The Dark Corners – Book One: A Friendly Betrayal

By Lyn Moloney

This is the story about three women, who think they are friends until one hellish night when one is raped and the other two kill the rapist and blame her. This starts an inventive killing spree, each new murder committed to cover up the previous one and to keep several steps ahead of the police. Eventually, she wakes from a coma to find out that it was all a bad dream and that in reality, they had been in a car crash that maimed the other two and demolished her face. She is given a new face and tries to get back with her friends, but they hate her and set her up with a contagious new boyfriend. Upon receiving the news that she has become contagious and will die, she wants to take them with her and sets about destroying them, only to find out that they can all be saved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781398403666

Lyn Moloney

Lyn Moloney has lived most of her life in Australia, but she has travelled the world extensively and has lived in London for quite a few years. Lyn has had many experiences, some she should not have had, and many she really enjoyed. Lyn has three siblings, two children and two grandchildren. She now is retired and lives in Central Coast, New South Wales.

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About the Author

Lyn Moloney has lived most of her life in Australia, but she has travelled the world extensively and has lived in London for quite a few years. Lyn has had many experiences, some she should not have had, and many she really enjoyed.

Lyn has three siblings, two children and two grandchildren. She now is retired and lives in Central Coast, New South Wales.

Dedication

To Dean Justin and Katherine Bennetts, for all their expertise and Knowledge.

Copyright Information ©

Lyn Moloney 2021

The right of Lyn Moloney to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398403659 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398403666 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2021

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Amber, Ryan, Mei & Dean

Thank you for your love and support.

Synopsis

This is the story about three women, who think they are friends until one hellish night when one is raped and the other two kill the rapist and blame her. This starts an inventive killing spree, each new murder committed to cover up the previous one and to keep several steps ahead of the police. Eventually, she wakes from a coma to find out that it was all a bad dream and that in reality, they had been in a car crash, maiming the other two and demolishing her face. She is given a new face and tries to get back with her friends but they hate her and set her up with a contagious new boyfriend. Upon receiving the news that she is contagious and will die, she wants to take them with her and sets about destroying them only to find that they can all be saved.

Chapter 1

The pain. It was all-encompassing. It was a pain she had never felt before and it was making her mind shut down, leaving her unable to endure it.

She moved slightly and cried out. It was as if someone had stomped on her body and broken every bone. She was only pain.

The clouds opened again and thunder rolled, the lightning flashed brightly and down came the rain with the wind whipping around. She wasn’t sure what had woken her, but the sound of the tree branches that hung over the van and moved with the wind sounded like an animal sharpening its claws. The sound made her cringe as if she had received a premonition for the future. The rain had been coming through the window, wetting the pillows and the bed and waking Megan from what seemed to be a drunken sleep.

She moved and collapsed again. Then all of a sudden it was as if someone turned the tap almost off and it just dribbled from the sky.

She thought it had been raining all night but now all Megan could hear, as she lay in bed, was a car driving through the muddy streets of the park. The noise the tyres made was a slushing kind of sound that made her feel nauseous, just like some kind of animal slithering its way towards her. The drops of the remaining rain whispered as they hit the ground and in her mind, it spelt out failure. Tears rolled from her eyes. The water was plopping into the puddles off the trees around the caravan as her tears soaked into her pillow. Her body ached no matter how she laid on the bed and with alcohol and sleep dulling her brain, she thought she had twisted her body in her sleep. It all hurt.

It was a small caravan park but it was all she could afford now. The van was small and it didn’t have a bathroom. It had a kitchenette, an eating area which turned into a second bed and a lounge. The bedroom, which was just wide enough for a double bed, made it difficult to lay down unless you climbed in from the right side of the bed as the other side was pushed against the wall. The air had gotten cooler so she pulled the covers up closer to her chin and went back to sleep with the word failure plopping over and over again into her head like the rain into the puddles.

Upon waking the second time in the rented van, the heat was very oppressive so she threw the covers off and laid there naked, feeling the hot breeze coming through the window and running across her sweat-covered skin. The heat of the new day had already dried the puddles to crusty dirt. She could hear the crunch of the dirt underfoot as people passed by her van. No more rain, just humidity to sour the day.

Any movement still hurt so she threw her pillow on the floor and laid with her head on the mattress. Remembering that only a short while ago her husband of twenty years, got up and walked out with the new girlfriend after demanding a divorce. There was no way, after all the hurt and humiliation he had caused her, that she would sign divorce papers. He had been hounding her through his solicitor for three months to sign divorce papers but as far as she was concerned, she would never sign those papers and give the new bitch a happy life.

‘Bugger him and the new bird, why should I make them happy? They can go to hell as far as I am concerned,’ she said aloud and it sounded funny to her ears.

The new woman wanted a child with her husband and Megan refused to legitimise the little bastard and give it the same name as her children. At least that was one thing that Megan could hold on to. His name. Not that it meant anything to her now, but it did to them.

The fact that the girlfriend was a lot younger really annoyed Megan, but that he was with her so soon after the breakup, annoyed her even more. He had walked out of Megan’s life and straight into hers. He had even taken her to their friends’ homes for meals over the previous year, so to her friends, it was a going concern and not one of them cared enough about Megan to tell her when it happened.

They at least could have given her a clue but none of them had the decency to tell her or alert her to what was going on.

Everyone must have thought she was an idiot and had a great laugh at her expense, including the new bitch.

She felt so betrayed and humiliated. The hurt was like a knife that twisted in her guts whenever she thought about them and her so-called friends. What was worse, what Megan found hard to come to terms with, was that those people, while laughing, may also have been pitying her.

