Deadly Days: A Gripping Detective Thriller (Logan Stone Book 1)

by Brad Hart

  It was still warm from his beefy hands.

  “Let’s go,” Logan said quickly, and whisked her away toward the cabin, past the front porch and to the side, below a set of two windows. They could hear voices inside that sounded rushed and frantic, but what the voices were saying was unclear.

  Logan’s chest was heaving back and forth. He was panting. Sweat was streaming from his forehead and stinging his eyes. He wiped them with the back of his left hand and kept his right hand clenching the gun.

  “I fired three rounds into the son of a bitch,” he said. “So that means I’ve got twelve left. Check yours.”

  “Already did,” Walsh said. “Full magazine. Today’s our lucky day, but not theirs.” Her voice was calm and stern.

  “Go under the porch,” he said. “When they come out and you can see their shadows above you then start unloading on them.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “I’m going to the back of the house. They might be smart and come out that way. They might already have the same idea as me and know it’s unwise to come out on the porch. Or they might split up. Go now,” he said.

  They were huddled tight against the side of the old cabin. Walsh rushed forward, keeping her back against the wall with her gun raised, and then ducked under the porch and got into position beneath the front door. She could see the cracks through the porch, and it would be easy to get a clean shot through the thin wood. When they came out, they’d get a painful welcome from her new gun.

  Logan started to creep toward the back of the house when he heard a screen door creak open. It came from the direction he was heading; the back door. He held his gun out and kept below visibility level from the windows. If anyone looked out, then they wouldn’t be able to see him unless they raised the window and poked their head out. In that case he would blow their head clean off. Rain began to fall, and it drizzled against his face softly, before the slow falling shower turned into a sudden downpour.

  Logan heard the shuffling of feet in the grass, and then he saw a pistol coming around the corner. He squinted in the summer rain. There was someone there behind the house, creeping along just like Logan – except Logan had the advantage because he knew that they were there. They didn’t know where he was. He crouched down and waited until the hand that held the pistol was exposed. It came slowly into Logan’s view, just as the man was about the turn the corner and see him - and then he fired and watched the hand as it vanished into a splattering mess of blood and bone.

  He immediately heard a scream cry out. “No, shit!” Followed by an agonizing groan of pain. “Where’s my hand, where’s my hand?” A crying voice began to sputter.

  Logan didn’t wait a split second to charge toward the back of the house. He dove hard onto the dirt and slid on his side past the back corner like a baseball player running for home, holding his gun in the air and firing at the guy who stood there staring at the tip of his mutilated arm where his hand used to be.

  Logan fired two shots, both of them into the man’s center mass, which sent the man flying back into the screen door and then falling dead onto the ground. Logan was in a position where he could see inside the house, and that meant he was a clear target. He rushed to his feet, gun raised toward the entrance, and hurried to the side of the door where he crouched down and felt he wouldn’t be exposed. His breathing was calm and measured. He had been in similar situations, but none with such a high body count so soon. He waited.

  Walsh had heard the shots and could recognize that they were from Logan’s gun. All was quiet on the porch, and she couldn’t hear footsteps in the house at all. A spider crawled across her cheek and she batted it away before suddenly the door swung open and a heavy set of feet landed on the porch.

  Before she had a chance to fire, the feet had made their way onto the stair case and were heading down it in a hurry when another man appeared on the porch, following the first fast. Walsh didn’t hesitate – she fired off four rounds into the porch and watched as the splintered wood blasted away.

  A body fell down the steps, and then a car started up and the engine revved. The first man out had made it. Shit. Walsh rushed out from underneath the porch and was met with gunfire that burst from the Porsche’s windshield. She skidded on the ground and rolled, then fired back at the car and screamed.

  She wasn’t hit. She was all good.

