by M A Comley
“What doesn’t bode well?…oh, never mind. There’s a team on the way. Funny how things can change and rise to the top of the urgent list when a DCI’s life is in peril.”
“How long? Any idea?” Lorne asked, pleased that things were at last looking up.
“Half an hour to an hour—they couldn’t be more specific than that,” Katy replied sullenly.
“If we have that long,” Tony grumbled.
“Don’t say that, Tony,” Lorne said, biting her bottom lip. “Do you think we should get in there without waiting for backup?”
Tony shrugged. “If I was in charge, that’s what I’d be doing. It’s Katy’s call, though.”
“Shit! Thanks, guys. Let me weigh up our options. Sean cries out in pain, and we’re expected to wait it out until the cavalry arrives. Or we charge the building, screw up big time, and face the wrath of our superiors. Jesus!”
“That’s the hand we’ve been dealt, Katy. I know what I would do if I were still a DI,” Lorne stated.
Katy glared at her. “I know full well what you would do, Lorne Warner—you’d rush the joint and suffer the consequences from the super later, wouldn’t you?”
Lorne grinned. “Yep. We have extra manpower, don’t forget, Katy. It’s your call, though.”
Tony sniggered, and Lorne jabbed her elbow in his ribs.
“Crap, crap, crap. Okay, Tony, I’m counting on you to guide us on this one, okay?”
“Go, Katy!” Lorne high-fived her partner and her husband.
“Let’s leave the celebrations until the mission has been completed, shall we? So, Tony, it’s over to you.”
Before Tony could open his mouth to speak, another man’s scream rang out from the house.
“Jesus, we better get in there ASAP. Are you girls up for the fight? Can we search around for possible weapons? We can’t go in empty-handed. There’s no telling what we’ll be confronted with when we get in there.”
They picked out several gardening tools they found around the barn: a hoe, a rake, anything with a long handle able to swipe and disarm an attacker.
“Hey, I’ve found this. Any good?” Lorne pointed at the weed-killing sprayer in the corner.
“Is there any weed-killer solution with it?” Tony asked.
Katy opened the lids to a few nearby boxes. “I think I’ve found it. All we need now is water.”
Lorne ran out of the barn and returned carrying a bucket of water. “There was a water butt outside. I noticed it on the way in. Looks like we’re in business. If we spray it in folk’s eyes, it’ll buy us some time to search for Sean when we’re inside.”
Tony filled the container with the weed killer and topped it up with water from the bucket. “Great idea. I’ll dilute the solution a little—I’d hate to cause any permanent damage. It is women we’re dealing with here, after all. Are we ready, ladies? Lorne, do you want to go first with the spray?”
Lorne shook her head at her husband’s underestimating the power of a woman in this situation. She’d met several determined and evil female suspects over the years who could show their male counterparts a thing or two, but they didn’t have time for a gender war of words—Sean’s life was in danger. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Shall we go through the back door, if it’s open, that is?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Tony said.
They ran across the yard, not bothering to conceal their presence. Reaching the back door, Tony turned the handle and pulled a surprised face when he found it unlocked.
“I think they’re expecting us.” He pushed open the door, and Lorne ran into an antiquated kitchen.
A woman screamed out and ran at them. Lorne aimed the solution at the woman’s face. She took a direct hit and crumpled to the floor, screaming, “You’ve blinded me!”
Lorne, Katy, and Tony bolted past her and headed for the cellar. A strange noise originated from the depths of the house.
“It sounds like someone chanting,” Katy said from the rear.
Tony yanked open the door. Again, Lorne was ready to use the solution, but the stairwell was clear. Gingerly, they walked down the steps. The chanting grew louder the nearer they got to the bottom.
Tony pointed at a door where the voices seemed to be coming from. “The coast appears to be clear. We need to get in there.”
“How? We’re going to have to barge in, catch them unawares…” Katy began before a woman’s scream sounded at the top of the stairs.
“Intruders. Help me. We’ve got intruders!”
The door flew open, and the two detectives and Tony sprinted towards it without consulting each other. Tony struggled to fend off the woman coming at him with an axe raised above her head. Lorne reacted swiftly and squirted the woman’s eyes. The advancing woman dropped her weapon and screamed in agony, scratching at her eyes.
Tony, Lorne, and Katy ran through the open doorway and stopped dead in their tracks at the image before them. Lying on a stone altar was an unconscious naked man. A group of women wearing black cloaks surrounded him, each staring at the intruders.
The leader grabbed something off the table behind her, raised it above her head, and angled it over the man. It was a long-bladed knife. “Come any closer, and he gets it.”
Lorne exchanged a questioning look with Katy and Tony, asking what to do next. While they were deciding, a confrontation kicked off between two of the women in the room, and one of them threw herself over the man’s body.
“I won’t let you sacrifice him. Jordan, I love you. Please forgive me.”
The leader tugged at the woman shielding the man. “Get off him, Dara. He needs to die for what he’s done to you. Let me do this—you won’t regret it.”
