A Shot in the Dark

By Violetta Antcliff

When Kate Grant bid for a house unseen at the auction, did she get a bargain or more than she bargained for? There had been no mention of a sitting tenant, one who was under the impression he had more right to the house than she had. And if there had been, would she still have gone ahead with the purchase?

Then a stranger arriv

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gypsy Shadow Publishing
• Release date: Nov 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781619506305

Violetta Antcliff

Violetta Antcliff has been a member of the Nottingham Writers' Club for over twenty years. A winner of numerous short story competitions, her work was area short listed in Waterstone's Wow Factor story competition. Took first prize in Nottingham County Council short story competition with a story called "Irish Mouse Tales," which was published by Gypsy Shadow Publishing as an eBook in July of 2012. She has had her poetry and short stories read on local radio. Violetta is a prolific writer of short fiction, having written and published more than 40 short stories with Gypsy Shadow.

Book preview

Contents

Copyright Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

About the Author

A Shot in the Dark

by

Violetta Antcliff

All rights reserved

Copyright © July 28, 2020, Violetta Antcliff

Cover Art Copyright © 2020, Charlotte Holley

Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

Lockhart, TX

www.gypsyshadow.com

Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

ISBN: 978-1-61950-630-5

Published in the United States of America

First eBook Edition: August 1, 2020

Chapter 1

"Richard touched her hand and was surprised to find it was still warm. He braced himself to feel for her pulse, breathing a sigh of relief on finding no heartbeat. All he had to do now was get rid of the body and get back to the party before he was missed…"

Kate closed the book and placed it on the dashboard of the car. She had read enough to know it was not her kind of book, she had picked it at random from a secondhand book shop earlier that day.

Rain clouds had started to gather, a storm was brewing, thunder rumbled in the distance. Kate knew she had no option but to spend the night in the car. Tomorrow a furniture van would be delivering her belongings to the derelict cottage she had bought without first viewing it at auction earlier that week.

Common sense should have told her that when the auctioneer said the cottage had potential, all it needed was a little modernising to bring it up to date, what he really meant was it was derelict, needed money spent on it; by what she had seen of it so far, that was lots of money.

The roof had tiles missing, there was no central heating or double glazing. The only thing she could see in the cottage’s favour was the gardens both back and front were huge—overgrown, but nothing a good gardener wouldn’t be able to handle.

The list of things to do was endless. There were jobs she’d be able to tackle herself: painting, decorating and the like, but she knew she would have to put her hand in her pocket to pay for all the big jobs.

The day she’d gone to the auction she thought she had got herself a bargain, never questioned the fact hers had been the only bid put in and accepted without question.

Well, after seeing the property she had just bought, she was no longer patting herself on the back. I must need to have my head examined, she muttered.

She reflected on the reason she had bought the cottage in the first place. Her marriage had run its