Jailbird

Caro Savage

Description

When you’re working undercover the smallest mistake can cost you your life.'A riveting read full of tension and suspense with a vivid cast of characters and an enticing plot.' Heather Burnside

Detective Constable Bailey Morgan has been out of the undercover game since her last job went horribly wrong, leaving her with scars inside and out.

When her colleague Alice is found dead whilst working deep cover in a women’s prison, Bailey steps in to replace her.

Working alone, Bailey embarks on a dangerous journey through the murky underbelly of the prison and soon discovers that Alice’s death was part of a spate of brutal murders.

Surrounded by prison officers, criminals and lowlifes, the slightest mistake could cost Bailey her life.

Heart-stopping and gripping. Perfect for the fans of hit TV shows such as Line of Duty, Orange is the New Black and Bad Girls.

What readers are saying about Jailbird:

'Fast paced and addictive.' Ross Greenwood

'I have nothing negative at all to say about this book. I can’t wait for the next book from this author as she has extreme talent.'

'Flows well, extremely good plot! One of the best reads of the year. HIGHLY recommend!!!'

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

'This one is a sure winner!'

'I was literally on the edge of my seat reading this book.'

'I was totally engrossed in this book.'

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Policier
• Sea Stories
• Mashups
• Legal
• Psychological
• Women Sleuths
• Political
• Thrillers
• Women
• Idioma inglés
• Coming of Age
• Suspenso
• Inglaterra
• Friendship
• Psychological thriller
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Domestic
• Anniversary
• Interpersonal relationship
• General officer
• Woman
• Politics
• Psychology
• Organized crime
• Espionage
• English
• Valentine's Day
• The Women
• City Life
• Summer
• Wedding
• General
• Tomb Raider: Anniversary
• Birthday
• Crime
• Legall de Kermeur
• Spring
• England
• Suspense
• 2019
• Fiction
• Halloween
• Anglais

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781838894382
• Langue: English

