The Missing Party-Girl: A Rags-to-Riches Cozy Mystery Romance by Nhys Glover (read after .txt) 📗

Anyway, I was still only eighteen, and I was sure the world was my oyster, as they say.  One of my flat mates, a woman I became friends with, was older than the rest of us.  She had a ten-year-old son who was away at boarding school most of the time. Her ex-husband was a controlling bastard who insisted his son, Rory, go to Eton.  Really, it was to keep him away from Georgie. To punish her for having the audacity to leave him. If ever there was a moneyed and entitled bastard it was Michael Fredrickson.

Georgina Wyatt— she went back to her maiden name after she divorced that worm—was her name, and she was beautiful. I mean gorgeously beautiful. She'd been a model and done well in a beauty pageant some years before. That was how she met her husband.

Anyway, she was ten years or so older than me, having had her son young, but she didn't look that old. She didn't look more than twenty-five, if I had to guess. Even so, she was a very sophisticated and worldly woman compared to me. And so I idolized her.

We partied hard. For her, it was to break free of the chains her husband had kept her in for years. For me, it was my chance to experience life. I drank and danced and met influential people. And yes, I took men to my bed. All beautiful men attempting to break into the industry like me. It was a heady time. I might go so far as to say it was the best time of my life.

Somewhere in there, my journal may help you with the timings and such, Georgina disappeared. I don't mean she disappeared from my life by going home to her family or back to her husband. I mean she literally vanished. One night we were supposed to go to a party at one of the producer’s places. One of the producers of ‘Thunderball’. Sean was going to be there. I rather liked the Scot. For an older man, he was very sexy.

Georgie had been keen to attend. She’d made a connection with someone who said he could arrange for her to meet the producer. I can't remember his name. It's in my journal. And my memory is not as good as it used to be. Age or cancer, you can blame it on either.

Georgie didn't go to that party. No one saw her again. She was my flat mate, and all I thought at the time she went missing was that she was an ungrateful cow for leaving me short for the rent that month. I expected her to turn up. I thought she'd found a cute chap who’d whisked her off to a tropical island and showered her with jewels. I envied her. That's what I wanted. When I wasn't wanting that film career.

But Georgie didn't turn up. Georgie never turned up. And instead of looking for my friend— my mentor, if you like—my big sister, I blithely moved on, renting her room out to another girl. I promptly forgot about her, until a few months later when the police started asking questions. And when the film ‘Georgy Girl’ came out the following year, it only served to rub salt into the wound every time I heard mention of it.

I need you to find out what happened to her. I assume she's what is now called a Cold Case. But she needs closure. Whatever happened to her needs to be discovered. I doubt the criminal who killed her—because that has to be what happened, even though no body was ever found— is likely long dead by now. That’s not important. What matters is that Georgie is finally found.

Somewhere in that world of the Swinging Sixties in London you will find what happened to Georgie. When you do, you get another million pounds, to donate to charity or do with what you will. If you fail, as the police did at the time, the million goes to Robert.

Good luck and God speed.

Adie felt slick wetness sliding up her neck to her cheek. Her fantasy of what that slide might mean evaporated the moment doggy breath hit her nose. Arghh!

“Jig,” she whined.

In the next instant, she remembered how she’d almost lost her dog to poisoned bait only two weeks before. If she had to put up with a hundred doggy licks waking her up, she’d consider herself lucky. For a while there it had been touch and go whether he’d survive.

It amazed her how fast she’d come to love the mutt. Maybe it was because she had no one else. Although that wasn’t totally true. She did have her body-guard/PI, Cage Donovan, in her life. But her explanation for fast-developing feelings held true in a big way with him as well. Of course she loved Cage. He was her companion, her hero and, she’d discovered only recently, her adopted second cousin. Not exactly a close bond, but when added to the others, it meant she was more than a little attached.

Not that he felt anything for her beyond friendship. He’d told her he thought she was beautiful. But in the next breath he’d informed her that the comment wasn’t about her physical appearance. Rather, he thought her inner-self beautiful. He might call an old lady beautiful for the same reason.

Not that she minded being valued for her inner beauty. It was better than being loathed and disrespected. But, oh, how she wished that huge, handsome man saw her as something more than a pseudo little sister.

It was Jig’s turn to whine. With a heavy sigh, she threw her legs over the side of her far-too-comfortable bed and slid her feet into her soft slippers. She