Hurt (The Hurt Series) (16 page)

But for an instance, for that proverbial blink of an eye, Vincent must have experienced the fleeting resistance of flesh against steel as he drove the blade into Hoyt’s heart.

And she wanted to know how that felt.

Fuck it, she
deserved
to know.

She reached the third floor, turned onto the walkway and spotted the red and white of the St George Cross five doors along. Her fingers flexed within her coat pocket, and although a chilled wind whipped at her face, beads of perspiration coated her forehead.

A deep breath. Then another.

All she wanted to do was talk.

Ask the question and live the answer vicariously through him.

That’s all.

And then she’d be gone. Out of his life and back to her own, unburdened by the past and free to enjoy the future at last.

She glanced into a neighbour’s kitchen window, where a Jack o’ Lantern leered out at her. Remembered it was Halloween and that the carved pumpkin was there to ward off evil and keep the Devil away.

Her thumping heart echoed loud in her ears. Her mouth went dry. Her moist fingers twitched inside her pocket.

Another breath, slow and measured as she reached the flag flapping in the icy breeze.

‘
How did it feel?’ she hissed, turning to the red door. ‘How. Did. It. Feel?’

A ping from her pocket. Her phone, informing of a text message.

She cursed herself for not switching the damn thing off. Fished out the mobile and glanced at the message:

Why do brides always smile when they walk down the aisle? Because they know they’ve given their last blow job. Xx

Ray’s joke, because everyone needed a laugh now and then.

She pictured him curled up in bed this morning, his flesh hot with fever, but his mood as buoyant as ever. Never had she seen him in a bad mood or heard him raise his voice. Even when the writing wasn’t flowing, he would just shrug and grin and say it would come eventually. ‘Perseverance is the writers’ most important virtue,’ he’d preach. ‘You aint got perseverance, you aint got no business putting pen to paper.’

Despite demons of his own Ray chose not to fight life, but to swim with its tide, accepting his fate, his foibles and his past, doing what he had to do to make the journey as comfortable and fun as possible. ‘I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life so far in three words,’ he once told her. ‘It goes on.’

And she could sum up what she’d learned about the man with the easy charm and infectious laid back nature in three words: I love you.

Through misty eyes she read the joke again, a smile threatening to crack her face. ‘It goes on,’ she whispered to herself. And with Ray by her side she couldn’t wait to get started.

‘Help you?’

The voice had claws that dug deep into her soul.

She looked up, saw Vincent Dodd standing in the doorway. Saw the confusion in his dark, narrow eyes. Eyes that had witnessed the tearing of Hoyt’s flesh and the spilling of his blood. Eyes that didn’t know who she was or why she was here.

Eyes that looked at the real demon she feared she would meet this Halloween.

The demon within her.

Her free hand clenched in her pocket, the fingers slick with sweat.

A piercing scream from next door.

A child’s scream. So familiar, dragged from the darkest recesses of her subconscious, where her little sister’s ghost came to haunt her at night.

A girl of about five years of age with straight auburn hair came charging out of the door. She screamed again, but not out of terror or pain as Jessop was used to from her dreams. These screams were born from joy and excitement as the girl with the bloodied face and dressed in a white sheet looked up at her and smiled.

‘Trick or treat?’ the ghost said.

She turned back to Dodd, scowling at her with confusion and impatience.

‘And…?’ he pushed.

Within her pocket, her fist loosened around the handle of the penknife she’d bought on her way here. ‘Treat,’ she said, and walked away.

Chapter
Thirty-nine

The house was too quiet and too still. No TV blaring from the living room, no clatter of pans from the kitchen, and no music coming from Ray’s den.

All would change soon when Chloe and the hens arrived laden with booze and best wishes for the future.

Chloe. Her precious angst-ridden daughter, who she’d not given a second thought about both seven years ago and this afternoon.

Chloe, her gorgeous, talented daughter, who she’d taught not to hold grudges being that life was too short.

Chloe, her sweet, kind, heartbroken daughter, who deserved a better role model than an embittered, hypocritical wannabe vigilante.

Chloe, the poor estranged daughter of the disgraced DCI turned murderer.

Jessop’s flesh turned cold, her gorge rose and the world before her spiralled. Panicked, she ran to the downstairs toilet. Made it just in time for her stomach to expel its contents.

