by Brad Hart
Deadly Days: A Gripping Detective Thriller
Logan Stone Book 1
Brad Hart
Copyright, 2018, Brad Hart
All Rights Reserved
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Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Prologue
The killer’s boots were loud in the wet mud. Brianne could hear him coming, fast. She didn’t know how he was moving so quickly. She was at her wit’s end, out of breath and dripping sweat. She couldn’t run anymore. It was time to give up. She was going to die.
The sloshing sound of boots stamping through the muck and hands snapping twigs was getting louder. He was getting closer, barreling through the heavy brush and coming right toward her. He must have been twenty or thirty feet behind her. She was crawling now. He was closing in. There was no escape.
“Please…” She whispered.
She was face down in the mud, breathing hard. There was no way out of this situation. The sound of sloshing footsteps got louder until it stopped. It was quiet then. She took a breath, not knowing if it would be her last.
She saw his shadow behind her.
She didn’t get a chance to look up. She didn’t want to. It would have made no difference to have seen the face of the figure hovering back there. It wasn’t going to make it any easier for her, and it wasn’t going to change what would happen. She could hear his breathing, and that was enough to send a cold chill down her spine.
The man said nothing as he stared at her. He was wearing what looked like a red bag over his head with two eyeholes cut into it. Neither of them moved. Then the man began to take quick, loud breaths, as if he was hyperventilating from the anticipation. He was excited, that much was clear. He stood there a moment longer, breathing heavily, and then he pulled a long blade from a sheath hooked to his belt, as he reached for Brianne with his other hand.
A scream filled the dark woods, but there was no one to hear it.
Chapter One
Officer Kristen Walsh stepped out of her police cruiser and walked hesitantly toward the vehicle in question. It was a yellow and black Dodge muscle car lowered so far that the body of the vehicle was almost touching the ground. The car had been going ninety-six miles per hour, which was much faster than it had any right to be going. Smoke billowed out of the driver’s side window, and Walsh could immediately smell that it was neither tobacco nor marijuana.
She put her hand on her holster. Inside it was a Glock 22 which held 15 rounds. It was locked and loaded, and while she wasn’t jumpy, she was prepared to do anything to save her life if need be. The filthy chemical smell continued to billow from the vehicle in a thick cloud of smoke. Walsh stopped. She had a bad feeling. She was about to shout, but before she had a chance, the vehicle’s engine roared to life and as she drew her pistol back, tires burned rubber and blasted rocks and sand into her eyes.
“Hey!” She screamed, turning at once and sprinting toward her car.
Her eyes were stinging with dust and bits of gravel as she fired up the engine and slammed her foot on the gas. The speedometer read 80 miles per hour, but the suspect’s muscle car was already becoming a small object in the distance. The engine obviously wasn’t stock, which was already fast enough at 707 horsepower, but had been given a boost to make it almost uncatchable. The 370 horsepower of her police cruiser wasn’t nearly enough to catch up with him.
“Come on!” She scolded herself. Not again. This can’t be happening again.
She picked up her radio, although she didn’t want to, and called in the plates of the suspect. With his boldness to smoke whatever it was that he was smoking right in front of her before hightailing it out of there, the plates would most likely be stolen. Either that or fake. Before the end of the day, he’d have them swapped out for a fresh set. It was like clockwork. The suspect would vanish, and Walsh would have a whole lot of questions to answer.
She knew she would have hell to pay back at the police station where the men and women constantly gave her a tough time. ‘Got away again, Walsh?’ They’d laugh and chant. As of late, she’d been exhausted from it all. It had worn her down and begun to make her sick. She had even begun considering going into another line of work – one with much less stress.
But justice was her passion, and bills had to be paid. California wasn’t easy on the wallet. She knew she’d have to hit rock bottom before she dropped out of the force, and then? What would she do? Private investigator? The thought made her laugh. She’d crossed paths with a couple private eyes in her time and both of them had looked underfed. It didn’t seem like the type of career to pursue if you wanted to make a living.
It had always been a dream, however. Even back when Walsh was a kid, she remembered watching cops and robbers on television. The hard part would be starting out. She would need a mentor, or a partner. Someone who knew the ins and outs of being a private detective. She was sick and tired of dealing with the San Feliz Police Department. Going into work was a nightmare day in and day out, except for Chief Walker, who wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine of himself.
He was nice enough, though, and he was a saint compared to the rest of the crew. With his marital and family problems, she couldn’t fault him for being a bit high strung ninety percent of the time, but he never raised his voice at her, and he never looked down on her. She shouldn’t have known about his family problems, but in a small-town people like to talk. Gossip ran rampant, and it was one of the reasons Walsh herself chose to stay single.
Walker was a good cop, and he’d been in the force for a long time. She thought of him, with his prematurely aged face, with the purple wrinkled bags that sat heavily under his bloodshot eyes – eyes that looked like they didn’t often see a wink of sleep.
