The Good Son: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 2)

by Dustin Stevens

  The front lawn stretched about 20 yards in length, the grass brown but rutted, as if it had been cut recently. The front of the home was brick, a large window to one side indicating the living room with two smaller ones on the opposite side for bedrooms. A single door stood in the center of it, a black light pole a few feet away rising from the middle of a flower bed.

  A two car garage was attached to the far end, though no vehicles were visible outside the home.

  Opting to work without a leash, Reed let Billie out of the backseat and met Iaconelli and Bishop between the two cars. Both of their faces were painted with sweat as well, the moisture shiny, catching any bit of light.

  “You guys go to the front door,” Reed said. “I’ll stay out here with Billie in case he tries to run for it.”

  Both men nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. They both turned for the front door and walked straight across the front lawn, each drawing his service weapon as they approached.

  Doing the same, Reed drifted back toward their car, positioning himself at the corner of the driveway. Billie stayed close by his side as he did so, her body coiled, head low, ready to explode in any direction on the sound of his voice.

  Stopping just outside the front door, Bishop turned and glanced at Reed. Holding one thumb up, Reed nodded, extending his Glock out before him.

  From his current vantage point, Reed could see the entire front and side of the property. If Morgan tried to go through the garage he was in a position to stop him and if he crossed out the back and to the right, he would set Billie loose. That left only the possibility of going out the back and disappearing in the opposite direction.

  The thought of positioning himself around back and leaving the detectives to cover the front occurred to him just a moment too late, leaving him hoping that their current configuration would be sufficient.

  The sound of Iaconelli pounding on the front door echoed through the quiet neighborhood. Three times in succession he slammed the side of his fist against the wood before pausing and adding three more.

  “Amber Morgan, CPD,” he announced. “We need you to open the door right now.”

  Reed cocked an ear to the side, listening for the sound of a back door opening or a window being wrenched upward.

  Three more slams against the door yielded nothing, the house void of life.

  “Shit,” Iaconelli said. He turned toward Reed and said, “Do we even have PC right now?”

  Probable cause. The standard by which an officer could reasonably enter a home and hope to have anything found inside be admissible in court.

  Lowering his weapon before him, Reed remained silent. At this point they had a mountain of evidence pointing at Kyle Morgan, most of which could admittedly be argued as circumstantial by any trial attorney worth his salt.

  If they entered now, whatever they found could get booted, putting their whole case in jeopardy.

  “Give me one minute,” Reed said, holstering his weapon and jogging toward his car. He didn’t have to tell Billie to follow, the sound of her toes on the asphalt audible behind him.

  Going straight to the front passenger door, Reed ripped it open and reached into the floor well, drawing out the evidence bag from Ira Soto’s once more. Again he peeled back the adhesive flap to expose the rock used to kill her dog and extended it to Billie.

  The scent was still fresh in her nose after scouring Handley’s home. It took her only a second before she stepped back, ready.

  “Search.”

  Billie shot forward three quick paces onto the lawn, stopping just as abruptly. Her body was rigid as she moved back and forth, not in her traditional sweeping gesture, but in a more pointed, agitated stance.

  “What’s wrong?” Iaconelli asked.

  “She can’t find anything?” Bishop called.

  Reed remained silent for a while, watching Billie work. Rarely before had he seen her movements so stilted, pulling side to side across the lawn, the gesture unmistakable.

  “No,” Reed said, “quite the opposite. His scent is so damn strong she’s having trouble getting a clear lead.”

  He slid his gun from his hip and began to backpedal toward his corner spot in the driveway again. “Breach the door. This is our guy.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  The front door was no match for the right leg of Pete Iaconelli. His unique dimensions, and the full force of 250 pounds, surged straight through the wood. The frame of it splintered on contact, the sound hanging in the air, drawing Reed’s every nerve taut as he watched the door swing inward and both detectives disappear through it.

