Misplaced by Lee Murray
Publication date: December 1st 2013
Genres: Mystery, New Adult
Synopsis:
Dream cars have no registration plate…
One
evening, Adam’s mum pops out for the milk and doesn’t come back,
launching a frantic nationwide search. Yet after weeks with no leads,
the television crews drift away, the police start asking hairy
questions, and Adam’s dad starts seeing someone else. Adam’s life is
falling apart. But then he meets Skye, who it seems has misplaced a
parent too, and things start to look up. That is, until a body is found…
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18740764-misplaced
Purchase:
Tuesday after training, Adam watches as a boy with sloping shoulders
makes his way down the street. Wearing a grey hoodie, dark jeans and canvas
kung fu shoes, the boy’s hands are buried deep in the pockets of his
sweatshirt. He walks with deliberate intent, his head down. Any of Adam’s
neighbours chancing a look out of their front window right now would see only
his lean shape and hurried gait, his face, reduced to the occasional flash of
broad nose, concealed in the depths of the hood.
This boy is Adam’s prey.
Adam haunts him, moving soundlessly from tree to fence, keeping his
distance, watching and waiting. Something in his demeanour had alerted Adam the
moment the boy emerged from the dairy. He isn’t from around here, Adam’s sure
about that. And he isn’t a regular customer either: he hasn’t turned up on the
other evenings Adam’s held vigil outside the dairy. Perhaps it’d been the boy’s
furtive glances left and right, or the fact that he hadn’t bothered to buy
anything in spite of hurrying into the store only minutes before Mr Singh
closed up. Whatever it was, Adam felt compelled to follow him. Grateful to be
still wearing his running shoes, Adam crosses the road and takes up a position
behind a lemon bush in Mrs Steele’s front yard. As he pulls a branch aside to
better track the boy, it occurs to Adam that in real life surveillance is less
sexy and more prickly than it is on TV. He peers through the thicket of woody
stems.
Unaware he’s being watched, the hoodie boy pads down the street. Outside
Mr Wilson’s house he stops and looks about. He pulls a can from inside his
clothes, pulls off the cap, shakes it quietly. Adam almost smiles. Contractors
from the council came only days ago to paint out the tagging on the
transformer. This guy’s back to do the deed again. Adam can hardly believe his
luck.
The lemon branch flicks back, the leaves rustling as they hit Adam’s
jacket. The small sound pierces the hushed gloom of the street. Startled, the
boy looks about, his head darting left and right, still shrouded in the hood.
Adam jumps back into the shadows of Mrs Steele’s house. He stands still and
doesn’t dare to breathe. A car drives past. The boy stuffs the can into his
sweat pocket and sits on Mr Wilson’s concrete fence, dangling his feet and
rocking to music on an imaginary iPod.
Clever.
He looks as if he’s waiting for a mate or a bus or something. When the
car has turned into the next street, the boy slips off the fence and whips out
his can again. This time he doesn’t muck around. The deed is done within
seconds: a smear of illegible script in fuck-you red and with a final
flamboyant flourish through the centre. He steps back to admire his handiwork
for a moment, then flings the can into Mr Wilson’s flowerbed before setting off
down the road.
AUTHOR BIO:
Lee
Murray is a full-time writer and editor with masters degrees in science
and management. Lee wrote Misplaced after a friend, Florence, went
missing from her home in France in 2003. Sadly, Florence is still
missing. Lee lives in Tauranga, New Zealand with her husband and their
two teenaged children.
Author links:
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