Seeking Mandy

The night Nicole went early to be with a cold, instead of going out with her best friend Gemma, her life would never be the same again. Suddenly, after a couple of hours, she woke up because she thought she heard someone call her name. Her throat was hurting and she was burning up. As she looked around and there was no one in the room, she realised her fever was responsible for imagining that someone was calling her name. Nicole walked towards the radiator and turned it off. She parted the slats of the blinds and glanced through the window to check on the weather. December had been a very wet months so far. At first the heavy rain prevented her from seeing anything. but when her eyes had adjusted, Nicole could not believe who was standing soaked to the skin standing under the lamppost across the street. Luke, ex fiancée who since their break - up six months, had made her life a living hell. His obsession of stalking her had just reached an even more sinister level. Now she could no longer escape from his unwanted attention even in her own house. Perhaps he had been earlier in her bed room after all and she had not imagined someone call her name. Or was she getting paranoid. Her heart was racing and her forehead was covered with beads of sweat, she even considered calling her mother to come and stay with her. There was no point in calling the police. They would dismiss her complaints again as they had on previous occasions when she had reported Luke's stalking incidences. They would tell there was no law against standing under a lamppost in the pouring rain. "Snap out of it," she said out loud. "I hope you catch pneumonia." The rest of the weekend she spent swallowing Paracetamols and sleeping. Early on Monday morning she phoned the school to let them know she would not return until after the holidays. The headmaster was very sympathetic and thanked her for not spreading round her Germs. Nicole decided to return to bed before making herself some breakfast. She had just dozed off again when the ringing of door bell woke her up. Still half asleep, she opened the door and came face to face with a man waving an ID at her and introduced himself as DI Pullinger. "I wonder if I could come in and ask you a few questions," he said. Once they were seated across the kitchen table, she realist he was a plain clothed policeman. Worried that something had happen to her family, she was shocked to discover he came to see her about Luke. "At last they have arrested him." Nicole said with relief but the next sentence would dismiss that notion. "Luke Harding has been found dead by one of your neighbour in your garden. At first Nicole wondered if the police was mistaken. "How do you know It was Luke and not some homeless man?" "Because we found his driving license on his body." Nicole began to feel bad, thinking she had wished him to die of hypothermia. That illusion was soon shattered when, the DC told her he had been murdered. After a questioning Nicole for over an hour, she realist that she had become a person of interest. Paul, Luke's father and his wife separately paid Nicole a visit. Paul threatened to ruin her career by using his influence with the school to get her suspended. Valerie, his second wife threaten to sue her if she publicly smeared her stepson's memory. After a couple of days Nicole was subjected to a house search. The police found a knife similar to the one Luke had been stabbed with, missing from her knife block. Nicole was taken into custody and charged with Luke's murder. Birgit, Nicole's mother bailed her out by putting up her house as security. The result was that Robbie, her brother banned Nicole from seeing his wife and five year old twins. The only ally Nicole had left was Anna Bower, an ex girlfriend of Luke. She contacted Nicole after she'd heard about Luke's death. During that meeting Anna disclosed that she was exposed to the same behaviour. She explained that Luke was afflicted with a Personality Disorder according to her friend and Psychiatrist. When she also fell out with Gemma over her choice of men, she felt she was now the only one left to prove her innocence. Paul had succeeded in getting her suspended and she had now the time to begin her quest. Nicole began with contacting some of Luke's friend. All but one rebuffed her. His name was Jonathan and he was ready to talk to her about Luke. Wondering if it was a trick to get her to confess to his friend's murder, she almost did not keep her assignment with him. Nicole, at first displays some hostility towards Jonathan until he revealed that he had been there the night, Luke had humiliated her in front of his friends and had disapproved of Luke's behaviour. Nicole started to trust him and was astounded when Jonathan told her about Luke abducting and sexually abusing of an underage girl called Mandy, five years ago Nicole was even more shocked when she found out that Paul had bribed the father not to report the incident to the police. From that moment on, her mission was to find Mandy. Nicole after trying to track down Mandy via various channels, discovered that she was placed in a witness protection scheme. Worse was to come, that the safe house had burned down, killing Mandy and her body guard. Nicole had now lost the one person who could help her prove that Luke had not been the person he appeared to be. After two attempts to kill her, Nicole confronts which she thinks is Luke's killer and kidnapper of two people close to her. That mistake nearly costs the man she loves and her friend their lives.
ISBN: 9781788763479
Type: Hardback + Dust Jacket
Pages: 326
Published: 22 May 2018
Price: $12.95

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