COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1) by JACKIE ELLIOTT (tharntype novel english .txt) 📗

the protestors hogged the media, using the incident as another example of the Cowboy Fishermen who were out of control.

Harry snapped out of his reverie when he heard a sound, like a scream, he thought, muffled by the morning breeze.

He stood up, looking towards the beach.

Light was now illuminating the east-facing cliff, as the drizzle gave way to watery blue sky, and Harry could see a figure running towards the steps up to the boardwalk. He reached into the galley, grabbed his binoculars and trained them first on the figure running and then back on the beach.

He tossed the rest of his coffee overboard.

Time for breakfast, he thought, as he stepped off the boat, and walked up the dock towards Hephzibah’s tiny café.

Chapter Three

For a couple of moments, Andi Silvers thought she might have got away with it.

She lay still and, without moving her head, she just opened her eyes.

Huh. Gritty and dry, but no headache . . . yet.

Andi tested each limb nervously, just stretching out, feeling the change on her skin from the clammy indentation of her sleeping position, to cooler dry sheets. Too much, too soon, she thought, as a familiar queasiness in the pit of her stomach gathered strength into a wave of full-blown nausea. She took a deep breath and pulled herself to a sitting position, and then carefully and slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed. Andi clenched both hands into fists and willed the light-headed, detached sensation to pass. After a moment, she surrendered and staggered to the bathroom. As she gagged into the toilet, the throbbing started behind her eyeballs.

There it is.

Hung-over.

Again.

She sunk to her knees and then lay down, keeping still on the bathroom floor, her burning cheek against the cool porcelain tiles.

Just a few minutes.

She knew only stillness and time would bring relief at this point.

How much did I drink last night?

She counted them off in her mind — one glass of wine when she got in from work, then two glasses of wine downstairs at the pub, or was it three?

She remembered someone telling her an uproariously funny story about tequila — did she have a couple of shots too? She couldn’t remember, but it would explain the vomiting — she rarely got this bad just on wine.

Water. That’s what she needed now.

Wincing, she heaved herself off the floor. And then slowly, so the room wouldn’t spin too badly, she pulled herself to her feet, hanging on to the washbasin to steady herself.

OK. Not too bad.

She shuffled out of the bathroom to the kitchen corner of her studio apartment and looked for something other than slightly rust-coloured tap water to quench her desert thirst.

Shit. No fizzy water. Nothing in her tiny fridge, except the bottle of wine from yesterday.

Empty. Shit. I must have finished that last night. She mentally added that to her drinking inventory.

She poured some water into a grimy glass, considered and rejected food almost in the same thought.

Andi sat on the edge of her bed and sipped the warm tap water, and attempted to piece together the previous night.

Why did I stay so long at the bar? She had promised herself she wouldn’t do that again.

She sighed and looked round her little one-room apartment. Clothes crumpled on the floor. Several greasy pizza containers. An open box of junk balanced on the only chair in the room.

She sniffed.

Funny smell. Grime, booze and sweat.

She’d clean up today. This room was an unwelcome reminder of her childhood. She shut her eyes to get rid of the vision of her passed-out parents, slumped on the couch after another night of partying. She’d fought so hard to get out of that life. What the hell was she doing to herself now?

She turned slightly away from the packing boxes piled against a wall. She didn’t want to look at them. Unpacking them, she felt, was surrendering. An acceptance that this move was permanent.

“Permanent,” she said aloud, and let the word hang ominously in the stale air. She didn’t know what to think about that yet. She didn’t want to think about her future at all. As if thinking about what might happen tomorrow or making plans that didn’t include him would jinx everything. Make it all real. Permanent.

Andi’s phone trilled, the sound echoing around the room, jarring her whole body. She rummaged through the bedclothes, moving quicker than she wanted to, attempting to grab the phone before it went to voicemail. Seeing the number displayed, she sighed and returned to sit on the bed, the sudden movement causing the blood to pound behind her eyes once more.

Work. Not Gavin.

She turned the phone over and over in her hand. It made a soft dinging sound to tell her that the caller had left a message.

She wondered what she would say to Gavin if he called.

Andi admitted to herself that it was likely a situation that she wouldn’t need to deal with. The second-to-last time she spoke to Gavin it was face to face, a showdown that made her flush with embarrassment just at the memory.

* * *

Not that the memory was entirely clear. They had celebrated that evening. Gavin had brought over two bottles of wine, and she had downed most of a bottle, both exhilarated and exhausted at the end of a six-month-long assignment.

Andi remembered how he held her in his arms as they slow-danced in her small apartment.

“You make me feel like I’m eighteen again, and everything is possible,” Gavin whispered.

And then the same old argument.

“I have to go,” he said flatly.

“When is this going to end?” Andi demanded. “When are you going to tell her?”

And as usual, he sighed and asked, “Why do you have to be like this?” Then he left.

An hour