  She looked up through the cloud of gun smoke. The car was in reverse, but without anyone’s foot on the gas. It was going very slowly until it started to veer off the driveway. A head that had slammed against the steering wheel was making the horn go off. The car was rolling down the hill beside the long gravel driveway. The hill grew steep and ended with a fence at the bottom, and the car picked up speed and began to barrel down it backward until it broke right through the fence and then slammed hard against a large pine tree.

  The tree shook, the needles trembled, and then fell onto the ground and vehicle below.

  Walsh could see someone in the driver’s seat, but they didn’t move. The horn stopped. She took a breath and began to turn.

  Then she felt something on the back of her head. A cold, steel muzzle. She heard a chuckle which was followed by a low, slithering voice. She froze in place.

  “Gun on the ground. Hands behind your head or I’ll blow it right the hell off. You have two seconds to comply.”

  As she felt the cold muzzle press further into the back of her head, Walsh let her gun drop onto the ground and sighed. It had been a good fight, but now it seemed to be over. Maybe her mom and pops would have to get used to living out their old age in Arizona without her monthly visits. Maybe the force could feed them some phony story about their daughter being sent off with special forces overseas for a few years.

  Maybe they’d live a few more years none the wiser, dying happily together not knowing the sick and harsh reality of their daughter’s fate. A hero fighting secret battles overseas? No, not quite. Dead in the dirt in the mountains of California was more like it. Walsh gulped and closed her eyes. What a way to go out.

  Then she felt a flash and heard a loud shot ring out, followed by a pounding sensation in the back of her head. She hit the gravel face first and winced with pain. Was this death? Was she still supposed to feel things? She thought a point-blank shot to the back of the head would have been instant, but she was still breathing, and she still felt alert, unless she was slipping off into the darkness and didn’t know it yet.

  Then she heard a loud crash on the gravel beside her, opened her eyes with fear and saw the armored man as he lay next to her. His eyes were open as well, and they locked with hers. His lip was twisted into an ugly grimace, and he muttered something beneath his breath before attempting to crawl back to his feet. She heard another shot ring out, louder and closer than before, and then the armored man fell back down; his face digging deep into the white gravel. He let out a guttural moan and then started to wail with pain.

  “Walsh, you hit?” Logan asked from behind. His boots crunched on the ground and he stooped down and stared at her from behind with one eye. The other remained on the big hulking figure that lay beside her, five feet away. It wasn’t moving much, but its back was bobbing up and down. It was alive.

  “I’m not hit, I don’t think. I felt his gun barrel ram into the back of my head when you shot him. I thought it was him shooting me. I thought I was dead.”

  “Sorry about that,” Logan said. “Who took off in the car? I just went through the house and it’s clear. Then I saw this fella from the front porch holding the gun on you.”

  “The car didn’t make it very far,” she said in a tired voice, and then pointed to the left. “It rolled down the hill there. I don’t know who was inside, but I’m guessing it was Jones.”

  “You stay here with this one or me? Someone needs to go check the car.”

  “We should go together, ‘because he’s got a gun. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, but he’s definitely hurt. I shot through the windshield and then he
stopped driving and just veered off the driveway and rolled clear down the hill. Might be dead or maybe just playing dead. Maybe he took off in the woods too, if he’s alive. I doubt he’s waiting down there unless he’s bleeding out and can’t move.”

  “Poor Jones has been shot to hell today, hasn’t he? Guy just keeps on going. Shit. I hope he didn’t get away,” Logan said, and then turned and looked down at the armored mystery man on the ground. “Hey, metal man. You hear me?” Logan grabbed him by the ear and pulled him up. The man’s bloodshot eyes burst open and he started to wail again.

  “Start talking,” Logan said. “Who are you and where’s Brianne Jones?”

  The man started to wail louder, and then Logan headbutted him and the man gasped and became silent. Logan dropped him to the ground and stood over him, holding his gun pointed at the man’s face. “If I pull this trigger, then it’s lights out, bastard. Understand that? Want me to turn you into swiss cheese?” His voice hardened. “Where’s Brianne Jones?”

