Todos os capítulos de The Substitute Bride: Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

Marsh parked outside the tall iron gates of Nigel Ashworth's estate and walked up to the front door without calling ahead. A housekeeper answered, and a few minutes later Nigel appeared in the doorway himself, still in his shirt sleeves, clearly not expecting company. "Detective." Nigel's voice carried its usual polished calm. "This is unexpected." Marsh held up his badge out of habit more than necessity. "I was hoping for a few minutes of your time." "Of course." Nigel stepped back and waved him inside, leading him into a study lined with the kind of books that looked more decorative than read. "Can I offer you anything." "I'm fine, thank you." Marsh took the seat he was offered. "I'm sure you've heard about the attacks on Charles Knight and Richard Bennett. And now Adrian's wife." "Terrible business," Nigel said, settling into the chair across from him. "How can I help." "I'm speaking with anyone who had a reason to want Adrian Knight weakened. Professionally or otherwise." N

Adrian was still standing outside Charles's room, trying to process the chaos of the cardiac arrest that had just been brought under control, when his phone rang again. This time it was Claire's hospital. "Mr. Knight, your wife was attacked tonight. She's safe, but you should come as soon as you can." He didn't remember much of the drive over. He remembered arriving to find security guards still posted outside Claire's door, and Claire herself sitting upright in bed, pale, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. "Claire." He crossed the room in a few steps and sat carefully on the edge of the bed, taking her hand. "Are you alright. What happened." "He came in disguised as a doctor," Claire said, her voice still shaking. "He called me Sophie. He tried to smother me with a pillow. A nurse walked in, and he ran." "Did you see his face." "Yes." She closed her eyes for a second, as if the memory alone was enough to make her sick. "It was him. The man from the bridge, the night Sophi

Adrian was talking about something the doctor had said earlier when his phone lit up on the table beside him. He looked at it, then put it back down without answering. Claire noticed his mind wasn't really on their conversation anymore.She kept talking to him and nodding, but she was thinking about the call he'd gotten earlier, the one he said was from his aunt. She hadn't asked him about it. She told herself there was no good reason to. Their marriage had started as an arrangement, and asking about every phone call felt like something she didn't have the right to do. It would sound petty. It would show how much she actually cared, more than she was supposed to.But she'd been noticing things. How often his phone buzzed. How his thumb hovered over it before he decided to leave it alone. How his eyes kept drifting back to it, even while he was talking to her.Who is so important that you keep checking like that, she thought.The door opened, and Victoria walked in.There it is, Claire

The officer's hand was already closing around the edge of the man's hood when the radio at his shoulder crackled to life. "Fall back. Suspect's cleared the east perimeter, we've got eyes on someone matching the description three blocks north." The officer hesitated, glancing toward the others still checking down the line. "Fall back, now," the voice repeated, sharper this time. He straightened, muttering something under his breath, and turned away, moving quickly to catch up with the others as they abandoned the search beneath the bridge. The man didn't move. He kept his head down, his breathing shallow and controlled, until the last set of footsteps had faded into the noise of the street above. Only then did he let himself breathe properly, his whole body sagging slightly with the release of it. He had escaped again. * * * Adrian ended the call with Marsh and stood in the stairwell a moment longer before heading back up, stopping instead at the small hospital café nea

The man walked out of the hotel less than ten minutes after he went in. Nothing had happened to make him leave. He had just spent too many days being hunted to trust a lobby with a clerk who looked at him twice, and he decided a moving target was harder to catch than a sitting one. He kept his hood pulled low and his hands in his pockets, and he kept looking over his shoulder at every corner. His face was on the front page of a newspaper now, which meant every person on the street was a possible witness. He tried to walk like someone with somewhere to be, and told himself that if he could reach the bus depot on the far side of town, he could be gone by evening. He was halfway down the next block when he saw a police car parked ahead, two officers standing beside it with a coffee each. He turned around at once and crossed the road, as calmly as he could manage. It wasn't calm enough. One of the officers looked up, and his eyes stayed on the man's face a second longer than they sh