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Back The Family Next Door Save as PDF
Chapters (117)
  1. Also by
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Epigraph
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
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  30. 25
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  33. 28
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  108. 103
  109. 104
  110. 105
  111. 106
  112. 107
  113. 108
  114. 109
  115. 110
  116. Teaser chapter
  117. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

What had Audrina Clifton said? That she had recognized Adam Stanton only because he had been investigating the murders in the woods.

But if Joby and Adam had been best friends, she should have known exactly who he was.

She would have known.

But why bother to keep the boys’ shared history a secret? Why not mention it? Wildeve stilled, phone in her hand. Perhaps Mrs. Clifton thought it didn’t matter. Perhaps it didn’t.

Unless she had a secret of her own to hide.

Adam’s voice was a whisper in her mind, and his logic chilled her.

And then Matilda Hudson’s number was flashing up, her words tumbling down the phone. Wildeve’s mouth dried, and she was shouting to Mac, running across the cemetery grass, the smell of freshly turned earth in the air and the breath of a ghost on her neck.

109

109

Bonchurch Park, Essex, 2:37 P.M.

Mathilda Hudson had been pushing her two-year-old daughter on the swings in the park near her home when her mobile phone had pinged with an e-mail.

The pathologist had ignored it. She was on a rare day off and had promised herself that work could wait until tomorrow. But when she’d sneaked a glance, she had noticed it was about The Doll Maker case. Childcare issues had meant she’d been unable to go to Adam Stanton’s funeral, but she could honor him in this way instead.

She had settled her daughter at the café table with an ice cream and opened the attachment. It was the long-awaited toxicology report on the samples of the stomach contents, and the brown speck from Adam’s tooth she had sent off a few weeks ago. Specialist testing often took months, so she was lucky at the quick turnaround, even if she already knew what it was going to say.

But as her eyes scanned the report, a bucket of ice water drenched her.

The stomach contents of the five most recent victims had been analyzed. As expected, each contained the alkaloid aconitine, a neurotoxin. But it had not come from the seeds of the monkshood plant, as she had anticipated. There was no sign of seeds in the stomach at all.

The toxin had come from the root of the plant. It had been ground down and used to cook with.

The conclusion of the report had been simple. Every one of the victims’ stomachs had contained a slice of homemade fruit cake, its raisins laced with a promise of death.

110

110

Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head, chip chop, chip chop, the last one’s dead.

Now

My name is Audrina May Clifton.

I was a daughter and a wife and mother.

I am a killer.

But you know that already, don’t you?