Blood Loss

Blood Loss
Alex Barclay

FBI agent Ren Bryce takes on her most heart-wrenching case yet when a father’s work places his young daughter in terrible danger…OUT OF SIGHTWhen a teenage girl is found beaten and raped in the grounds of a derelict asylum, FBI agent Ren Bryce is called in to assist. But she is soon diverted to a missing persons’ case when an eleven-year-old girl and her teenage babysitter vanish without a trace from their hotel room.OUT OF MINDFaced with conflicting evidence and inconsistent witnesses, Ren works obsessively to unravel the dark family secrets at the heart of the case, before it’s too late…OUT OF CONTROLDetermined to uncover the truth, Ren’s behaviour becomes increasingly reckless. Putting her own safety at risk, she enters a world where innocent lives are ruined for profit … and kidnap, rape and murder are all part of the deal.

ALEX BARCLAY

Blood Loss

Copyright

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

Copyright © Alex Barclay 2012

Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © David Chilvers/Alamy (landscape);

Shutterstock.com (http://Shutterstock.com) (girls, sky & birds)

Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

Source ISBN: 9780007383436

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007420629

Version: 2016-05-04

Praise for Alex Barclay

‘The rising star of the hard-boiled crime fiction world, combining wild characters, surprising plots and massive backdrops with a touch of dry humour’ Mirror

‘Tense, no-punches-pulled thriller that will have you on the edge of your deckchair’ Woman and Home

‘Explosive’ Company

‘Darkhouse is a terrific debut by an exciting new writer’ Independent on Sunday

‘Compelling’ Glamour

‘Excellent summer reading … Barclay has the confidence to move her story along slowly, and deftly explores the relationships between her characters’ Sunday Telegraph

‘The thriller of the summer’ Irish Independent

‘If you haven’t discovered Alex Barclay, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon’ Image Magazine

To Grainne and to Melanie

Contents

Cover (#u7f2109c8-423b-5283-bebe-7e245c732a62)

Title Page (#u905ebac5-a356-5802-8ecd-4cdf2d04b4b7)

Copyright (#u8dd154c4-5894-5745-b09d-521cb101e322)

Praise for Alex Barclay (#ube9d4802-2360-5f50-8ec7-8084b4d43bc3)

Dedication (#u4ece79de-c13b-515d-a63c-3b1ea4e29c88)

Prologue (#uc678077c-82b0-5550-8d8d-66a0574c4fb3)

Chapter 1 (#ud7ba15ac-f13a-5f82-9926-7d960a9cc4ff)

Chapter 2 (#ued0664b4-84ca-599c-b047-02017a49df69)

Chapter 3 (#u8663b1c2-eeb0-5919-9d81-a66deb5cf62e)

Chapter 4 (#u67dafbd1-97e6-53d1-b21c-20a672b65c60)

Chapter 5 (#u57f9bd48-79dc-5b5e-b285-67b5c8d0183d)

Chapter 6 (#u285c1204-7983-591e-8598-b03a0a1e7bbe)

Chapter 7 (#ue8a7c162-d618-5edf-a008-4c48d7c1a2e9)

Chapter 8 (#u7b3c3abc-5431-5f17-b99a-5459813bc79b)

Chapter 9 (#uc5478161-7d1a-587d-b285-4beb89e5fee6)

Chapter 10 (#u5ec14a30-7436-54cc-8c73-bc35c1d1b688)

Chapter 11 (#u8b634878-4b88-5329-8a76-874018adb722)

Chapter 12 (#u570ffe9d-7a1a-5487-908f-95ea4dc3da2b)