Fatal Liaison

by Vicki Tyley

  Nothing.

  He kept digging through the box, his fingers stopping short of the assorted driver licenses at the bottom of the box. Breathing hard, he fumbled in his pocket for his BlackBerry and switched it on. He glanced around. Megan was bent over the bottom drawer of the tallboy on the other side of the room, intent on what she was doing. With no time to waste and without a word to her, he called DS Dave Abraham.

  Oh God, be there. Answer, he silently pleaded, as the phone rang. The detective answered the phone on the fifth ring. Greg didn’t pause for breath, blurting out where he was and what he had found.

  “Leave everything. Get out,” Dave Abrahams ordered. “Now.”

  Greg hung up and turned around to see Megan standing white-faced next to the tallboy, clutching a bundle of what could only be assorted plastic cable ties. He felt physically sick, his feelings reflected in her face.

  Shoving the box file under his arm, he grabbed Megan’s hand and tugged. Her feet remained rooted to the floor, her unblinking eyes wide.

  He yanked harder. She might have been made of stone for all the good it did. “Megan!” He started to panic. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Not so fast,” said a male voice from behind him.

  Greg whirled, dropping Megan’s hand.

  Nick Poulus stood in the bedroom doorway, arms crossed, legs apart. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  As Greg edged in front of Megan, Nick’s gaze dropped to the box he was holding. His eyes narrowed and with a bellow of rage, he threw himself at Greg, winding him and knocking him to the floor. Lashing out with his foot, Nick’s boot grazed Greg’s head. Oblivious to the pain, Greg rolled and sprang back on his feet.

  Nick launched into another attack. Ducking to his left, Greg rammed his elbow into the other man’s flank then swung his fist. Bone cracked as the punch connected, the skin splitting open on Greg's knuckles. Nick staggered backwards, and Greg grabbed him, slamming him against the wardrobe. The mirror exploded.

  Pain sliced Greg’s face, one eye closing on a fragment of glass. His grip on Nick slackened. Taking advantage, Nick punched Greg’s chest with a force so violent Greg crashed backwards into the metal headboard.

  For an instant, everything went black. He blinked. Megan was on Nick’s back, stabbing at him with the screwdriver she’d used on the back door. Both screamed like Tasmanian devils. With one almighty roar, Nick bucked Megan from his back.

  Megan flew through the air, her head striking the doorframe with a resounding whack. She fell and didn’t get up, lying motionless with her head bent forward, a trickle of blood running down her cheek.

  Nick was grunting, almost twisting himself inside out in his efforts to remove the screwdriver jutting from his back. Then without warning, he charged straight for Greg, his teeth bared like a wild animal. Greg lunged sideways, narrowly avoiding Nick’s outstretched hands. Hurtling past, Nick smashed into the wall. He rebounded, falling backwards onto the screwdriver, driving it deeper into his bloodied back. Lying there, his mouth opened, but nothing came out. He looked unseeing at Greg before his face settled in a death mask and his limbs gave one final twitch.

  Greg rushed over to Megan, hearing the sound of approaching sirens as he sank down onto the floor beside her. “Oh God, Megan. Please don’t die…”

  EPILOGUE

  Leaning on the balcony railing, Megan swirled the glass of Shiraz in her hands, mesmerized by the resulting eddy. The wine clung to the sides of the glass. Red as blood.

  As much as she wanted to put it all behind her, she still had flashbacks to the day Nick Poulus died with a screwdriver in his back. The screwdriver she’d put there.

  She remembered jumping on his back, but then nothing until she woke up in a hospital bed. It wasn’t until much later that she learnt he hadn’t survived.

  In the ensuing days and weeks, the full story of Nick Poulus began to emerge, starting with the first woman who’d rejected him: his mother. Or so he’d believed. Further investigation into the Poulus family background revealed Nick’s mother had been admitted into palliative care, dying there only days later from the cancer that ravaged her body. But the 6-year-old Nick hadn’t known that. He’d only seen his mother leave and not come back.

  From all accounts, Nick had been a quiet boy, more practical than intellectual, but studious. After leaving school, he secured a plumbing apprenticeship and moved out of home, set on the life of a bachelor.