  Without even realizing it, Reed crept forward. His Glock extended out in his right hand, his left cupped under it for support, he inched up the driveway. Noticing the shift in his physiology, the growl coming from Billie grew more pronounced. She nudged her way out in front of him, both keeping a watch for anybody attempting to flee the house.

  In the wake of the front door breach, no other sounds could be heard. Nobody bolted from the home. The neighborhood remained silent.

  “Clear,” Bishop called, standing in the doorway. “You better come see this, though.”

  Just as fast he was gone, his pale face almost ethereal in the way it appeared and vanished within seconds.

  Remaining in his crouch, Reed stared past the garage. Every part of him wanted a shadow to dart out into the night, to provide a visible target, to allow him to end everything right then.

  There was nothing, though. Not even the slightest hint of a breeze pushing limbs back and forth. No movement of any kind.

  “Come,” Reed whispered, a tiny twinge of disappointment as he holstered his weapon and jogged for the front door.

  The first smell to assault his nostrils as he arrived was sawdust, tiny particles of the door still hanging in the air. Two steps into the room it changed over to stench, the combined scents of body odor and stale air and bad food and sickness all washing over him. The concoction was so strong it almost caused his stomach to turn, his throat clenching, forcing him to twist his head and cough into his sleeve.

  The source of the smell was sprawled on the couch.

  A woman - Amber Morgan, Reed guessed - was stretched out on the couch, her appearance every bit as bad as Henry Ruggles’s and Frederick Handley’s had been. Extended out flat, she didn’t manage to reach either end of the sofa, her body giving the impression of a sponge that had been left out in the summer sun for days. All muscle mass and fat had vanished, leaving only wrinkled skin, the outer shell much too large for the inner body. Splotches of various colors dotted her.

  She made no effort to look at Reed as he entered, her light blue eyes staring up at the ceiling.

  “Is she?” Reed asked, glancing to Iaconelli and Bishop. Both stood on the opposite side of the coffee table running parallel to the couch, their arms folded over their chest.

  “Yeah,” Iaconelli said.

  “Any sign of Kyle?”

  “No,” Bishop said, giving his head a quick shake. “House is empty.”

  “What about the garage?” Reed asked.

  The two men glanced at each other, neither saying anything.

  “We’ll check it out,” Reed said. “Go ahead and call this in.”

  Both men dropped their arms to their sides and shifted a few steps, allowing Reed and Billie to slide by.

  Using the exterior of the house as a rough guide, Reed stepped through an open doorway from the living room into a small kitchen. Like the rest of the house, it had a décor that was at least two decades outdated, everything beginning to yellow with age and abuse.

  There were two doors in the room, one facing the rear of the house, another facing the side. Starting on the back end, Reed walked over and checked the lock, finding the chain still slid shut.

  If Kyle Morgan had been on hand when they arrived, there was no way he had escaped through it.

  Reaching to his hip, Reed tapped at the butt of his weapon as he turned to the second door and peeled back
the dingy lace curtain covering the window. The fabric weighed nothing as it slid to the side, revealing a two car garage.

  Extending a hand, Reed flipped up a trio of light switches on the wall beside the door. In unison, an overhead light in the kitchen sprang on along with a single bare bulb in the garage. Both cast down the same pale yellow light, illuminating everything around Reed.

  Seeing nothing move, he opened the door a foot. “Clear.”

  Billie was through before he even took a step, shooting into the garage. She sprinted around the Chevy Silverado pickup truck parked in the middle of the space, disappearing from view for a split second before coming around.

  She finished right back in front of Reed, letting him know the place was empty.

  “Good girl,” Reed whispered, lowering his weapon as he stepped into the garage.

  Besides the truck, the place housed some yard tools and an upright freezer that hummed persistently in the corner. A pair of grass-stained sneakers sat on the floor by the door.

  Swapping out the gun for his phone, Reed went to his recent call log and hit the latest entry. He kept it on speakerphone and held it out in front of him as he did a revolution of the truck.

