Page 1 of Her Last Walk Home

PROLOGUE

VALENTINE’S NIGHT

If she could turn back time, she’d never have got into the car.Never accept lifts from strangers: the words had been imbedded into her brain as a child, but she was not a child now. Shehadaccepted the lift. She hadn’t realised she’d been in any danger. Who would, when a woman was driving? And there was a child seat in the back.

It had been after a date for drinks, but she’d felt uncomfortable in her date’s presence. Following just two gins, she’d scooted out the rear exit after excusing herself to go to the toilet. Why did he make her feel uncomfortable? she wondered. Probably because he was more interested in commenting on the other girls in the pub, and had thrown a few less-than-desirable comments her way.

Outside, the temperature had dropped. Icy air swirled about her. Of course she’d run out leaving her coat on the back of the chair and her phone, which had died, in the pocket, such was her haste to leave unnoticed. But she had her handbag containing her apartment keys and wallet. She’d slung the strap up over her shoulder, cross-body, and wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to ward off the rawness of the night.

The car had pulled up alongside her just when she’d been thinking of ducking in somewhere warm to restore the feeling in her limbs. The street lamps threw a dour hue downwards and she’d walked in that dim light without fear of threat. Gratefully, she’d accepted the kind offer from the woman, hardly registering the familiarity. What followed was so unexpected that she still could not get her mind to make sense of it. She’d ended up here, whereverherewas.

She eyed the woman walking around her in an ever-decreasing circle. Lying on the wooden floor, face up, she had a view of the blue denim jeans, the bare feet with nails painted crimson.

What was that noise? She closed her swollen eyelids, trying to figure it out. Nothing was forthcoming. On opening her eyes, she saw the woman clutching a knife as she moved. She wanted to cry out. It was impossible. Her mouth was bound with sticky tape wound around her head.

Water dripped from a tap somewhere. A door opened.

She was no longer alone with the woman and her knife. She could not see who entered, but she heard the woman gasp in annoyance. And then she heard a sound so alien to her circumstances and surroundings that her body went rigid.

A child. Laughing. Close by. In another room? Was the child captive like her? Or were they part of this terrifying ordeal?

Her thoughts were cut short as the woman leaned down on her haunches and tipped her chin upwards with the point of the knife. She looked into eyes so dark they shimmered. And she heard no more.

1

ONE YEAR LATER

THURSDAY

Mark Boyd waited outside the therapist’s office while his eight-year-old son, Sergio, attended his three p.m. therapy session. He had no idea what the conversation was like behind the door, but Sergio usually came out smiling, so it couldn’t be too bad. However, once they arrived back at the apartment, the boy’s mood drifted into silence, melancholy almost, and Boyd was at a loss as how to deal with it.

Just six weeks had passed since Sergio’s traumatic near-death experience, and Boyd had spent every day since then by his side, watching and caring for him. He’d gone rogue during the last murder investigation. Heading off in a blizzard to the north-west of the country on a search for the boy. Despite the fact that he’d found him, there had been recriminations. He’d left without permission, operated outside his jurisdiction and been generally belligerent in his quest. But with the positive press garnered from the rescue, and the fact that Boyd had solved the mystery of the woman who’d died in the car crash, Superintendent Deborah Farrell had let him off with a sternwarning and a note on his personal file. He did not care in the slightest. He had his son home safe and that was all that mattered to him.

Now it was time to return to work. The pain of being separated from his son skewered his heart so badly he thought he might suffer cardiac arrest. At least he’d be going back on a Friday, so it would ease them into a new routine.

After the therapy session, he settled Sergio on the couch while he shoved a chicken in the oven to roast for dinner.

‘When is Grace arriving?’ Sergio asked, tugging a blanket up to his chin, television remote in his hand.

Boyd had asked his only sibling, Grace, if she could come and stay for a week or two until he got settled back at work. Sergio wouldn’t be attending school until after February mid-term, so he was in the process of finding a childminder. He could no longer depend on Lottie’s daughters for that. Chloe had been great, but now that their grandmother, Rose, was suffering from the early signs of dementia, the girls had to keep an eye on her.

‘She should be on the seven o’clock bus. We’ll pick her up from the station.’

‘Will she like me?’

‘Of courses she will. Grace is the nicest person I know.’

‘I thought Lottie was the nicest person you knew.’ The boy looked up from beneath his long lashes, a slight grin on his lips that warmed Boyd up.

‘I suppose you could say they areboththe nicest people I know, besides you.’

‘Mm.’ Sergio pointed the remote at the television.

About to sit beside his son, Boyd heard the doorbell. He wasn’t expecting anyone to call and was hesitant opening the door. He needed time alone with Sergio to explain more about Grace.

He also had to talk to him about school and the possibility of them moving to a new house at some stage. Once he found the right place and secured a mortgage. Lottie and her family had to figure into that scenario, but he had no idea how it would work, if at all. That thought saddened him as he went to unlatch the door.

‘Don’t stand there catching flies in that open mouth of yours, Mark Boyd, let me in to see my one and only nephew.’