The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward EPUB & PDF

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward EPUB & PDF

• Status: Available for Free Download
• Authors: Catriona Ward
• Language: English
• Genre: Domestic Thrillers
• Format: PDF / EPUB
• Size: 2 MB
• Price: Free

Ted Bannerman
Today is the anniversary of Little Girl With Popsicle. It happened by the lake,
eleven years ago – she was there, and then she wasn’t. So it’s already a bad
day when I discover that there is a Murderer among us.
Olivia lands heavily on my stomach first thing, making high-pitched sounds
like clockwork. If there’s anything better than a cat on the bed, I don’t know
about it. I fuss over her because when Lauren arrives later she will vanish.
My daughter and my cat won’t be in the same room.

‘I’m up!’ I say. ‘It’s your turn to make breakfast.’ She looks at me with
those yellow-green eyes then pads away. She finds a disc of sun, flings
herself down and blinks in my direction. Cats don’t get jokes.
I fetch the newspaper from the front step. I like the local because it has a rare
bird alert – you can write in if you see something special, like a northern
flicker or a Siberian accentor. Even this early, the dim air is as warm as soup.
The street feels even quieter than usual. Hushed, like it’s remembering.
When I see the front page my stomach goes into curls and knots. There
she is. I forgot it was today. I’m not so good with time.

They always use the same picture. Her eyes are big in the shadow of her
hat brim, the fingers clenched on the stick as if she thinks someone might
take it away from her. Her hair lies wet and sheeny on her skull, short as a
boy’s. She has been swimming, but no one is wrapping her in a fluffy towel
to dry her. I don’t like that. She might catch cold. They don’t print the other
picture, the one of me. They got in big trouble for that. Though not big
enough if you ask me.

She was six. Everyone was upset. We have a problem with that around
here, especially by the lake, so things happened fast. The police searched the
houses of everyone in the county who might hurt children.

I wasn’t allowed to wait inside while they did it, so I stood out on the steps. It
was summer, bright and hot as the surface of a star. My skin burned slowly as
the afternoon wore on. I listened as they pushed back the ugly blue rug in the
living room, tore up the floorboards and knocked a hole in the wall in the
back of my closet because they thought it sounded hollow. Dogs went all
over my yard, my bedroom, everything. I knew what kind of dogs they were.

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