Gone by Midnight
Page 31
She appeared just like I’d dreamed her up, Celine trotting beside her, a happy escort for a decidedly unhappy-looking woman, this time wearing a pale blue dress. I didn’t get up, but didn’t voice my dismay at the prospect of ending a wonderful day with being shouted down. Since I’ve lived on the edge of Crimson Lake, people seem to feel as though they can just wander down the side of my house at any time, but I don’t blame them. The front of the house, with its boarded-up windows and burns and paint stains from the vigilantes, seemed to have given up its duties as an entrance by virtue of being so ugly.
Laney came and stood not far from me, and I suddenly became fascinated with my drink.
‘I’m really sorry,’ Laney said. She waited for a response, but I didn’t have one, so she continued. ‘I came around here yelling and screaming like a lunatic, when what I should have done is ask you to explain yourself. I just, uh … I got caught up in a kind of fantasy, you know? When you meet someone you like … You get this idea about them.’ She gave a gesture, a winding of the hand, like she was trying to find the words. In time she dropped the hand, looked at my eyes. ‘You know you’re probably wrong, but you never think you’re that wrong.’
She gave an awkward little laugh. I sipped my drink.
‘So I’m really sorry,’ she concluded.
‘I’m sorry too,’ I said. ‘Have you … Have you looked at my case at all?’
‘A little bit,’ she said. ‘I saw that you’re no longer a suspect.’
I patted Celine.
‘I’m going to look at it more,’ Laney said.
‘Why?’ I asked.
She thought for a moment. ‘Because I really had fun out here.’ She looked around my property. At the light on the lake. ‘With you.’
‘So did I,’ I said.
I wanted to tell her that I felt the same, but it seemed unfair to put that kind of pressure on her. To tell her that it hurt, the way she’d fluttered in and then stormed out of my life so quickly, a little fantasy I’d also enjoyed.
She turned, seemed to want to go. I thought about walking her up the driveway to her van, but didn’t know if she wanted me to. She paused, wringing her hands so that the muscles in her forearms flexed.
‘Anyway, I just came to tell you that … I think I’m … I think I want to have you in my life somehow,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know how. Yet.’
I nodded. She turned to go and almost ran straight into Amanda, who was walking around the corner in her swift, awkward gait, ready to slam into anything she might encounter, the way she generally was in life.
‘Don’t touch me!’ Amanda threw her hands up. ‘I’m contaminated!’
Laney gave me a puzzled look, only a second’s worth, before she disappeared.
Amanda trudged through the grass to my side, flopping down in the gold light.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I came to give you this,’ she said, and sneezed on my arm. She took a handkerchief from the pocket of her shorts that was covered in little cartoons of bees. She held it to her reddened nose and glared at me over the top of it. ‘I’ve caught some disgusting disease from your human spawn and I’m giving it back to you, so help me god. Didn’t I tell you how much I hate being sick? Didn’t I tell you I was going to catch some lurgy from that gross little pukebag?’
‘You did.’ I smiled. ‘You did.’
‘And where’s my goddamn cake?’ she asked, blowing her nose loudly. Her exposed arms and upper chest were covered in fresh, neat stitches over the wounds she had suffered from Joanna Fischer. ‘I found Richie Farrow. Me. So you owe me a cake. Raspberry cream sponge.’
‘With hand-tempered chocolate shavings,’ I said, jerking a thumb towards the kitchen. ‘I made it this afternoon. It’s in there.’
‘It better be.’ She stood. ‘I’ll be back in a minute after I’ve licked all your cutlery and blown my nose on your pillows.’
Amanda went and cut herself a slice of the cake, returning to my side with two corners of the handkerchief stuffed up her nose. She sat down with a fork and started shovelling the cake into her mouth, having not brought me a slice or asked if I wanted one. I watched her, feeling a smile creep onto my face, while she smacked and licked her lips.
‘I can’t even taste this,’ she said, her words muffled by sponge. ‘Look at that cream. That raspberry cream. You’re a great cook, Ted. If that was the stupid girlfriend I saw just now marching out on you, well, she’s nuts, mate. This is probably the best cake ever. But I’ve gotta tell you, I can’t taste it at all. I’m not sure it counts as your case-loser cake.’
‘I’ll make you another one. You can have it when you’re better,’ I said, patting her shoulder.