  That’s until he met Rebecca Wetherspoon, a woman who took his breath away. A woman who completed him. The one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Except as he discovered, Bec, like his mother, couldn’t be trusted. She was going to leave him. He couldn’t allow that. Not again.

  For a while, the grieving widower played his part and kept to himself. That’s until the night a waitress from the local pub flirted with him, making promises with her eyes. Her eyes lied. She’d laughed in his face.

  He’d thought TAFE student Tina Barrett would be different. The way she smiled at him. The way his body reacted to her nearness. He knew she felt the same. That’s until he caressed her cheek with his fingertips and she’d recoiled.

  As far as he was concerned, the whores got what they asked for. And some.

  For almost two years after that, he avoided women, refusing to meet even the most casual of feminine glances. Then the flyer for Dinner for Twelve dropped into his mailbox. What was a man to do?

  Greg’s sister, Sam, had been an obvious match. Vivacious, warm, trusting. More like his Bec than the others. He wanted her to be the one to make him whole again. They were meant to be together. Why hadn’t she been able to understand that?

  Linda Nichols was nothing to him. Her death simply satisfied a hunger and deflected suspicion away from him onto someone else, the opportunity presenting itself when his victim and his unwitting patsy hailed the taxi that night outside the bar.

  Brenda had been right about Lawson Green. Skewed as his motives were, abducting her and keeping her locked away, had saved her from the hands of a killer. Though it was Pauline Meyer he’d been protecting her from, not Nick Poulus.

  Lawson had suspected Pauline of being behind the murders of Sam and Linda. Too nervous to approach the authorities, he had instead removed Brenda from what he perceived was the threat: a woman obsessed with keeping her surrogate son from the clutches of immoral women.

  But then Lawson, buckling under the stress, had neglected to take the daily medication needed to keep his bipolar disorder in check. The resulting delusions almost cost Brenda her life.

  Lawson was in the best place for him. He was receiving the treatment and help that he needed. But somehow, Megan doubted he would ever be declared fit to stand trial for Brenda’s abduction. Brenda might’ve nearly died, but if Lawson hadn’t kidnapped her, would she have become yet another of Nick Poulus’s victims? Lawson had indeed been Brenda’s savior.

  Megan lifted the glass of wine to her nose, savoring the aroma as she thought about how close she came to losing her best friend.

  Some days it felt to Megan like it had all happened a lifetime ago and others it felt so raw that it was as if it had only been yesterday. But life did go on. That morning she had received two cards. One had been a postcard from Brenda who was having the time of her life trekking in the Himalayas. The other was an invitation to the wedding of Joe Renmark and Cindy Yellen, the blonde who had been hanging out of his car.

  Megan turned her head as she heard the sliding glass doors behind her open.

  “Sorry about that,” Greg said, rescuing his glass of wine from the railing. “It was Mum to say she’s found the house of her dreams. I promised we would look at it tomorrow with her.” He slid his arm around her waist. “Now, where were we?” he asked, his lips pursed in an exaggerated pucker.

  Megan laughed, the weight of the last few months lifting. They couldn’t rewrite the past, but the future lay ahead of them like a blank page.

  ***

  Thank y
ou for reading Fatal Liaison. I love to hear from my readers: vickityley@gmail.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Based in rural Victoria, Australia, Vicki Tyley writes fast-paced mystery and suspense novels in contemporary Australian settings. More information about Vicki and her books can be found at: www.vickityley.com

  OTHER BOOKS BY VICKI TYLEY

  THIN BLOOD

  Craig Edmonds, a successful stockbroker, reports the disappearance of his wife, Kirsty. What starts as a typical missing person's case soon evolves into a full-blown homicide investigation when forensics uncover blood traces and dark-blonde hairs in the boot of the missing woman's car. Added to this, is Craig's adulterous affair with the victim's younger sister, Narelle Croswell, compounded further by a recently acquired $1,000,000 insurance policy on his wife's life. He is charged with murder but, with no body and only circumstantial evidence, he walks free when two trials resulting in hung juries fail to convict him.

