Dead of Winter, page 1
DEAD OF WINTER
KERI BEEVIS
To Cindi Peterson.
Authors write stories, but readers breathe the life into them.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Epilogue
Thank you!
More from Keri Beevis
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Keri Beevis
The Murder List
About Boldwood Books
PROLOGUE
EIGHTEEN MONTHS EARLIER
Norfolk, England
The first time I laid eyes on Midwinter Manor, I knew I wanted it to be my home.
Hidden away from the nearest village, within a tangle of brooding woodland and only accessible via a long dirt track lane, you could easily miss it. But venture closer, where the trees eventually part way and the lane widens, a gate set between two stone pillars will greet you, and through the wrought-iron bars you will have your first glimpse of the house.
It looks like something out of a dark fairy tale, with an almost unnatural stillness. Beautiful and imposing, but also timeworn and slightly intimidating; set over three storeys with wide watchful windows that catch the light in an unsettling way, and jutting crooked chimneys that crown its roofline.
Step inside and it will feel like you are crossing into another century. The cool air shifts around you, laced with the faint scent of old wood and candle wax. The entrance hall is wide with a grand staircase, its banister touched by a generation of hands, and the rooms beyond are sprawling and elegant, with floral cornices and fireplaces tall enough to stand in.
To some, this house might feel daunting, but to me it is a sanctuary.
It is a place filled with history. But also with secrets.
And after tonight, those include our own.
1
MONDAY 22 DECEMBER
Manchester
It was just before Christmas and the last place Lola Henderson had expected to find herself was on a train bound for the Cambridgeshire fens and the tiny city of Ely, with two days of meetings lined up.
The email from Rich Bradford, CEO of Safe Hands, a company that supplied and fitted hand sanitiser machines, had come as an annoyance given how close it was to the holidays.
Rich was one of her most demanding clients, so she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. It was irritating, though. He mostly sold to offices, many of whom would be winding down ahead of the festivities, so it was hardly a prime week for marketing activity, and their catch-up could easily wait until January. Instead, she would be spending her Christmas Eve working, then catching a late train home.
This time last year, she would have told him a flat no, but things had been different then; her mother had been sick and required round-the-clock care, and Lola had been very aware it was going to be their last Christmas together. Now it was just her and her kittens, and although she had been reluctant to leave them, there were no other plans on her calendar.
She had purposely turned down all invitations for the coming week, not yet ready to throw herself into celebrations. There had been plenty of offers, her friends aware that she had no other family, but this year she needed a quiet one.
It had been a sad and difficult year of firsts without her mum, and it was always a time they had celebrated together. All she wanted was to be alone and have some time to reflect on bittersweet memories.
On Christmas morning, she intended to head over to the remembrance gardens at Manchester Crematorium and place fresh flowers by her mum’s plaque, then she would go home and enjoy some nice food, a few glasses of wine and a bit of a movie fest.
First, though, she had to deal with Ely.
Boarding the train at Manchester’s Piccadilly Station, she had been lucky enough to find a double seat to herself, shoving her travel bag into the overhead rack. The only things she had kept out were her Kindle and a bottle of water she had bought in the station. The journey was going to take just under four hours and her plan was to read for the entire length of it. She already had the new Harper Reed book downloaded.
Well, that had been the plan, but her mind kept wandering, reminding her that Ely wasn’t too far from the county of Norfolk, and Saham Toney, the village where her brother lived.
Thirty-five miles, in fact. She knew that because she had looked it up after trying to make contact with him.
Her mum had never hidden from Lola that she was adopted, but she also hadn’t pushed her to find her biological family either. Perhaps out of loyalty to the woman who had raised her, Lola had never tried.
But then Kelly Henderson had died on a bright March afternoon, as the world around her was starting to wake up after a season of hibernation, and later, going through her personal belongings, Lola had come across a letter written in her mum’s neat handwriting with her own name on it, urging her to reach out to her birth family and giving her details of her adoption to help her do so.
She had ignored it at first, but curiosity had eventually changed her mind.
That and the realisation that with her mum gone she had no family.
