Tom Farrer, Pathology Technician, and Robert Frankis – one of the few people to have caught me out on cars…And thanks to Peter Bailey for his encyclopedic knowledge of Brighton modern and past, and the railway network. And I really owe a very special thank you to Post Adoption Counsellor Chrissie Franklin, who helped me energetically and enthusiastically in so many ways in very difficult terrain.
Thanks as ever to Chris Webb, who keeps my computer working and my back-ups safe, and a massive thanks to my unofficial editors, Imogen Lloyd-Webber, Anna-Lisa Lindeblad and Sue Ansell, who read the manuscript in varying stages and provided me with invaluable input. And thanks also to the hard work of the team at Midas Public Relations, Tony Mulliken, Margot Veale and Amelia Rowland.
I count my blessings to be represented by my fabulous book agent, Carole Blake – and I’m honoured that I help to keep her in a few of her three gazillion pairs of designer shoes! – and my film agent, Julian Friedmann. And I consider it a very great privilege to be published by Macmillan. To single out a few names, thank you Richard Charkin, David North, Geoff Duffield, Anna Stockbridge, Vivienne Nelson, Marie Slocombe, Michelle Taylor, Caitriona Row, Claire Byrne, Ali Muirden, Richard Evans, Chloe Brighton, Liz Cowen, my copyeditor Lesley Levene, and last, but most important of all, Stef Bierwerth – you just keep on getting more and more wonderful! And across the Channel I have to say again a massive Danke! to the team at my German publishers, Scherz, for their incredible support. Especially Peter Lohmann, Julia Schade, Andrea Engen, Cordelia Borchardt, Bruno Back, Indra Heinz and the quite awesome Andrea Diederichs, the Greatest Living German Editor!
Thank you as ever to my faithful hounds Bertie, Sooty and Phoebe for reminding me that there is a life beyond my study door.
And the penultimate but biggest thank you to my darling Helen – for believing that I could do it and never letting me consider there was any other option.
And lastly, once more, a very special thank you to all you readers of my books. Thank you for all your mail and all your kind words. They mean so much to me.
Peter James
Sussex, England
[email protected]www.peterjames.com
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Copyright © 2012 by Peter James
NOT DEAD YET
PETER JAMES
MACMILLAN
1
I am warning you, and I won’t repeat this warning. Don’t take the part. You’d better believe me. Take the part and you are dead. Bitch.
2
Gaia Lafayette was unaware of the man out in the dark, in the station wagon, who had come to kill her. And she was unaware of the email he had sent. She got hate mail all the time, mostly from religious nutters or folk upset by her swearing or her provocative costumes in some of her stage acts and music videos. Those emails were screened and kept from bothering her by her trusted head of security, Detroit-born Andrew Gulli, a tough ex-cop who’d spent most of his career on close protection work for vulnerable political figures.
He knew when to be worried enough to tell his boss, and this piece of trash that had come in, on an anonymous Hotmail account, was not something he figured had any substance. His employer got a dozen like this every week.
It was 10 p.m. and Gaia was trying to focus on the script she was reading, but she couldn’t concentrate. She was focused even more on the fact that she had run out of cigarettes. The sweet, but oh so dim-witted Pratap, who did all her shopping, and who she hadn’t the heart to fire because his wife had a brain tumour, had bought the wrong brand. She had her limit of four cigarettes a day, and didn’t actually need any more, but old habits die hard. She used to mainline the damned things, claiming they were essential for her famed gravelly voice. Not so many years back she’d have one before she got out of bed, followed by one burning in the ashtray while she showered. Every action accompanied by a cigarette. Now she was kicking free, but she had to know they were in the house. Just in case she needed them.
Like so much else she needed in life. Starting with her adoring public. Checking the count of Twitter followers and Facebook likes . Both were substantially up again today, each nearly a million up in the past month alone, still keeping her well ahead of both
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