Cry Wolf Read online

  Cry Wolf

  Romy Lockhart

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Copyright @ 2020 Romy Lockhart

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any other information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction and contains the creation of fictional towns. All names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locations is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Formatting by Leanne Clugston

  http://www.facebook.com/IrishInkPublishing

  Cover Design by LSK Design

  https://www.lskcoverdesign.com

  “You watch yourself around that girl. Maggie O’Brien wouldn’t know the truth if it bit her on the behind,” Mrs Kelly tells her grandson. “She’s trouble, and I don’t want her rubbing off on you.”

  It would be kind of sweet, if the guy was a kid and I was still a little girl. I pretend like I can’t hear a word, cleaning a glass until I’m afraid if I polish it any harder it’ll shatter in my hands. The pub is too small. Even if she was sat at the opposite end of the room I’d still hear her spouting this pish.

  I take a breath and smile at her twenty-one year old grandson. He’s a sweetheart, and so damn cute I completely understand why she’s protective of him. Good thing I’m not a few years younger, I suppose. I pour Fergus his pint, keeping a pleasant smile plastered on my face as I place it down on the bar in front of him.

  “Don’t worry your little arse, Mary,” I tell Mrs Kelly, unable to stop myself. “I’m a married woman now.”

  The old woman frowns at me, like I’m speaking in tongues. She doesn’t say anything, which seems to just give my mouth permission to run off. Ah, the curse of the compulsive liar.

  “So, I’ll not be looking to get this one into any trouble. Cross my heart.”

  Hope to die. Just not tonight, please.

  Her frown only deepens. She glances at my hands, at the naked skin there. Deduces that I’m still a liar, and her creased forehead straightens as much as it can with that much extra skin.

  She smiles, and I detect a hint of triumph in it.

  “I kept losing the damned ring,” I say, shrugging. “He bought me a new one the first three times.”

  I should shut up now. Every word seems to dig a bigger hole to bury myself in.

  It’s always been this way. I never learn.

  “Enjoy your drink, Fergus,” I tell the sweetheart who flushes at my mention of his name.

  He’s always been shy. It’s cute, but I think he’d flush no matter who I was. Any girl can fluster him speechless.

  He’s a red-head like me, only his is that bright brassy unmistakable ginger hue that fits perfectly alongside whiter than pale skin and a smattering of freckles. His eyes are a pretty, cornflower shade of blue. By contrast, my own hair is a darker more auburn shade of red, and my eyes are dark. I look more like a brunette than a red-head, really. I get asked all the time what shade of dye I use.

  “Married my arse,” Mrs Kelly mutters under her breath, just loud enough for the entire pub to hear it.

  My chest tightens and I fight to keep my smile loose and careless. Coming home was a bad idea, but it wasn’t as if I had a choice. I was always destined to wind up back in Widow’s Walk. No matter how hard I tried to run, or how far, I could never quite escape. I knew when I got the call about the house that I was going to have to come back. I’d put it off long enough already.

  I catch the sympathetic glance one of the old geezer regulars throws my way and I swallow the lump that’s growing in my throat.

  “He’s coming,” I hear myself say. “My husband. He couldn’t leave work this week, so he’s arriving at the weekend.”

  Mr Murphy nods, but doesn’t look convinced. I shouldn’t be surprised. Not really.

  No-one around here believes a word Maggie O’Brien says. Not after the whole murder in the cornfield incident. That’s ancient history now, but everyone’s always harking back to it, as if an eight year old girl should be held accountable for being a bit of a fibber.

  Thing is, it’s the one time I wasn’t lying that they’re crucifying me for. Yeah. That’s the fecked up part of this whole thing. Little Maggie Pants on Fire really did witness something horrifyingly, unspeakably terrible that night in the field. A woman was murdered, gruesomely, right in front of her impressionable young eyes.

  It’s not her fault the body disappeared before the police got out there.

  It’s not her fault that she didn’t know who the woman was and that no-one was reported missing in the surrounding areas at the time. But damned if everyone’s going to treat her as if it was.

  There’s Maggie O’Brien, the girl who cried wolf. Desperate for attention that one. Can’t be trusted.

  I walked away from this town to get away from the small town mentality. You never live anything down in a place like this. I mean, here I am, twenty years later, and everyone still looks at me like I’m going to corrupt the place to hell and back.

  So, I made up a husband. It’s not like they’ll ever know. I’m not planning on sticking around.

  “He’s a policeman, y’know,” I start on, gazing into space.

