Fatal Liaison (32 page)

Leaning on the
balcony railing, Megan swirled the glass of Shiraz in her hands, mesmerized by
the resulting eddy. The wine clung to the sides of the glass. Red as blood.

As much as she wanted to put it all behind her, she still had
flashbacks to the day Nick Poulus died with a screwdriver in his back. The
screwdriver she’d put there.

She remembered jumping on his back, but then nothing until she woke
up in a hospital bed. It wasn’t until much later that she learnt he hadn’t
survived.

In the ensuing days and weeks, the full story of Nick Poulus began
to emerge, starting with the first woman who’d rejected him: his mother. Or so
he’d believed. Further investigation into the Poulus family background revealed
Nick’s mother had been admitted into palliative care, dying there only days
later from the cancer that ravaged her body. But the 6-year-old Nick hadn’t
known that. He’d only seen his mother leave and not come back.

From all accounts, Nick had been a quiet boy, more practical than
intellectual, but studious. After leaving school, he secured a plumbing
apprenticeship and moved out of home, set on the life of a bachelor.

That’s until he met Rebecca Wetherspoon, a woman who took his breath
away. A woman who completed him. The one he wanted to spend the rest of his
life with. Except as he discovered, Bec, like his mother, couldn’t be trusted.
She was going to leave him. He couldn’t allow that. Not again.

For a while, the grieving widower played his part and kept to
himself. That’s until the night a waitress from the local pub flirted with him,
making promises with her eyes. Her eyes lied. She’d laughed in his face.

He’d thought TAFE student Tina Barrett would be different. The way
she smiled at him. The way his body reacted to her nearness. He knew she felt
the same. That’s until he caressed her cheek with his fingertips and she’d
recoiled.

As far as he was concerned, the whores got what they asked for. And
some.

For almost two years after that, he avoided women, refusing to meet
even the most casual of feminine glances. Then the flyer for Dinner for Twelve
dropped into his mailbox. What was a man to do?

Greg’s sister, Sam, had been an obvious match. Vivacious, warm,
trusting. More like his Bec than the others. He wanted her to be the one to
make him whole again. They were meant to be together. Why hadn’t she been able
to understand that?

Linda Nichols was nothing to him. Her death simply satisfied a
hunger and deflected suspicion away from him onto someone else, the opportunity
presenting itself when his victim and his unwitting patsy hailed the taxi that
night outside the bar.

Brenda had been right about Lawson Green. Skewed as his motives
were, abducting her and keeping her locked away, had saved her from the hands
of a killer. Though it was Pauline Meyer he’d been protecting her from, not
Nick Poulus.

Lawson had suspected Pauline of being behind the murders of Sam and
Linda. Too nervous to approach the authorities, he had instead removed Brenda
from what he perceived was the threat: a woman obsessed with keeping her
surrogate son from the clutches of immoral women.

But then Lawson, buckling under the stress, had neglected to take
the daily medication needed to keep his bipolar disorder in check. The
resulting delusions almost cost Brenda her life.

Lawson was in the best place for him. He was receiving the treatment
and help that he needed. But somehow, Megan doubted he would ever be declared
fit to stand trial for Brenda’s abduction. Brenda might’ve nearly died, but if
Lawson hadn’t kidnapped her, would she have become yet another of Nick Poulus’s
victims? Lawson had indeed been Brenda’s savior.

Megan lifted the glass of wine to her nose, savoring the aroma as
she thought about how close she came to losing her best friend.

Some days it felt to Megan like it had all happened a lifetime ago
and others it felt so raw that it was as if it had only been yesterday. But
life did go on. That morning she had received two cards. One had been a
postcard from Brenda who was having the time of her life trekking in the
Himalayas. The other was an invitation to the wedding of Joe Renmark and Cindy
Yellen, the blonde who had been hanging out of his car.

Megan turned her head as she heard the sliding glass doors behind
her open.

“Sorry about that,” Greg said, rescuing his glass of wine from the
railing. “It was Mum to say she’s found the house of her dreams. I promised we
would look at it tomorrow with her.” He slid his arm around her waist. “Now,
where were we?” he asked, his lips pursed in an exaggerated pucker.

Megan laughed, the weight of the last few months lifting. They
couldn’t rewrite the past, but the future lay ahead of them like a blank page.

***

Thank you for reading
Fatal Liaison
. I love to hear
from my readers:
[email protected]

Based in rural Victoria, Australia, Vicki Tyley writes
fast-paced mystery and suspense novels in contemporary Australian settings.
More information about Vicki and her books can be found at:
www.vickityley.com

Craig Edmonds, a successful stockbroker, reports the
disappearance of his wife, Kirsty. What starts as a typical missing person's
case soon evolves into a full-blown homicide investigation when forensics
uncover blood traces and dark-blonde hairs in the boot of the missing woman's
car. Added to this, is Craig's adulterous affair with the victim's younger
sister, Narelle Croswell, compounded further by a recently acquired $1,000,000
insurance policy on his wife's life. He is charged with murder but, with no
body and only circumstantial evidence, he walks free when two trials resulting
in hung juries fail to convict him.

Ten years later, Jacinta Deller, a newspaper journalist is
retrenched. Working on a freelance story about missing persons, she comes
across the all but forgotten Edmonds case. When she discovers her boyfriend,
Brett Rhodes, works with Narelle Croswell, who is not only the victim's sister
but is now married to the prime suspect, her sister's husband, she thinks she
has found the perfect angle for her article. Instead, her life is turned upside
down, as befriending the woman, she becomes embroiled in a warped game of
delusion and murder.

PROLOGUE

Craig Edmonds
stared at hands sticky with darkening blood.

His hands.

