Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)
Steph Broadribb
1
MOIRA
Just before sunrise is Moira’s favourite time. Dawn is when the day has most promise; it’s still a blank slate – a tabula rasa. It gives her another opportunity to try and forget what happened and focus on making something new. Again.
Closing the gate to the backyard, she checks the coast is clear and steps out on to the white gravel path. She’s happy no one’s around. She doesn’t like to be watched; prefers to blend into the background, hidden in plain sight, but it’s proving much harder here on The Homestead than she’d imagined.
She follows the circular walking track as it snakes around the perimeter of the Ocean Mist district towards Manatee Recreation Park. There’s a chill to the air and it’s a twenty-minute walk. Zipping up her hoodie, Moira ups her pace. She’ll try to do the walk in eighteen minutes today. She always likes to have a goal.
As she walks, Moira hums to herself. The sun is starting to rise and the path ahead is free of people for as far as she can see. Good. It isn’t that she dislikes people exactly, but since moving to The Homestead retirement community a month ago she’s come to realise just how much the people here like to talk. It’s a relief to start the day not having to be cordial with anyone. She’s never been very good at being cordial.
Everyone here in this purpose-built community for people over fifty-five years old is just so damn friendly. There’s no anonymity like you have in a big city. She hopes she’ll get used to it, because at this time of day, with the sun starting to burn the dew from the grass, and the silence broken only by the morning call of the birds, the place is so peaceful. And she really needs some peace.
She checks her watch: it’s 6.49 a.m. She’s on track; in the groove she’s got into since moving – rise at 6 a.m., have a protein shake, head to the park for a swim as the sun finishes coming up, then back to the house to walk the dogs. It’s the end of week four and she’s got the timings down pat. If she’s free and clear of the pool by eight thirty she should have the place to herself and avoid any chance of small talk.
It’s a good motivator. The gravel crunches beneath her trainers as she powers up an incline. Before moving here she’d always thought of Florida as flat, but she was wrong. This part of central Florida is pretty undulating and that’s fine; she’s glad of the added cardio workout.
Slowing her pace as she reaches the top of the ridge, Moira takes a sip from her water bottle and looks at the view. On her left are the backyards of the uniformly cream stucco houses that border the path; lawns of the coarse Florida grass that’s much better in the heat than its more delicate British counterpart; screened-in stone patios, huge gas-powered grills; and the occasional plunge pool or hot tub. All of them neat and ordered, and manicured to within an inch of their lives as stipulated in the rules of residency.
She keeps walking and takes another sip. To her right she can see straight across the open grasslands of Misty Plains all the way to the distant line of trees that stand sentry along the border between Ocean Mist district and the as yet unconstructed and unnamed district eleven. Moira doesn’t know how many acres lie between her and the trees, but it has to be a hell of a lot. Until just over a month ago she’d only ever lived and worked in London. The wide, open space here still seems alien.
But even though it’s alien, she’s glad of it. The space is one of the main reasons she picked this place to retire. She’s had enough of urban, enough of London, enough of the ever-increasing bureaucracy and paperwork that being an undercover detective had come to involve. She wanted a total change and that’s what The Homestead sells itself on – a new home for a new chapter of your life. Moira grimaces. She needs that fresh start. Given everything that happened earlier this year, leaving was the right thing, and the safest thing, to do.
She just hadn’t anticipated it would be so damn hard.
Moira checks her watch again and increases her pace. She doesn’t have time to mess about if she’s going to stay on track. Striding along the path she crosses the ridge and starts the descent down to the park. Every time her mind wanders back to her old team, and the last case they’d worked, she forces herself to move faster. But the memories keep coming. In her mind’s eye she sees the group of them getting ready for the takedown on the last job – Riley, Pang, Kress and McCord. The memory freeze-frames on McCord; he’s smiling, his fist bumping hers before they get into the vehicle to ride out.
She bites her lip. Forces down the wave of emotion. Clenching her fists, she lets her nails pinch into her palms, hoping the pain will be a distraction.
She can’t think about McCord right now. She just can’t.
Instead she focuses on the white archway entrance of Manatee Recreation Park and strides towards it. She knows she shouldn’t block her emotions this way; was told enough times by the police doc that she needed to face things, but it’s just too hard. If she’s honest, she feels kind of shell-shocked, like it hasn’t sunk in.
She feels like that about the retirement too.
It seems as if in one misjudged split second, everything she loved and had worked for turned to dust. It happened so fast. She used to say she was good with change, but now she knows that isn’t true.
Moira shakes her head to rid herself of the memories. Stopping under the archway, she checks her watch. She’s made the walk in seventeen minutes, fifty-three seconds. It should feel like a small triumph – a good start to chalk up on the tabula rasa – but she doesn’t feel anything but empty.