Three Widows

THREE WIDOWS AN UNPUTDOWNABLE CRIME THRILLER WITH A JAW-DROPPING TWIST PATRICIA GIBNEY BOOKS BY PATRICIA GIBNEY The Detective Lottie Parker series 1. The Missing Ones 2. The Stolen Girls 3. The Lost Child 4. No Safe Place 5. Tell Nobody 6. Final Betrayal 7. Broken Souls 8. Buried Angels 9. Silent Voices 10. Little Bones 11. The Guilty Girl 12. Three Widows AVAILABLE IN AUDIO The Detective Lottie Parker series 1. The Missing Ones (Available in the UK and the US) 2. The Stolen Girls (Available in the UK and the US) 3. The Lost Child (Available in the UK and the US) 4. No Safe Place (Available in the UK and the US) 5. Tell Nobody (Available in the UK and the US) 6. Final Betrayal (Available in the UK and the US) 7. Broken Souls (Available in the UK and the US) 8. Buried Angels (Available in the UK and the US) 9. Silent Voices (Available in the UK and the US) 10. Little Bones (Available in the UK and the US) 11. The Guilty Girl (Available in the UK and the US) CONTENTS Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Day One Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Day Two Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Day Three Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Chapter 93 Day Four Chapter 94 Chapter 95 Chapter 96 Chapter 97 Chapter 98 Chapter 99 Chapter 100 Chapter 101 Chapter 102 Chapter 103 Epilogue Hear More from Patricia Books by Patricia Gibney A Letter from Patricia The Missing Ones The Stolen Girls The Lost Child No Safe Place Tell Nobody Final Betrayal Broken Souls Buried Angels Silent Voices Little Bones The Guilty Girl Acknowledgements * In memory of Louis Collins Snr. Rest in Peace PROLOGUE Mud is caked on my hands, clogged beneath my nails and crusted around the cuticles. My fingers have turned a mucky-brown colour. The further I dig, the wetter I get, the darker my hands turn. Bogs are waterlogged, nutrient-rich patches of land used as a source of fuel, an ecosystem for wildlife and plant life. An ideal site to bury a body on this cold, silent night. Down my hands dig, the trowel discarded. This is the perfect burial place. I hope the body I plant will take hundreds of years to be discovered. I toyed with the idea of cutting it up to make it easier to transport, but I didn’t relish the thought of cleaning up all that blood. Instead, I tied it to a briquette trolley, leaned a plank of timber 1 Orla Keating stalled inside the door of Fallon’s lounge bar as her senses were hit by the odour of beer and fried food. A television droned from one corner. A few tables were occupied and a bored-looking bartender chatted with a guy at the end of the bar. The first time she’d met the others, she’d expected them to be dressed in black. Widows of old wore black to mourn their husbands, but she didn’t think she’d ever met one. At thirty-three, what would she know? A missing husband wasn’t a dead husband, even though he’d been gone almost a year. She’d thought it would be beneficial for her to join this group. The guards hadn’t found any trace of him. He hadn’t boarded that flight to Liverpool. His car wasn’t located in any