Free Hurt (The Hurt Series) by D.B. Reeves Page A

behind the woods.’
    ‘The perfect escape route,’ Mason offered.
    ‘If you were on foot, yeah,’ Jessop agreed. ‘Still doesn’t explain how he knew Darren and Rebecca were going to be there in the first place.’
    ‘Maybe he just happened to be there at the time?’ Davies muttered with a hint of sarcasm. ‘Wrong place wrong time syndrome.’
    Jessop shook her head. ‘No way. This bastard’s too meticulous for a random hit.’
    Mason picked up a biro, twisted it between his knuckles. ‘Okay, so the only other logical explanation is that either Darren or Rebecca had bragged to a friend of their plans to go to the park. Either the friend is the killer or the conversation was overheard by the killer, who then hid in the park and waited for them to arrive.’Jessop agreed. ‘Rebecca said she only agreed to the park’s location in the Burger King
after
the movie. Which would mean the killer would have had to have overheard the conversation and followed them to the park, or put his foot down and beat them there. Yet, according to Tom’s findings, neither had happened.’ She closed her eyes, massaged her temples where the conundrum coupled with the lack of sleep was beginning to spawn a gnawing headache.
    After a minute of silence in the room, Mason said, ‘There is one other possibility. Maybe Darren was so confident Rebecca would agree to his plan, he’d gone ahead and bragged about it to a mate
before
she’d consented.’
    Jessop opened her eyes and regarded her DI, as awake and alert as she’d ever seen him. That
was
the only other possibility. She rubbed her hot eyes, stifled a yawn behind her hand. ‘First thing in the morning we grill Darren’s friends and workmates about it. In the meantime go home and get some sleep.’ She glanced at her watch: 2.31am. In five hours time she’d have to be back here. Calculating the thirty minute each way drive to her house and back, that gave her a realistic three hours of sleep.
    Hardly worth it.
    Her eyes moved to the glass partition separating the war room and her office. Locked on the brown two-seater sofa she’d spent many an uncomfortable night on.
    ‘Shit.’

Chapter Nineteen
    She popped an Aspirin and swallowed it with a gulp of water. The gnawing ache in her temples had escalated into a pounding throbbing behind her eyes, not helped by the hour she’d chosen to spend beginning the profile on their killer. But now the words on the screen were just blurs, and the “back-breaker” beckoned.
    Reluctantly, she lay down on the hard cushions and tucked her feet up.
    Six days, she thought. Six days before she was stretched out on a king-sized bed in their hotel room overlooking Lake Michigan, fearing neither the ring of her phone or the buzz of the alarm clock.
    Six days before she and her new husband dared to stand on the famous glass ledge 1353 feet up The Willis Tower looking down on Chicago.
    Eight days before they drove beneath the St Louis Gateway to begin the first leg of their trip to LA along America’s oldest road.
    Seventeen days before they took a detour from the route in Arizona and stood on the South Rim of The Grand Canyon and marveled at nature’s magnificence.
    One day before Dodd walked a free man.
    ‘Boss…’
    Jessop startled awake. Disorientated, she looked towards her door from where the voice had come. Wearing a deep grey suit with a feint pinstripe, white shirt, and slate tie, Mason looked as though he’d just slid from the pages of GQ instead of the sheets from his bed. He held two steaming cups, and had a slim paper file tucked under his arm, ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.’
    She hadn’t realised she’d been asleep. Neck as stiff as the cushions she’d slept on, she glanced at her clock on the wall above Mason’s head: 7. 01am. ‘You wet the bed?’
    ‘Early bird and all that.’ Mason took a seat, offered her one of the cups of steaming coffee and opened the slim file. ‘I’ve been working the killer’s