All Fall Down

Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 60 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 61 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 62 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 63 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 64 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 65 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 66 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 67 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Read on for a thrilling extract of Forward Slash (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue: Patient Zero

California

John Tucker sneezed violently, jerking the steering wheel to the left, the car swerving and almost clipping the median strip. A truck rumbled past in the outside lane, its horn blaring deep and low, and John raised his middle finger and shouted a curse that nobody could hear.

He was twenty-eight years old and had nothing. No woman, no job, no apartment and no money – apart from the five hundred bucks Cindy had given him.

He’d met her in Hollywood, only a few days ago, though it felt like weeks. He had just spent the last of his money on a night in that sleazy pit, the Capitol Hotel. On that hot summer’s evening he’d been contemplating a night on the streets unless something miraculous happened.

John had been sitting in a bar, the last of his cash gone on a beer that was warm from where he’d been nursing it so long, staring down at the tabletop, his long greasy hair blocking out the world. He became aware of a presence by the table and a female voice. ‘Mind if I join you?’

She was beyond beautiful. Long dark brown hair, a heart-shaped face, hypnotic eyes. She was wearing a leather biker jacket over a white T-shirt that hugged her breasts. He managed to croak, ‘Sure.’

She sat down opposite him. ‘Thanks.’ Her voice was soft and southern, from someplace like Alabama or Georgia. ‘I’m Cindy.’

‘Are you an angel?’ he asked.

And she’d laughed, the sweetest laugh he’d ever heard.

‘Well …’ was all she said.

That night, during which she bought him several beers, shrugging off his half-hearted protests, he told her his pathetic story. About coming to LA to be a rock star, about how the band never took off and his bandmates had either drifted into regular employment or embraced drugs and booze, leaving him to his own addiction.

Not alcohol. Not smack. No, he got dizzy from the spin of the roulette wheel, the whirl of the slots, the roll of the dice. The weekend after the band finally broke up, he’d taken off to Vegas and hadn’t surfaced until he’d lost everything, emerging in a daze into the desert heat without a cent left to his name.

It had been the same for years. Everything he earned, he threw away in Vegas, driving to Nevada with that sick feeling deep inside him, the itch he had to scratch. But Lady Luck never favoured him. She’d tease him, sure, then snatch it all away.