Extrait

Jailbird


Caro Savage
For CPC
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

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111


Acknowledgments

More from Caro Savage

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
Chapter 1

The clank sounded out of place.
Alice Jenkins stopped pushing the laundry trolley and lifted her head. She tossed her long reddish-blonde hair out of her face.
‘Hey, who’s there?’
She was answered only by the repetitive groaning of the huge industrial washing machines and dryers which lined both sides of the prison laundry.
She peered uncertainly into the shadows beyond the giant wire racks, which held folded piles of freshly laundered bedding and towels. Down here in the basement there were no windows and the overhead strip lighting flickered with a sickly insipid yellow which failed to illuminate the room properly.
Alice had only started her job in the laundry two days before. Normally there were other inmates working in here, but this afternoon she was all alone. That was because she’d volunteered to do some overtime, explaining to the laundry supervisor that she wanted to earn a little extra cash for her canteen account.
She hadn’t been in prison for very long. Just a few weeks. She’d been sent down for benefit fraud. Not a major crime but enough to land her inside for a year and three months. But she seemed to be getting the hang of things. Like managing to get this job in the laundry.
There was still plenty of stuff that she was unfamiliar with though, so she wasn’t totally relaxed by any means. In fact, she’d found that this place could suddenly put you on edge when you were least expecting it. Like now for example.
She glanced around nervously.
‘Hey stop messing about!’ she said.
Maybe some of the other inmates – her laundry colleagues – were playing a practical joke on her. She hoped so. Because if it wasn’t them then maybe it was one of the dangerous-looking cliques she’d seen around the prison. Maybe they’d taken a dislike to her for some reason. Maybe they had it in for her.
‘Haha. Try and creep up on Ally. Yeah that’s hilarious. You can come out now.’
She tried to sound breezy but her nerves betrayed her, her voice instead coming out reedy and uneven.
There was no answer. Just the incessant rumbling of the machinery.
Her knuckles turned white as she tightened her grip on the handle of the trolley and squinted into the dim recesses of the cavernous laundry. A burst of excess steam hissed from a nearby pipe. She jumped and gasped, her heart thumping in her chest.
Her mind raced to think what had made the clanking sound. It might be a rat. The prison did have a rodent problem. Or maybe she was just spooking herself out unnecessarily.
‘You silly girl,’ she muttered, shaking her head and pulling herself upright.
She recommenced pushing the trolley, awkwardly manoeuvring its bulky weight towards one of the empty washing machines at the end of the room.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a shadow pass behind one of the sheets that were hanging up, waiting to be folded and placed on the wire racks.
She let go of the trolley and spun around to look. Was there someone there? She could have sworn she was the only one in here.
No. It was surely just a ripple in the material caused by convection in the warm air currents generated by the dryers. She turned back to the trolley, taking hold of the handle once again.
But then in the darkness beyond the racking, just behind the dryers, something caught her eye.
A brief sparkle.
A shiny surface which captured the few photons bouncing around behind the stacks of machinery and reflected them back to her…
She stopped again, momentarily entranced by it as it twinkled in the shadows like a lone star aglow in the distant black depths of deep space. For a brief moment she forgot her apprehension as she tried to make sense of it floating there in the shadows like the needle of a compass… turning… pointing in her direction…
Then a depth charge of cold fear detonated in her gut as she realised what it was.
Long…
Thin…
Sharp…
A blade.
A shank.
Her heart began to hammer inside her chest. Her hands fell away from the handle of the trolley.
‘Oh fuck,’ she whispered.
They’d come to kill her.
They’d decided to come for her when she was all alone. She cursed her stupidity for making the mistake of being down here by herself.
Somewhere along the line she’d messed up and now she was going to pay for it with her life.
She felt a heavy nausea rise up inside her, the fear of impending death.
Slowly, she edged backwards around the trolley to put it between herself and whoever was behind the dryers. She again squinted to try and see more.
In the shadows, silence. A flicker of movement in the darkness. A shadow within a shadow. It was big. It was no rat. That was for sure. It was a person.
She gulped. Her mouth was dry. She glanced towards the doorway. It was at the far end of the laundry. That distant metal door had never looked more appealing. Nor had it ever seemed further away. She glanced back at the row of dryers.
Tensing, she took a deep breath… and bolted.
She sprinted through the laundry, heading towards the exit… weaving through the laundry bins… running away from whatever it was in the shadows… running away from the glitter of razor-sharp steel.
She ran faster than she had ever run in her life. As if something had taken her over. As if there was an animal inside her.
Her breath tore in her throat. Adrenaline coursed through her body. Her trainers hammered on the concrete floor, the slap of her footfalls echoing through the big room.
She ran and ran. The doorway getting closer. Her portal of freedom. If only she could get there. So close now. She panted. Her lungs working overtime to power her flight.
And then a laundry bin spun out in front of her and she tripped over it, crashing onto the floor amidst a cascade of dirty linen.
‘Oh god!’ she gasped. Her eyes filled with tears, blurring her vision.
She tried to scramble to her feet, but she got tangled in the sheets, the white material having wrapped itself around her ankles with an almost malevolent will of its own.
As she reached down to extract herself from the fatal web of dirty linen, she felt a hand grip her hair roughly from behind. The strands twisting into the fingers, winding tight like a winch.
With a sharp yank, her head was pulled back. She gasped in pain as she felt the roots ripping out. Literally one by one. Pop. Pop. Pop. Out of her scalp.
She tried in vain to twist her head to see her attacker but she couldn’t, so tight was the grip. All she could see were her own hands clambering uselessly in the empty space in front of her.
‘Oh god!’ she choked. ‘Please don’t hurt me!’
But her words fell away unheard. Through tear-blurred vision she caught the flashing arc of the blade clutched in a black leather glove as it swooped down from above and sliced into the front of her scalp.
She screeched in agony as the cold steel carved the flesh away from her skull. The searing pain was beyond anything she’d ever experienced. A deluge of hot blood coursed down from the wound, transforming her face into a crimson liquid mask locked in a scream of terror.
With an audible rip, her partially severed scalp was savagely torn away from her head. Blinded by the blood in her eyes and paralysed by the shock of the assault, she was in no state to do anything about the knife as it came round again, this time to cut her throat.
Chapter 2

Detective Constable Bailey Morgan studied the cryptic crossword on the desk in front of her. Technically she was supposed to be doing work – checking through a pile of witness statements – but it was one of those days when time seemed to be moving with the consistency of treacle and police paperwork just wasn’t making it go any faster.
She glanced up, scanning the office to see if any of her colleagues had noticed what she was doing. It didn’t appear that any of them had. But then it was a Friday afternoon and the place was relatively deserted.
Anyone meeting her gaze would have found themselves looking into a pair of eyes the colour of cold ashes, the dark rings around them underscored by her pale complexion. They would probably have noticed that although her shoulder-length chestnut hair was tied up in a ponytail, there was a bit that she delibera