The Next Girl (Detective Gina Harte, #1)

by Carla Kovach

Same height, same hair colour. She could almost pass for Deborah from behind. But as the woman turned, he could tell she was no more than a cheap imitation.

His mind was a whirr with what his mother would say. ‘Going with dirty girls makes you a dirty boy. My boy is better than that.’

He gripped the table and hauled himself up, flinching as he straightened out. It wasn’t easy being old. Once the ageing bones had set in the same position for more than a few minutes, they rebelled at being moved.

Fifty-eight years later, any mention of Lillian still made his heart flutter. There would never be another.

Albert shuddered at the thought of the stone-cold baby. It reminded him of the same stony coldness he’d felt after finding Lillian’s body in bed, back in 1985, after she’d passed away in the night from pneumonia. His heart missed a beat as he gasped for breath again and wept.

Debbie shivered as she pulled the coarse blankets over her shoulders. Lying on her side in a pool of sticky wetness, she thought of the small life she’d pushed from her body a day ago.

She hated honey; she’d always hated honey. How he ever thought that honey on toast was her favourite thing to eat was beyond her. In the beginning, she’d rebelled, thrown the food against the wall and screamed, but she’d soon learned that no one was coming; she’d learned that she did love honey. And if loving honey kept her alive another day, she’d continue to love it.

‘Sir, sir, sir. Just call me Chris when we’re not at work.’ ‘Are we not at work?’ ‘You make it hard, don’t you? If you want me to end this call, just say. I’m not into staff harassment.’

Her thoughts leaped back to Terry and the night he had been pronounced dead in their home. The night she had been liberated, finally able to live the life she wanted. People still extended their sympathy when they’d heard that she was a widow, but she’d never wanted it, never asked for it and was certain that she didn’t deserve even an ounce of it.

‘I couldn’t make him happy,’ she yelled as she gripped the top of the chair. She hated herself for saying that out loud. It made it so real. Spoken like the abused person that she had been.

Her thoughts were filled by memories of her dark past, the abuse, the case. Saturday, Terry, Briggs, Hannah, Avery, Baby Jenkins and Luke, poor Luke. Deborah, where was Deborah?

But Terry had been bad from the start, and Gina had chosen to ignore the signs because she craved something from him: love, attention, self-esteem maybe.