Deadly Clementine

“Wait!” Cameron boomed. “You are not sodding going.”

“I have to.” Clementine stopped in the middle of the garden path and looked back at her father. “I cannot leave Moss to face the killer alone.”

“I will be damned if I am going to have my daughter racing around this village after a killer. You are going to stay here, Clementine Ann Montgomery, and that’s an order.” He glared back at the house when the dull thuds of a visitor knocking on the front door rattled through the house.

“You had better answer that,” Clementine urged. “Someone is trying to frame me for murders I haven’t committed. They are trying to kill people around me, father.”

“Let Moss deal with it,” Cameron snapped.

“I cannot allow him to face a killer alone while I sit here and wait.”

“It is what he does, Clementine. He is a private investigator. You, however, are not. You are not trained for this and have no experience in the kind of work he does. What if any of the villagers see you? How do you think it is going to look if you keep racing around after him? How do you think-”

“I don’t care,” Clementine interrupted. “I love him, father. Go and answer the door.”

Cameron opened his mouth to object, but Clementine was already running down the garden path. At the end, she didn’t try to jump over the fence like the killer and Moss had. Instead, she used the gate in the corner of the garden. Once in the field, though, she lifted her skirt free of her boots and began to run.

Praying that her father would understand, Clementine set off after the man she was starting to care about far too much. Moss was unlike any other man Clementine had ever met. He was strong and, although a little cynical, had a calm, logical manner that was infinitely reassuring. She had already seen him in action and knew he was calm in a crisis.

Like now. This is a crisis.

She prayed that it would soon be a crisis that was over as swiftly as it had begun, hopefully with a killer behind bars.

I worry about him far too much. It is stealing my common sense.

Clementine ran for what seemed like an age until she eventually saw Moss disappear into Folcor’s Woods at the far end of the village, she suspected still on the heels of the killer.

“It is madness for you to go in there,” she whispered, but of course Moss was too far away to hear her.

Folcor Woods was the very last place she wanted to go, not least because they were dense and poorly maintained. There was no clear path through them, at least as far as she knew from the last time she had ventured in there. It was dank and dark, and so creepy that it had a reputation amongst the villagers for being haunted.

“Now what?” Clementine paused at the edge of the field and eyed the woods warily.

When Moss didn’t re-emerge, she turned to look at the village behind her and tried to decide what to do. It was only when silence settled all about her that she realised just how uneasy she was about being alone now. She felt vulnerable and frightened. She was in danger and knew it. If the killer appeared now, she would be as dead as Mr Cavanagh.

“So will Moss,” she whispered a little defensively, even though there was nobody around to hear her.

her shock, a loud blast of gunfire shattered the air.

Clementine jerked and looked up in horror at the woods, a scream on her lips: “Moss!”

Without thinking about what she was doing, she narrowed the gap between her and the trees. She didn’t stop again until she was engulfed in an unearthly blackness that was, quite frankly, sinister.

“Moss?” she whispered hesitantly.

When she received no answer, Clementine was forced to stop. She began to wonder just how on earth she was going to get herself out of this new mess she was in, especially now that she was all alone and had no idea what had happened to Moss.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Clementine?” Moss cursed furiously when he turned around and saw the bright material of her dress through the trees. It glowed in the gloom like a beacon of light, or a very good target.

With one last disgusted look in the killer’s direction, Moss retraced his steps. He doubted he would have been able to catch up with the murderer anyway, not least because the littered forest floor was a death trap and the killer knew which route to take that was the least troublesome whereas he did not. Because of it, the killer had been able to put several additional feet of distance between themselves and Moss, and it was enough to ensure that the killer escaped.

A wise General knows when to retreat, he mused in disgust. But you won’t get away next time. I can promise you that much.

“Moss?” Clementine puffed out her cheeks with relief when he emerged silently out of the gloom. Her gaze flew around the trees, but he was all alone. “Where is he?”

Moss took her elbow in a firm grip and steered her out of the woods. “Let’s go.”