Page 81 of Gone in the Night
‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you, put your hands above your head.’ Amber’s voice was calm as she aimed her taser at Beth’s chest in the exact position she’d aimed at her husband’s two hours earlier.
Beth stopped what she was doing and began to giggle. ‘Well, this was fun, wasn’t it?’
Lunging for the knife, she grabbed it with both hands and drew it straight across her neck. As she kneeled on the floor the knife clattered to the ground, and she stared into Morgan’s eyes as the blood began to spurt out of the huge cut.
As if realising what she’d done, she grabbed her neck with both hands to try and stem the blood.
Marc ran in with four officers and cried out, ‘Holy hell, get a medic here now.’
He ran to the cooker, grabbing a tea towel from the rail then was kneeling next to Beth, wrapping it tightly around her neck to try and stem the bleeding. She opened her mouth, and an air bubble of blood popped over her lips.
Morgan watched in horror as Amber dropped the taser and grabbed another towel to wrap around the woman who was bleeding out in front of them.
They knew it was too late, the paramedics would never get here in time to save Beth’s life.
The puddle of blood was spreading too fast all over the sparkling white Italian marble tiles, and they watched helpless as the light faded from Beth’s eyes, leaving her staring up at the ceiling as she took her last gasp of breath.
FIFTY-FOUR
Morgan, who had needed some fresh air, was sitting outside on the stone steps to pull herself together. The Montgomerys’ beautiful glass and slate lakeside mansion behind her, she closed her eyes. She felt the cool breeze that came off the lake revive her enough to stop feeling faint. The sun was setting fast, dipping behind the mountains in the background, and she knew once it had disappeared that the air would become chilly. She was cold to the bone with the horrors she had just witnessed. It was going to take time for her already full mind to process the last couple of hours. As the ambulance pulled into the drive she felt a tiny flicker of relief to see Nick, her favourite paramedic, behind the wheel. He took one look at her and shook his head as he climbed out of the truck.
‘Morgan Brookes, what a surprise. I thought it was too good that you’d settled down and had managed not to get yourself injured for a while. I was hoping you were over this kind of thing.’
She grinned at him. ‘What can I say, I tried, I really did.’
He carried his kit towards her, shaking his head. ‘You clearly didn’t try hard enough, let me take a look at that.’ His gloved fingers were gentle as they moved her hair to get a better lookat the wound. Snapping open the bag, he took out some gauze and bottles of something she couldn’t read from the angle he was holding her head.
‘Ouch, that stings.’
Nick was cleaning her head wound, that had thankfully stopped bleeding, with some wound wash. ‘Hospital.’
‘No.’
‘Thought not, that’s why I have my special Morgan Brookes kit with me.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, I always have it with me in case you can’t keep yourself out of trouble. I’ll have your head glued back together in no time.’
‘Thanks, Nick.’
‘You don’t need to thank me. I’d much rather be sorting you out than the woman on the floor in the kitchen who my friend is running a line on.’
‘Yeah, you got the better end of this job.’
Ben, Marc and the officers were dealing with the carnage of the scene inside the kitchen. Amber was leaning against the hall wall watching them.
‘Am I going to need one of your special kits if I take a job working with them?’ She pointed to Morgan.
Nick shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, they’re reserved for Detective Brookes.’
Morgan smiled at her. ‘Not if you have your taser on you at all times. How come you have it anyway?’
‘I told Madds I wasn’t working with you lot without it. He agreed and let me bring it out. Good job I did, although I never got the chance to use it on her, but I would have in a heartbeat. You missed all the fun earlier when her husband punched Ben and I tasered him; he dropped to the floor like a rock.’
‘Yeah, thank you, it sounds like it’s been nonstop action. Welcome to the team, Amber.’
Amber smirked at her, and Morgan grinned back.
