Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1) Read Free

out to the car and drive me to the office. We had a routine now.
    “How are you feeling?” she’d ask.
    “A little better,” I’d lie.
    “We’re getting closer. We’ll find them, I promise.”
    Dan was heading up the investigation and had a team of our best people working for her, but so far, every lead had petered out. I offered little help as I sat behind my desk, staring at the wall.
    “Hey, watch it!”
    I looked across as one of our technicians bumped into a chair, waking Evan, who’d been slumped sideways in it.
    “Sorry.”
    Evan shook his head. “No, it’s me who should apologise. I shouldn’t have snapped.”
    Tension crackled through the air. Everyone was exhausted and tempers were frayed. The equipment in the company gym took a battering as the guys tried not to vent their frustrations on each other. The punch bags bore the brunt of it, and we’d replaced two of them already.
    Nick stomped in at ten wearing a scowl. “Every cop I’ve spoken to in Mexico is either corrupt or incompetent.”
    “You didn’t learn anything, then?”
    “Apart from how to swear more creatively in Spanish, no.”
    He’d been trying to trace the true identity of the sorry excuse for a human being currently on ice with the coroner. The team had narrowed it down to South America, but the fact that a good portion of his face was missing wasn’t helping to pinpoint things any further.
    Nick sat back on the couch in the corner and sighed. I wasn’t the only person my husband’s death was affecting. Nick had been one of his best friends.
    “Do you want me to make you a drink?” I asked. It was all I was good for at the moment.
    He managed a small smile. “Coffee would be good.”
    At least it gave me something to do, although when the machine flashed the “change water filter” light at me, I wanted to kick it. My tolerance of menial tasks had dropped considerably.
    At 11 a.m. my office assistant, Sloane, gently nudged my arm. “It’s almost time.”
    “Did Bradley bring something for me to wear?”
    “It’s hanging on the back of your bathroom door.” Her voice cracked as she spoke.
    I knew she’d been crying. She’d tried to hide it, but her eyes were puffy and had telltale smudges of mascara around them. I wanted to give her a hug, tell her to cry if it would make her feel better, but I couldn’t. I was afraid that if she started sobbing, then I would too, and I didn’t cry any more. Ever.
    No matter how much of a wreck I was inside, to anyone looking at me, I was the ice queen. I never raised my voice, never got emotional. Not in front of anyone but my husband, anyway. He was the only person who saw the real me. And now he’d gone that girl was locked up inside, and I’d thrown away the key.

    Sloane had arranged cars to take everyone to the church, but I decided to drive myself instead. I couldn’t take another pity-filled glance or offer of help, no matter how well-meaning everyone was. I collapsed into my Viper and sat for a few minutes, forcing myself to breathe deeply until I was calm. The others had left before me, which was just as well, because when I arrived at the church it turned out the media circus had come to town.
    We’d suspected a few reporters might turn up, but it must have been a slow news day because there were dozens of them milling around in the parking lot. All the local press had arrived, plus a bunch of freelance paparazzi and even a TV crew. When I pulled in, there was a virtual stampede towards my car.
    My husband and I did everything we could to keep a low profile, but when someone is killed in an undeniably attention-grabbing way, it has an unfortunate tendency to entice the media scum out from the rocks they usually reside beneath. There was even a crowd of the public, peering through the drizzle from under hoods and umbrellas, ghoulishly waiting to catch a glimpse of the “Black Widow,” as the press had dubbed me. Give them ten out of ten for originality, huh?
    I