Page 66 of Her Hidden Shadow

Tiffany ran a hand through her hair and imagined her strangler taking a chunk as a trophy. Did he smell it and play with it? Maybe it turned him on as he relived his attacks? On the night of Sienna and Robbie’s murder, Tiffany had wandered out. She’d gone to the house as Lauren’s neighbours had reported seeing a woman wearing pyjamas hanging around. At first, she’d thought that she might have done the unthinkable, but now she wondered if the murderer had seen her, which is why he’d been terrorising her.

She popped a couple of pills out of the blister pack onto the worktop and stared at them. Kieron wouldn’t be happy, but they made her happy. She wanted to feel sleepy and numb until he got home so that she could forget about the strangler. Maybe Kieron would come home earlier if he knew the police had been but then again, she’d texted him to tell him, and he hadn’t even read the message. Her phone lit up on the table. It was Kieron.

Sorry, love. I was tied up with the boss. I can’t get home early. I did ask but they’re already fed up that I’ve had to leave a few times. I can’t afford to lose this job. We need the money. I’ll be home soon. You’re safe with the police officer outside. Love you loads. XXX

She threw her phone onto the table narrowly missing the broken frames and the panic button. She picked up her wedding photo and felt a tear springing from one of her eyes. Then, she held the photo of the cut log in Bluebell Woods. Kieron had proposed to her there. He’d got down on one knee after treating her to an amazing picnic and he’d asked her to marry him. She remembered jumping up and down before flinging her arms around him. They’d been happy. She had been happy. Then she got attacked and neither of them had been happy since. Her heart ached for him to come home.

She glanced at the message again, but her vision was getting blurry. This week had been one of the worst ever and Kieron would not stand up to his boss and say he needed to be with her. She popped the tablets into her mouth and swallowed them down with the rest of her water. As she went to put the jug back into the fridge, she glanced through the kitchen window and gasped. The police car had gone. Her heart began to race, and she dropped the jug on the floor.

She ran to the door, flinging it open. Maybe the officer had parked a little way down the road. But why would he? Hurrying to the edge of the path, she stared up and down but there was no sign of a police car. Her front door slammed shut, leaving her outside with no shoes on. The breeze must have caught it. She spotted a brown scarf tied to the dense bushes outside her bedroom, then a breeze caught it, and it was gone. She stared a while longer and it didn’t come back. She shook her head, wondering if she’d imagined it. Taking a step towards her front door for a better view of the bush, she swayed while watching an empty pop can as it hurtled along the road in a gust of wind. No, she wasn’t going anywhere near the bushes. There was no scarf. She’d humiliated herself enough with all the other outbursts. Hurrying around the back of the block, she hoped that one of the windows wasn’t properly closed and that she could climb in. When Lauren was there it had got a bit stuffy, so she’d opened the window while Lauren had made them another drink. She nudged the back gate open. As she passed the bin area, she avoided stepping on the broken glass that still littered the area. When she reached the window, she prised her fingernails into the tiniest gap and pulled it open. After falling through it, she closed it properly, brushed off her clothes and staggered back into the kitchen. She leaned over the sink to catch a glimpse of the bush. There was no scarf.

Yawning, she knew she needed to sit down before she fell. Diazepam never affected her in this way before now. Kieron had nagged her to visit her doctor again. When the whole nightmare was over, she was going to do just that. Sinking into the chair, she felt her eyelids getting heavy as the room spun. Fight it, her mind kept telling her. She could do without being a total zombie today. But fighting it was impossible. As she half drifted, she imagined a huge glass of wine slipping down her throat.

She prised an eye open and wondered if she’d nodded off briefly as the room was a little darker. She must have and she’d walked in her sleep again. On the table in front of her was an open bottle of wine and a glass already poured. Down the front of her top were red splash marks. She shivered and grabbed a blanket from the back of the chair, then she topped up the glass and drank the liquid down in one.

‘Sleep, my lovely, sleep.’

Was that a voice in her head or had someone said that to her? She wanted to turn, but the pull of sleep was too strong. It was all in her imagination anyway. Maybe her strangler hadn’t come back. Maybe there had been no man at the window. The police would be back soon anyway. If anyone was lurking about, they’d catch him. The voice had all been in her head. She was half awake and hallucinating. It was the wine. It was the tablets. It was her.

‘It’ll soon be over.’

That voice again. Was she remembering something that had been said or was there someone else in the room? She wanted her nightmare to be over and she trusted the voice as it carried her to such beautiful dreams. The hands on her forehead were soft and warm. Were they a dream too?

Her limbs turned to lead, and she began to gently snore as soft lips kissed her cheek.

‘Goodnight forever.’

‘Goodnight,’ she mumbled as a snore escaped her mouth.

Fifty-One

Gina sat through the briefing, fingers twitching as she itched to leave. They should have seen the connection earlier.

Gina wouldn’t normally have missed something so obvious, especially after she and Collier had spoken to Hazel Blackford.

She put her hand up, wanting to give Sullivan one more chance before she went rogue, but the woman dismissed her and continued talking about how Jacob had opportunity in all four cases. Sullivan revealed that Jacob had a burner phone that he’d been using to message Sienna on. He’d argued with her as Sienna had moaned at him to forget Jennifer and he couldn’t. No one believed him when he told them that the burner phone was only bought as he didn’t want to give Sienna his phone number, because he wasn’t sure what was going on in his life.

Briggs glanced over at her, and Gina could see that even he wasn’t even going to attempt to challenge Sullivan’s authority. He was merely getting primed for the big press release later that day. If he knew that she was going to follow up on her theory, he might try to stop her. Gina wouldn’t let that happen. Sometimes a person has to choose between doing what they were ordered to do and doing what was right and this was her moment.

‘Harte, you’re alright to manage that, are you?’ Sullivan waited with raised eyebrows for her to answer.

‘Huh?’ She stopped chewing the bottom of her pen and placed it on the table. Wyre glanced at her as if trying to convey a message with her eyes, but it was lost on Gina. Sullivan cleared her throat.

‘The crowd. You and your team can manage the crowd alongside uniform when the announcement goes out. Okay?’

‘But, ma’am, uniform will be handling that.’ Uniform had always effectively kept things like that under control. She needed to be out there finding the killer and proving Jacob’s innocence.

Sullivan shrugged. ‘Are you saying it’s beneath you? You will be required to back uniform up. It’s going to be explosive when the news hits, so you all need to get your gear on and be a team player. That is an order.’

‘But, ma’am, we need to talk about Lauren. I’m not letting this go.’ She felt her hands shake. She’d always treated her superiors with respect, and she’d prided herself on being a team player. It wasn’t sitting well in her gut and for a second, she felt like she might heave.

‘Step down, Harte. Are you challenging my authority again? DCI Briggs and I won’t stand for this level of insubordination.’ Sullivan glanced over at Briggs, and he looked away from her. Briggs must know she was onto something and that ignoring this lead could also be a nail in the coffin for the department. If he was on her side, he wasn’t showing it.

Gina stood and slammed her palms down on the table. ‘Can we put our differences aside and think about the case and about Lauren. Everything has changed. We’ve been looking at the case in the wrong way, which is why we haven’t solved it yet.’

‘Harte. Sienna was murdered, not Lauren.’

‘But Lauren fits his type which leads me to believe that the killer went there to kill Lauren, but he accidentally killed Sienna instead. Lauren has long blonde hair and blue eyes, just like Hazel and Tiffany. It’s dyed but that’s how it is naturally. Both Sienna and Lauren were wearing little black dresses on the night of the murder, once again, I’m suggesting that the killer could have mistaken the two women.’

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