Stay Dead - Jessie Keane

The sixth book in the Annie Carter series, 2016

To Cliff

Yo, Bitch!

What a year, eh?

OMERTA

(The Mafia code of silence)

Outside the Shalimar nightclub, London, June 1994

Annie Carter had lived through her fair share of bad days, but this one had to rank among the worst. She had only two close friends in the entire world. One of them had just told her to piss off, and the other one was dead – and that broke her heart in two. She came out on to the pavement fighting back tears, unable to fully believe what was happening to her life. She didn’t know where her husband was, or what he was up to, but visions of naked sweaty limbs and glam young girls danced in her brain day and night, like fairy dust or a gigantic snort of coke.

Added to all that, she had a secret, a big, big secret that she’d been carrying around with her for years. The burden of it was heavy, and terrible. She couldn’t share it with a single living soul. And she feared there was worse to come.

She was coming out of the Shalimar, one of three lap-dancing clubs owned by her husband Max, the other two being the Palermo and the Blue Parrot. She was looking a million dollars because she always did, even when she was feeling like shit. She was wearing a Gucci black skirt suit, white chiffon blouse and Italian-made high-heeled boots, and her long chocolate-brown hair bounced on her shoulders. Even in the depths of emotional torment, Annie Carter took trouble over her appearance, and she’d slicked on red lippy and a flick of black mascara.

Right now, Annie felt like her whole world was caving in on her. People who had once treated her with respect were behaving toward her as if she was diseased, dirty. Ellie and Chris Brown. Steve Taylor. Gary Tooley. Even Tony, who had been first Max’s driver, then hers, and then Dolly Farrell’s.

Maybe they know, whispered a voice in her brain.

The thought of that sent a vicious, bone-deep shudder of dread through her.

No. Impossible.

They couldn’t know.

Could they?

She stood there in the dismal drizzling rain. Summer in England. A bike shot past. Then a long dark car swerved into the pavement with a screech of brakes. Horns tooted, taxi drivers hollered out of their windows and waved their fists. Annie walked on, uncaring, thinking about Dolly, feeling the awful gnawing grief grip her, shutting off the world around her, filling her whole being with blackness. Suddenly there were two big men standing on either side of her and one of them was shoving what felt like a knife into her side.