Amanda looked at me, shovelling another bite of sponge into her mouth.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she said.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have my dream job. I visit serial killers and murder sites, talk to huge audiences, hang out with my hero authors and travel to the far corners of the Earth in pursuit of new readers. Half my life is spent having adventures with wonderful people who don’t actually exist. I get to do all that largely because of four things – hard work, luck, the efforts of great teams of people who work behind the scenes, and the support of loving readers.
The list of people who have believed in me and helped me is growing, and the space on this page to thank them remains the same. But I learned my craft from the brilliant teachers and writers I have named in previous novels at the University of the Sunshine Coast, the University of Queensland and the University of Notre Dame, Sydney.
Gaby Naher is indescribably valuable to me as both an agent and a friend. She and Bev Cousins, Nikki Christer, Jessica Malpass and Kathryn Knight make up the original Team Fox Australia. Lisa Gallagher champions me in the US with limitless gusto, and in the UK Emily Griffin, Selina Walker, Susan Sandon and others do the same. Kristin Sevick, Linda Quinton, Brian Heller, Alexis Saarela, Robert Allen and their colleagues are my irreplaceable US team, and Thomas Wortche and his superb people take care of me in Germany.
Thanks to James Patterson and Adrian McKinty for always being willing to lend an ear to a fellow writer.
I’d like to thank the readers and reviewers who have been with me from the beginning, and if this is your first time taking a chance on me, I am very grateful to you, too. My husband, Tim, makes a mean coffee, reads all and reads fast, and doesn’t think I’m really that scary despite all my morbid weirdery. He’s a real brick.
Hades, Candice Fox’s first novel, won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut in 2014 from the Australian Crime Writers Association. The sequel, Eden, won the Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in 2015, making Candice only the second author to win these accolades back to back. Her third novel, Fall, was shortlisted for the 2016 Ned Kelly and Davitt awards. She is also the author of the bestselling Crimson Lake, which introduced readers to detective Ted Conkaffey, and the sequel, Redemption Point, both of which were shortlisted for Ned Kelly Awards.
In 2015 Candice began collaborating with James Patterson. Their first novel together, Never Never, set in the vast Australian Outback, was a huge bestseller in Australia and went straight to number one on the New York Times bestseller list in the US, and also to the top of the charts in the UK. They have published two sequels, Fifty Fifty and Liar Liar. They also co-wrote a prequel novella, Black & Blue, as part of the James Patterson BookShots series.
Books by Candice Fox
Hades
Eden
Fall
Crimson Lake
Redemption Point
Gone by Midnight
With James Patterson
Never Never
Fifty Fifty
Liar Liar
Black & Blue (BookShot novella)
CRIMSON LAKE
Candice Fox
Six minutes.
That’s all it takes to ruin Detective Ted Conkaffey’s life. Accused but not convicted of abducting a tee
nage girl, he escapes north, to the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake.
Amanda Pharrell knows what it’s like to be public enemy number one. Maybe it’s her murderous past that makes her so good as a private investigator, tracking lost souls in the wilderness. Her latest target, missing author Jake Scully, has a life more shrouded in secrets than her own – so she enlists help from the one person in town more hated than she is: Ted Conkaffey.
But the residents of Crimson Lake are watching the pair’s every move. And for Ted, a man already at breaking point, this town is offering no place to hide …
‘One of the best crime thrillers of the year’
LEE CHILD
‘In her willingness to go to the dark side and turn it upside down, Fox is a daring antipodean original’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
REDEMPTION POINT
Candice Fox
When former police detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of abducting thirteen-year-old Claire Bingley, he hoped the Queensland rainforest town of Crimson Lake would be a good place to disappear. But nowhere is safe from Claire’s devastated father.
Dale Bingley has a brutal revenge plan all worked out – and if Ted doesn’t help find the real abductor, he’ll be its first casualty.
Meanwhile, in a dark roadside hovel called the Barking Frog Inn, the bodies of two young bartenders lie on the beer-sodden floor. It’s Detective Inspector Pip Sweeney’s first homicide investigation – complicated by the arrival of private detective Amanda Pharrell to ‘assist’ on the case. Amanda’s conviction for murder a decade ago has left her with some odd behavioural traits, top-to-toe tatts – and a keen eye for killers.
For Ted and Amanda, the hunt for the truth will draw them into a violent dance with evil. Redemption is certainly on the cards – but it may well cost them their lives …
‘If you like great thrillers, you’ll love Candice Fox’
LEE CHILD
HADES
Candice Fox
Winner of the Ned Kelly Award 2014 for Best Debut Crime Novel
Homicide detective Frank Bennett feels like the luckiest man on the force when he meets his new partner, the dark and beautiful Eden Archer.