  The barfly in front of me frowns. “Who is?”

  “That husband of mine,” I say, with a dreamy little sigh thrown in for good measure.

  “Sure, he is,” he mutters, rolling his eyes.

  It shouldn’t be so difficult to believe a woman a couple of years shy of thirty with a nice enough body and a pretty face is married. It wouldn’t be, if I was anyone else. Literally, anyone.

  Whatever. Why do I even care what these arseholes think of me anyway?

  “Maggie, Maggie!” Kev Brightman from up the street pokes his head in the door, his eyes urgent and his voice loud. He’s drunk. I can smell it off him from across the room.

  I wince. “What is it, Kev? And can you keep it down a bit, mate? Use your indoor voice, right.”

  “Maggie, there’s something out in the cornfield. It’s eating some poor woman. Quick, come see.”

  I
roll my eyes as titters and full out laughing fits start up around the room.

  “Har de har, Kev,” I say, shaking my head. “Get the feck out of here, and don’t bother coming back. You’ll not get served by me you arsehole.”

  He snorts, gives me a looking over, and leaves, calling out, “Looking good, O’Brien. Save me a kiss on New Years.”

  “I’ll save you a kicking up the arse, is what I’ll save you,” I mutter, cursing the week I went out with that loser in high school. To be fair, he’d not been too bad to look at back then, and he pretended like he didn’t know I was ‘that girl’. At least until he’d had his hands up my top and his tongue down my throat. Then it was all jokes and questions about what I was high on that night. He was convinced I’d been out my head on drugs, at eight years old, wandering about the cornfield, tripping balls.

  Yeah, he’s an arsehole and a half, that one.

  My mam would have murdered me herself if she thought I’d taken one sip of my da’s whiskey, never mind anything stronger. My arse would have been red raw with the spanking I would have earned myself for that kind of nonsense. Bad enough that they talked about getting me to a therapist after the whole ‘pretend murder’ bullshit.

  Someone died out in the field that night.

  I don’t care what anybody says. I know what I saw.

  I walk home, my gaze moving across the fields, to the distant spot where it happened. The moonlight makes the fields look all romantic and shit. Kind of place you might take a girl for a late night stroll that ends in a proposal.

  Not the kind of place you might take a girl to slaughter her, though I suppose I can see the appeal to a murderer. A guy like that probably thinks it’s romantic to carve some poor girl up while her dead eyes stare up at the pretty stars. I mean if killing people is his hobby he’s off his head anyways, so who the hell knows?

  I’ll tell you what I know. It’s probably obvious by this point, but here we go. Love is a bunch of bullshit wrapped up in red ribbon and flowers and melted chocolate. It looks all well and nice until you get it up close. Then it smells like what it is and you don’t want it anywhere near your mouth.

  Bitter? Maybe.

  If you’d had my luck with men you might be bitter too.

  I stop to stare across the landscape, crossing my arms under my chest. It’s not too chilly, not really, but I can’t help the shiver that creeps up my spine when I think back to that night.

  Some things are hazy when I look back. It’s been a long time, but they were always hazy.

  I remember being called in for supper and ignoring me mam’s shouts. I was sitting down low in the overgrown grass, finishing what was going to be the longest daisy-chain ever. I don’t know what the hell I thought I was going to do with the damned thing to be perfectly honest, but I’d become obsessed with it. Maybe I thought I was going to claim a world record or some shit like that. I don’t remember.

  I just remember the moment I heard someone running through the field up ahead. Gave me a right fright. I dropped the flowers. Noticed grass stains on my trousers and cursed under my breath. My mam would give me a hiding for ruining my Sunday best.

  The scream was like nothing I’d ever heard before in my life. It was a howl that carried on the wind and made me shiver uncontrollably as I got to my feet. The woman crashed to the ground, a shadowy figure looming over her.

  This is where it gets weird. I’d swear to God it wasn’t a man who killed her.

  Crazy, I know. I had an overactive imagination, as my therapist put it. I created a monster instead of a man in this bullshit murder scenario because it was a lie and I knew it was a lie and I subconsciously wanted everyone else to know it too. Apparently.

  Whatever.

  I don’t know why I saw a monster instead of a man. I just know I saw something kill a woman. I saw blood, and I heard bones break and horrible wet noises that I never forgot.

  Then...

  Darkness. I passed out. When I woke up, my mam was going daft at me for falling asleep in the field. I freaked out about the murder and she told me she didn’t have time for my rubbish. I cried and she realized I was actually terrified. She touched my neck and her hand came away bloody.