He held them away from his body and looked down at his chest in
horror. Large, dirty-red blotches marred the once pristine white shirt.
Forgetting the blood on his hands, he tore at the buttons, ripping the shirt
open.

Breathing in short, sharp gasps, he frantically examined his torso,
looking for the wound. No cuts. No injuries. No holes where there shouldn’t be
any. His chest heaved in relief. He wasn’t dying, after all.

But then, mid-sigh, it struck him: if it wasn’t his blood, whose was
it? His head whipped around, his eyes scanning the room like radar on
overdrive.

Even in the half-light, he quickly saw all was not as it should be.
The glass shade from one of the bedside lamps lay in shattered fragments on the
floor. The curtain rail over the bedroom’s bay window hung at a precarious
angle. Usually a black-and-white photo of a nude, tattooed woman hung above the
bed; now the frame lay in pieces in the doorway.

He focused on the queen-sized bed. His stomach clenched as he took
in the twisted and dishevelled bedclothes. Instinctively, he knew the dark
patches on the sheets weren’t shadows that would disappear once the curtains
were opened.

He swallowed, the acrid morning-after taste of whisky harsh in his parched
mouth.

“Kirsty?” he croaked. Clearing his throat, he called again, hesitant
but louder.

In the crushing silence, time stood still.

“Kirsty!” he screamed, as he dashed into the master bedroom’s
compact, white-tiled en suite. He stumbled, clutching at the doorframe. He took
in the bloodied handprints adorning the vanity unit and walls like some sort of
macabre finger-painting. Fighting an intense wave of nausea, he looked down at
the blood-smeared floor.

Trying desperately to rein in his growing panic, he raced to the
main bathroom. His wife wasn’t there either. Next room.

Out of breath, heart hammering, he reached the internal door that
led to the double garage and opened it. The external roller door was down and
his red Alfa Romeo and Kirsty’s silver Lexus were parked next to each other.

Gripping the door handle, he sagged against the door. He took a deep
breath. Fought for control of his adrenaline-charged body. He lurched into the
kitchen, heading for the sink.

Hands shaking violently, he somehow managed to turn on the cold
water tap. He watched, mesmerized, as the blood from his hands, diluted by
water, swirled in a pink eddy in the bottom of the sink before disappearing
down the plughole.

Oblivious to the water dripping from his hands, he dropped onto the
pine storage-box-cum-bench beneath the window at the end of the kitchen. Elbows
on knees, he dropped his forehead into his hands. If only the infernal pounding
would let up, he could think straight.

His memory of the previous evening was patchy, to say the least. He
had a vague recollection of arriving home stressed after a late-night meeting
at the office and, bypassing the dried-out dinner Kirsty had kept warm for him,
heading for the bottle of Chivas Regal. After that, it was anyone’s guess as to
what had happened.

A series of short clips flashed through his mind. In one, he saw
himself shouting at Kirsty, her throwing up her hands and yelling back. What
had they been arguing about? In another, he was picking up his car keys, and…

Damn it! Why can’t I remember?
he
thought, glancing towards the door leading into the garage. It was then he saw
the set of four smudged, rust-brown streaks low on the doorframe. He closed his
eyes, praying for the nightmare to end.

Except he had a feeling the nightmare was only beginning…

SLEIGHT ~ use of dexterity or cunning, especially so as to
deceive.

MALICE ~ the intention or desire to do evil; ill will.

One cold Melbourne winter's night a suburban bungalow goes
up in flames. Despite their best efforts, firefighters are unable to save the
home. When a badly charred body is discovered in the remains, web designer
Desley James is devastated. Her best friend, Laura Noble, had been the only one
in the house that night – her partner, Ryan Moore, is away in Sydney on
business. Then Desley learns the unidentified body is male. But it's not Ryan.
He and Laura have disappeared…

Not realising until it's almost too late what some people
will do to cover their tracks, Desley teams up with private investigator Fergus
Coleman to search for the missing couple.

“In perfect Vicki Tyley fashion, ‘Sleight Malice’ entertains
and stuns its readers.” – Lit Fest Magazine

CHAPTER 1

Rough hands grabbed her. Clamped across her waist, his
powerful arm squeezed the breath from her lungs. He hauled her backwards, her
thrashing arms and legs no more an inconvenience to him than if she had been a
pinned fly.

She coughed, her eyes watering as the hot, acrid air seared the
inside of her throat. With both hands, she tried in desperation to prize the
immovable weight from her stomach. “Let me go! Get…”

Her chest convulsed against the heavy, grit-laden smoke. The man’s
hold on her eased. She seized her chance and wrenched herself from his grip.
She stumbled forward, shielding her face with her arms, but the fire’s
intensity drove her back.

Back into the arms of the firefighter.

“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t go in there!” shouted the
hulking black and yellow protective-clad figure. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

Desley James scarcely heard him over the din of the fire trucks,
pumps and roar of the blaze. Her only concern was for Laura. Where was she? Had
she been at home? Had she escaped the inferno? What about Ryan?

She opened her mouth to speak, inhaling a mouthful of burnt air
instead. Spluttering, she bent her head forward and drew the thin cotton
T-shirt she wore over her mouth and nose.

“Have you got everyone out?”

The firefighter leaned down, his ear almost touching her face.
“Sorry, what was that?”

She repeated her question, watching his face as her words, muffled
by the fine weave of her makeshift filter, sunk in. He averted his gaze, but
not before she had her answer.

“Oh dear God, no. Please tell me it isn’t true. It’s not possible,”
she added in a whisper only audible to herself.

This time when he lifted her off her feet she didn’t resist; all the
fight had left her. A female police officer joined them, draping a blanket
around Desley’s shoulders as the firefighter set her down beside the open back
door of a police car.