by KJ Dahlen
At All Costs
Book Three
Whiskey Bend MC Series
Table of Contents
Title Page
Credits
K.J. Dahlen | At All Costs | Whiskey Bend MC Series | Editor: Leanore Elliott
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
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
About K. J. Dahlen
Credits
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.
K.J. Dahlen
At All Costs
Whiskey Bend MC Series
Editor: Leanore Elliott
Book Cover by Talia’s Book Covers
Chapter One
The ringing phone woke Luna Mathias from a sound sleep. On the third ring, she groaned. Reaching out, she picked up the receiver and whispered a sleepy, “Hello.”
“I have received the payment you promised.” She heard someone say. “By this time tomorrow, your judicial troubles will be over, the only witness will be dead, and you’ll be in the clear.”
Luna frowned and sat up in bed slowly. She brushed her long dark hair away from her face and rubbed her eyes. She’d been so tired lately, she wasn’t sure she was hearing the conversation correctly. “Excuse me?” She took a deep breath. “Who is this?” When she heard no reply she asked, “Is this some kind of joke or something? Because if it is, this isn’t very funny.”
She heard a sharp intake of breath and a muffled swear word then she heard a resounding click as the phone call ended. She frowned and reached over to snap on the bedside lamp. Hanging up the phone she glanced at the alarm clock sitting on the bedside the table and saw it was just after two a.m.
She hated phone calls in the middle of the night. They never brought good news, only bad news and this one sounded like a prank call. Yet, something she heard in the caller’s voice made her stop and think.
It could have been a prank call or something a little more sinister. As a small-town reporter, her inner alarms were going haywire. She knew this sort of thing happened all the time and yet, she had been shocked by the phone call. This sort of crime, a murder for hire, was more a big city occurrence, it didn’t happen so much around here. Whiskey Bend may have its own share of crime but it was still a small town and nothing like this happened here. The caller had sounded very sincere about what he was planning to do. In the small amount of conversation she had with the caller, she could sense his intent. If she believed him, someone or maybe more than one someone would die in the next day.
Luna shivered. She’d just spent the last three days trying to track down a serial killer. She had seen too much death since she began this quest. She received a call four days ago from an attorney for a man on death row. The attorney had said his client’s name was Mike Denver and he was dying of cancer. Mike knew he wouldn’t live long enough to get the needle and he felt okay with that. The attorney informed her Mike had a story to tell, and he wanted her to tell it. He told her she had every right to refuse, it was okay if she wanted to turn around and walk away. He would understand, but he hoped she would at least listen to his story.
Luna had been just curious enough stay. Mike wanted to tell her about someone he met fifteen years ago in Detroit. He’d recently read a story she wrote about child abuse and he told her he liked the way she brought the victims to life. That she made him feel the child’s pain and when she was finished, he felt that justice had been done by the courts. He felt the judge who sentenced the couple to prison had stopped them from hurting any other child. He wanted the world to know his story and why he had done the things, he had done. He wasn’t looking for forgiveness; but he did want people to know what he felt during the time he was committing his crimes. While he’d done a number of bad things in his life, he needed to tell the world about a man that scared even the hardest of criminals.
As a reporter, even a small town reporter she knew this man had a story to tell and she told him if she could verify what he was telling her, she would write his story. What she found out scared the hell out of her, but she had been able to verify his tale in New York, Chicago, Seattle and St. Louis; and many little towns along the way. What she never told anyone, the child in her abuse story was herself.
She had returned from her journey only three hours ago. Her suitcase was still sitting just inside the bedroom door. All she wanted to do when she got home was sleep.
Luna grabbed a pen and a notepad she kept close to her and wrote down the message she had been given. She knew she should call Charlie Boone, but if she did and it turned out to be a crank, she didn’t want to look like a fool in his eyes. The caller had said that the hit would happen within twenty-four hours. The question was who was going to die and why? The reporter in her wanted to know the five W’s; who, what, when, where and why. So far, she knew the when but she didn’t know the rest. She tried to think of upcoming interesting cases, but she couldn’t think of one that would warrant this kind of solution. This was Whiskey Bend after all. Being the seat of Bison County there was a courthouse located here, as well as a jail. The DA and judge lived here too.
Her adrenalin was pumping and she knew from the butterflies in the pit of her stomach she had stumbled on to a story that she was never supposed to know about. What she would do next might save someone’s life or cost her own.
