Hidden Heart (Love Is The Law 1) by Isabella Brooke Read Free Book Online

ever found out who did them. Unsolved
crimes. What was that Crimestoppers' phone number again?"
    Turner had sworn at him. Riggers
had dropped a few more unsavoury hints about needing money to buy "his
lads" some shoes, and needed Turner's "particular skills" and
other such bullshit. Eventually Turner had thrown him out.
    But it lingered. Knowing what he
knew now… he'd do things differently.
    This time, he wouldn't get
caught.
     

Chapter Three
     
    Jerky Marmalade was the
band's name but they were much better than the awkward moniker suggested. Emily
had genuinely loved them ever since she first met the folk-pop-punk fourpiece
at a grassroots festival in Liverpool. She'd been writing for an underground
Socialist magazine, and was covering the infiltration of big business money and
advertising into supposedly "by the people, for the people" events.
She'd spent as much time chatting with the long-haired singer as she had in her
efforts to expose the corporations' influences on retailers at the festival.
    She hadn't heard of them, or from
them, for over a year now. She had the CD on loud, and it took her right back
to those days on the alternative scene. Even this time last year, she could
claim to know every hippy, every drop out, every agitator and protester and tub
thumper in the north-west.
    And now?
    She sighed and slid down in the
bath, ducking her head under water so that the singer's wail was momentarily
drowned. It was eleven in the morning and normal, decent people were at work.
She'd always loved the freedom of freelancing but what was the point when people
didn't know how edgy and different she was being? Facebook updates
boasting about her casual lifestyle soon lost her friends.
    She laughed at her own vanity,
sending bubbles through the water, and resurfaced to a great gulp of air.
Kayleigh might be right. Time for a nine-to-five, safe and secure staff
writers' position?
    Some kind of change was needed.
Kayleigh had shown the way, in that. When she'd left for her new life in
Belgium, five months ago, Emily had been devastated. She couldn't tell Kayleigh
that, and spoil her friend's enthusiasm, but she couldn't deny her feelings of
abandonment.
    Or was it jealousy that Kayleigh
had had the guts to make a huge life change?
    She leaned over the bath, her
skin sticking to the plastic rim, and rested her chin on her forearm. Scattered
over the floor were newspapers and magazines, open at inspiring articles. Articles
that had once inspired her.
    Perhaps she ought to try for a
position in editorial. Entertainment, gossip, film, literature - return to her
original plan. How had she got so off-track?
    The image of the homeless boy
flashed into her mind once more. The boy that had sparked it all off, and had
haunted her from the face of every down and out she'd ever seen since then.
Joel, with his young-boy face and old-man weariness.
    She hadn't fallen for Joel. It
wasn't like the disasters that had plagued her recently. No, her attachment to
Joel had been so much purer and so much more meaningful.
    That had meant her betrayal had
been so much more painful.
    Her first big break, and it had
come out of nowhere, and catapulted her into the investigative journalism
world. She'd been so idealistic.
    Remembering her innocence and
naivety now just made her wince. How stupid she'd been! She'd promised Joel his
life would change once his story was exposed but it was a brief spike in the
internet hits, and nothing more. One week later, all the talk was of a minor
royal and his exploits with a jar of ghee and a Bollywood dancer.
    Fuck, fuckity fuckity fuck
fuck. Every single news story and exclusive and exposé on the bathroom
floor was just fire-lighting material within hours of its publication. It was
all as shallow as entertainment writing - it just pretended to be meaningful.
All of it was hollow.
    What did have meaning, then?
    Her bills, for one thing. There
were a few payments due in to her over the next month or so, but her