Read Online One Penny Surprise (Saved By Desire 1) by Rebecca King - Free Book Online Page B

walked to the end of the street and out onto the main road, but he didn’t see the stranger again.
    Had that been the killer? Or was that who Poppy had been in the park to meet?
    Although Luke hadn’t had the opportunity to see much in the way of distinguishing features, he had noted that the man had cropped jet black hair and was so slim he looked almost gaunt. To cap it all, his clothing was unremarkable; the kind of clothing a lot of people in London wore, and that gave him the ability to blend in with the many pedestrians out on the pavements this morning. And vanish he had. Completely. Totally. Disappeared off the face of the earth in a heartbeat.
    “Where in the heck have you gone?” he groused with a frown as he scoured the people hurrying in all directions.
    At the end of the road he turned around and studied the busy thoroughfare closely. Traders were setting up stalls to one side of the busy high street. Barrow men were pushing their carts loaded with wares while women carried baskets of goods and foods. Children scurried this way and that as they too headed off to work. At first glance it was just an ordinary street in London full of working-class people. However, Luke knew that somewhere in the midst of the chaos was a possible killer; the murderer of the man in the park. He also suspected that he had gotten that close, but luck had worked against him for a third or fourth time that morning.
    The first had been with Miss Cleghorne and her questionable bag, the second came in the guise of the pick-pockets, the third bundle of mystery was the corpse, and the fourth the mysterious stranger in the woods.
    Disgusted at his amateurish mistake, Luke swore, and was about to retrace his steps back to the park when someone appeared at his elbow. He glared at the man who drew too close for comfort but then cursed aloud when he immediately recognised the tall gentleman who was his best friend.
    “Good morning,” Barnaby growled before Luke could speak.
    “Is it?” Luke demanded dourly. He threw his friend and colleague a warning look and nodded in the direction of the park. “Come with me.”
    “Been an eventful morning, has it?” Barnaby drawled with his brows lifted as he fell into step beside him.
    Luke shook his head in disgust. “You have no idea just how badly my morning has gone.”
    Careful to keep his voice low for fear of being overhead, he brought Barnaby up to date on the morning’s events while they made their way back to the park.
    “So you have no idea who he is?” Barnaby asked curiously.
    “Which one? The hider or the corpse?”
    “Both. Either.”
    “No.”
    As they walked, Luke found himself habitually scanning the area for any sign of loiterers, pick-pockets, or people acting strangely, or the man in black. Unfortunately, on this particular morning the only people who appeared to be involved in anything untoward were himself, and the delightful Miss Cleghorne.
    “What the hell?” Luke growled as he stared at the spot where he had left Poppy. “Damn it all.”
    Barnaby looked at him before he studied the area. “What is it?” He couldn’t see anything amiss.
    “They have gone,” Luke murmured in stunned disbelief. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. When his brain did begin to function properly his fierce temper grew - to mammoth proportions. He stared at the spot where he had left the body but, apart from a slight wet patch on the path, there was nothing to indicate that either the body, or Poppy, had been there at all.
    “The body? The woman? Where are they?” Barnaby glanced around the empty park with a frown but nothing stirred. Not even the birds tweeted in the trees. There wasn’t even the occasional rustle of twigs and leaves from the woodland creatures.
    “Gone,” Luke growled, perplexed. He scanned the trees but couldn’t see either of them. “How in the world did she move him?”
    “She has scarpered,” Barnaby said, and didn’t need Luke to nod to