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

“Gavin?” Her heart jumped with hope.

“Hi honey, how was your day? I’ll get some dinner warmed up for you.”

An inaudible reply.

“Geez, they’re working you hard on this assignment, aren’t they?”

The muffled sounds of kissing.

A warm comfortable exchange between married people. Happily married people.

Looking back, Andi couldn’t piece together exactly what happened next — she was too drunk — but she knew that after that pocket-dialled call, she had got into her car and driven across town to the quiet, neat suburb where Gavin lived with his wife of twelve years and their two children.

Blinking back tears of shame, Andi recalled clearly how she’d marched up the crazy-paving pathway through an immaculately manicured front garden, ignoring the buzzer and the cute brass doorknocker shaped like a dog’s head, and announcing her presence by pounding her fists on the door.

“What the fu—?” Gavin had bellowed, his facial expression turning from fury to shock as he saw Andi standing on his doorstep.

“You fucker!” Andi screamed at him. “You lied to me!”

“Gavin?” A tall blonde woman wearing pyjamas and fluffy slippers appeared at Gavin’s shoulder before he could say anything. “Who is this? What’s going on?”

“Yes, Gavin,” Andi sneered. “Who am I? Don’t you think she should know?”

Gavin stood silent for a second, his eyes filled with disgust.

To Andi’s shock, Gavin’s wife had stepped forward. “I think this lady has come to the wrong house, don’t you, darling?” And then in a harder tone to Andi, “I think you have my husband confused with someone else.”

“Daddy? What’s going on? Who’s that lady?”

To Andi’s dismay, a small child with Gavin’s dark eyes and his wife’s blonde hair had squeezed past Gavin’s legs.

“No one, darling. This lady came to the wrong house. Take her back to bed, Gavin.” Wordlessly, Gavin swept up his daughter and retreated into the house.

“This lady is nobody,” Gavin’s wife repeated calmly, as she eyed Andi up and down before closing the door firmly.

Andi was in the office early the next day, red-eyed and unshowered.

“I’m sorry,” she had texted. “I’m so sorry.”

No reply.

Eventually, Gavin appeared at the office door, clean-shaven, neatly dressed as ever, slight shadows under his eyes the only sign of any stress.

“Get into the senior editor’s office now,” were the very last words he uttered to Andi, before turning his back and walking away from her.

Andi hadn’t had time to tend her broken heart. The next two hours were spent trying — and failing — to save her job.

She had screwed up. She had failed to corroborate a tip-off from a source. She had written an article, sure that everything was fine (and assuring Gavin that the source was solid). It wasn’t fine. The tip had been bogus, a prominent businessman had threatened to sue. It was a horrible mess. The newspaper would have to apologize publicly.

Andi was fired. She still felt the sting of humiliation. They issued Gavin a warning, she discovered later. She had tried to contact him, calling, texting, and even emailing. One curt text came back that filled her with a little hope:

“We’ll talk later.”

Three months later and they still hadn’t spoken.

In a month, Andi’s money ran out. She hadn’t found another job. She was toxic now. She had been a rising star, a tenacious reporter and talented writer. But nobody would touch her résumé or even return her calls.

In desperation, she answered a small ad for a reporter/assistant editor/administrator for a place she had never heard of on Vancouver Island. To her surprise, the Coffin Cove Gazette, an independent publication, offered her an interview immediately.

She accepted, hoping that the owner would not probe too far beyond the carefully presented portfolio she sent ahead of her appointment.

A two-hour ferry journey and Andi was on the island, following the directions that Jim Peters, the owner and editor of the Gazette, had sent her.

After half an hour driving from the ferry terminal, she assumed she must have read the directions incorrectly. She was driving north, and after turning off the main island highway, she found herself driving along a small winding road along a cliff edge. She pulled over and checked the directions again. Frowning, she pulled out her cell phone. No service.

Shit.

On impulse, she got out of the car. The salty breeze on her face and the expansive view of the ocean both calmed her and reminded her of her aloneness. Standing on top of the cliff, she acknowledged — painfully — that Gavin had been more than an office fling. She had become obsessed with him. Her whole life had revolved around him. She had spent her spare time waiting for him to call or text. She lived for the stolen afternoons when they would sneak out of the office “on assignment”. He had never lied about his marriage. But he had allowed her to believe that eventually the affair would be much more.

“And now I’m just a cliché.”

Standing on the cliff, plunging into the unknown, Andi wiped angry tears away. Stupid, stupid, stupid — for allowing herself to think it could be anything more. The cool way she had been dispatched out of Gavin’s life by his wife told her that this probably wasn’t the first time. She hadn’t been special. A sudden surge of fury motivated her to get back in the car.

Jim Peters, her new boss, had given her a chance.

When she finally arrived at the Coffin Cove Gazette that day, there was no efficient receptionist to announce her arrival. Just a shabby office with an ancient photocopier in one corner and an oversized desk in the other. A man with glasses perched on his balding head was typing furiously and made no sign to acknowledge Andi’s presence.

Not sure what to do, Andi