  The man closed his eyes and spoke in a smooth, educated voice. “If she’s lucky then Ms. Jones is dead like her mother. The master doesn’t like criers, and young Ms. Jones truly liked to whine.”

  “What?” Logan said, mind reeling. “Michael Jones’s wife is dead?”

  The man peered up at him. Blood was pouring slowly from his back through an opening in the armor. “I can’t feel my legs,” he said.

  “Shut up. Mrs. Jones is dead?”

  “I think I… Um,” the man started to laugh. “I think I can’t walk.”

  Logan hit him in the forehead with the butt end of his gun. “Start saying the right things or I’ll bust your skull open. But I’ll make sure it takes a long time to kill you. I’ll make sure you feel as much pain as possible before you finally bleed out.”

  “Michael Jones hired us to kill his wife.”

  Logan paused. “And who are you?”

  “You should ask who are we?” The man grinned, but it wasn’t enthusiastic. He looked tired, and his face was turning white.

  “And he hired you to take his daughter?”

  “No, we asked for her… Or demanded, rather. Knowing this won’t help you. That whining brat is probably already dead like her mommy.”

  “Why did you want Brianne Jones?”

  “Because it’s fun, and she looked like a good match, and most of all because Michael Jones didn’t keep up with his end of the bargain. To take out his wife, he paid us with art work and with what he promised would be a rather large check…. But it turns out that his rich man act is just that – an act. Michael Jones is on the verge of bankruptcy, and he blames that on his wife’s excessive spending… So, we negotiated, of course. We like to do that – it’s fun. We saw his daughter, what’s her name? Well, we knew our master would love to kill someone like her. She’s with him now, you know. Maybe she’s dead, though… So, finding her won’t do much good, will it? Just add more to your sickening depression when you see her nasty corpse… You’re a drinker, aren’t you? Long nights, lonely, on the road… Just wanting a taste. I can tell by your wild eyes. It’s been a while for you since you had a sip, tough guy.”

  Logan wanted to ram his fist down the guy’s throat to shut him up, but he didn’t. So Jones is broke, and the poor bastard hired a maniacal cult to take out his own wife, and when he couldn’t come up with the payment he owed them then they took his daughter instead. Logan sighed. He still needed to make sense of it all. He still needed information. The master?

  “Who the hell is that? Who’s the master?” He said, putting the muzzle up against the man’s temple. “Tell me or I’ll pull the damn trigger.”

  “He’s our master, and that’s all you need to know.”

  “How many of you are in this sick cult? Huh? How many of you are there?”

  “Oh, my friend… You can’t find all of us. Take out one, and a fresh member will pop its head up,” the man smiled wearily. “Did you… Did you paralyze me? I can’t feel anything.”

  Logan looked up at pieces of the sky through the gaps between tree branches. He tried to understand. He tried to make sense of the conspiracy. Michael Jones had a wife and an unhappy marriage with her, or so it seemed to him now. Jones felt she was bleeding him dry and so he was twisted enough to find men like this to murder her… And when he couldn’t pay them for their ‘service’, they took what they wanted…

  Brianne Jones, a gift for their ‘master’.

  But Jones had hired him to find her. Why?

  Probably to make himself look good, like he was concerned. He probably thought I’d find nothing. He knew he had to make some kind of public effort to rescue her.

  Logan’s distraction lasted long enough for the man he was standing above to reach stealthily for a blade in its sheath which he kept on his right hip. As Logan looked down, still holding the gun, the man drew the blade and began to spin around. Before Logan had a chance to react, a bullet dug through the man’s skull from the left, bursting through one side and flying out the other.

  Logan looked to his left. “You saved my ass,” he said to Walsh. “Now I really owe you.”

  “No,” she shrugged, standing up straight. “You saved mine first. Let’s hope we don’t have to do that again, ‘cause I’m all worn out.”

