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The Favor

Nicci French
Chapters (78)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
  77. Also by Nicci French
  78. About the Publisher

Title Page

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Dedication

To Kersti

Prologue

A scream ripped through the air. She didn’t know if it came from her, or from him as his hands flew up to cover his face, or from the car itself as it left the road with a screech of tires on tarmac. Then silence, the tree filling the windscreen, its leaves black in the headlights. A crunch of metal and the lights went out. Her face rammed hard against something, pain flowered in bright colors inside her skull. She tilted her face and opened her eyes, seeing blues and reds and nasty purples. There was a silence in the car. Terror washed through her, and the terror was bigger than the pain.

“Please help me,” Jude said to no one at all.

They had been driving back from a party in Liam’s rusty old Fiat, with one of its wing mirrors held in place by tape and an ominous rattle on steep hills. Jude and Liam were in the front, Yolanda and Benny in the back, though Benny was passed out, his head on Yolanda’s shoulder and his mouth open, and Yolanda was also fast asleep. Jude looked at the clock on the dashboard: it was two in the morning, but still warm after a sweltering day. It felt like the sky might split open at any moment and a flood of rain would soak into the parched, cracked earth.

It had been a hot summer. Jude thought of sitting her A levels in May and June, the sun glaring through the large windows and her fingers slippery on the pen, beads of sweat on her forehead and damp patches under her arms. That seemed like another world away because since the middle of June she had been in love. Stupid and dizzy and glorious with love, in love as never before. Her body ached with it. She could feel where his fingers had touched her; her lips were sore. At the party he had taken her into the garden and kissed her until she would have lain down on the lawn in full sight, but he’d whispered, “Later,” his breath hot in her ear. And now it was later: they would drop off Yolanda, haul Benny out of the car and onto his front steps, and drive into the woods. He had a blanket in the boot of his car. She didn’t mind if it rained; she imagined their wet bodies pressed against each other and a shiver of anticipation rippled through her.