She didn’t want to be that in twenty years.
She knew she wouldn’t last much longer there, but she had to carve out a path for herself before she jumped ship. Regardless, she knew that it was time to go. Time to get the hell out of dodge and start over. Situations like this made it even worse. She was a good cop, maybe even a great one – but sometimes, the bad guy simply got away. And the thought of that made her blood start to boil. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes were thick with fury as she slammed her foot on the gas and swerved into the emergency lane. She was going to catch the son of a bitch.
The California 101 was jam-packed, and she kept her eyes on the lookout for the bright yellow color of the vehicle. The one good thing about it was the color – it would stick out in the crowd. Walsh was ticked off, and so she wasn’t exactly following the rules herself as she careened down the emergency lane at fifty miles an hour, honking her horn at vehicles in the distance to warn them of her oncoming presence.
Sometimes drivers liked to cut in the emergency lane, especially those on motorcycles. She didn’t want a collision to stall things, and she especially didn’t want to kill somebody. Then she’d really have hell to pay. Above all else, however, at that very moment she wanted to catch the cocky suspect in the ye
llow car. She kept her eyes glued to the sea of traffic. He had to be somewhere up ahead, unless he’d used the same trick of driving in the shoulder lane that she was using now. Then he’d be long gone for sure.
The highway was a vast and hideous traffic jam. Lots of Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, Hondas, but no Dodges, except for a big diesel pickup truck with a man wearing a cowboy hat and hanging his beefy suntanned arm out the passenger side window. Walsh sighed. As the seconds passed by, her chances of catching the guy who’d humiliated her grew smaller and smaller.
Then her breathing stopped for a moment. She slowed her cruiser to a halt and locked eyes on the glimmering vehicle some three hundred feet away. It was in the left lane, which was supposed to be the fast lane – but obviously it was jammed completely and not moving at all. It was the same car, alright. Yellow, sparkling in the seething glow of the sun, sticking out like a sore thumb against all the white, silver, and black. The windows were rolled up now, the driver having gotten his fill of the crack pipe, and Kristen hesitated for a moment before putting her cruiser in park and stepping out of it, gun drawn.
She didn’t want to kill anyone, she really didn’t.
She didn’t expect to need to, but if it came to a criminal’s life versus her own, she was going to choose her own. Self-preservation. She crouched down, keeping her eyes peeled and her gun in the air. The traffic wasn’t moving an inch. She hurried behind cars and through them and ducked down carefully so that the driver of the Dodge wouldn’t spot her if he or she was checking the rearview mirrors of their vehicle. She was close then, very close. Twenty feet away, ten feet away… She was huddled up behind the car that was directly behind the yellow Dodge. She took a short breath, closing her eyes, and then it was time to go. She scurried around the passenger side and then reached the back of the Dodge. The windows weren’t heavily tinted, which was good for her, because if the man drew a gun then she would notice.
And she would fire.
But he didn’t draw a gun, and he was a lot of man indeed, she could see that then – he was big to say the least, probably three hundred pounds, with a long, unkempt mustache and dark tinted glasses. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the shades, but she could guess that they had probably widened with surprise since laying eyes on her.
His lips silently mouthed the words, “How the…” And when he saw her standing right next to his window with her gun drawn and aimed right at his head, he raised his hands into the air without a second’s hesitation. The big guy was going to play nice now. That made Walsh feel a whole lot more confident about it all. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. She had done it. She had caught the bad guy.
“Keep them raised! Don’t even think about moving.”
Walsh used one hand to unlock the door as she kept her Glock steady and ready on the guy’s center mass. She wasn’t jumpy, but one wrong move from him and she’d send a bullet at 1,700 miles per hour through his heart. She knew she wouldn’t have to worry about that. He wasn’t going for a gun. He wasn’t even moving. His mouth was hanging open in shock, slack-jawed and trembling.
“Get out slowly and get on the ground! Flat on the ground. Don’t try anything.”
An hour later when Walsh stepped into the San Feliz Police Department and booked the guy, she felt like a million bucks. But the feeling was temporary, she knew that. No matter how many people she arrested, no matter how many criminals she got off the street, she’d never be accepted by some of the guys and girls that worked there.
She was going to change that, and if she couldn’t – then at some point she would have to take matters in her own hands and fight crime on her own terms. She had a good history with the department in terms of making cases and solving crimes that proved she could have been plenty successful as a private eye, but San Feliz was a small town without much need for one.
Or at least, it had been – but with the ring of murders that were about to take place, with the blood that was about to rain onto the streets, that was all going to change…
San Feliz was going to need all the help that it could get.
Chapter Two
3000 Miles Away
The air was hot and muggy while she waited for him. He was late, as always. Tina ran her thumb along the sweaty glass of water she’d been nursing. It had been sitting there for an hour and was already lukewarm. She didn’t like Florida. Something about the place creeped her out. Maybe it was the bugs, or all the gators. Maybe it was everything. She was a city girl, and this certainly wasn’t Miami.
