FOX FIVE: a Charlie Fox short story collection

by Zoe Sharp

  'Charlotte (Charlie) Fox is one of the most vivid and engaging heroines ever to swagger onto the pages of a book. Where Charlie goes, thrills follow.’ Tess Gerritsen

  KILLER INSTINCT

  Charlie Fox book one

  excerpt

  Chapter Nine

  I was on the stairs down to the lower dance floor when I first heard the screaming. I took a moment to focus on the direction, then started sprinting.

  I took the last three stair treads in one stride and tunnelled through the press of bodies on the floor itself. Once I got closer I didn't need to ask exactly where the problem was. The way everyone was scrambling out of the way told me the answer to that one. The more hurriedly they were moving, the closer I was getting to the epicentre.

  Finally, I broke through the edge of the dispersing crowd and found the tableau.

  There were three players. The girl was doing the screaming, the action revealing her pierced tongue. She was dark-haired and rather plump, in a skirt too short and a lycra top cut too low.

  On the face of it, she was an unlikely inspiration for a jealous rage, but from the look of the battle going on around her, she was certainly the prize. She didn't look like an athlete, either, but there was nothing wrong with her lung capacity.

  The lad I immediately pegged as the prospective boyfriend was on his hands and knees at her feet, dripping blood from his lacerated cheek onto Marc's polished flooring. The other – clearly the rejected suitor – was still standing, a few feet away.

  He was rigid with fury, breathing fast through his nostrils like a hard-run racehorse. He still had the neck of the broken bottle clenched in his hand.

  I thumbed the transmit on my walkie-talkie. 'Len, it's Charlie,' I said. 'Lower dance floor. There's a nasty one going on down here. I need some help. Now!'

  The girl carried on screaming, at that high, intensely irritating frequency of small babies and hotel fire alarms. The boy with the bottle was momentarily distracted. As though he couldn't decide if his best next move was to continue the fight with the prospect, or hit the girl just to shut her up. He shook his head suddenly, as if to clear it.

  While he was diverted, I took a deep breath, tried to centre myself, and stepped into the fray. At least with the noise she'd been making, Len and the rest shouldn't have any trouble finding us.

  It was immediately clear that neither of the two lads really wanted any outside interference. The reject was desperate for the total humiliation of his rival. The prospect wanted the opportunity for revenge, served hot. It was like breaking up two fighting Pit Bulls. I was more likely to find them both turning on me than I was of stopping them ripping each other to shreds.

  'Come on now son, put that down and let's finish this the easy way,' I said.

  He twisted towards me, mad-eyed so the whites of them showed all round the irises. 'I'm not your fucking son,' he hissed. He brought the bottle up towards me, warning. The gleaming blood of his last victim still decorated its wicked edges. 'Stay out of it, bitch, or you'll get some, too.'

  He was dangerously hyped up for it to be drink, or simple jealousy. It was in his voice, his eyes. The way he held his body, jerkily stiff, uncoordinated. There was a sheen of sweat pearling on his face, but he was shivering. Great! Where was bloody Len when I needed him?

  The prospective boyfriend had used the break in the reject's attention to climb warily to his feet. I risked a glance at him. The bottle had been applied by someone who'd had practice. The thrust-and-screw technique had opened up the whole of the left-hand side of his face. The skin hung in ragged peels from the top corner of his lip to just below his eye. It was going to take a micro-surgeon with a special interest in jig-saw puzzles to piece him back together again so he looked anything like the picture on the box.

  I flicked my eyes towards the girl. She'd stopped screaming by now, shoving both hands over her own mouth and gagging as though about to be sick. I turned back to the boy with the ruined face. I hoped whatever she'd been offering him had been worth it.

  I didn't like the look in his eyes. He didn't need to touch a hand to his face to know what had been done to him. The evidence was splashing down the front of his shirt in a scarlet river.

  He started to swear then. Softly at first, but growing in profanity and volume as he launched himself at his attacker, oblivious to the dangers of the slashing bottle.

  I couldn't let them come together again. I knew that. I took the prospect first, sweeping his legs out from under him to send him crashing. I only just managed to jump back out of reach of the reject as he sliced the bottle at me, aiming for my stomach.

  I caught him a fast blow to the face as I dodged away, bloodied his nose. There was no real weight to it, but a remarkable amount of nerve-endings meet in the nose. It should have been enough to put him down, should have slowed him down at any rate, but he was feeling no pain. He shook it off like a light tap and kept coming, weapon lifted now, like a dagger.

  Christ! Now would be a good time, Len . . .

  I swallowed hard. I was going to have to hurt him to stop him. My mind shied away from it, but the facts didn't change. I dithered and nearly lost it altogether.

  I hadn't heard the prospective boyfriend get back on his feet until he grabbed me round the neck from behind. The rejected one was still coming, but now I was almost immobile and a much easier target.