  Ten years later, Jacinta Deller, a newspaper journalist is retrenched. Working on a freelance story about missing persons, she comes across the all but forgotten Edmonds case. When she discovers her boyfriend, Brett Rhodes, works with Narelle Croswell, who is not only the victim's sister but is now married to the prime suspect, her sister's husband, she thinks she has found the perfect angle for her article. Instead, her life is turned upside down, as befriending the woman, she becomes embroiled in a warped game of delusion and murder.

  PROLOGUE

  Craig Edmonds stared at hands sticky with darkening blood.

  His hands.

  He held them away from his body and looked down at his chest in horror. Large, dirty-red blotches marred the once pristine white shirt. Forgetting the blood on his hands, he tore at the buttons, ripping the shirt open.

  Breathing in short, sharp gasps, he frantically examined his torso, looking for the wound. No cuts. No injuries. No holes where there shouldn’t be any. His chest heaved in relief. He wasn’t dying, after all.

  But then, mid-sigh, it struck him: if it wasn’t his blood, whose was it? His head whipped around, his eyes scanning the room like radar on overdrive.

  Even in the half-light, he quickly saw all was not as it should be. The glass shade from one of the bedside lamps lay in shattered fragments on the floor. The curtain rail over the bedroom’s bay window hung at a precarious angle. Usually a black-and-white photo of a nude, tattooed woman hung above the bed; now the frame lay in pieces in the doorway.

  He focused on the queen-sized bed. His stomach clenched as he took in the twisted and dishevelled bedclothes. Instinctively, he knew the dark patches on the sheets weren’t shadows that would disappear once the curtains were opened.

  He swallowed, the acrid morning-after taste of whisky harsh in his parched mouth.

  “Kirsty?” he croaked. Clearing his throat, he called again, hesitant but louder.

  In the crushing silence, time stood still.

  “Kirsty!” he screamed, as he dashed into the master bedroom’s compact, white-tiled en suite. He stumbled, clutching at the doorframe. He took in the bloodied handprints adorning the vanity unit and walls like some sort of macabre finger-painting. Fighting an intense wave of nausea, he looked down at the blood-smeared floor.

  Trying desperately to rein in his growing panic, he raced to the main bathroom. His wife wasn’t there either. Next room.

  Out of breath, heart hammering, he reached the internal door that led to the double garage and opened it. The external roller door was down and his red Alfa Romeo and Kirsty’s silver Lexus were parked next to each other.

  Gripping the door handle, he sagged against the door. He took a deep breath. Fought for control of his adrenaline-charged body. He lurched into the kitchen, heading for the sink.

  Hands shaking violently, he somehow managed to turn on the cold water tap. He watched, mesmerized, as the blood from his hands, diluted by water, swirled in a pink eddy in the bottom of the sink before disappearing down the plughole.

  Oblivious to the water dripping from his hands, he dropped onto the pine storage-box-cum-bench beneath the window at the end of the kitchen. Elbows on knees, he dropped his forehead into his hands. If only the infernal pounding would let up, he could think straight.

  His memory of the previous evening was patchy, to say the least. He had a vague recollection of arriving home stressed after a late-night meeting at the office and, bypassing the dried-out dinner Kirsty had kept warm for him, heading for the bottle of Chivas Regal. After that, it was anyone’s guess as to what had happened.

  A series of short clips flashed through his mind. In one, he saw himself shouting at Kirsty, her throwing up her hands and yelling back. What had they been arguing about? In another, he was picking up his car keys, and…

  Damn it! Why can’t I remember? he thought, glancing towards the door leading into the garage. It was then he saw the set of four smudged, rust-brown streaks low on the doorframe. He closed his eyes, praying for the nightmare to end.

  Except he had a feeling the nightmare was only beginning…

  SLEIGHT MALICE

  SLEIGHT ~ use of dexterity or cunning, especially so as to deceive.

  MALICE ~ the intention or desire to do evil; ill will.

