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Chapters (73)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-One
  25. Chapter Twenty-Two
  26. Chapter Twenty-Three
  27. Chapter Twenty-Four
  28. Chapter Twenty-Five
  29. Chapter Twenty-Six
  30. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-One
  35. Chapter Thirty-Two
  36. Chapter Thirty-Three
  37. Chapter Thirty-Four
  38. Chapter Thirty-Five
  39. Chapter Thirty-Six
  40. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-One
  45. Chapter Forty-Two
  46. Chapter Forty-Three
  47. Chapter Forty-Four
  48. Chapter Forty-Five
  49. Chapter Forty-Six
  50. Chapter Forty-Seven
  51. Chapter Forty-Eight
  52. Chapter Forty-Nine
  53. Chapter Fifty
  54. Chapter Fifty-One
  55. Chapter Fifty-Two
  56. Chapter Fifty-Three
  57. Chapter Fifty-Four
  58. Chapter Fifty-Five
  59. Chapter Fifty-Six
  60. Chapter Fifty-Seven
  61. Chapter Fifty-Eight
  62. Chapter Fifty-Nine
  63. Chapter Sixty
  64. Chapter Sixty-One
  65. Chapter Sixty-Two
  66. Chapter Sixty-Three
  67. Chapter Sixty-Four
  68. A Letter From Rob
  69. Acknowledgements
  70. DI Dani Stephens
  71. Books by Rob Sinclair
  72. About the Author
  73. Also by Rob Sinclair

Above everything I feel isolated here. Alone. I don’t want to be in this place, physically or mentally, anymore.

I cry myself to sleep every night, and every time I wake I’ve just relived the moment my deranged twin brother tried to kill me once again.

With no end in sight to this pain and suffering, I just don’t know where I can go from here.

Was I really worth saving, for this?

Chapter Five

Dani and Fletcher walked side by side through HQ. The well-worn corridors were a world away from the brand spanking new foyer, and, as in the past, were pervaded by a musty smell that Dani knew well but couldn’t describe. Despite the familiar territory, it felt anything but a usual day, and Dani felt not only alienated but disorientated too by the clash of familiar and unfamiliar.

When she moved through into the open-plan space used by the Homicide team on Force CID, Dani tensed up. She looked around the room, at the faces. A lot of people paid her no attention at all. Some smiled and greeted her, like they would a long-lost friend. Others simply looked on with curious fascination at the copper back from the dead.

Some of the people Dani didn’t recognise, most she did. Especially the man who stood up at his desk and stared over at her expectantly. Jason. He smiled, and opened his mouth to speak, but Dani, feeling her heart lurch, turned away from him and carried on to DCI McNair’s office with her head down. She cursed herself inwardly for acting like such a schoolgirl, but she’d realised as soon as her eyes met Jason’s that she really wasn’t prepared for that conversation yet. Today was tough enough already.

Ten minutes later Dani was sitting in McNair’s office on the fourth floor of HQ, looking out at a new, gleaming glass office block above Snowhill Station. Where had that sprung from?

The door opened and McNair came into the room. HQ and the buildings around it may have changed but McNair had somehow found herself stuck in a time warp. She looked the same now to Dani as she had ten years ago when they’d first met: a smart but not exactly tailored blue suit, short grey hair, droopy eyelids that hid otherwise beady eyes, and a forehead with lines that deepened whenever her temperature rose. Which was often.