Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (33 page)
Read Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home Online
Authors: Kerry Wilkinson
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Psychological Thrillers, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #Psychological
The sickening splat was louder than the second squeal of tyres as Esther slammed on the brake. Mark’s tiny body flipped up over the bonnet, bouncing off the windscreen before landing on the top of the car and sliding down the cracked glass.
On the far side of the road, Gary and Mark’s football bounced its way into the neighbour’s garden but nobody noticed the squishy thud as it lodged itself in a hedge. Instead, there was the gut-wrenching, ear-piercing crack of Mark’s neck snapping as he landed, followed by his brother’s unearthly scream.
Esther couldn’t move for a moment, staring straight ahead at the broken windscreen and the red smear that was now filling it. She felt like she was watching herself as she opened the car door and stepped outside to see Gary, Liz and Charlie running towards her. Resting at her feet, limp and lifeless in a pool of red was Mark’s body, his back almost at a right angle to his legs. Somewhere behind, there was another car – someone she didn’t know had stopped and had his head in his hands. The passenger was holding a phone, tears streaming down their face.
‘I didn’t see him,’ Esther whispered.
More people were coming out of houses, staring at the woman covered in mud standing over the child.
Liz was on her knees, pawing at her son: wailing and crying at the injustice, shouting Mark’s name. Gary was standing and staring at his mother and brother, mouth open, tears rolling along his cheeks silently, unable to take it in.
And then there was Charlie. Her Charlie with his stupid sticky floor. She gazed up at him but his face was blank, staring at Mark’s motionless body.
‘I didn’t see him,’ Esther repeated, quieter than the first time.
Charlie nodded but didn’t look at her. She scanned down towards the blood, towards Mark and Liz and the carnage she’d caused.
Then she saw it – something she should have noticed in the first place.
Esther reached out and snatched at Charlie’s arm. ‘Your shoes are dirty.’
He twisted slightly to look at her but didn’t reply.
‘Your shoes are dirty.’
‘We were in the garden.’
‘But
you
weren’t. I dug up the allotment, you were standing where it was dry.’
He turned away, taking a step towards the house as the sirens sounded in the distance, drowning out Liz’s cries and the doof-doof-doof blaring from Esther’s little purple car.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Despite two national newspaper reports to the contrary, Kerry Wilkinson is male. Honestly.
His debut, Locked In, the first title in the detective Jessica Daniel series, was written as a challenge to himself but became a UK Number One Kindle bestseller within three months of release. His three initial Jessica Daniel books made him Amazon UK’s top-selling author for the final quarter of 2011.
As well as picking up the Jessica Daniel series, in October 2012, it was announced Pan Macmillan had also bought a sci-fi/fantasy/adventure series - the Silver Blackthorn trilogy - which will start to be released in June 2014.
Jessica Daniel book 4: Think of the Children came out in February 2013, becoming Amazon UK's no.1 Kindle pre-order, making the top 10 crime ebooks and entering the official top 20 paperback chart in its first full week on sale.
Kerry is the first formerly self-published British author to have an ebook No.1 and reach the top 20 of the UK paperback chart.
Books five and six in the series soon followed, with a spin-off from Playing With Fire - the Andrew Hunter series - beginning in 2014.
He has a degree in journalism, plays cricket badly and complains about the weather a lot. He was born in Somerset but now lives in Lancashire, thus explaining the climate gripes.
Jessica Daniel book 7: Behind Closed Doors is out on 14 January 2014.
Find out more at
KerryWilkinson.com
;
join the
Jessica Daniel Facebook page
;
Follow Kerry on
Twitter
;
or
email him
.
ALSO BY KERRY WILKINSON:
The DS Jessica Daniel series:
As If By Magic
(A Kindle Exclusive)
Behind Closed Doors
(Coming: January 2014)
The Silver Blackthorn Trilogy:
Book one: Reckoning (Coming: June 2014)
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