She got up and walked over to the window. Pulling the drapes open, she stared out at the town beyond her windows. Even in the darkness, she could see her neighborhood. She knew by heart every inch of what lay beyond her window. She was part of the neighborhood watch, although here in Whiskey Bend people tended to watch over one another and she knew her neighbors as well as they knew her. The streetlights shone at every corner illuminating the yards and houses nearby. Down the street from where she lived there was a Catholic church and a public school. During the day, the people bustled along doing their own thing but it was basically a safe town, a good town to live in and raise a family. Had the horror of the big city finally come to Whiskey Bend, Wisconsin? Luna shivered as the cool night air blew in from her open bedroom window.
~*~
In a small room in a rented cabin just outside Whiskey Bend, a man was sitting in the dark. The neon sign across the road flashing a beer sign gave him more than enough light to dial a phone. He hadn’t thought about turning his own lights on until now. Before he could snap the light on, the flashing sign across the street went out for the night. Getting up, he moved over to the window and looked outside. The parking lot across the street was finally empty after being full earlier. The music that blared earlier was gone as well. Everything was quiet now, except his mind. His mind was going crazy with the mistake he’d just made. Now he would have to find and eliminate the witness he might have just informed of his intentions.
He always used a motel or a cabin such as this one for his bus
iness. That way, the cops couldn’t trace any of the calls back to him. He also used a false name and a disguise to register at the motel. He didn’t want anyone to know his true identity. After all, he had his own reputation to protect, as well as his day job. Every time he had to do a job, he would use a different hotel or motel in the area. If the police ever thought to trace the incoming and outgoing calls made by the people who hired him, all they would find was a person they could never trace. And a series of untraceable burn phones as he bought a new trac phone for every job he did. It kept him clear of any suspicion in the cases and it gave his clients some protection as well. He wasn’t exactly a rookie at police work or his sideline. He gave both of his occupations his full attention to detail and so far, neither one had crossed over into the other.
He looked at the phone sitting on the table and frowned. The numbers on the piece of paper were the same numbers he had dialed, yet his contact had sounded like a woman. He reached over and flipped on the light. He checked the numbers again and hit the redial. The number he had dialed flashed and when he looked at it, he realized he had switched two of the numbers around. It was a common mistake except he couldn’t afford to make common mistakes.
He growled as he quickly wrote down the number he had called and slammed the phone down. “Damn, I got the wrong number.” He paused to light a cigarette. As the smoke circled his head, the man again looked at the number on the paper. This time he dialed it correctly and when his contact answered the call he repeated his earlier message.
“Are you sure you can handle this job?” his contact asked again. His voice was a little on the high side and it had a certain whiney quality.
“Do you want the job done or not?” he asked his contact. “I mean it doesn’t matter to me whether they are dead or not, but once you pay, I do the job. I don’t do refunds if you change your mind.”
The contact scoffed. “I don’t want a refund, I want the job done. I want Sheila Donner dead. The little bitch thinks she can blackmail me. I’ll show her I won’t be blackmailed by anyone.”
“Hey man, I don’t need to know the details,” he told the contact. “In fact, I don’t want to know the details.” His voice had grown cold. “I just called to inform you that the money was delivered.”
“Ok, ok. I understand and I’ll be ready.”
He hung up without saying anything. There were times when he didn’t much care for the people he worked for. Some, like this man regarded him as nothing more than dirt on their shoes and they tended to treat him as such. He deeply resented them. They all thought they were better than he was, but without him, they all would be rotting in some stinking jail somewhere. His only saving grace was his clients didn’t know who he was. To them he was a voice on the other end of a phone call. They couldn’t even tell the police what his voice sounded like since his voice was often disguised. All the contact they had was over the phone. To them he was just a phone call away. He could be standing right next to them and they wouldn’t know it.
He poured himself another drink from the bottle of Black Velvet sitting on the table. He lit another cigarette and thought about how his life of crime began, so many years ago. He’d lived a lifetime since then, or maybe several life times. His lips curled in some sense of a smile and he contemplated his life. He was a very intelligent man, He had to be. His freedom depended on it. His eyes caught sight of the tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. He had put her face there as a reminder and every time he looked at her he remembered what she did to make him the man he was today. He flexed his thumb and her face changed. It became the face he saw the day he killed her. That day her face had been twisted in hate and she became the monster inside him. She hadn’t died easily that day but he held her close to him until he no longer heard her breathing. Then he carefully laid her on the ground and walked away. He hadn’t looked back as there was nothing left for him there. His mother was dead and he was truly alone in this world.
Every time he had to start over, he changed his name and profession in another city or town. There had been so many different lives already, he could barely remember his given name anymore.
He stared at the second number on the piece of paper. He got up, grabbed the paper and his drink, then walked over to the laptop computer on the desk. He’d brought it with him tonight so he could get some work done while he was away from home and now he was glad he had. Logging on to his work computer, he quickly entered the information and waited while the reverse directory did its work. In a few minutes, he had the information he needed.
