BooksBarbecue
Back The Last Guests
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART ONE
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. DEADLY SAS RAID IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER SCRUTINY
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. PART TWO
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. DANIEL MOORE: ‘A SINGLE BLOKE, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, A BIT OF A DUNCE BUT WITH A GOOD HEART,’ BEST FRIEND SAYS.
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. THIRTY-TWO
  41. THIRTY-THREE
  42. THIRTY-FOUR
  43. THIRTY-FIVE
  44. BREAKING: POLICE CONFIRM DANIEL MOORE ACTED ALONE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. SECOND ARREST MADE IN WESTAY HIDDEN CAMERAS CASE
  50. EPILOGUE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  52. Discover More
  53. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  54. Also by J. P. Pomare

He pulls the blankets back on the bed and rumples the sheets. He empties the remaining five hairs from the ziplock bag into the shower, then he runs the hot water for a moment. He mops up a little of the water with one of the towels then leaves it on the floor. He does one last walk-through, searching for any sign of his presence, but everything is in place.

Under the glow of a streetlight, he locks the keys away, as per the instructions on the listing, and gets into the rental car. Now he waits.

PART ONE

THE VOYEUR

ONE

‘LINA,’ CAIN SAYS.

A current shoots down my spine. I’m deleting the app before he has a chance to see what it is. When the blue square disappears from my screen, I turn my head.

‘Yeah?’

‘What are you doing?’

I turn and face him with the rest of my body now, phone still squeezed in my fist. ‘Oh, nothing, I just downloaded the wrong app.’

‘Right,’ he says. He’s in his towel, heading for a shower. He picks up his protein shaker and gives it a few pumps. ‘I’ll be quick. Are you ready?’

‘Yeah,’ I say, my voice a little tight. ‘Almost.’ He doesn’t seem to notice the slight tremble in my hand holding the phone as he drains the liquid, the muscles in his throat working. He has clipped his hair again, a few millimetres of salted black. The towel is loose on his waist and beneath the kitchen downlights he looks as lean as he ever has. He’s getting his SAS body back, but it’s more than that, more mass, a bulging chest and shoulders.

‘Love you,’ he says, stepping closer now, placing a kiss on my forehead.

‘Quick,’ I say. ‘We’ve got to go.’

Everyone has secrets, I tell myself. Or is that just one of those things people, bad people, tell themselves? Whispering little lies to get through the days. Just how my mother had done. A secret like mine is a snake in a box – so long as it’s trapped inside, it can’t hurt. He goes to the bathroom and a small surge of relief floods through me. But this night is far from over.

•

I watch him get dressed, his body mapped with pale scars up his left side, concentrated between his knee and hip, with slashes reaching up to his shoulder. Surgeons managed to cut out most of the shrapnel and his body has since squeezed out more, but there are still scraps encased in knots of scar tissue that’ll be there until he dies.