Megan hated her husband so much that her fingers curled into fists whenever she thought of him.

Even her closest friend Jillian, who she had seen many times during that period, said nothing to her. Jillian and her husband were one of the couples that Jack and the bitch had dinner with when he was flaunting her to their circle of friends. He probably hoped that Jillian would tell her and that way it would come out in the open and he wouldn’t have to do it. He was such a gutless wonder.

Megan guessed the new woman must be rich, he liked that about his women. Either rich or a woman like her who worked eighty hours a week just so he could take what he wanted and spend it on who he wanted. The words ‘miserable bastard’ came to mind when she thought of him.

Jillian would often ask after Jack and never once did she indicate that anything was strange. Megan would lie and say something that sounded like they were having fun and being happy. How they must all have laughed at my expense. Megan grimaced at the thought. She felt so used. It made her feel ugly and worthless. Megan never realised that Jack had been carrying on a relationship with this other person while he still pretended to love and live with her.

She knew something was wrong but he wouldn’t talk to her even when she pressed the point. He would just walk away from her. Guess it had gotten to a point where Jack only needed Megan’s wages and he didn’t want to upset her so she would stop giving him access to her account. Probably spent her money on the new bitch anyway.

Chapter 2

So here she lay trying to resurrect her life, in a rented van in a caravan park in Tweed Heads. As she lay there, she realised her head was throbbing so hard that she felt sick to her stomach. She felt alone, lonely and cheated on and hatred churned in her stomach for her husband, as well as all the ingredients from the night before. Megan really only wanted harm for him and the new bitch. If they were to get hit by a bus, well, she probably wouldn’t mourn.

She went to stretch and found that her whole body trembled with the refusal to allow the muscles to contract. ‘Christ, I hurt, I must have thrown myself around like a trained seal last night!’ Megan lisped to herself and realised she wasn’t speaking as she normally did.

‘I need coffee! Much too much booze last night!’ Megan mumbled to herself and shook her head. She cried out because of the pain that shot through her brain. It was like a red hot piece of steel being pushed from one side of her head to the other.

Every muscle in her body screamed with pain and her face seemed tight. She ran her tongue over her teeth and realised there was a gap where there should have been teeth. She gently crawled out of bed talking to herself.

‘Come on, old girl, get your arse out of bed, the day is half over.’

Megan stumbled out of bed and felt the second searing pain reach her alcohol-numbed brain and she cried out as her knees gave way and she crumpled to the floor.

Sweat broke out on her body and face as she picked herself up off the floor to go to the kitchen. Even to stretch over the sink to click on the kettle made her see double.

‘What the hell did I do last night?’

Megan leant against the sink in the tiny kitchenette and waited for the kettle to boil, then very carefully, she inched her way back to bed. She hated her husband for what he had done to her and maybe they often went their own ways in the past but she had always tried to make him happy. Though the allure of a younger woman making him feel younger by comparison to her making him feel middle-aged, well, it was something she could not compete with. Nor did she want to.

She had such hatred for him now that she hoped he would burn in hell or at least that the new bitch would take him for anything he had.

Megan smiled to herself, remembering that he did not have much without a woman supplying the money for him to take whenever he felt like it.

She remembered he used to say, ‘I love it when a plan comes together.’ Now she understood the saying.

She had been scared to stop the joint account back when they were together, because the last time she tried, he had beaten her so badly that she was off work for two weeks and he bitched the whole time that there was no money. When she answered back and had explained it was his fault that she was not working, he broke her arm as an answer. Now she had everything in her name only and she was surprised at just how much she could save.

They were supposed to be setting up their lives for later on but she thought that the middle-age itch had gotten to him. When they sold the home, they lost a lot of money because the market was in a slump and she really put all the blame on him as he forced her to accept a lower amount than they had asked and to be honest, she just wanted that part of her life to be over. She didn’t want to be controlled anymore by that bastard and after everything was paid off, they walked away with only fifty grand each.

Megan still had her money invested but she knew he would have spent his share by now and was starting to leech off the new love.

After she had been working twenty years to make a home and happy family, he blew it all on some store-bought teeth and tits. Megan came away with nothing except the pain of being the older woman thrown on the slag heap of used up and worn out wives, that these bastards have finished with. To say Megan was bitter was really an understatement, she hated her lousy husband with a passion of the demented.

The only consolation Megan had was that the new girlfriend would also end up on the slag heap if she didn’t work, and if she didn’t allow him to paddle around in her bank account, she would get there quicker than she thinks. It would not be all beer and happy family as he had promised Megan.

Once she wised up to him, Megan prayed that this new woman would have the guts to throw him over and not waste the rest of her life like Megan had. Then he would have no one to leech off and would find it lonely out in the cold, or she sincerely hoped he would.

He needed someone to bring in the money as he decided long ago that he didn’t have to work. He always fed off the woman he was with because he had a knack for doing it well and making the woman feel she had a responsibility to him. If this one throws him over, she thought, then he will work hard at finding the next unsuspecting victim. She thought that it must be getting harder to find an accepting woman as he was getting older and if possible, more selfish. Pretty creepy but he always got away with it. Megan had often wanted to leave and call it quits but she always felt he would not survive without her and she was partly right, he would not have survived without her money.

Now she realised how pathetic and controlled she had been and the realisation made her sick to the stomach. She often wondered how it got to that point and all she ever came up with was that she truly loved the cheating bastard.

The only things she did to keep sane now were to