Trust No One - Keri Beevis Page 0,66

had two further messages and three missed calls from her. He checked in, drove his car down to the cabin and parked outside, pleased he had chosen a lot on the outskirts of the park. Although the place was fairly empty – unsurprising given that it was so close to Christmas – the forest location gave that extra layer of privacy. Howard planned to have lots of sex in the hot tub and didn’t want anyone disturbing them.

He hauled his stuff into the cabin, felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and plucked it out, frowning at the new message from Fern.

STOP FUCKING IGNORING ME!

Annoyed, he fired a brief message back.

I’m not ignoring you. Rita hasn’t replied. There’s nothing to tell.

He saw the three dots, indicating that she was typing, his heart sinking. This was not how he had planned for this day to go. He’d had visions of arriving at the cabin with Daisy, stripping her out of her clothes then drinking prosecco in the hot tub. A sparring session with Fern hadn’t featured.

The dots disappeared and he let go of the breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.

Then the phone rang instead.

Damn it, Fern.

Knowing she wouldn’t stop pestering him, he reluctantly answered the call.

‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

‘I know.’

‘So why have you been ignoring me?’

‘I haven’t, Fern, honestly. I’ve been driving.’

‘You need to get hold of this Rita Works woman. That was part of the deal. Maybe you should speak to Gary’s mum. She might know who she is.’

‘I can’t right now.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m away.’

‘You’re what?’ She sounded livid, and while that annoyed Howard – because it was none of her damn business how he used his time – his bowels were also knotting. Fern had always scared him a little and confrontational situations like this made him want to go to the toilet. ‘Why the fuck have you gone away when we have this problem to deal with?’

‘It’s a work thing,’ he lied, not yet ready to tell her about Daisy. In a way it was lucky Daisy wasn’t there yet.

‘Really?’

‘Honest, Fern. Really.’ Fuck, she’d better not call his office to check. As he’d had no holiday left, he had called in sick. He needed to talk his way out of this fast before she got him into trouble. ‘Look, I know this is important and I will be back in a couple of days. Why don’t you get Janice on the case? She likes tracking people down.’

That was good. Get Janice to find this Rita woman. She had jumped at the chance to track down Rachel Williams. Which reminded him, he should ask how she was getting on. If he started showing an interest in Fern’s little investigation, she might cut him some slack.

‘How did Janice get on, by the way. Did she manage to find Rach?’

There was a pause. ‘Yes. And she’s dead.’

‘She’s what?’ Howard thought he had misheard her for a moment.

‘She’s dead, Howard. And guess how she died.’

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. ‘Go on.’

‘She burned to death in her car.’

No, he really didn’t want to know. For the first time since all this had started, a ripple of unease stirred in his gut. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No, I’m not kidding. So that’s Kelly, Gary and Rachel who have all died in fires.’

‘What are the chances of that?’ He muttered the comment more to himself, but Fern must have heard because she huffed down the phone.

‘Are you actually going to take any of this seriously, you idiot? There were six of us there that night and three of us are dead. Someone is doing this intentionally. Those notes we’ve received are no joke.’

She was right. Kelly and Gary he could put down to coincidence, but three of them? That was too much of a stretch. Was someone seriously punishing them for a stupid prank? He didn’t understand how. No one else had been there that night. Well, apart from…

‘Did you talk to Olivia Blake?’

‘I did. And guess what? She’s been receiving notes too.’

‘Really? Why would she get notes? She didn’t do anything.’

‘Beats me.’ Fern was silent for a moment. ‘She has a boyfriend and he seems a little too interested in what is going on. I’m not sure I trust him.’

‘What, why?’ This conversation had Howard’s full attention now. He flopped down on to the sofa, kicked his shoes off and put his feet up on the cushion.

‘He wanted to meet with me and