Page 78 of Her Lips Are Sealed

‘Sara, may I call you that?’

She nodded.

‘Well, Sara, there is no easy way to tell you this, but we have reason to believe that Jaxon is responsible for the murders of two women and the attempted murder of another who he left fighting for her life, not to mention the assault on my colleague.’

Sara gasped, along with everyone else.

‘You have the wrong man, this is a case of mistaken identity and I can tell you⁠—’

Mac popped his head inside the room. ‘Why don’t you sit there, shut up and listen to what my colleague is telling you.’

‘You can’t talk to me like that.’

Two of the younger women cupped hands over their mouths to hide the grins on their faces.

‘I just did, have you no concept of how serious this matter is? Your nurse is a dangerous man, and you clearly know nothing about his private life. So, zip it.’

Cain was looking at Mac as if he’d just found his new all-time hero. Ben, who found his attitude refreshing, comical and a little outspoken, wasn’t sure how to react.

‘Sorry, boss. But I don’t think she was listening.’

‘Thanks, Mac.’

‘No problem, I’ll be out here if you need me. Give me a shout.’ He shut the door.

‘As I was saying, I’m going to need to see his personnel file. Now you can be helpful and share that information with me as a matter of urgency or you can be stubborn and I’ll request a warrant that will take maybe an hour at the most, but either way I’ll be getting one so it would be very much appreciated if you’d cooperate.’

Sara was dithering when one of the younger women, the same one who’d pointed to the door for Morgan, said, ‘He lives at his mum’s house in Coniston, but she’s in the States visiting her sister for six weeks.’

‘Thank you, what’s your name?’

‘Rosie Langley.’

‘Thank you, Rosie. Do you know the address?’

She nodded. ‘It’s a large, detached house called The View.’

Sara looked at her. ‘How do you know this?’

‘He invited me for a pizza and Netflix night last month, but all he watched was true crime documentaries, kind of freaked me out. I’m not into that stuff. I pretended I felt ill and left, but he’s been a bit off with me ever since then.’

Cain had slipped out of the room to get a voter’s check for The View in Coniston, to confirm if what Rosie was saying was right. A minute later he was back.

‘Mrs Elaine Cartwright and a Mr Jaxon Cartwright are registered at the address.’

‘Officers will be taking statements from each of you, so if you could wait here for them to speak to you that would be great. Sara, it seems you don’t have to break data protection. We have what we need.’

Her face was getting redder by the minute as she realised the gravity of what her employee had done. ‘I can’t believe this. My business is going to be badly affected.’

‘Neither could I when I had to attend all the crime scenes and tell the victim’s next of kin that their daughters had been murdered in cold blood.’

She glared at Ben but didn’t say anything else.

He nodded at Cain to follow him.

Cain turned to Rosie. ‘You might have had a lucky escape, thanks again.’

She smiled at them both. ‘I hope your detective is okay.’