The phone number belonged to a Luna Mathias. He frowned when he realized he knew that name. The DMV photo he was looking at also gave her current address. He sat back in his chair and gazed at the computer screen for a moment. He took another drag from his cigarette and sip of his whiskey as he stared at the information on the screen. As he exhaled the smoke, he leaned forward and hit a few more keys. He thought about where he knew the name from, and he realized according to the information on the screen she was a reporter for the Whiskey Bend Happenings newspaper. Her driver’s license photo popped on the screen and he found himself looking at someone else he had to kill before this was all over. This hit was on him, as he couldn’t afford to leave any potential witnesses behind. He liked this city and he wasn’t ready to leave just yet.
She was a loose end he’d created and it was in his best interest to tie up any and all loose ends. He wouldn’t be in business very long if anyone knew about what he did. His day job was risky enough. Being a cop in any town, big or small, was a risk these days and even though he didn’t live and work in a big city like New York or San Francisco, the town they lived in was a small town. It had barely a thousand people living here and a good deal of them lived on farms in three directions fanning out behind the town. The fourth side of the river was the Mississippi River. The city limits began on the river’s banks.
He snubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray sitting on the desk and sat back in his chair. Cradling the whiskey in his glass he stared at the computer screen for another minute or so. Her driver’s license photo burned into his brain and he knew he would never forget her, even after he killed her.
Chapter Two
Right after the phone call he made to his client, he traveled to a small house on George Street. It was barely a street at all, just a small clump of houses on a side street. In the dark hours of the night, gaining access hadn’t been that hard. He slipped inside the house without anyone knowing. He found her asleep in her bedroom. Who she was and what she meant to his client didn’t really matter to him. He was told her name was Sheila Donner. His client wanted her dead and had paid him well to make that happen. He approached the bed and looked down at the young woman. He didn’t know her but tonight she would die.
He placed a hand on either side of her neck. Quick and cleanly, he grabbed her and lifting her several inches off the bed, he twisted her neck until he heard the inevitable snap. She didn’t know it even happened. One minute she was asleep and the next she was dead, simple as that. Quick and clean, although it wouldn’t look like an accident but that wasn’t his problem. His clients hadn’t told him to make it look like she died in her sleep, after all. He just wanted her dead.
Well, she was dead.
He left the same way he came in and no one was the wiser. That’s the way he liked it. To draw attention away from his client, he snuffed out two more lives during the wee hours of the morning. They were unrelated in any way to Sheila and would lead the police on a wild goose chase. Their lives meant nothing to him. If he thought about it, their lives didn’t mean much to anyone. One of them was a homeless man and the other a convenience store clerk who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He knew the rash of murders would take the police some time to sort out and might put a little panic in the city but that he could deal with. A little fear gave him an edge.
By the time the dawn had peeked over the eastern horizon, he was settled into his place of anon
ymity along the street that Judge Alec Bennett resided on. The Judge’s house sat in a cul-de-sac just outside the town itself and across the street was a vacant lot. A six-foot fence surrounded the lot and inside the fence were the remains of a house that had burnt down over a year ago. The city of Whiskey Bend, WI, was in the process of demolishing the house and had put the fence up to keep the children away from the site. He was sitting behind a pile of lumber stacked up against the chain link fence.
He shivered in the early morning chilliness and when he exhaled, he could see his breath. His comfort didn’t really mean that much to him. He huddled down inside his jacket and was glad he’d worn it. He did his best work in the early morning hours. While the rest of the world was deep in slumber or just waking up, he was revved up and ready to go.
He watched as the morning paper was thrown toward the door by a kid on a bike. The paper landed close to the front porch but not quite on it. A jogger ran right past him without seeing him. He knew how to hide in plain sight and it was a trick he’d used to his advantage many times, not only in this line of work but also in his day job as well. People, meaning potential witnesses often overlooked the obvious.
He glanced over at the house of Judge Alec Bennett. It was a very nice house located in the better part of town. The large front yard looked picture perfect as did the two-story house. The house was painted blue with grey trim and the wrap around porch. Each window facing the street was offset by shutters and there was a window box on the upstairs deck over the front entrance. He knew the Judge was married and had a couple of kids. Appearances said the Judge and his family looked like the perfect family. For all he knew they were.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun he would use for the hit...what he called a throw away gun. A nine milometer Gluck he took from the last city he’d been in. The gun had been reported stolen by the owner so there was no way it could be linked to him. After the hit, he would toss the gun into the river, along with the latex gloves he was wearing. He wanted no fingerprints left behind and no evidence that could be traced back to him.