  I switched off my conscious mind and put a muzzle on my conscience. I needed fast, clinical action. The outlines of all the techniques I'd ever learned unrolled behind my eyes like computer graphics, clear and precise. There was no room for hesitation here. No time for compassion either.

  I shifted my hips sideways and used a clenched backfist to hit the boy holding me hard in the groin. I didn't need to deal with the arm round my throat then. It simply melted away.

  I shrugged him off as he crumpled backwards away from me, and moved forward to meet the charge of the crazy boy with the broken bottle held overhead. With deadly accuracy, he stabbed the glass down at my left eye. So directly that when I looked up I could see straight into the taper of the neck.

  I blocked him high with my forearm, grunting at the jarring impact. I weaved my right arm quickly up through his to meet it, clasping my hands together round his wrist.

  The movements were automatic, fluid, but I didn't want to do this! Oh I knew the moves, had nearly carried them to completion a hundred times, but I'd never had to take that final step. It was crossing the line. It was too far.

  I looked up to see the stump of the bottle again, inches from my face. It was quivering from the sheer effort he was putting into trying to drive it downwards towards me. Into me. Oh shit . . .

  Leverage is everything. They reckon it takes just eight pounds of pressure to break almost any bone in the human body. I must have applied quite a bit more than that now. I shut out the last lingering doubts and heaved, sideways and down.

  The boy's shoulder dislocated with an ease that was mildly surprising. It made a soggy popping sound, like a spoon being pulled out of a bowl of set jelly.

  I put my shoulder out once, falling off a horse when I was a kid. The pain is indescribable. You can't escape from it, can't move anywhere to make it hurt any less. It focuses you utterly and you'll do anything to make it stop.

  The boy dropped slowly to his knees, the wild light in his eyes dulling as the biting pain of his injury finally took the edge off whatever was floating him. He let the bottle fall to the floor. I kicked it away.

  There was the thump of heavy footsteps and I turned to see Len and Angelo had, at long last, deigned to put in an appearance. They skidded to a halt and took in the scene. One boy writhing on the floor, a trail of slimy vomit now mixing with the blood from his face.

  The other was still on his knees, whimpering, his torso deformed into an unnatural shrug. Len stared between them, open-mouthed. Angelo just regarded me with those calculating eyes.

  'What fucking kept you?' I demanded, stalking past them. I ignored L
en's shouted order that I stay put. He was in charge, wasn't he? Well let him sort the mess out, then!

  Behind me, the dark-haired girl had started screaming again.

  RIOT ACT

  Charlie Fox book two

  by Zoë Sharp

  “I am a violent man, Miss Fox,” Garton-Jones said, without bravado or inflection. “I can − and will − do whatever is necessary to control this estate. Remember that.”

  A self-defence expert with a motorbike and an attitude, Charlie Fox doesn't need to go looking for trouble. It generally finds her. House-sitting for a friend seems like an easy favour at first but the house in question is in the Lavender Gardens estate. Teenage gangs are running riot and Charlie's desperate neighbours have been forced to employ an expensive − and ruthless − security firm to apply rough justice where the legal kind has failed. The situation gets even uglier when a young Asian boy is fatally wounded in what appears to be a racially motivated shooting.

  Caught in the middle of an urban battlefield, Charlie's more than able to take care of herself but then she comes face to face with a spectre from her army past. As the tensions rise, lives will depend on Charlie working out just who she can really trust . . .

  ‘Sharp's first novel, Killer Instinct was a good read, but within the first few pages of Riot Act she surpasses herself. She succeeds in bringing the characters alive and Charlie Fox makes a powerful and attractive heroine. Equally, her other characters work well and she succeeds in creating snappy dialogue and mixing it well with action.

  'At times, Riot Act feels slightly reminiscent of Minette Walters' 'Acid Row'. . . (Sharp) takes her Lancashire setting, throws in a great deal of action and creates a fast-paced novel that is guaranteed to build on the reputation created by her debut novel and make her known as an up-and-coming talent in the crime world.' Luke Croll, Murder & Mayhem Book Club

  HARD KNOCKS

  Charlie Fox book three

  by Zoë Sharp

  'Perhaps if the army had known what was inside me, what I would eventually turn into, they might not have been so keen to let me go.'

  Charlie really didn't care who shot dead her traitorous ex-army comrade Kirk Salter during a bodyguard training course in Germany. But when old flame Sean Meyer asks her to go undercover at Major Gilby's elite school and find out what happened to Kirk she just can't bring herself to refuse.

  Keeping her nerve isn't easy when events bring back fears and memories she's worked so hard to forget. It's clear there are secrets at Einsbaden Manor that people are willing to kill to conceal. Some of the students on this particular course seem to have more on their minds than simply learning about close protection. Subjects like revenge, and murder. And what's the connection between the school and the recent spate of vicious kidnappings that have left a trail of bodies halfway across Europe?

