Find Her Alive

Diane Saxon

Description

A high adrenaline new psychological crime series, introducing Detective Sergeant Jenna Morgan. Perfect for fans of Cara Hunter.

'Compulsive, addictive and gripping - a truly five star read! Geraldine Hogan

Responding to reports of deadly screams in the Ironbridge Gorge, Detective Sergeant Jenna Morgan is first on the scene to investigate.

As the search intensifies, Jenna soon discovers her sister Fliss’s severely injured Dalmatian, Domino and the naked, tortured body of an unknown woman.

Where is Fliss? and can Jenna find her sister alive before it’s too late?

This book was previously published as The Keeper.

Praise for Diane Saxon:

'The characters are well rounded and the story had an excellent pace, I started reading this and became very reluctant to put it down, which is always the mark of a good read.' Caroline Marston UK Crime Book Club

'A dark, unsettling read that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I couldn’t stop turning the pages.' Sarah Ward

A nail-biting psychological thriller you won’t forget in a hurry' Cherry Adair

What readers are saying about Find Her Alive:

'Absolutely loved this book! The story flows, the characters are fascinating and I couldn't tear myself away. Highly recommended.'

'This book has everything: fear, suspense, murder and deception. This is a book that kept me reading far into the night because I had to find out what the outcome was. It was well worth the lost sleep!'

'I was gripped from the first to the last page and read this book in one sitting only stopping when I really had to. Full of tension and suspense which definitely got my heart racing.'

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Policier
• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Soutien psychologique et conseils familiaux
• Abductions
• Mashups
• Legal
• Psychological
• Women Sleuths
• Private Investigators
• Hard-Boiled
• Amateur Sleuth
• Traditional
• Conflict Resolution
• Self-Management
• Siblings
• Thrillers
• Midlands (Inglaterra)
• Suspenso
• Inglaterra
• Karen Rose
• Domestic
• Sibling
• General officer
• Psychology
• Espionage
• City Life
• General
• Midlands
• Crime
• Legall de Kermeur
• Family Life
• Abuse
• England
• Suspense
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838892562
• Langue: English

Extrait

Find Her Alive


Diane Saxon
To Skye, my Dalmatian, without whom the real hero in this book may never have come to fruition.
Contents



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42


Acknowledgments

More from Diane Saxon

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
1
Friday 26 October, 15:45 hrs