Gasping and coughing she rinsed her face and blinked at the moist, blood shot eyes looking back at her in the mirror. Eyes that were to be the last thing Vincent Dodd would have seen if not for Ray’s intervention.

No. That wasn’t true. She wouldn’t have used the knife. Bringing it was a reflex action, an emotional response triggered by seven years of pent up frustration.

Human nature, like swiping a can of Red Bull from a table.

Like sharpening a pencil and dipping the tip in varnish the night before she’d planned to visit Hoyt in prison.

Seven years ago the news Dodd had gotten to Hoyt first had left her numb. She had only planned her life up until the moment she killed her family’s murderer. At that moment nothing seemed to matter, especially the job she had worked so hard at to allow her the vengeance she so desperately craved.

The job had always been a means to an ends to get to Hoyt, but now he was dead and she had no way to get to Dodd now he was in solitary, she had no reason to remain on the force.

DCI Bill Travis disagreed.

Being her superior and keen follower of her career path, he knew about her connection to Hoyt, and thought it his duty to inform her of his death. She hadn’t divulged she had known, just acted nonchalant as she reached into her bag for the resignation she’d written.

What her boss said next stopped her in the act.

To this day she didn’t know why she’d accepted the offer of promotion to DCI due to his step up to Detective Superintendent, only that her mother and father would be proud of her for doing so. And, of course, she had a grudging respect for Bill Travis, who had become such a father figure to her throughout her career, and, who in a certain light, even resembled the man she missed so much.

She could never say no to her dad.

Besides, what else was she going to do with herself? For the first time since she could remember her future was a blank canvass. And anyway, Hoyte was not the only murderer out there. And she was not the only one living with the loss of a family or family member due to those sick bastards. Just maybe catching enough of them would bring some closure on her family’s death and lessen the sting of missing her chance to off Hoyte.

It
didn’t.

Only the love of her sullen daughter and a fifty-year-old novelist and ex-heavy metal guitarist could do that.

And she had been one text message away from losing it all.

Knees liquefying she slid to the floor and wept. She wept for her deceased parents. For the ghost of a little girl with auburn hair who would keep her awake each night with her screams. She wept for her daughter, whose life she had neglected to consider twice due to her selfish lust for vengeance. She wept for Ray, who was determined to make her laugh at least once during the day for the rest of their lives. But most of all, she wept for herself, for letting her hatred and bitterness curdle thelife her parents had given her.

A life her parents would insist she started to live instead of mourn.

She startled at the sound of the front door opening. Heard voices, laughter, the noise of bottles clinking together. A shout: ‘Mum?’

Chloe’s voice. A voice so welcome her heart accelerated.

‘You in?’

Yes, she was in. She was in and she looked like shit.

Sniffing back the tears, she hauled herself up, rinsed her hoarse throat under the tap, called out, ‘Be there in a sec!’

‘K!’ came the jovial response.

She worked fast, wiping her face, brushing her teeth, and fixing her clothes. She caught her reflection in the mirror again. The eyes looking back at her were still blood shot and red, but where a moment ago there lurked a hardness behind them, now there was a softness she barely recognised.

‘It goes on,’ she whispered.

Composing herself the best she could, she opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Glimpsed Vicky and Brooke unpacking bottles and food in the kitchen. Saw Chloe stepping back though the front door with another shopping bag.

‘Ready to get wasted?’ her daughter grinned.

Jessop couldn’t help but smile at the ironic turn of phrase. ‘Bring it on.’

Chapter
Forty

Slumped on the sofa, her head light and her legs unsteady, Jessop felt better. A hot shower, change of clothes, and good company could do wonders for a ravaged soul. Of course, a bottle of wine and several tequila shots didn’t hurt either, with the booze’s medicinal qualities already blurring the day’s hellish events. She knew this was but a temporary fix, but for now any fix was better than having to relive her visit to Dodd.

She sipped some wine and listened with amusement as Chloe, Brooke, and Vicky tore their catty claws into today’s pop culture.

