Demon's Stand

by Dahlen, K. J.

  Demon was about to say something but Shiloh held her hand up. “Now he’s telling Simon he has forty-eight hours to get his hands on the jewels or Mischa is going to make his life miserable.”

  “What is Simon saying?”

  “Simon is telling Mischa that he’s already paid Pieter for the jewels and he will not be blackmailed into paying twice for the same item.”

  They both saw Mischa wandering around the shop. He stopped at an antique desk and picked up a letter opener. He went back to where Simon was standing. He had one hand braced on the counter. Mischa walked up to him and without warning, he plunged the letter opener into Simon’s hand.

  Shiloh gasped. “Oh, my god…”

  Demon reached under his seat and grabbed the camera he had stored there. He looked through the camera shutter and gasped when he saw the Russian’s face. Then he began taking pictures of the two men.

  “Mischa is telling Simon that the jewels are his inheritance and he wants them back. Pieter is dead and he wants what his uncle promised him.” Shiloh frowned, as she comprehended the next part of the conversation. “Mischa is saying something about having Pieter’s paperwork about the jewels being in Simon’s possession and Simon’s IOU for the jewels. He says he has no paperwork from his uncle that Simon ever paid for the jewels. Pieter told him he let the money slide because he knew Simon would eventually pay him but now Mischa wants the jewels to start over.” She paused and watched some more.

  Demon waited.

  “Simon is telling him that Pieter accepted the money instead of the jewels and he claims Pieter told him they were square.” Shiloh couldn’t take her eyes off the struggle between the two men.

  Mischa twisted the letter opener and Simon screamed in pain. He paused to put a pair of gloves on his hands. With one gloved hand, he reached up to gently slap Simon’s face. They could see him talking but he had shifted his face away from the windows so Shiloh couldn’t read his lips.

  Mischa turned and left the shop. He walked a short way down the street and got into a dark two door sedan.

  Demon grabbed a pen and paper and quickly wrote down the license plate number as the car passed them. He sat thinking a moment before he spoke, “I need to make a phone call.”

  “Who are you going to call?”

  “I have a contact in New York that I used to work with on the smuggling ring. Richy will be able to fill in some of the blanks.” He reached for his cell phone and placed the call.

  Shiloh tuned him out as she continued to watch Simon Pratt.

  He pulled the letter opener out of his hand. He turned and disappeared into the back room.

  She waited for him to return.

  When he did, his hand was wrapped in gauze.

  Shiloh turned to Demon when she heard him snap his cell phone closed. “What did you find out?”

  “Richy was very interested in the fact that Pieter Stanovic is supposed to be dead. He said they tailed him only last week.”

  “What else did your friend tell you?”

  “Mischa Stanovic is the up and coming heir to Pieter’s dynasty. He joined his uncle about five years ago. He grew up in Russia and learned how to survive by being ruthless. He came here two years ago and has spent the last two years learning the ropes from his uncle. Richy told me Mischa has been running a sideline Pieter didn’t know about. He’s amassed millions on his own and if Pieter is dead, Richy thinks Mischa is making his move to take over Pieter’s empire.”

  “Ok, so what are we supposed to do now?” Shiloh asked.

  “Richy said for us to sit tight and wait for him to call back. He’s going to do some checking on his end and see where things stand.” Demon glanced at the shop and saw Simon was talking on the phone. He glanced at Shiloh and asked, “Can you tell who he’s talking to?”

  Shiloh looked at Simon but his face was turned far enough away that she couldn’t read his lips. “No I can’t see what he’s saying.”

  Demon reached down and started the car. “We need to get out of here. We can’t run the risk Simon might recognize you. If he’s only got forty-eight hours to find the jewels we need to get you to a safe place.”

  Shiloh shook her head. “Take me home. I’ll be okay there.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Demon asked.

  Shiloh glanced at him. “Why wouldn’t I be? I changed the locks and added a security system.”

  “Don’t you think that’s the first place Simon is going to look for you?”

  Shiloh shrugged. “I would be a fool if I wasn’t worried about that, but I’m all done running away from the past. The only way I can get on with my life free of the nightmares and the fear is by facing it head on.” She paused then added, “I hope I won’t have to do it alone, but I will if I have to.”

  “Babe, you aren’t alone in this. I’m here and if I’m right beside you, I know my brothers will be too. Plus if I know Richy, he’ll be on the first plane out of New York. This is the closest he’s gotten to this particular ring in a long time.”

  “Are you sure this is the same smuggling ring that murdered your friend?”

  Demon shrugged. “I’ll know if I can get a hold of the green book.”

  “What is that going to tell you?”

  “When Pete went down he bled all over the book then when I had the book in my hands a bullet caught me in the shoulder. I tucked the book in my shirt so I could fire back and before I could get a bead on my target I got shot again in the side, neither bullets were lethal, but I did lose a lot of blood. While I was laying there bleeding, a man walked up and took the book from me. He swore because it was covered in blood, both mine and Pete’s. He wiped the blood on my shirt and kicked me as he walked away. If it’s the same green book, there should be traces of Pete’s and my blood on it somewhere.”

  They turned the corner to the block Shiloh’s house was on and Demon stopped suddenly. In front of the house was Charlie’s car. Demon looked at Shiloh and said, “What are you going to tell Charlie about the new locks?”