  “I’m going to search the house quick to find our phones. Stay put and keep an eye on that vehicle down there, and the driveway. If you see or hear anything then yell for me.”

  Logan walked back into the house and looked around. No sign of life and the house itself was sparsely furnished. It looked dusty and old, like it hadn’t been used much for many years. A holiday house, no doubt about it. He searched cabinets and drawers and table tops quickly, but he found no sign of their phones.

  That meant no contact to the outside world, at least for now.

  He went out the back and checked the pockets of the dead guy on the ground. He was carrying a phone, but it was password protected. Logan put it in his pocket anyway. If someone called, then they would be surprised to hear him on the other line. Of course, there was also the possibility that the phone was bugged with a tracker – although the chance of that that was probably low. The dead guy on the ground looked like no one important, just a grunt worker for the big guys on top. He checked the rest of his pockets and found no wallet, no ID. This guy was carrying nothing for a reason. If he disappeared or went down as he now had, then there would be no ties to the group he was working for. The big guys.

  And who were the big guys? The armored man, and then above him ‘the master’?

  Logan went back through the house and out onto the front porch. He stood there for a minute and peered to his left. He could see the car that had crashed in reverse at the bottom of the long slope. He couldn’t see it clearly enough to see if anyone was inside. He went to Walsh and hunkered down, and then tried to check the body of the dead armored man. It was a struggle to get past the armor that covered his entire body. He finally managed to slide his hand through the thin spaces and nudged at the pockets.

  No phone, no ID.

  “Let’s go down there and check the car. If he’s dead, then I don’t know where that leads us. I got a phone from the dead guy in the back but it’s password protected. I guess we’ll have to walk down the main road until we could hitch a ride.”

  “That could take ages.”

  “It’s California, there’s nowhere in this state that’s completely desolate. Believe me, we’ll see other cars sometime soon if we stand on the main road.”

  “And where’s the main road?”

  “I don’t know,” Logan looked around. “I don’t know where we are. Somewhere in the direction of Big Bear, maybe. Come on, let’s go check the car out. We’re wasting time”

  The two of them walked slowly toward the edge of the driveway, past the gravel and down the green, grassy slope. The car was in plain view and about four minutes away by foot, and they walked carefully through the heavy grass to avoid holes in the ground or any
thing that would slow them down on the case.

  Brianne Jones was with the master. Maybe she was alive, or maybe she was dead. Finding her was the only way to find out.

  All Logan knew was that there was a chance, if only a small one. And it was a chance he’d have to take. If he didn’t solve the case, if he didn’t find Brianne Jones alive or dead, then he’d start drinking again. He wasn’t going to be able to control himself. He was doing this for her, and for the good of others, but also for himself.

  “Logan,” Walsh said. “I don’t think I see anyone in the car.”

  “Damn.”

  “So why did Jones even hire you to find his daughter if this whole thing is because of him?

  “Maybe to cover his tracks. Maybe he thought hiring a PI would be good enough to do that. It looks better than doing nothing, I mean – he had to report her as missing, after all, right? It would look bad if he didn’t. Maybe he thought I’d never actually find her. Or maybe because he really wanted his daughter back. I’m thinking that he was panicking, and it was a bit of everything. He’s a guy who hired people to murder his own wife. He’s not thinking straight, and he’s not going to make solid choices.”

  They hurried down the hill. There was nobody in the car. They checked the front seats and the back, along with the trunk. It was empty, and that disappointed them. Their sour moods could practically be felt in the air that surrounded them.

  “So, what now?”

  “Come on, this is amateur stuff,” Logan said. He began to pace around the scene. He looked around the car which was rammed up against a tree. It was a bad accident, and the vehicle would most certainly be totaled. The rain was still falling, but it had lessened in intensity. What had begun as a borderline torrential downpour had fizzled out into a modest shower.

  Logan stared at the ground and pointed. “Now, Walsh, we look for tracks.”