Tina worked for a private detective named Logan Stone, part-time. Her job description was all over the place, and sometimes she spent a whole lot of time doing nothing. Other times she spent a whole lot of time doing everything for Logan. Mainly, she took phone calls from potential clients looking for a detective and gathered information about cases for Logan. She’d lay it all out for him and then he’d decide whether he was onboard.
Being a workaholic, Logan was almost always guaranteed to be onboard.
It had been ages since they’d seen each other, and it just so happened that the two of them were down in Florida at the same time, miles apart. A perfect beach vacation? Not quite. When she’d gotten the call about the missing girl from LA, she phoned him up and the two of them arranged a meeting. Time for work.
The diner was quiet, and Tina could hear when the soft purr of Logan’s ride pulled up. She craned her neck and peered out the window. There he was, all smiles, getting out of the rusty cab holding a briefcase. He went to the driver’s side window and tossed the cabbie some bills. Smiling Logan like always, but she knew that could change in a split second.
Logan was unpredictable. One second he would be crying with laughter and the next second he would snap and bash a guy’s head into a pool table. Tina knew this because she had seen it firsthand. She didn’t want to see anything like that today, so she had made sure to choose a diner rather than a bar – or any place that served alcohol.
The doors swung open and he looked to the left, to the right, and then locked eyes with her. He grinned, walked over, and dropped his briefcase onto a stool before sitting on the stool next to her.
“Should we shake hands?” He said, smirking.
“It’s been a while, Logan.”
“That a yes, or a no?”
“It’s a sure, I guess.”
They shook hands. Logan looked around the diner as if he was thinking of something witty to say. “I guess you chose this as an alternative to a bar?”
“You know me well.”
“Well, good job. It’s nice. Smells like orange juice and coffee instead of beer. I can already feel myself waking up.”
“How long has it been?”
He paused. “Since what?”
“You had a drink.”
“Six or seven months,” he said, brushing it off like it was nothing. Then he fixated on her eyes with his own. “You act like I had a problem or something, Tina.”
“Well… You did. Everyone knew that.”
“Yeah, but quitting was no big deal. If we’re going to talk about it all morning though, then I’ll probably start craving a shot of whiskey. Let’s change the subject. Who’s the girl?” He cracked his neck from one side to the other and then crossed his hands together, waiting with interest in his eyes.
Tina pulled out the brown envelope and handed it over to Logan who took it in his hands and removed the thick stack of papers from it. “Uh-oh, I didn’t know I had to read a novel today.”
“Have fun with it. The parents are willing to pay you quite a lot this time.”
“That’s nice, but the last case I did for free, remember? You know I’m addicted,” he said, shuffling through the stack as he exhaled and scratched his jaw. He went back to the first page and started to skim through it with his finger leading the way. “Okay, so missing since July sixth. That’s not good. It’s been two days since she was last seen, and...”
“No suspects at all.”
“Got
a boyfriend?”
“He was cleared. Was working his shift at a restaurant in North Hollywood. She was last seen in LA, on her way to San Feliz, and her family doesn’t know if she knows anyone there.”
“What about her car?”
“No sign of it. She drives a 2016 Jaguar F-Type. State troopers have been notified to keep a lookout for the make and the plates. There are lots of Jaguars in California, but no one’s spotted hers.”
“So, there’s nothing to go on,” Logan grinned and set the stack of papers down.
“Nope.”
Logan motioned for the waiter and ordered a soda and three scrambled eggs. The two of them talked shop for a while and the food came soon after. The eggs were overcooked, but the soda was good. He ate every last bite, and then ordered bacon and French toast. He knew he’d need the energy because it was going to be a busy day, and he didn’t know when he’d be able to eat next.
After all, he had to catch a flight to California.
Chapter Three
Logan left Tina in the diner after booking his tickets, then he hightailed it in a taxi to Miami International Airport. Although he was cutting it close, he made it in time to check in and make his way through security.
He had no bags to check, just the two usual carry-on items – a big backpack and a small suitcase. It was a five-and-a-half-hour flight from Miami to Los Angeles, and Logan hoped he would catch up on some shut-eye, although he guessed that the chances were slim. He rarely slept on a plane, especially when he was on a case.
When he got a new case, it was always like that. Obsession was rooted in him and he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else until it was over. All things in his life would be put on hold until there was some resolution or conclusion. That’s what drove Logan, day in and day out. Conclusion. Solving the crime.
He made it onto the plane and found his seat. The leg room was barely adequate, especially for a flight that was closing in on six hours, but Logan would make do. He wasn’t a complainer, not about the trivial things at least. There were bigger problems in the world than his legs cramping up and his knees pressing against the back of an airplane seat.