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Back The Lucky Eight
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Five Years Later
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Fifty-four
  59. Fifty-five
  60. Epilogue
  61. Acknowledgements
  62. Canelo Crime
  63. About the Author
  64. Also by Sheila Bugler

She brushed her teeth before going into the spare bedroom. Crossing the floor, she felt the loose floorboard move beneath her foot, and remembered the USB drive, still sitting in the drawer by her bed. She thought about going into the bedroom and bringing it in here, but realised she was being paranoid. Whatever she thought of Adam, he wasn’t the sort of person to look through Clodagh’s things behind her back.

She got undressed and climbed into bed. There was a book on the bedside table, a crime novel by a writer Clodagh had never heard of. Felicity or Jake must have been reading it and left it here by mistake. Clodagh picked up the book and tried reading it, but her mind kept drifting. After she’d read the same page several times, and still couldn’t remember what was on it, she put the book down again.

It was impossible to concentrate when all she could think about was Adam. He’d lied to her. Three months pretending he didn’t know why Robbie had left the foundation. It made her wonder what else he might have lied about too.

Thirty-six

Rachel sat opposite Ade in the beer garden of the Swan and took a long sip of lager.

‘God, I needed that.’ She nodded at Ade’s glass of Sauvignon Blanc. ‘How’s the wine?’

‘Great. I’m planning on having several more before the end of the night.’ Ade nodded over at the bar, where Sam was standing with a group of other detectives. ‘I’m feeling lucky tonight, Rach.’

‘Well be careful,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s never a good idea to mix work and private life.’

‘I’m always careful. Besides, after all that driving earlier, I deserve to let my hair down a bit.’

They’d spent the morning in London, speaking to the financial director of Nick’s restaurant chain. Stephanie Kelly had confirmed what Ade and Rachel already knew. Nick’s business was in trouble. The last restaurant he’d opened was losing money at a pace that wasn’t sustainable, Stephanie had explained. More than once, she’d urged Nick to slow down.

‘He needed to focus on improving the restaurants we already had,’ she’d said. ‘Not opening any more. But he wouldn’t listen. He had a few big successes and he let that go to his head. Thought he had the Midas touch when it came to the restaurant industry. But there’s no such thing in this business. His restaurants had got some shitty reviews lately. We were haemorrhaging money. It was a disaster.’