Killer Shortbread Read Online Free PDF

I gritted my teeth. Jesus Christ, my head was exploding, and what on earth  was that noise? And   then everything came back. The shortbread, the apartment. Derek. My eyes shot open, and I nearly threw up, nauseated by the sight of all the lights. I recognized the sound now: it was my son. He was crying. I had to help him, I had to get to him, I had to-
    "Time to get up, sunshine."
    I breathed in sharply as I felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my neck. I tried to twist sharply to see who it was, but I was tied down, and all I could see was Jeremy tied to a cheap wooden chair next to me, silently begging me to stay still.
    "You remember me, don't you?" 
    I looked around, far too aware of how close I was to hyperventilating. The room was practically bare, just a mini-fridge and the two chairs that we were tied to. The rest was just rotting walls and moth-infested carpets. 
    “Of course, I looked a bit different then, didn’t I? Just starting my career, thinking I had everything all sorted out.”
    He came around in front of me, and suddenly the last thing I wanted was to see my ex-husband. If I saw him, everything would be all too real. Trying not to gag, I closed my eyes, but I could still smell the stench of cigarette smoke on his breath as he leaned in and whispered, “Don’t you want to see what you turned me into, Maisie Jones?”
    Whimpering, I opened my eyes and saw Randy Peters for the first time in two years.
    His eyes were harder than I remembered, and so sharp they could cut steel. His face, once cleanly shaven, was completely covered in knotted and mangled brown hair, not quite long enough to be a beard. He looked insane.
    Randy grinned, and a terrifying chuckle erupted from his throat. This only made Derek shriek louder.
    Scowling, Randy went to pick him up, but, terrified, the toddler tried to crawl away. Randy caught him, lifted him on his hip in triumph, and then yelped. Derek fell, and blood trickled from Randy’s hand.
    “Damn kid,” he spat, sucking on his hand. “ Don’t you know who your father is? ”
     
    I shook my head, crying.
    “You’re not his father, Randy. You left us. You just got up and left !”
    He gnashed his teeth, stomped up to me and smacked me across the face with his gun. My entire head ricocheted with pain as the metal hit my skull, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head as I desperately tried not to pass out.
    “Watch how you talk to me, woman,” he growled, pointing his gun at my throat. “You ruined my life, and you are going to pay for it.”
    “What the hell is your problem, man?” Jeremy shouted, straining against the duct tape that held him to the chair. “This was all your fault. You can’t blame your abandonment on her!”
    Randy turned to him, his face twisting into a contorted version of a smile.
    “Is that what she told you?” Randy seethed, slowly approaching Jeremy. “That I abandoned them? Well, let me tell you something about your little girlfriend, pal. As soon as things get rough, she will send you packing. If your job begins to fail, if you’re having a rough time, if you fail to meet her standards of being perfect, she will leave you in the trash.”
    I looked away, my cheeks burning as Jeremy’s gaze burned a hole in my skull.
    “Maisie?” He didn’t sound angry, just defeated.
    Somehow that was even worse.
    “He came home drunk every night,” I whispered, my head ringing in pain. “He would yell at me and snap at Derek for the smallest things. He was only one year old, but when Derek spilled his glass of milk, it was as if he had killed a man. I… I was scared, Jeremy. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bear to raise my son in a house like that.”
    “And so the truth comes to light.” Randy laughed grimly. “She doesn’t seem so perfect now, does she, Detective?”
    I tried to catch Jeremy’s eye, but he refused to look at me. I closed my eyes, sobbing, and dropped my head.
    “But this time,