Felicity Morgan jammed her car into third gear and took the tight bend down the hill to Coalbrookdale with fierce relish.
‘It’s not right! It’s just not right. I’m twenty-four years old, for God’s sake, and still being told what to do!’ She pounded the palm of her hand on the steering wheel and whipped around another curve.
‘Not even told .’ She glanced in the mirror, her gaze clashing with Domino’s. ‘Nope, she didn’t even have the decency to speak to me.’ She floored the accelerator and snapped out a feral grin as the car skimmed over the humps in the narrow road.
‘She texted me. A freakin’ text!’ She shot Domino another quick glance and took her foot from the accelerator as the car flew under the disused railway bridge, past the entrance to Enginuity, one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums.
Guilt nudged at her. ‘I know. I know, Domino. We’ve barely seen each other since I moved in because of her shifts and my workday, but for God’s sake. A text? Really? She must have been so peed off to send me a text. It’s her version of not talking to me. She’s done it all our lives.’ Fliss blew out a disgusted snort. ‘What the hell did you eat this time? Her bloody precious steak? One of her fluffy pink slippers? Hah!’
She appealed in the mirror to her silent companion. ‘She said, “Don’t forget to walk the dog .”’ She pressed her foot on the brake and came to a halt, sliding the gears into neutral as the traffic lights halfway down the hill changed to red. They always did for her. Every bloody time. With a rebellious kick on the accelerator, Fliss revved the engine.
‘She called you a dog , Domino. She couldn’t even be bothered to write your name.’ She stared at the big, gorgeous and demanding Dalmatian in her rear view mirror. Her lips kicked up as a smile softened her voice. ‘How could I possibly forget to walk you?’
An ancient Austin Allegro puttered through the narrow track towards her just as the traffic lights turned to green on her side.
‘Bloody typical.’
Domino raised his head to stare with aloof disdain at the passing Allegro and Fliss sighed as the driver’s wrinkled face, as ancient as the car, barely emerged above the steering wheel.
‘There was only once, a few weeks ago, I forgot to walk you. You’d have thought Jenna would have understood. I was hung-over from my break-up drinking bout. You, my darling, were suffering the consequences of a broken home.’ She let out a derisive snort as she put the car into first gear and glided through the lights, back in control of both her temper and her vehicle.
‘Not that you ever really liked Ed. You were just being empathetic. You sensed my…’ she drew in a long breath through her nose, ‘… devastation. You sympathised with me. How was I to know you’d eat your Aunty Jenna’s kitchen cupboard doors off while I was sleeping?’ They still bore the deep gouged teeth marks. ‘We didn’t have any choice but to move in with Jenna. We couldn’t stay with him. He was too mean. He wanted me to get rid of you. Said it was him or you.’
She flopped her head back on the headrest. Ed. The perfect gentleman, tender, gentle, an absolute charmer. To the outside world. Insidious, controlling arse to her. It had taken so long to realise his subtle intention to separate her from her mother, her sister, eventually Domino. The slick manoeuvres to keep her to himself. Unnoticed until her mother fell ill, when, in a flash, it all became clear.
‘Poor Domino.’ She glanced in her mirror to share the sympathy between herself and her dog as she slowed down to pass the stunning Edwardian building she worked in on her right. Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge School dated back more than two hundred years and had firmly entrenched roots at the centre of the Industrial Revolution. With the imposing cooling towers of the Ironbridge power station behind, they shared domination of the skyline from that angle.
She blew out a breath, making her over-long honey-blonde fringe flutter away from her eyes, just for it to land back again in the same place as she pulled the car to a virtual standstill to take a closer look at the school. Closed for the day, except the few lights in the left side of the building still burning for the after-school club.
A flutter of anxiety filled her chest. It hadn’t helped that she’d had such a dreadful day at school. The kids had run her ragged as she held on to her sanity with barely a thread of control left.
Who would have thought teaching would be so hard? Yes, she’d appreciated, before she started fresh from university a year gone September, that teachers worked long hours, but who knew children could be affected by the phase of the moon? Until year six teacher, Sarah Leighton, mentioned it to her at the end of their particularly fractious and demanding day.
Why did they have to have a full bloody supermoon in term time?
She cruised to the bottom of the hill.
Perhaps she should have taken a leaf out of Sarah’s book, gone home, poured a glass of wine and sulked in front of the fire until she was obliged to mark homework.
Instead, she’d been forced out of her own house by a text. Not that it was her house, and therein lay the problem.
‘I love her to bits. I really do, Domino, but I’m not sure we can live together. Six weeks is probably the limit.’
Fliss glanced in the mirror as she drew up to the mini-roundabout while Domino sat bolt upright in the boot, his proud head close to the rear window as he gazed out at the driver in the car behind. The woman smiled at him, just as everyone did when they caught sight of him, compelling them to give him the attention he was convinced he deserved.
Attention Jenna never gave him as she’d never forgiven him. Nor Fliss.
The constant reminders wore thin.
As her temper surged again, Fliss whipped the car around the pimple of the mini-roundabout and then indicated left into the Dale End car park parents used when they dropped their children off at school.
Despite her annoyance with her sister, she spared the school building another quick glance, the side view hindered by trees, but nonetheless stirring an affection in her. Steeped in history, it lent itself nicely to the quiet Victorian Town. She loved it, with its small community and less than two hundred pupils. Pupils who on a normal day were wonderful. They’d chosen not to be today.
‘We need to find our own place, Domino.’ His ears twitched, and he cast an unconcerned glance over his shoulder at her use of his name. ‘One closer to here, so I don’t have to travel twenty minutes to get to work. It means I could spend more time with you. If we lived on our own, I’d need to get home earlier because Jenna wouldn’t be there to see to you.’
She stopped the car in the middle of the car park to allow the elderly couple to cross over from the wrought-iron gates leading to the Victorian tearooms and smiled at them despite the mix of lingering annoyance and melancholy.
‘I hate living on my own.’ It made her nervous, for no particular reason. It just wasn’t right to live alone. She needed someone to protect her from her unreasonable fear of the dark and her own vivid imagination.
Fliss’s irritation cranked up again at the whine in her own voice as she circled her car around the almost empty car park and swung it with careless abandon into a space. She cut the engine and flicked the seat belt undone. Before Ed she’d never had such reservations. She was strong. She was capable.
Her shoulders sagged. She hated to be alone.
She shook off the self-pity, flung open the driver’s door and slammed it behind her before she strode to the back of the vehicle. She wasn’t alone. Not entirely. She had Domino. He was company enough. Surely.
‘Wait!’ she commanded as she opened the boot. She sensed the dog’s urgency, his desperate desire to run free, but he’d do as he was told, she had no doubt.
She drew in a deep breath before she clipped the lead onto Domino’s harness. She pressed her lips to his forehead as she fondled one silken, floppy ear before she stepped back to allow him out.
Bright and alert, all bunched muscles and restrained excitement, he bounded from the boot of the car and stood to attention, quivering in anticipation while she glanced at the people in the tree-lined park.
She zipped her coat up to her chin against the chill wind and hunched her shoulders, determined to move and keep the cold out.
‘Which way shall we go, lad?’
Muted voices floated across, an open invitation for her to join the others in Dale End Park. She chewed the inside of her lip, undecided for a moment, before she turned from the company of the twilight walkers with their idle chit-chat which she normally relished. They wouldn’t miss her, their unofficial dog meet was transient. If you turned up, you mingled. If you didn’t, no one questioned it. A nice crowd, but she needed her privacy.
‘This way, Domino.’
If she allowed herself into their sympathetic fold, she’d be tempted to whine about Jenna, and if there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was disloyalty. She huffed out a breath. Her anger with Jenna would pass. Until then, she’d kee