Written In Blood

1

1THE NERVOUSNESS THAT had afflicted Lucy Goulding since she left her parents’ house seemed to grow with every step. She had set out with just a single butterfly fluttering about her stomach, but now she was almost at her destination her stomach roiled and churned with what seemed like thousands.

Her nervousness was made all the worse by her lack of familiarity with the feeling. She was the only daughter of the richest family in Oakhurst, was worth more than anyone she went to school with, and was one of the most attractive people she knew; because of that she had never encountered a situation where she couldn’t do or have what she wanted, so she had been given little cause to experience nerves during her young life.

A loud tut made Lucy forget, momentarily, about her butterflies. She looked around without slowing and saw Constance Hawkins in her front garden; the elderly woman was shaking her head disapprovingly, and when she saw where Constance’s gaze was fixed, on the point where her micro mini-skirt stopped, Lucy grinned. It amused her to think that she was probably showing more leg publicly than Constance had ever shown in private, the thought buoyed her and made some of her nervousness disappear; if her outfit was disapproved of by Constance Hawkins then she had chosen the right one.

“Afternoon, Mrs Hawkins,” Lucy called out cheerfully, before the overgrown hedge that surrounded the house next door cut off her view of the old woman.

**

ZACK WILD’S ATTENTION was diverted from his laptop by a sudden flash of colour, which he saw out the corner of his eye, but when he lifted his head to look out the window he saw nothing. He had just decided that it must have been a bird when the doorbell rang.

He cursed the interruption, and was tempted to ignore it, he was on a roll with his writing and didn’t want to lose his momentum. The courtesy his parents had drilled into him wouldn’t let him do so, however. It might have been easier for him to ignore the doorbell if he was still living in Southampton, where the person at the door was as likely to be someone from a charity, pestering for a donation, or a political canvasser, as a genuine visitor. Here in Oakhurst, though, the odds of the person at his door being a genuine visitor were much higher, and he didn’t have enough visitors that he could afford to ignore any.

With an unhappy sigh, Zack pushed his chair back from the desk and got to his feet.

The greeting that rose to his lips died there when he caught sight of the person on his doorstep. The first thing he saw was a pair of tanned legs, followed by a red micro mini-skirt that was only a little bigger than a belt, then a red top, cut low to show off the cleavage and so skin-tight he couldn’t help thinking that it must be at least one size too small. From the skirt and top his eyes took in the rest of the figure, which he liked very much – he could not remember the last time he saw someone in such a revealing outfit, at least not in person - before moving up to the face.

He quickly cut off his thoughts when he saw how young his visitor was. She had the body of a woman, but it was clear from her face that she was a teen, no older than sixteen. He couldn’t think why such a provocatively-dressed teen would be on his doorstep at any time, let alone at a quarter past two on a Friday afternoon, when he was sure she should be at school, and for a few moments he just stood there, staring.

“Hello,” he finally managed to say.

“You’re Zack Wild,” Lucy said excitedly, the last of her nerves gone now that she was there and she saw how he looked at her – the same way almost every other male did, regardless of their age.

“That’s right,” Zack agreed. He was still getting used to people reacting to him in that fashion, though he didn’t think he would ever become truly comfortable with the semi-fame that came with being a best-selling author. “And you are?”

“Lucy, Lucy Goulding, I’m a huge fan,” she declared breathlessly. Her nervousness might be gone, chased away by her usual confidence, but she wasn’t yet in complete control of herself – she was as attracted to Zack Wild as she suspected he was to her, and his looks were having an effect on her.

“Hello, Lucy,” Zack shook her hand briefly. “I wouldn’t have thought my books were the sort of thing a girl like you would read,” he said. He was not interested in such things, but his agent had provided him with a breakdown of his reading audience, which told him that it was mostly twenty to forty-five year olds that read his books.

“Oh I absolutely love them,” Lucy enthused. “I love them all. I’ve read everything you’ve written. I borrowed the first one from my dad, and just had to get the rest. Your true crime books are great, but I prefer your Inspector Deakins books. Would you sign them; I’ve brought them all with me.”

Zack watched in amusement as Lucy took the rucksack from her shoulder and knelt to open it. He saw that she wasn’t lying, she had brought copies of all seven of his books, in hardback no less.

“Will you sign them?” Lucy asked, looking up at Zack from her kneeling position, her most winsome expression on her face.

The question drew Zack’s attention away from the books in the bag, though before it reached her face it came to rest on her cleavage. Her cleavage was not as large as his ex-wife’s, but it was generously displayed by her revealing top, and he felt distinctly uncomfortable when he remembered that she was a teen and he shouldn’t be looking. Despite that, he couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away.

“Mr Wild?”

Zack flushed and wrenched his gaze from the view he knew he shouldn’t be enjoying. When he found her face, he was surprised to see that she didn’t appear to be bothered by his ogling, to the contrary, there was a hint of a smile playing about her lips; that suggested to him that she was amused rather than annoyed or upset.

“Sure, I’d be happy to sign them,” he said once he recovered his composure. “Let me get a pen.”

“Can’t I come in?” Lucy asked. “I didn’t just come for your autograph, though I do really want that.”

“What is it you want?” Zack asked, his hand on the door as he prepared to close it at the first sign of the trouble he now sensed was in the air.

“I want to be an author, like you,” Lucy said. “I’m writing a book. I was hoping you could give me some tips, and maybe some advice on getting it published. Please, it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do; when I heard you’d moved to the village, I thought it must be a sign.”

If there was one thing Zack had learned over the years, it was how to tell when someone was lying, and he didn’t get the feeling Lucy was. “You’d better come in then,” he said, opening the door wide.

He was closing the door when he glimpsed movement through one of the bare patches in his hedge. He frowned. He liked Constance Hawkins, she was generally a pleasant and friendly person, but she was curious about the limited comings and goings of her neighbours, and not all that discreet in her curiosity. He couldn’t make up his mind whether to be concerned, or amused, by what Constance Hawkins was likely to make of him inviting a barely-dressed teen into his house; one thing he was certain of, was that news of his visitor was likely to be all around the village in next to no time, whether he cared or not.

He put his overly inquisitive neighbour from his mind as he closed the door and followed his visitor into the living room. He arrived in time to have his eye caught by something bright orange on the sofa - it was a moment before he realised that it was his guest’s underwear, being revealed by her too short skirt.

A half-smile, a duplicate of the one he had seen when Lucy knelt on his doorstep, made Zack realise the flash was deliberate, that she wanted him to look. She had said she wanted his help, and from what he had seen so far, she was prepared to offer herself in order to get it, or at least to suggest that that was what she was willing to do. If it wasn’t for all that he had seen during his former career, he would have had a hard time believing anyone capable of acting in such a way.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked from the doorway, doing his best to ignore the orange that peeked out again as Lucy shifted position. He hoped she did, he wanted a chance to recover his equilibrium, and to do something about his parched throat.