DUTY OF CARE (The Duty Bound Duet #1) - Sydney Jamesson

DUTY OF CARE

On her death bed Emily Derbyshire’s mother made her promise to take good care of her little sister. Keeping her promise, twelve-year-old Emily did exactly that and became five-year-old Rita’s benefactor and bodyguard.

After eighteen years of sisterly devotion Emily receives some shocking news! Rita has committed suicide. When disturbing details start to surface, Emily puts her highflying career on hold to seek out those responsible. She hires an American private investigator Robert Blackmoor; a motorbike riding, no-frills, computer hacker who will use any means necessary to unearth the truth.

Not surprisingly, Robert uncovers secrets from Emily’s troubled childhood and chips away at the glossy veneer of deceit which masks the truth behind, not only Rita’s life, but Emily’s imperfect life too.

Together they assemble the pieces of a sinister puzzle, revealing a cruel and corrupt world of exploitation and murder: a Dark Web into which Rita has become entangled.

As dark forces encircling Emily tighten their grip, and with everything to lose, she must make a life and death decision that she may live to regret.

To

Barry, Jenna, Aaron, Mum and Dad

for always being there

PROLOGUE

OUT OF THE DARKNESS an insipid winter sun appears, discharging splinters of yellow light between two blocks of flats overlooking a landfill site. Parked between the misshapen hillocks is the silhouette of a burnt-out, smoking car.

A middle-aged woman hangs out washing before heading out to work. Sodden jeans and a couple of T-shirts appear like ghostly apparitions in the miasmic haze. From way up high, she can see for miles on a good day.

But this is not a good day.

Her senses are triggered. Her eyes itch, her throat constricts; hairs on the back of her neck feel electrified and bristle against the collar of her nurse’s uniform. She turns and faces the wasteland twelve floors below, leans forward on the metal handrail and catches an unpleasant odour: burning rubber and … something else…

No one heard the small red car arrive in the early hours.

No one saw it catch alight and burst into flames.

But, later that day, everyone would be talking about the charred remains of the young woman strapped in the driver’s seat…

CHAPTER ONE

EMILY

“The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what

you love.” Kristina McMorrris.

I STOOD ALONE in the graveyard the day they buried my sister. There I was, Emily Parsons, the hapless figure lurking behind a gnarled oak tree—an unwelcome guest.

A savage January wind gnawed at my cheeks. It made my eyes sting; eyes already brimming with salty residue left over from a night spent sobbing into a pillow. Sapped of all strength, I leaned against the trunk, held it between my hands; gloved fingers tracing rough edges. I breathed in its wild, woody perfume; rotting branches, unclaimed timber—a steadfast pillar of support in a surreal tableau.

At our parents’ request, I didn’t show my face. Did they fear I’d cause a scene, throw myself onto the coffin?

Who knows?

Who cares?

With or without their blessing, I had to go. I had to be there to witness my little sister’s departure from this mortal coil and, if that meant enduring sniveling platitudes caught on the wind—so be it.

Our parents, family members and some of Rita’s friends circled the cavernous hole in the ground like ravens; a flock of silhouettes set against a snowy backdrop. My watery eyes lingered on the word Rita formed in purple violas on the wreath—a tiny name for someone with a big personality and an even bigger heart.

Having endured the lamentations of the priest marking the passing of a life ended much too soon, I absconded. I sprinted like a bandit between gravestones, my feet slipping on ankle deep snow that shrouded everything, creating a clean, sterile landscape. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing except my sister’s charred body lying six foot under in a mahogany coffin fifty yards away.

I took refuge in my car and sat in silence, refusing to acknowledge the shifting congregation. Concealed behind windows veiled with condensation, I left unseen.

In those days leading up to Rita’s funeral, I cried nonstop. I would wake from dozing and the world would be as it was. I would smile through cracked lips, but then I would remember and my heart would ache and my body would shake and tears would cloud my eyes once more.

The myriad of memories we had made were my only lifeline: phone conversations, photographs and texts existing in a vacuum, authorless—a cruel kind of comfort. For the sake of my sanity, I tried to come to terms with her passing,