  Just as the captain had said, it was getting a little older, though still in pretty good shape. The blue paint had a few minor dents and nicks in it, but not yet any signs of rust. The bed had been sprayed with a black rubber liner and it looked to have been washed recently.

  “I was just picking up the phone to call you,” Grimes said as an opening, his voice its usual gruff pitch.

  “Just talk to Bishop?” Reed asked, reaching out and opening the driver’s door of the truck. It gave way with an awful screech of metal on metal, the hinge in dire need of lubrication.

  “No,” Grimes said, the agitation in his tone growing louder, “and what the hell was that?”

  “Kyle Morgan’s truck door,” Reed said, leaning forward into the cab.

  In the middle console was an empty plastic water bottle and a handful of change. A cheap pine air freshener hung from the rearview mirror.

  Otherwise, the truck was just as nondescript as the garage it was parked in.

  “You’re at the house now?” Grimes asked.

  “Yes,” Reed said. “Iaconelli and Bishop are inside with the body of Amber Morgan. There is no sign of Kyle Morgan.”

  “I know,” Grimes said. “We just a got hit on his mother’s car.”

  The news pushed renewed urgency through Reed as he jerked himself back out of the truck and strode back toward the kitchen, slapping a hand against his thigh for Billie to follow.

  “Where?” he asked, moving into the living room and motioning for Iaconelli and Bishop to both pay attention.

  “Twelve blocks north of you,” Grimes said.

  Reed ran the numbers in his mind, superimposing them on the 8th’s land map. “That’s the 19th’s turf,” Reed said. “Call and tell them we’re on our way.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The Good Son had expected more of a fight. Paul Neil Tudor was older certainly, but he looked like a sturdy fellow standing on the opposite side of the checkout line that afternoon. The kind of guy who woke up early and worked hard every day. Came home to a large house and a classy wife.

  He should have known better, though. Like most things that filled The Good Son’s life, the notion was outdated. Nice homes and beautiful women no longer went to the men who worked long and hard. They went to small, nebbish types that had never thrown a punch in their life, like the man sprawled out on the kitchen floor.

  Accountants, bankers, men who got manicures and called people like him whenever they needed manual labor done.

  When the man’s shadow first appeared at the back door, The Good Son had steeled himself for a brawl. He had filled his mind with images of his sick, bedridden mother, letting them provide him with renewed purpose.

  Collateral damage was something he had worked hard to avoid. He had gone out of his way to choose Esther Rosen and Ira Soto because they lived alone. Even the slaying of Soto’s dog had filled him with remorse, hating the idea of killing any more than necessary to fulfill his singular purpose of saving his mother.

  The time for such concessions was past, though. Waiting outside the door, The Good Son even considered looking around for the closest weapon, debating whether he should pick up a rock or try to pry a brick free from the edge of the patio. His fists clenched and his blood surged, waiting for the door to open.

  It never did. After a bit the shadow disappeared, the man content that whatever had been knocking was gone.

  The move, one of not being taken seriously, of being blown off, brought a new emotion to the The Good Son. Gone were thoughts of his mother, replaced by images of Beauregard at work, people who looked down at him. They didn’t realize that he had chosen the path he was on, bypassing his last year at college to care for his mother.

  And he would not let them stand in his way.

  Extending his hand outward, The Good Son knocked again. This time he used the side of his fist, slamming it into the wooden frame of the glass door, hitting it so hard the entire structure rattled in its casing. The sound carried out into the night, a dog in the distance picking up on it and barking in return.

  The Good Son did not care. He knew with each passing moment that the odds of him escaping again were low, but that didn’t matter. If prison was what it took for his mother to survive, so be it.

  Keeping himself pressed against the wall, he waited, listening as footsteps again grew closer, a shadow appearing. This time, though, it was accompanied by the sound of the lock mechanism turning.

  “Hello?” Tudor asked as the door cracked open.

