Free Hot Pursuit by Gemma Fox Page B

had steadily begun to rise, bringing with it the promise of a summer storm. The ropes on the swing hummed out the harmonies. Maggie grimaced, resisting the temptation to put her fingers in her ears as a gust whined melodramatically in and out of the chimney pots; trust Mother Nature to cash in on her paranoia.
    In the distance through the windows she saw the first white-hot glow of lightning illuminate the night sky, followed moments later by a drum roll of thunder and then something, somewhere close by, creaked.
    Maggie shuddered and then held her breath. She had been straining so hard to pick out the sounds of Nick Lucas creeping across the landing carrying a carving knife, drooling, his eyes wide and vacant, that she had given herself a terrible headache. And now she really could hear something. There it was again, louder now.
    Cold and nervous and wrapped tight with unspeakable fear and panic, Maggie crept out of bed, tiptoed across the bedroom floor and pressed her ear to the door. There. There it was again, something low and ominous rattling right there on the periphery of her hearing. Was it bare feet creeping across the floorboards? Or the sound of a door creaking murderously on its hinges?
    Maggie’s mind reached out through the darkness,feeling its way around the sound to try and hear more clearly. And then all at once she knew exactly what it was and pulled back in disgust. It was someone snoring. A man, a grown man, snoring contentedly, curled up fast asleep, totally unaware of the storm or her spiralling terror.
    Like water draining out of a bath, the tension trickled out of her shoulders and stomach. Exhausted now and on the edge of tears, Maggie stumbled back to bed and dragged the duvet up over her head. Typical that while she fretted and tossed and turned, the axe murderer down the corridor was sound asleep. It was instincts like that which had got her tangled up with the real Bernie Fielding in the first place. Outside, it began to rain furiously.
    In the hotel near Heathrow, Nimrod was also tucked up in bed. ‘You gonna turn that bleeding TV off soon, then, are yer?’ he growled wearily. ‘Only we ought to make an early start in the morning, I want to miss the worst of the traffic. Makes me very tense getting snarled up in a jam and you know that I like to be calm. Zen; deep breaths, at one with all things.’
    Turning his palms uppermost Nimrod pressed the thumb and index finger of each hand together to form a yoga-style circle gesture, although he drew the line at actually chanting in front of Cain who tended to laugh and pull faces.
    Cain sniffed. ‘I won’t be long; I like this procelebrity fishing.’
    ‘Well at least turn the bloody sound down then and God help you if you can’t get up in the morning. When that alarm goes off I want you up; bright, sharp and on the ball – got that?’
    Caught in the flickering light from the TV screen, Cain – sipping a piña colada – nodded just as someone from Slade pulled a fish the size of a corgi up over the side of a boat.
    Nimrod groaned, closed his eyes and pulled the pillow over his head. Within minutes he was sound asleep.
    While Robbie Hughes snored peacefully on the Gotcha office sofa Lesley poured over the telephone directories she’d brought up from the in-house library and busied herself making lists from the books and the database she’d pulled up on the computer, as well as from the Internet. Lesley had always been very good at cryptic clues and puzzles and games of logic – so far she had made all sorts of connections to all sorts of names on her list. First thing tomorrow she’d start ringing round to see how many more pieces she could slot into place. She liked puzzles. Maggie Morgan’s name was right up under Bernie’s mum and his first wife.
    Lesley looked over at Robbie. His mouth was open, head thrown back, a little trail of droolglistening on his chin. She smiled indulgently. He wasn’t an easy man to work with but then was