Vicky, Ray’s nineteen-year-old daughter from his previous marriage, was the image of her mother Samantha. This had always mystified Jessop in that Samantha was a stunning 5’10” thirty-nine-year-old redheaded clothing boutique owner with the figure of a tennis pro. She was a 5’7”, forty-three-year-old copper with thick, curly black hair, and a figure of a tennis line judge. Other than their gender, she and Samantha had absolutely nothing in common. And no, she had never asked Ray what the attraction had been between two such diverse women. Tastes were as unique as fingerprints and could rarely be defined, especially concerning attractions of the opposite sex.

After all, Chloe’s father was as far removed from Ray as could be. A motorway cop, he had a hard time accepting her new position with The Clubs and Vice squad posing as a prostitute to entrap potential clients, or “johns”, as they were nicknamed. One too many jokes from his colleagues about how much the Misses charged, and did she bring the cuffs to the bedroom, and he was off. She had no intention of quitting to pacify his ego, and after he left, no intention of telling him about her pregnancy.

Six months and a quick divorce later, he transferred to a different city, and that was that. As far he knew, Chloe didn’t exist. Chloe knew the truth, and as far she was concerned, a man like that had no room in her life.

Jessop couldn’t have been prouder of her girl.

With the subjects of crap chart music and TV reality/talent shows and their surgically-enhanced female stars finally exhausted, the hen’s conversation now turned to the opposite sex. The subject matter was inevitable, and she only hoped after yesterday’s break-up Chloe would be strong enough to partake.

With the exception of the usual suspects of Pitt, Clooney, and Depp, Jessop hadn’t heard of any of names on the girls’ lists. Who knew Ryan Reynolds was so hot, and Justin Beiber was sickeningly cute?

When asked to list the men she’d most like to “bump uglies” with, Jessop had eventually ticked off her top three as Mickey Rourke, before he had all the surgery, Richard Gere, and Don Johnson back in the day.

‘Don who?’ Chloe asked.

‘But they’re all so…old,’ Vicky said.

Jessop thought she could actually feel another worry line appearing.

‘What about Scott Mason?’ Chloe offered. ‘He’s got that broody thing down good. Looks a bit like Matt Dillon.’

Brooke glanced at Jessop, shrugged her shoulders and winked. ‘Never noticed. Have you, boss?’

‘You know tonight’s rule,’ she smiled, her cheeks tingling with a sudden warmth. ‘No work
talk.’

‘Are you blushing?’ Vicky giggled.

‘Must be a hot flush. You know, us older women are prone to them.’

‘Reckon you need cooling down, then.’ Vicky poured four more shots of tequila. ‘Ready hens? On three…’

‘Three!’ Chloe called.

Jessop knocked back the shot and stuffed a lime slice between their lips.

‘More,’ Chloe urged with a happy slur Jessop found reassuring.

‘Uh-uh,’ she groaned, heaving up from the sofa and listing from a sudden head rush. ‘I need a proper drink.’

‘You’re not putting the kettle on are you?’ Vicky sniggered. ‘Is it Horlix time already?’

Chloe nudged her future sister in-law. ‘Mother, you’re not…
drunk
, are you? And in front of your own daughter. Isn’t there a law against that, Brooke?’

‘I have a friend in social services we could call.’

‘Think I’ll call them myself if it means a bit of peace and quiet for the rest of the evening.’ Jessop shot the hens a caustic grin, made her way to the kitchen and opened a beer to wash down the tequila’s god-awful taste. Heard the phone ring and answered with a ‘Yep?’

‘CATHYYYYY!’ came a familiar male voice. Nick, Ray’s ex-band mate and soon to be best-man. She’d always liked the chubby ex-drummer turned florist. Behind his “Born to be Wild” facade he was a big softie with a heart as large as his belly and a beard as tangled and elaborate as his table arrangements.

‘Just wanted to say Ray’s a lucky man,’ Nick slurred. ‘Because if he hadn’t gotten to you first…’

‘Then me and you would have made an even greater couple,’ she interjected.

‘Damn right we would’ve.’

‘You looking after him for me?’ she asked.

‘I’ve spent my whole life looking after the son of a bitch.’

‘Is he there?’

A crackled pause. In the background she recognisedLynyrdSkynyrd’s Freebird playing on the pub’s jukebox. The song was one of Ray’s top five, the old time juke box it was playing on, one of the reason’s he and Nick loved to drink at The Maidens.