Her adoptive father had left when she was three and neither Lola nor her mum had seen or heard from him since, and her mum had never remarried. As for friends, Lola had plenty of those, but they didn’t live in each other’s pockets. Sometimes they went more than a couple of weeks without speaking. And there was no boyfriend on the scene. She hadn’t dated in ages.
She never considered herself lonely, but now she realised she was completely alone in the world, and although she was pretty self-sufficient, the temptation of finding new family had grown in appeal. So it had come as a huge shock when she had learnt that both of her biological parents were dead. Her birth mother suffering a brain haemorrhage, while her father had been killed a couple of years later in a tragic accident.
It was the weirdest thing, grieving for something she had never even known, and she blamed herself for not trying to connect with them sooner.
Nigel and Annie Whitlock did have a son, though. Daniel. And the adoption agency had tried to reach out to him, without success.
Through her own sleuthing, Lola had found out what she could about the Whitlocks, learning that her father’s family was wealthy. In addition to family inheritance, Nigel had also traded very successfully on the stock market, and he and Annie had lived a blessed life in Oxfordshire.
Their son, Daniel, had been a talented chef working in London restaurants until a nasty skiing accident in his late twenties had resulted in a spinal cord injury that had taken the use of his legs, leaving him completely paralysed from the waist down. He had lived at home with his parents until their deaths, but now resided with his wife in Norfolk.
Lola had tried to stalk him online, finding him on Facebook. She wanted to know him, but couldn’t really get a measure of the man. There were a couple of photos of him on mountain slopes, taken from a distance, and another one where he was in a Lamborghini with another man, both of them posing and grinning broadly at the camera, but they all had to be pre-accident. Other than a couple of nature shots, there was nothing more recent.
Should she leave him be? The fact he hadn’t responded to the agency suggested he didn’t want her to find him. But what if he hadn’t received their message?
Since reading the letter her mum had left for her, Lola’s curiosity had grown. Her birth parents might be dead, but Daniel, who was older than Lola by four years, would hopefully be able to give her answers as to why they had given her up for adoption. Plus, knowing they were blood related gave her hope that perhaps they might be able to build a relationship. Growing up as an only child, she had often wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. The idea of having a brother appealed.
It was over two weeks later when she had finally dared press send on the Facebook message she had typed, reworded and deleted a dozen times.
She couldn’t even be sure she was contacting the right Daniel Whitlock, though the yellow Lamborghini he was in on the Facebook post had also appeared in a newspaper article about his father, parked outside the family home. It was a distinctive car so had to be the s
After another week of being ignored, she had bolstered the confidence to try again.
The reply she received had been crushing, and colder than expected.
Dear Miss Henderson,
Thank you for reaching out. I am indeed the right Daniel Whitlock. However, while I understand your curiosity, many years have passed and, to be bluntly honest, I have no interest in pursuing a relationship with you at this point in my life.
I wish you well for the future.
Daniel
Formal and tersely polite. His dismissiveness both surprising and shocking her.
Lola wasn’t sure quite what she had been expecting and she was annoyed with herself for not being better prepared.
Was his rejection because he feared she might be after his money? She assumed he was the sole beneficiary of his family’s inheritance.
She supposed she could see how it might seem. Wealthy man’s long-lost sister suddenly appears.
She had never responded to his blunt message, but his words had played on her mind, and it had continued to eat away at her that without his help she would never know anything about her biological family.
She wondered, not for the first time, that if he knew she was near Norfolk he might relent and agree to just one meeting with her. Perhaps there was a nearby Costa where they could have a quick coffee together. It was worth asking, wasn’t it?
After spending twenty minutes wording another message to him in her head, while trying to concentrate on her book, she set the Kindle to one side and pulled out her phone, opening Messenger.
Dear Daniel,
I know you don’t wish for a relationship with me, but you are my only link to learning about our parents. I am working local to Norfolk over the next couple of days. Please will you consider meeting me for coffee? I promise if you allow me one hour of your time, I will respect your wishes and never contact you again.
Lola
She hesitated before hitting send, resolving that she had done all that she could. If he didn’t reply or told her no again, she would have to leave her past behind her.