“You’ll have to kill us both then. I’m not moving. Won’t you girls help me? She’s lost her mind. She’s trying to control all of us, making us do things against our will. I won’t let her get away with this.”
While the leader was distracted, bent on venting her anger on the woman and the man on the altar, Lorne, Katy and Tony charged at her without thinking of their own safety. She swung the blade in their direction. Tony grabbed the woman around the neck, subjecting her to a sleeper hold. The woman went limp in his arms.
“All right, ladies. Your little game is over.”
Boots thundered down the steps of the cellar, and a bunch of shouting, armed men entered the room, instructing everyone to get down on the floor.
“Cuff them all,” the leader of the Armed Response Team shouted.
Lorne and Katy quickly produced their IDs and claimed Tony as their associate. The man in charge identified himself and asked if anyone was hurt.
“No, we’re fine. Somewhere around here, we believe they’re holding a group of men,” Tony told him.
Lorne knelt next to one of the women on the floor. “The men, where are they?”
The woman said nothing, but her eyes drifted off to the left.
Lorne and Katy barged through the door to the adjacent room. They travelled down the length of a line of men towards Sean Roberts.
“Help us, please?” several of the petrified men shouted as they ran past.
“You’re safe now. Bear with us,” Katy told them.
Lorne swept up a cloth sack as she passed and threw it over Sean’s private area as she approached him. Bending down, she gently touched his face while searching for a pulse at his neck with her other hand. “Sean, Sean, can you hear me?” Feeling a faint pulse, she shook him and begged him to open his eyes. “His pulse is weak, Katy, call an ambulance.”
EPILOGUE
A few days later, Lorne decided everyone could do with cheering up, so she invited all of those involved in the latest case they’d cracked to attend a barbecue at the rescue centre.
As Lorne carried the steaks out to Tony, a very eager Carol joined her, keen to hear what had happened to the woman she’d had a bad feeling about. “Don’t keep me in suspense any longer, Lorne, please?”
She shrugged.
“It’s not intentional, Carol. I really don’t have much to tell. The woman is pleading insanity. She’s undergoing tests at present to see if she’s well enough to go to court to face charges of abducting and torturing the men.”
“Wow, really?” Carol leaned in and whispered, “She’s cute, that one, far from insane.”
“Yeah, that much I’ve worked out already. She’ll slip up during the examination. I have no doubts about that—people always do when falsely waving the insanity card to hide their true motivations for carrying out heinous crimes such as this.”
“Has she given any clues at all as to why she did it?” Carol asked, setting a salad bowl on the table next to the plates and glasses.
“Nope, although the other women were quick to apportion the blame in her ex-husband’s direction. Apparently, he traded her in for a younger model, and instead of accepting his decision and moving on with her life, she vowed to get revenge when the opportunity arose.”
“I take it one of the abducted men was her husband then?”
“Nope, don’t you find that bizarre?” Lorne handed the steaks to Tony. Her husband grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him for a kiss.
“Get a room, you two,” Charlie shouted from the paddock.
“That is kind of perplexing,” Carol replied thoughtfully.
“Maybe she was practicing, perfecting her skills to cause her ex maximum damage when she finally confronted him,” Tony suggested. He pressed each steak in turn with the tongs so the juice ran out and made the flames leap up to sear the meat.
Lorne nodded. “I hadn’t really thought of that, love. You could be right.”
“Anyway, I’m glad it all turned out well in the end. How is Sean now?” Carol asked.
“Nothing really hurt, except his male pride. That’ll teach him to try and wind Katy up and vacate his desk in search of some real police action, won’t it?” Lorne laughed, knowing she wasn’t saying anything that she wouldn’t say to her boss’s face.
Katy and AJ joined the group, holding hands.
Lorne slung an arm around Katy’s shoulder and pecked her rosy cheek. “I’m glad you two have decided to come out in the open. Any idea what’s going to happen about work?”
The couple smiled adoringly at each other and shook their heads. Katy tried to explain the situation the best she could. “I’ve discussed the matter with Roberts, and he seems to think AJ can continue working with the team until a vacancy in a different department crops up. Of course, that could take months yet, so Roberts advised us to keep a low profile at work. You know, not to tout it around just in case anyone higher up the ladder witnesses anything untoward and makes a formal complaint about us.”
“He has a point, I guess. Is Sean coming today? He was undecided whether or not he’d make it out of hospital in time the last I spoke to him,” Lorne said.
“He said he was coming. There he is now, looking rather sheepish, if you ask me. His wife seems nice, far prettier than I thought she’d be.”
“Katy! Leave her alone. She’s never done you any harm,” Lorne smiled and took off to welcome Sean and his wife to the gathering. “Glad you could make it. Where’s the baby?”
“Typical copper,” Sean complained, “asking questions before dishing out the drinks. If you must know, little Sara is at home with the mother-in-law.”
“Never mind. Glad you could both join us. How are you feeling now, Sean?”
“I’ll be back to work on Monday, as the doc suggested. Don’t tell me you’ve missed me, Lorne? That’d be a first.”
Lorne winked at his wife. “I’ve been busy setting up a torture room at the station. We women coppers have obviously been getting it wrong all these years. We could learn a thing or two from the witches. It’s one way of keeping you men in line anyway.”