  One cold Melbourne winter's night a suburban bungalow goes up in flames. Despite their best efforts, firefighters are unable to save the home. When a badly charred body is discovered in the remains, web designer Desley James is devastated. Her best friend, Laura Noble, had been the only one in the house that night – her partner, Ryan Moore, is away in Sydney on business. Then Desley learns the unidentified body is male. But it's not Ryan. He and Laura have disappeared…

  Not realising until it's almost too late what some people will do to cover their tracks, Desley teams up with private investigator Fergus Coleman to search for the missing couple.

  “In perfect Vicki Tyley fashion, ‘Sleight Malice’ entertains and stuns its readers.” – Lit Fest Magazine

  CHAPTER 1

  Rough hands grabbed her. Clamped across her waist, his powerful arm squeezed the breath from her lungs. He hauled her backwards, her thrashing arms and legs no more an inconvenience to him than if she had been a pinned fly.

  She coughed, her eyes watering as the hot, acrid air seared the inside of her throat. With both hands, she tried in desperation to prize the immovable weight from her stomach. “Let me go! Get…”

  Her chest convulsed against the heavy, grit-laden smoke. The man’s hold on her eased. She seized her chance and wrenched herself from his grip. She stumbled forward, shielding her face with her arms, but the fire’s intensity drove her back.

  Back into the arms of the firefighter.

  “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t go in there!” shouted the hulking black and yellow protective-clad figure. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

  Desley James scarcely heard him over the din of the fire trucks, pumps and roar of the blaze. Her only concern was for Laura. Where was she? Had she been at home? Had she escaped the inferno? What about Ryan?

  She opened her mouth to speak, inhaling a mouthful of burnt air instead. Spluttering, she bent her head forward and drew the thin cotton T-shirt she wore over her mouth and nose.

  “Have you got everyone out?”

  The firefighter leaned down, his ear almost touching her face. “Sorry, what was that?”

  She repeated her question, watching his face as her words, muffled by the fine weave of her makeshift filter, sunk in. He averted his gaze, but not before she had her answer.

  “Oh dear God, no. Please tell me it isn’t true. It’s not possible,” she added in a whisper only audible to herself.

  This time when he lifted her off her feet she didn’t resist; all the fight had left her. A female police officer joined them, draping a blanket around Desley’s shoulders as the firefighter set her down beside the open back door of a police car.

  She shivered, pulling the blanket in tighter as she sunk onto the backseat, t
he wool fibers bristly against her hot skin. The vehicle’s interior light cast a ghostly pall over the two faces staring down at her.

  BRITTLE SHADOWS

  When soon-to-be-wed Tanya Clark is confronted with her fiancé's naked corpse hanging from a wardrobe rail in the upmarket Melbourne apartment they share, her life is torn apart. Two months later, distraught and unable to cope, she drowns her sorrows in a lethal cocktail of alcohol and prescription drugs.

  On the other side of Australia, a grieving Jemma Dalton struggles to come to terms with the suicide of her only sibling. Despite there being no evidence to the contrary, Jemma refuses to accept Tanya had intended to kill herself. Not her sister. Then the coroner's report reveals that at the time of her death she had been six weeks pregnant. The will, too, raises more questions than it answers. How did a young woman on a personal assistant's wage amass shares worth in excess of $1,000,000?

  In a desperate bid to uncover the truth, Jemma puts her own life at risk and starts to probe the shadows of her sister's life. But shadows, like bones, grow brittle with age. The consequences can be deadly.

  PROLOGUE

  One foot inside the apartment, the smell hit her. Sour, like cat pee. Except they didn’t own a cat.

  “Sean?” she called, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat. “Sean, honey, are you home?” Louder this time.

  Not a sound. Only that putrid smell.

  She dumped her heavy satchel on the floor, kicked the door closed, and surveyed the room.

  The late afternoon sun streamed through the balcony-facing floor-to-ceiling windows. Long shadows from the life-sized, headless bronze nudes standing sentry sliced the living area. The Age newspaper lay open at the business section in the middle of the narrow glass-topped dining table, Sean’s mobile phone next to it. Apart from one of the eight chairs sitting askew from the table, she could have stepped into the pages of Home Beautiful.