Determined that she wouldn’t keep checking to see if he replied, she put her phone away and picked up her Kindle again, ignoring the thrum of activity around her as the train pulled into Stockport Railway Station, a few commuters disembarking, while several new passengers boarded.
The train was starting to pick up speed when she had the creeping feeling she was being watched.
Raising her gaze from her book, she locked eyes with the man sitting a couple of rows forward, his seat facing her.
Realising she had clocked him, he smiled hesitantly and Lola’s eyes widened in recognition.
Quinn Mallory.
What the hell was he doing here?
2
After their last encounter, Lola had expected never to see Quinn again.
That day was still etched firmly in her mind, even though it was four years ago, and she remembered every word that had been spoken, how she had completely shut down – it was her way of dealing with the trauma, she guessed – and that one last look Quinn had given her – part anger, part frustration and way too much pity for her to be able to handle – before he closed the door of the flat they had shared, still haunted her.
Now he was here on the train heading to Ely. Perhaps he was getting off sooner, or maybe he was staying on all the way to Norwich. Either way, she didn’t quite know how to react.
Apparently, he did – probably because he’d had the advantage of seeing her first – as he was getting up from his seat now and heading towards her, and Lola’s heart started racing, threatening to beat out of her chest, her palms dampening, and her body overheating. All thoughts of Daniel Whitlock and the message she had sent him disappeared from her mind.
She didn’t consider herself to be a nervous woman, and usually she was responsive and quick to deal with unexpected challenges, but this was Quinn, who had seen her at her worst, at her weakest and most vulnerable. He was the one man she had ever truly loved, but she had driven him away.
‘Lola. I didn’t expect to see you here.’
You and me both, Quinn. You and me both.
She had often wondered how he would react if they bumped into one another again. Would he still be mad at her for how things had ended or would there be an awkwardness between them; a distance that made them strangers despite the intimacy they had once shared?
Somehow, the thought of that was worse than him being angry.
He didn’t seem either. Surprised, certainly, but almost pleasantly so.
Four years. And he had barely changed.
He would be what, thirty-five now? Two years younger than her.
His straight hair, only a couple of shades away from black, held no sign of grey. It was a little longer than she remembered, almost touching the collar of his jacket, but then he had never been good at keeping up with the appointments to get it cut.
And he had a healthy tan. One which had brought out the smattering of freckles on his nose. Had he been abroad recently? Maybe on a holiday with his girlfriend – wife, even.
Lola resisted the temptation to look for a telltale ring, instead managing to keep her attention on his face.
The only sign things were different now was in his eyes. The spark of youth had died and his dark gaze holding hers seemed older, a little more jaded, reminding her he had seen things.
To anyone else, she doubted it would be noticeable, but she had known him in the before and the after, and she understood, because she had been through the same thing too.
‘Where are you heading?’ he asked her now.
‘Ely,’ she told him, finding her voice.
‘Really? Me too.’
Well, that could be uncomfortable. Over three more hours stuck on a train together.
‘I have to work,’ she blurted.
‘Three days before Christmas?’ Quinn wrinkled his nose. ‘That sucks.’
Lola managed a laugh, relieved it sounded light and natural instead of forced, like it felt. Every muscle in her body was tense. Not Quinn’s fault. This was just so unexpected. ‘Tell me about it,’ she agreed. ‘He’s not the easiest client.’
‘Are you still freelancing?’
She nodded. ‘Six years now.’
‘And you’re still glad you did it?’
‘I am.’
There were days when she was frustrated with her job, but for the most part she loved it, and working for herself gave her so much more freedom. When her mum had first fallen sick, she had been able to juggle her commitments, often working late into the evening so she was free for the many appointments.
‘I’m proud of you, Lola. It was a big step to take.’
Quinn’s eyes shone with genuine pride, and as she thanked him, an unexpected yearning stirred in the pit of her stomach for what they had once had, but lost.
He had always been supportive of her career, pushing her to believe she was good enough and deserved better.
When Lola had first met him, she had been working for a marketing agency. While she had enjoyed her role, working with different companies, building websites for them and driving active sales through digital marketing, her bosses had been, in Quinn’s words, ‘piss-takers’, expecting long hours for a below-average salary, while dangling promotions that never seemed to materialise.