“Dinner up, come and get it,” Tony shouted in the nick of time.
“Saved by the bell again. Aren’t I the lucky one?” Sean replied with a smile laced with sarcasm.
Lorne looked over at her husband and smiled. “I’ll be there in a mo…”
The crowd quietened down, then the air filled with oohs and aahs when Charlie and Carol approached the group with Onyx. The boxer strode confidently alongside Charlie and glanced back at the pups running to keep up with her.
Lorne whistled. “Nice outfit.”
“Do you think so?” Carol said, puffing out her chest and fiddling with the colourful quilted coat covering Onyx’s improving but still badly conditioned skin.
“Yep, very stylish. I can see she’s going to be a very spoilt little doggy when she finally ends up living with you, Carol.”
“There was never any doubt, was there? Now all we have to do is decide what we’re going to do with her offspring.”
“No. I forbid you having them,” Lorne chastised her friend good-naturedly. She had a feeling her words would fall on deaf ears.
Carol bent down to pet the dog that was now wagging her tail freely. Then the dog lifted her ear. “We’ll have to see about that. Won’t we, dear?”
The crowd laughed, and Lorne shook her head. “She’s impossible, isn’t she?” She let out a satisfied sigh, knowing that Onyx and her pups were going to the best home possible.
NOTE TO THE READER
Thank you for reading Tortured Justice; I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this novel as much as I loved writing it.
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TORTURED JUSTICE
M A Comley
Published by M A Comley
Copyright © 2014 M A Comley
Digital Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit your preferred ebook site and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
CRUEL JUSTICE (Justice #1)
#1 Best-selling novel in two categories, Police procedurals and Women sleuths in both US and UK and Amazon top 20 novel in 2013.
The headless body of a wealthy widow is discovered decomposing in Chelling Forest. Then a second victim is found. Detective Inspector Lorne Simpkins and her partner, DS Pete Childs are assigned the case. Before they can discover the identity of the killer they must make a connection between the two victims.
After a third murder, Lorne receives a grisly surprise. Clearly, a vicious serial killer is on a rampage…and Lorne has become the killer’s fixation.
Lorne can’t allow her failing marriage or her new boss—a man with whom she shares a sensuous secret—keep her from focusing on her job. She must catch the macabre murderer, or risk becoming the next victim.
Amazon US | Amazon UK
IMPEDING JUSTICE (Justice #2)
For eight long years, Detective Inspector Lorne Simpkins has tracked the vicious criminal known as The Unicorn. But the killer has frustrated MI6 at every turn and remained successful at Impeding Justice.
When Lorne is targeted in a trap that results in the death of her partner, the tragedy shakes her confidence to the core. Before she has time to recoup, her teenage daughter is kidnapped. More than Lorne’s professional reputation rests on her bringing The Unicorn to justice.
Amazon US | Amazon UK
FINAL JUSTICE (Justice #3)
A ruthless killer returns—an
d former DI Lorne Simpkins is forced to revisit her ugly past.
After suffering a breakdown and quitting the force, Lorne Simpkins finds herself embroiled in an MI6 covert operation to hunt down her old enemy, a sadistic and merciless criminal whose ambition is to become the world’s richest man.
Lorne tracks the madman through France, attempting to thwart his plans and bring her long-time nemesis to Final Justice.
Amazon US | Amazon UK
FOUL JUSTICE (Justice #4)
Detective Inspector Lorne Simpkins is back on the force. Before she can get comfortable with her new partner, newly-promoted DS Katy Foster, the two are assigned a tragic murder case that looks like a robbery gone wrong. However, when another wealthy footballer’s family meets the same deadly fate within twenty-four hours, it is clear the crimes involve something far more sinister.
Keeping her focus on unravelling the complex case isn’t easy for Lorne when she learns news that throws her personal life into a spin—her fiancé, M16 agent Tony Warner, is involved in a dangerous covert operation in Afghanistan.
But innocent people are dying on her patch, and someone must catch the killers. Lorne can’t allow this Foul Justice to prevail.
Amazon US | Amazon UK
GUARANTEED JUSTICE (Justice #5)
Retired DCI Lorne Simpkins thought she knew what she wanted when she started an animal rescue centre with her husband Tony. Although saving and retraining exploited dogs is fulfilling, Lorne can’t help but feel that something vital is missing from her life. Linda Carter is brutally raped and left for dead in an alley. By some miracle, she survives, but now she lives each day terrified by the perpetrator’s final threatening words—that her sister, Fiona, will be his next victim.
The sisters decide to adopt a guard dog and contact the rescue centre. During a home check to see if the girls and their flat are suited for a German Shepherd, Lorne witnesses Linda’s horrendous injuries. The young woman knows the identity of her rapist—wealthy, playboy Graham Gibson—however, the police haven’t made an arrest. The shocking story turns into a life-altering moment for Lorne. She decides to become a Private Investigator, and urges the girls to let her take up their case. Little does she know that more victims will come forward to accuse Gibson of rape.