  To find out what's going on, Charlie must face up to her past and move quickly before she becomes the next casualty. She expected training to be tough, but can she graduate from this school of hard knocks alive?

  'If you only know Charlie Fox from First Drop, Second Shot, and Third Strike, you don't know Charlie. What you've got in your hands is a rare and special treat. It’s like finding some lost Jack Reacher novel or a couple of non-alphabet Kinsey Milhones that nobody knew existed. Don't let anyone tear it from your hands without drawing their blood.

  'These early Zoë Sharp books haven’t been a secret, but they've been harder-to-get than Charlie Fox in your bed. Think of these as the early years of Charlie Fox − she’s lethal and relentless, but still raw from the military experience that made her the kick-ass, take-no-prisoners bodyguard that she’s become.

  'But there’s more going on in these books than breakneck action and adventure. Charlie has heart, maybe too much for a woman in her profession . . . and it’s that caring, that humanity, that makes her much more than a killer babe on a motorbike. These books are your chance to discover Charlie Fox as she discovers herself, her strengths and her weaknesses, and sustains the scars to her body and soul that make her such a unique and compelling character.' US crime author and TV producer, Lee Goldberg

  FIRST DROP

  Charlie Fox book four

  by Zoë Sharp

  'The guy in the passenger seat was closest. He got out first, so I shot him first. Two rounds high in the chest.'

  It should have been an easy introduction to Charlie Fox's new career as a bodyguard. In fact, it should have been almost a working holiday. She just has to look after the gawky fifteen-year-old son of a rich computer programmer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Trey Pelzner is theme park mad and in theory all Charlie has to do is baby-sit him on the rollercoasters.

  The last thing anyone expected was a determined attempt to snatch the boy, or that Trey's father and their entire close-protection team − including Charlie's boss, Sean Meyer − would disappear off the face of the earth at the same time.

  Now somebody out there wants the boy badly and they're prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. Evading them, in a strange country, takes all the skill and courage Charlie possesses.

  As she soon discovers, once you've hit the first drop there's no going back, and you'd better hang on tight because you're in for a wild ride.

  Nominated for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel.

  ‘Sharp's aim is dead on in her stunning U.S. debut, the fourth book to star ultra-cool biker chick Charlie Fox. The no-nonsense, 26-year-old Charlie, a former British Army soldier (and survivor of a gruesome gang rape) has joined the protection agency of her ex-lover, Sean Meyer. On her first assignment, Charlie finds herself on a too thrilling roller-coaster ride in Florida, guarding geeky 15-year-old Trey Pelzner, son of Keith, a computer whiz working for a small software company specializing in accounting and data manipulation. After an attempt is made on Trey's life, Charlie calls for backup that turns out to be anything but and soon discovers that Keith − the developer of a faulty stock indicator program − has vanished, as has Sean. Action-packed, tightly plotted and with an irresistible first-person narration, this crisp, original thriller should win Sharp (Hard Knocks, etc.) plenty of American fans.’ Publishers Weekly starred review

  ROAD KILL

  Charlie Fox book five

  by Zoë Sharp

  “If you stay involved with Sean Meyer you will end up killing again,” my father said. “And next time, Charlotte, you might not get away with it.”

  Still bearing the emotional scars from her traumatic first bodyguarding job in the States, Charlie Fox returns to her former home to try and work out both her personal and professional future.

  Instead of the peace for which she's been hoping, Charlie is immediately caught up in the aftermath of a fatal bike crash involving one of her closest friends. The more she probes, the more she suspects that the accident was far from accidental − and the more she finds herself relying on the support of her troubled boss, Sean Meyer, despite her misgivings over the wisdom of resuming their relationship.

  And Charlie's got enough on her plate trying to work out who suddenly wants her dead. The only way to find out is to infiltrate a group of illegal road racers who appear hell-bent on living fast and dying young.

  Taking risks is something that ex-Special Forces soldier Charlie knows all about, but doing it just for kicks seems like asking for trouble. By the time she finds out what's really at stake, she might be too late to stop them all becoming road kill . . .

  ‘After the traumatic events that took place in First Drop, Charlie Fox is back in England to recuperate. But then an old friend is seriously injured after a motorbike accident (that kills the driver) and Charlie's lethal instincts kick in to find out what the real story is, and who the true target was. It's really quite impossible to put this book down, but what really makes this (and the whole series) shine is how Charlie's kickass skills are rooted in her own femininity and character. So why might this not be published in the US? "Too British." More like too bad if it proves to be the
case.’ Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

  SECOND SHOT

  Charlie Fox book six

  by Zoë Sharp

  'Take it from me, getting yourself shot hurts like hell.'

  When the latest assignment of ex-Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, ends in a bloody shoot-out in a frozen forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, she's left fighting for her life, with her client dead.