  The Good Son shot forward, slamming into the door. The edge of it swung back hard against the man on the other side, knocking him to the ground, his body splayed across the floor.

  Scrambling on all fours, The Good Son crawled the length of him and snapped a hard right cross. It connected at the corner of Tudor’s mouth, mashing lips against teeth, bloody spittle oozing out over his chin. Drawing his arm back like a piston, The Good Son took aim and fired again, a direct shot to the temple. The man’s eyes rolled back as a single tendril of blood appeared in the soft tissue, streaking down and disappearing into his thinning brown hair.

  His body fell limp, no sound escaping at all.

  Specks of blood dotted the back of The Good Son’s hand as he rose and stepped around him, the home matching everything he had envisioned to the letter, the floors made from pale oak with white carpeting. Expensive furniture and appliances filled the space, artwork and portraits of the happy couple hung from the walls. The scene only managed to raise his ire.

  Walking through the dining room, The Good Son found the massive staircase rising to the second floor bedrooms.

  Up. That was where he needed to go. There he would find Mrs. Tudor.

  Together the couple would ensure that this time, without fail, The Good Son provided the cure his mother needed.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The glow of red-and-blue flashers could be seen from a block away. Any hope Reed had that the officers on site might have the good sense to lay back and not alert Kyle Morgan that they were on to him was dashed the moment he saw them. He kept his mouth pressed tight to keep a string of expletives from spilling out, ignoring the GPS and using the lights to guide him in.

  The car was parked halfway down the block. The neighborhood here had taken a noticeable step up, the divide between Franklinton and Hilliard obvious as more than just an arbitrary line on a map. Instead of faded brick ramblers, the homes here appeared to be custom-built with lots of wood and glass, professionally manicured lawns and expensive cars parked in the driveways.

  Using all of that as a backdrop, it wasn’t hard to pick the ’95 LeBaron out as Reed approached. Even without the pair of blue-and-whites parked alongside it pinning it to the curb, the car was more than a decade older than anything nearby. The back fende
r was bent badly, and a plume of rust had mushroomed over the rear door.

  Leaving his sedan back a few yards, Reed slid to a stop and jerked the keys from the ignition. He let Billie out the back, pausing just long enough for Iaconelli and Bishop to climb from the car behind him.

  Four officers were clustered around the LeBaron, their profiles illuminated by the flashing lights. Three of the men openly stared at the approaching detectives while a fourth held a Maglite up to the window, peering into the car.

  “I think you can kill the lights now,” Iaconelli said. “You’ve let him know we’re here. Good job.”

  The fourth clicked off his flashlight and raised his head, sneering. He glanced to his fellow officers and said, “I don’t recall asking for any assistance from the 8th, do you?”

  Two of the officers shook their head from side to side, the last of the group remaining motionless, watching. Reed pegged him for the rookie, not yet tainted by the politics of precinct rivalry.

  “Has there been any sign of Morgan yet?” Reed asked, ignoring the man’s comment, hoping to move past any unnecessary posturing.

  Right now time was seeping by, time that the next victim didn’t have.

  “You mean besides the car we found here?” the self-appointed leader of the group asked. “Not yet, but don’t worry, when our guys get here they’ll be sure to track him down for you.”

  There were two ways Reed could play it. He could reason with the man. He could tell him to call Grimes, or his own captain, and get the necessary clearance to stop being a prick and let him do his job. Try to appeal to a sense of greater good, of law enforcement brotherhood.

  Or he could just say to hell with these guys.

  Reed drew his right hand up into a ball so fast the two closest officers both flinched. He held it at shoulder height, extended out from the side of his body, and left it there.

  The non-verbal command had the same effect it always did, morphing Billie from an imposing partner to a savage animal. A vicious growl began low in her diaphragm, rolling out in unquestioned anger. Her shoulders rolled forward as her lips peeled back over two rows of razor sharp teeth.