Free The First Betrayal by A. M. Clarke Page B

his transit and some plastic sheeting. Get the bodies off the road and to the funeral home until the coroner arrived. The lookey loos were having a field day and would end up causing another crash.

Chapter Thirty Four
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    Vera had also heard the sirens in the distance, obviously, she didn’t know the reason for them, but she had a bad feeling about it. Then the screaming started. She ran to the sound and found Helen at reception in a terrible state. Eventually through the gut wrenching sobs, Vera managed to extract the awful news that the fire chief had rang to tell them. All dead, and all would need to be formally identified. Later would do, at the funeral home. She was too stunned to speak and too stunned to move, and her brain was struggling to comprehend the news it had received. Adam had followed from the tearoom and heard the news.
    ‘I’m so sorry Vera, what a terrible thing to happen to all those lovely old dears.’
    ‘YOU, YOU did this.’ Vera turned on him and launched a surprising attack. ‘I don’t know how or even why, but I know you did this.’ Realisation had turned her face into a horror mask, and getting her mobility back, dashed to the nearest potted plant and vomited. When she raised her head from the soil, Adam was beside her.
    ‘You’re in shock Vera, and I understand you needing to lash out, but after a while you’ll realise how ludicrous you sound. Let me get you a brandy and --------’
    ‘Don’t bother with the fake charm and concern. Something happened, in that moment when you spoke, something dropped away from my brain. Your evil and you came here to do evil. I’ve been too stupid and too flattered by your attentions to notice it, and that’s why you were giving me the full treatment, so you could get to the residents. Helen, ring the authorities and tell them there’s a murderer on the Island. ’
    ‘Alright, alright, I’m going, Ill leave you to your grief and hysteria’ and he left. Gathering her temper and her legs, Vera ran after him.
    ‘Adam wait, I have to know. Why? You made them better, and then you killed them. Why the hell would you do that?’
    Adam turned around and looked about, no one close.
    ‘There’s no fun in killing sick people, and dying ones aren’t afraid enough. I like to give them back a reason to live and then take it away. That always makes it so much more satisfying when I wipe them out.’
    ‘That’s diabolical.’
    ‘Isn’t it though,’ and Adam smiled that breathtaking smile and walked away, leaving Vera with the dreaded task of phoning her residents family’s. She had made such calls before, but never on such a scale.
     
    Chapter Thirty Five
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    I hope I never have to set foot in that place again. It really brings home your own mortality, Stephen thought as the images in his head made him cringe and shiver all over again. His phone ringing saved him from further skin discomfort. It was an Inspector Rudder over to investigate the “domestic incident”. Stephen gave directions to Gladys’s house and agreed to meet him there. That’s funny he thought, the man sounded like he was only over to check out a marital row and none too happy about it either. Still, at least this visit to the house would be bodiless, that in itself was a relief.
    Rudder was already there when he arrived, his finger held firm on the doorbell. The guy obviously hasn’t a clue!
    ‘You won’t get an answer, you know’. Rudder turned his face already red with impatience and temper.
    ‘Let me guess, too ashamed to show their faces after causing a scene’.
    ‘Not exactly, their dead. I’m Stephen Powers; we spoke a few minutes ago.’ Rudder took a second or two, before the penny dropped. ‘So this isn’t a simple domestic that the neighbours reported?’ Stephen shook his head,
    ‘I really wish that was the case, but it appears Gladys, (the wife) killed Jim, (the husband) before committing suicide. Come on inside and Ill walk you through