The Dead Room Read Free

found this on the floor to keep me entertained. Did you drop it?’
    ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Some sort of home invasion in your old hometown, Belham. Marshall Street. Woman and a teenage boy tied up to kitchen chairs. Woman’s dead, kid’s at the hospital.’
    ‘What are their names?’
    ‘Amy Hallcox. I don’t know the boy’s name.’
    Darby didn’t know the family but she had grown up less than two miles away from Marshall Street. She remembered the neighbourhood as an area of big old New England-style Colonial homes with ample land and wooded backdrops with trails leading to Salmon Brook Pond. Doctors and lawyers had once lived there. It was – at least when she was growing up – considered one of Belham’s safer places to live.
    Darby sat on a bench and began unlacing her boots. ‘Who’s the lead?’
    ‘Guy named Pine.’
    ‘Artie Pine?’
    ‘That’s the man in charge.’ Coop looked up and stared at her, one eye blue, the other a deep green. ‘How do you know him?’
    ‘Artie started off as a patrolman along with my father. Then he became a detective and was shipped off to… Boston, I think.’
    ‘Christ, you stink.’
    ‘I’ve been living outside in this heat for three days.’
    ‘Most women I know spend their vacation relaxing on a beach – take Samantha, for example.’
    Darby tossed her boots into the locker. ‘Who’s Samantha?’
    ‘Samantha James, Miss September.’ He held up the centrefold. ‘After spending her day rescuing puppies and kittens from kill shelters in her hometown of San Diego, she unwinds at the beach with a beer and a good book. I bet she enjoys reading the fine literary novels of Jane Austen.’
    Darby laughed. ‘How do you know about Jane Austen?’
    ‘This woman I’m dating, Cheryl? She’s really into Jane Austen.’
    ‘Every woman is.’
    ‘No, I mean she’s really into it. We do a little, ah, role-playing, and she makes me dress up in a suit and pretend to be this Darcy guy from that awful Pride and Prejudice movie.’
    Darby smiled, thinking about Colin Firth as Mr Darcy.
    ‘You’ve got that same dreamy look Cheryl gets,’ Coop said. ‘What am I missing?’
    ‘You wouldn’t understand. Go back to your picture book.’
    Darby stood and tossed her balled-up socks into the hamper.
    ‘Nice shot. How are things going with the yuppie investment banker?’
    ‘Tim and I are no longer seeing each other,’ she said, working the wet T-shirt over her head.
    ‘And why is that?’
    ‘Typical excuses. I’m really into my career. I’m not ready to commit. I’m –’
    ‘Gay.’
    ‘It’s just as well.’
    ‘That you found out he’s gay?’
    ‘He’s not gay, you dink. Tim’s a nice guy, but we really didn’t click. Check this out.’ Darby grabbed her belt buckle with one hand and removed a compact knife. ‘There’s also a razor wire, compartments to hide things and –’
    ‘I can’t wait until you get married. Your wedding list’s going to be real interesting.’
    ‘No need to buy this. I get to take the belt home with me.’
    ‘Congratulations,’ Coop said, his gaze dropping back down to the magazine.
    Darby slid out of her trousers and stood in front of him dressed in a black jogging bra and a pair of training shorts. She didn’t feel self-conscious. Coop had seen her plenty of times dressed like this. They worked out together at the gym and often went running through the Public Garden after work.
    And for the past two weeks she had refused to use the women’s locker room. She’d dressed here, in this quiet corner, while men stood in the other aisles. They sat and walked naked to the showers. These alpha men had barely given her a glance or nod. Any sexual energy they’d had at the start had quickly been channelled into surviving ‘The Yellow Brick Road’ and whatever other physical tortures Haug threw at them.
    She slung a clean towel over her shoulder and carried the ball of sweaty clothes over to the hamper near the sink. She