  That’s when she looked as afraid as I felt. She rushed me inside and called the police.

  I didn’t get a telling off for the grass stains. I didn’t remember blood hitting my face, but I wasn’t injured so it must have splashed me. There’s no other reasonable explanation.

  Thinking back now, it was the only bit of evidence that I wasn’t lying about what I saw. The only sliver of the truth. My mam washed it away before the police came, checking I wasn’t cut.

  It was forgotten about when they didn’t find any trace of a body.

  I heard my mam discussing it with my da once, and they both wrote it off as a strange coincidence. I must have touched a dead animal or something like that. I’d been asleep in the field. I could have gotten it from the ground then.

  I don’t know what happened when I passed out. I don’t even know how long I was out for.

  But I know what I saw. I just wish I understood it.

  Now the thing about inheriting property instead of cold hard cash is it’s not always easy to offload. My mam and da’s house is nice enough, don’t get me wrong. It’s big, it has those beautiful bay windows and that patio out back with the decking that’s murder on an icy day but gorgeous in the summer.

  All that being said, Widow’s Walk is not the most bustling town. It’s also not anywhere close to a bustling town. Remote is putting it lightly. There are quite literally more cows than people around this way. Which tends to put people off when they’re house hunting.

  I’m probably looking for the retirement market when it comes to the house, at least. The pub, well, maybe someone will buy it just to knock the damn eyesore down. It’s been there forever. A converted stable with way too many dodgy low ceiling areas in the back. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hit my head off one of the beams through there.

  So, I’ll be stuck out here a while, in the arse end of nowhere with a bunch of people I can barely stand. Hence the reason I’m making my way to the local grocery store. It’s a little farmer’s shop down the road with fresh veggies and milk and random bits and bobs. I’m not much of a chef, but it looks like I’m going to have to manage somehow while I’m here. No such things as frozen pizza and microwave burgers around these parts. There’s not even a microwave in the house anyways.

  Should have thought about it and brought one. And a month’s supply of Pop-tarts while I was at it.

  Ugh. Shouldn’t have thought that. I’m depressed enough as it is.

  A month in this town might kill me. I’ll set my sights low. Go way under value. Maybe one of the farmers in a neighbouring town will make me an offer.

  I put some eggs in my basket, thinking I might make omelettes. I know at the back of my mind I won’t, but the bastarding pig-headed side of me says you never know and refuses to let me put them back. Cornflakes next. I look around the sweet treats shelves and sigh. Unless I want to attempt to bake, I’m stuck with dark chocolate and those tiny marshmallows you’re supposed to put in hot cocoa. They have that so I get it, and I swipe a bunch of marshmallows and the minging dark chocolate too. My sweet tooth baulks at it right now, but some night around one am that bar is going to look pretty good, all things considered.

  I get to the counter and find Mrs Wallace has disappeared through the back.

  “One customer a morning,” I murmur under my breath. “You think she’d save her bowel movements for afterwards.”

  A snort behind me very nearly makes me jump out of my damn skin. I turn and my jaw loosens. The man leaning against the milk fridge is definitely not from around here. He has the face of a movie star, and the body of one of those damn footie players who are always cheating on their WAGs. He has dark brown hair that’s a little overlong as if he can’t be bothered getting it cut, sparkling green eyes and a filthy grin t
hat’s making me weak at the knees.

  “And just what do you think you’re snickering at, Mr Too Bloody Sexy For His Pants?”

  He shrugs. “You’re the one saying funny shit,” he tells me, his accent a little softer than mine.

  Posh bloke. Why am I not surprised? All the good looking ones are up their own arses.

  Mrs Wallace plods back through and clears her throat, loudly.

  I turn back and motion to my over-stuffed basket. “Don’t you have any real chocolate around here?”

  She squints at me, picking out the bars of dark chocolate. “This is the best you’ll get for cake making, Maggie. You don’t need anything else for that.”

  “Does this woman look like she bakes?” Mr Too Sexy For His Aftershave leans in, touching my waist.

  I know I should hate that overly familiar touch, but honestly, it’s been too long and I’m old enough to admit it when a bit of chauvinism is more of a turn on than anything else.

  Mrs Wallace frowns at him and then looks sweetly at me. You know that way when a little old sweetheart is about to say something really fecking evil and land you right in the shit.

  Don’t even mention the murder you old bat. Else you’ll be the next one being gutted out there in the dead of night.

  I shoot her a warning glance and she smiles.