Beautiful Nessa Carter is walking down Queen Street on a cold winter’s evening in Auckland. As you’ll discover, in the following excerpt from the opening chapter of my new release suspense thriller One Witness Too Many, she’s in a buoyant mood. However, that’s about to change – dramatically.
Despite the cold she felt happier and more content than she had in a long time – since she’d terminated her engagement to the man she’d been looking forward to marrying at least. There was a spring in her step, and she felt ready to face the future no matter what it brought her way. She knew she had Sandra Buller to thank for her newfound confidence.
Crossing Darby Street, Nessa remembered nearby Harrington’s Jewellers had been advertising a silver necklace she liked the look of. She glanced down the street and was surprised to see the store’s lights were still on. Hesitating, she debated whether to investigate and see if the necklace was still available.
Damn it!
She turned into Darby Street and hurried toward the store, resigned to being a few minutes late for drinks.
As she approached the store, she saw the CLOSED sign hanging inside its reinforced glass door. She also saw the necklace she’d admired was on display in the front window, its glitter enhanced under lights. Her eyes fastened on the precious item.
It’s beautiful!
She was almost too scared to look at the price tag.
“Seven grand!” she gasped when she saw the price.
Ah, well. It will have to wait.
Nessa made a mental note to keep the necklace in mind after her new business was pulling in a six-figure income. She reminded herself if her business plan was on target, she’d pull in $100,000 within six months.
As she turned to leave, she noticed movement toward the rear of the store. Closer inspection revealed, to her astonishment, a robbery was in progress inside. A big, masked man brandishing a knife was standing over the jeweller whom she recognized from the store’s newspaper ads as Clive Harrington; the harried jeweller was frantically stuffing gold watches, rings, necklaces and other valuables into a bag.
It was like a scene from a crime movie, and Nessa thought she was imagining it. Recovering from her shock, she retrieved her cell phone from her shoulder bag and phoned 111.
She almost dropped the phone when she saw the robber stab Harrington in the throat for no apparent reason.
Hands flailing, the wounded jeweller’s left hand caught in his attacker’s mask, temporarily unmasking him.
As the jeweller sank to the floor, his attacker turned and looked directly at Nessa. Both stared at each other for what seemed, to the young woman at least, an eternity.
The robber was first to recover, pulling his mask back up over his face but not before the witness noticed he had a bushy beard and, beneath the baseball cap he wore, his eyes were so dark they looked black.
“Hello, you have reached 111,” a female voice announced on Nessa’s speakerphone. “Please state your name and the reason you are calling.”
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One Witness Too Many is available now as a Kindle eBook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLVXQPDD/
Audiobook and paperback coming soon.
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