Despite that, he had a nagging feeling of unease that wouldn't go away.
What was the
You were very generous
bit all about? He decided to log in
to his online banking just to put his mind at rest.

He wished he hadn't. A
cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He felt sick. He threw open the car door
and got out, smashing the door into the trunk of the tree he'd parked next to.
He didn't even notice. He leaned his head against the tree, feeling the
roughness of the bark where it dug into his skin, and tried to take a few deep
breaths of the fresh air. It was hard to get down; it felt like a horse was
sitting on his chest. He wished he could simply crawl away somewhere quiet like
a sick dog dragging itself under a porch to die.

He banged his head
against the tree trunk—to knock some sense into it maybe—and looked back down
at the stupid little phone sitting in his sweaty hand. Nothing had changed. The
nasty, lying-bastard entry was still there, sticking out in the middle of all
the other amounts he'd spent as if it was ringed with yellow highlighter.
Apparently he'd paid over thirty thousand dollars for his evening's enjoyment
with the unknown ladies. Unknown and un-remembered.

He sat down on the edge
of the curb and rested his head on his knees and tried to think what to do.

***

Gina Morgan lay in bed,
still half asleep despite the bright, early morning sun that slanted through
the window, and listened to Marianne Faithfull on the radio singing
The
Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
. The way she felt at the moment, she'd give anything
for a boring life, going quietly crazy as a suburban housewife.

She loved that song;
nearly as much as she loved the movie
Thelma and Louise
where she'd
first heard it. As far as she was concerned though, it was just a great movie,
even if she did end up chewing the edge of her thumb with her eyes moist every
time she watched it. It was different for her mother. It was an obsession.
She'd named Gina after Geena Davis even though she'd got the spelling wrong.
Gina was just thankful she hadn't ended up being called Thelma, although she
quite liked Louise. Her mother had really taken the movie to heart. She'd gone
on her very own road trip, not with a girlfriend, but with a mechanic at the
local body shop, mainly because he had a green 1966 Ford Thunderbird
convertible just like the one in the movie. But also because he had a big
johnson.

But, as they say,
be
careful what you wish for
and, ironically, the guy she ran off with started
beating her up, unlike Gina's father who she left behind and who never laid a
finger on her. That sort of took the shine off the trip. Her father—a gentle
soul who couldn’t lead a dog to a hydrant—took her back, but even the eight
year old Gina could have told him that things would never be quite the same
again. Her old man had run off himself a couple of years later and who could
blame him? From then on her mother's closest friends, the ones she spent the
most time with, tended to come with a screw cap.

The song ended and she
hauled herself out of bed. She stood in front of the window enjoying the warm
sun and stretched lazily, giving the boy across the street his daily freebie.
Little pervert; he'd go blind if he wasn't careful. She caught a yawn in her
fist. Just like every other morning, it felt as if it was only five minutes
since she'd flopped into bed, exhausted after another eight hour shift at Chi
Chi's, flashing her privates at drunken businessmen and adolescent boys who'd
managed to sneak in. God, how she hated it but she couldn't argue with the
money. Sure, she could have got a job as a waitress in the club or even in a
greasy diner but how many waitresses got fifty dollar bills tucked down their
panties for five minutes work? Her hair didn't end up smelling of cooking fat
either.

And even though she hated
it, she was fascinated by it as well. They were watching you taking off your
clothes but what you saw from your side was far more intimate. You could see
them—the way they'd swallow thickly and go completely still, then stand up and
shuffle awkwardly to the men's room like there was something in their pants
stopping them from walking properly. It made her laugh—she couldn't believe how
many married men must launder their own underwear. The regulars probably wore
paper.

She couldn't stand the
other girls either, probably because they were so different to her. Not just in
looks—all plastic tits and bleached blond hair—but in their attitudes as well.
Maybe it was because they didn't have a good reason for doing what they did;
they were strippers and always would be. Until their body parts headed so far
south they couldn't get a job any more, of course. They never stopped
complaining; they didn't like talking to the customers, didn't like asking them
for money, and in fact resented having to deal with them at all.