But there’s something strange about Eden and her brother. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.
At first, as they race to catch a very different kind of serial killer, his partner’s sharp instincts come in handy. But soon Frank’s wondering if she’s as dangerous as the man they hunt.
‘Definitely a writer to watch’
HARLAN COBEN
‘One of the stand-out crime thrillers of the past few years’
THE CHRONICLE
‘Fox has hit gold … a name to be reckoned with’
PRIMO LIFE
EDEN
Candice Fox
Winner of the Ned Kelly Award 2015 for Best Crime Novel
Most police duos run on trust, loyalty and the desire to see killers in court. But Detective Frank Bennett’s partner, the enigmatic Eden Archer, has nothing to offer him but darkness and danger.
Eden doesn’t mind catching killers – but it’s not in the courthouse where her justice is served.
Now she is about to head undercover and it’s up to Frank to watch over her.
But as the darkness around Eden gathers, Frank begins to ask himself: is Eden saving lives, or taking them?
‘Hades announced an important new voice in crime fiction … Eden is equally breathtaking’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘Fox again grabs her reader by the throat from the get-go and does not relinquish her grip … Gripping, confronting and powerful’
WESTERN ADVOCATE
‘A sizzling page-turner’
DAILY TELEGRAPH
FALL
Candice Fox
Shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award 2016 for Best Crime Novel
If Detective Frank Bennett tries hard enough, he can sometimes forget that Eden Archer, his partner in the Homicide Department, is also a moonlighting serial killer …
Thankfully their latest case is proving a good distraction. For on the city’s rain-soaked running tracks, a predator is lurking.
Meanwhile Frank’s new girlfriend Imogen is determined to solve the disappearance of the two young Tanner children over twenty years earlier. But the trail is leading to Eden’s door.
And asking too many questions about Eden Archer can get you buried as deep as her past …
‘Fox has taken crime fiction by the scruff of the neck in recent years’
WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
‘Tough and thrilling, this will keep you reading well into the night’
SUNDAY CANBERRA TIMES
NEVER NEVER
James Patterson and Candice Fox
The New York Times #1 bestseller!
Detective Harriet Blue needs to get out of town, fast.
With her brother under arrest for a series of brutal murders in Sydney, Harry’s chief wants the hot-headed detective kept far from the press. So he assigns her a deadly new case – in the middle of the Outback.
Deep in the Western Australian desert, three young people have disappeared from the Bandya Mine. And it’s Harry’s job to track them down.
But, still reeling from events back home, and with a secretive new partner at her side, Harry’s not sure who she can trust anymore.
And, in this unforgiving land, she has no idea how close she is to a whole new kind of danger …
‘A bright new star of crime fiction – Candice Fox’s writing is inventive, thrilling and totally addictive. It has been such a pleasure to work with her on Never Never’
JAMES PATTERSON
FIFTY FIFTY
James Patterson and Candice Fox
The stunning sequel to Never Never
It’s not easy being a good detective when your brother’s a serial killer.
Sam Blue stands accused of the brutal murders of three young students, their bodies dumped near the Georges River. Only one person believes he is innocent: his sister, Detective Harriet Blue. And she’s determined to prove it.
Except she’s now been banished to the Outback town of Last Chance Valley (population 75), where a diary found on the roadside outlines a shocking plan – the massacre of the entire town. And the first death, shortly after Harry’s arrival, suggests the clock is already ticking.
Meanwhile, back in Sydney, a young woman holds the key to crack Sam’s case wide open.
If only she could escape the madman holding her hostage …
LIAR LIAR
James Patterson and Candice Fox
Revenge is coming, and her name is Harriet Blue …
Detective Harriet Blue is clear about two things. Regan Banks deserves to die. And she’ll be the one to pull the trigger.
But Regan – the vicious serial killer responsible for destroying her brother’s life – has gone to ground.
Suddenly, her phone rings. It’s him. Regan.
‘Catch me if you can,’ he tells her.
Harriet needs to find this killing machine fast, even if the cost is her own life. So she follows him down the Australian south coast with only one thing on her mind.
A Bantam book
Published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
penguin.com.au
First published by Bantam in 2019
Copyright © Candice Fox 2019
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, published, performed in public or communicated to the public in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd or its authorised licensees.
Addresses for the Penguin Random House group of companies can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
ISBN 9780143789161
Cover photograph by Philippe Sainte-
Laudy Photography
Cover design by www.blacksheep-uk.com
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