Extract: Anything For Her by G.J.Minett

Anything for Her by G.J. Minett

Release Date: 30th November 2017
Publisher: Zaffre

Genres:  Psychological Suspense

A devilish psychological thriller from the widely loved GJ Minett, for fans of The Girl Before and Lie with Me.

You'd do anything for the one that got away . . . wouldn't you?

When Billy Orr returns home to spend time with his dying sister, he bumps into his ex-girlfriend Aimi, the love of his life. He might not have seen her in eleven years, but Billy's never forgotten her. He'd do anything for her then, and he'd do anything for her now.

When Aimi tells him that she wants to escape her abusive husband, Billy agrees to help her fake her own death. But is she still the Aimi that Billy remembers from all those years ago?

Once Aimi disappears, Billy has to face the possibility that perhaps she had different reasons for disappearing - reasons that might be more dangerous than she's led him to believe . . .

Sometimes trusting the one you love is the wrong thing to do.

EXTRACT

‘So how is she anyway?’ she called out to a background of cupboard doors being opened and shut.

‘She’s still fine. No real change in the last three minutes.’

‘I asked that already, didn’t I? I’ll shut up.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

Even as the words left his mouth, he wondered if maybe they sounded a little on the sharp side, which hadn’t been his intention. He left it a few seconds, then got up and stood in the doorway.

‘She’s fine,’ he said in a voice he hoped would sound as conciliatory as possible. He didn’t want to argue with Mia . . . not this week. Not ever. He started ticking off the bits of information like items on the shopping list they’d just discarded.

‘Busy busy since they moved to Winchelsea. Still settling in – says it doesn’t feel like home yet. She’s had to give up any real thoughts about a career in dancing. Says her cruciate wouldn’t hold up – she’s had real problems with it since a bad fall a couple of years ago. Spends a lot of time choreographing now instead with a dance group in Brighton and she’s also doing a bit of teaching part-time at a dance school over that way. Other than that . . .’ He spread his arms to suggest that there was nothing more he could recall from the conversation.

Mia looked at him for several seconds, opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Their conversations were always like this whenever Aimi was the subject. Mia seemed to feel the need to weigh the merits of every sentence before speaking. All she had to offer this time was a fairly feeble ‘Well, it’s good to know she’s all right,’ which was almost embarrassingly transparent. What she really meant was, are you OK? She wanted to know how he felt after bumping into her like that, to tell him he could talk to her any time he liked if there was something bothering him because that’s how she was – always there for him. And above all else she wanted to urge him to be careful. Nothing so crass as stay away from her because she knew how counter-productive that sort of approach would be, but she’d be anxious to reinforce the idea that any contact with Aimi Bradshaw was not a good idea. And contact with Aimi Vedra would be even worse.

He knew all this . . . which is why he didn’t tell her that before they went their separate ways in the supermarket, they’d updated phone numbers.

Or that they’d agreed they’d meet up sometime soon for a coffee in town or a drink one evening so that they could really catch up.

It felt like the last thing Mia needed to know right now.

ABOUT G.J. MINETT

 

G.J. Minett studied at Cambridge and then spent many years as a teacher of foreign languages. He studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Chichester, and won the 2010 Chapter One Prize for unpublished novels with the opening chapter of The Hidden Legacy. You can follow him on Twitter @gjminett and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/grahamminettauthor