Needing by Sarah Masters Read Free Book Online Page A

this bloke and get out of here. This place…it isn’t nice. There are too many ghosts here. I can feel them all trying to speak to me.”
    Langham made a U-turn in the deserted road. “So let them in. Maybe we’ll learn something.”
    Oliver widened his eyes. “Are you fucking serious? You try having a few of them gossiping in your head all at once. Fuck you.”
    “Fuck you too, you moody wanker.” Langham smiled, parking outside number two, the wooden plaque beside the front door announcing the cottage as Reynolds’ Gaff.
    The feeling of wrongness was stronger here. This wasn’t unusual in itself. Many places he visited when questioning people with Langham felt this way—just not as strong. Or sinister.
    “This is one nasty-arsed case,” he mumbled.
    “And the others we’ve worked on weren’t?” Langham cut the engine and slipped off his seatbelt.
    “They were, but this one… I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
    “Then don’t. Soak it all up, see what you get when we go in, and tell me once we’ve left. I’ll do the talking. You just concentrate on picking shit up.”
    Langham got out of the car, and Oliver did the same, his stomach heavy with dread. He hated this part of investigations. Negative energy always found him, and he saw sights and heard sounds no one should. Terrible things, horrible noises. Voices.
    After walking up the paved path bordered by a well-kept garden with a recently mown lawn and pruned hedges, the pair stood on a shiny, red-brick step.
    Langham glanced at Oliver before knocking. “Got anything yet?”
    “At the risk of sounding cheesy, just the feeling of impending doom, only more so. You know, the usual. Something being majorly off, knowing we’re going to find out some shit we hadn’t expected.”
    “Right.” Langham knocked again. “Good.”
    They waited a minute.
    “Wonder if he’s out?” Langham walked across to the large window beside the door, presumably the living room. “Whoa. If he’s out, he needs to tidy up when he gets home. Looks like someone’s had an unfriendly visit.”
    “Shit.” Oliver moved to stand beside him and stared through the glass. “Uh, yeah. Unfriendly is right. We going in?”
    “Yep. Could be a man in distress inside, know what I mean?” He went back to the front door. Kicked the damn thing open as though the wood was nothing but flimsy cardboard.
    Oliver almost, almost got hard again.
    Pack it in! Focus on the job.
    “I’ll go first. Stay behind me,” Langham said.
    Oliver followed Langham inside, hit immediately by the stench of blood. He gagged, breathed through his mouth and stared around a small hallway littered with coats flung down from the hooks on the wall just inside the doorway. Someone had been here, that much was evident, and he didn’t need the growing unease in his gut to tell him that. He stepped over the coats, tailing Langham into the living room. The mess here was worse—sofa overturned, the wall cabinet pulled down and balancing precariously on an armchair, contents strewn over a carpet covered in fluff from inside the throw cushions. One mental motherfucker had been in here looking for something, all right.
    Langham turned, cocking his head to let Oliver know they’d find nothing here but chaos. Oliver followed him into the kitchen—more of the same wreckage there—then up the stairs. The detective coughed, gagged and stopped at the top, glancing across the landing at the two closed doors. Oliver stared at them through the baluster rails, a wave of hate flowing over him. The press of spirits wanting to speak to him made him breathless. He swallowed, knowing there was nothing to fear here with regards to another human being. No one was at home.
    No living person, anyway.
    “Someone’s dead in there,” he said as Langham turned to look down at him. “Probably Reynolds.”
    “Yeah, the smell’s unmistakeable, but I told myself maybe he had a dog that had died or something. Ever the optimist,