  “That will depend on whether he’s outside or inside the house. In case you don’t know it, he’s not sitting in his car.”

  Demon pulled up to the curb and shut the car off. He looked over at her and opened his car door. As they walked up to the front door, it opened and Charlie stood there looking at them. “Where have you two been?”

  “How did you get in the house?” Shiloh asked. “I had the locks changed this morning.”

  Charlie ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I noticed that. I’ll replace the locks. I didn’t know what was going on so I panicked. I busted in and searched the house. I was starting to get worried.”

  Shiloh glanced at Demon then turned back to Charlie. “I’m fine.” She sidestepped him and went into the house. Looking around, she walked down the hall to her bedroom. When she opened the door, she gasped. The room was a shambles. There were clothes and papers all over the place. Drawers were pulled out of the dresser and left open. The closet doors were wide open and her clothes were thrown all on the floor.

  “What the hell happened here?” she heard Charlie’s voice behind her.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.” Shiloh turned to face him.

  Charlie glared at her. “I had nothing to do with this. I was checking the other rooms first. I hadn’t gotten this far yet.”

  Shiloh took a deep breath. She had to know, “Who were you on the phone with late last night?”

  Charlie just looked at her. Turning his head, he glance at his nephew and then back to Shiloh. “I didn’t realize you overheard me. Why didn’t you ask earlier?”

  “I’m asking now. And I need an answer.”

  Charlie crossed his arms and stared at her. “I was talking to my old partner, Stan Flynn. He’s been tracking Simon Pratt and a smuggling ring for almost as long as you’ve been alive.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “But I had nothing to do with this,” Charlie protested as he waved at the mess of her bedroom.


  “You just told us you searched the house,” Demon reminded him.

  “Yeah I did, but I didn’t come in here,” Charlie told them again.

  Shiloh sighed as she looked at the mess someone had left. She didn’t see any of the paperwork her aunt left so at least she knew that was intact. At least she hoped it was. She had to go through what her aunt left her. There must be something in there that someone wanted. “I would like to be alone for a while.” I need to clean up this mess and I need time to think about something.” She watched as they both turned and walked away.

  At the door, Charlie turned and glanced at her. He paused and shook his head.

  Shiloh stepped into her room and closed the door behind her. Twisting the lock, she surveyed the mess in front of her. Shaking her head, she began to pick up her clothes and tidy up. When she got to the closet, she picked up her red shirt. Underneath it, she paused when she saw something on the floor that wasn’t hers.

  She bent over and picked up the item. Holding her hand flat, she stared at the small red flash drive in her hand. Looking around the room, she found her laptop undisturbed on the dresser. She walked over to it and turned it on. Inserting the flash drive, she brought up the contents.

  Shiloh gasped at what she found. Someone had kept track of her life since the day Donna took her and ran. There were pictures and notes on every step from every town they ever lived in.

  She was stunned as she looked through the reports. She glanced at the locked door and wondered if Charlie or someone else dropped the flash drive when they searched her room.

  Then she clicked on the second to the last file on the drive. She gasped and pushed away from the computer. She tried to look away but found she couldn’t. There were pictures of her aunt’s accident. Pictures the police hadn’t shown her. She could see the bend in the road where Donna has crashed through the railing.

  As Shiloh went from one picture to the next, she followed her aunt’s car down the embankment to where it came to a stop. She could see her aunt’s look of shock and the blood on her face from the crash. The last picture in the file was one of her aunt after she had passed away. Her head lay on the frame of the car’s window. Shiloh could see the wound on her forehead and the blood running down the side of her face. The timestamp on the photo told her it was taken moments after the crash that took her aunt’s life.

  Shiloh reached out and touched her computer screen. She was crying at the thought that the accident hadn’t been an accident at all. These photos backed Tony and Rick’s claim that her aunt’s death had been premeditated murder.

  Shiloh’s throat was dry and she got up to get a drink of water. When she came back, she clicked on the last file. It looked to her like a surveillance report. The file was very thick and the first date on the report was several years ago.

  Shiloh began reading the report and was surprised by what she found. Someone had been tailing Simon. By the look of the report, they had been tailing him for years. Before she could read much more of the report, there was a knock on her door.

  She walked over to the door and asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Demon. We made sandwiches.”

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Come on, you need to eat,” Demon urged.

  Shiloh sighed and laid her head against the wooden frame of the door. “Ok, I’ll be out in a minute.”

  She went back to her computer and closed out the flash drive. Slipping it into her pocket, she told herself she would finish looking at it later. There was something about the report that didn’t seem like something Charlie would write.

  A few minutes later, she joined the men in the kitchen. There was a tenseness between the two of them that hadn’t been present before.

  Charlie acted guarded now, almost like he had something to hide.

  She sat down at the table and for a few minutes, there was no sound except the sound they made while they ate. Then Charlie asked, “So why did you change the locks this morning?”

  “Don’t I have the right to change the locks on my house if I want to?” Shiloh asked without looking at him.

  “It’s your house you can do what you want.” Charlie sighed.

  “If you must know, someone is breaking in on what seems to be a regular basis and now that I’m living here I don’t want someone wandering around my house without knowing who or what they want. I have a pretty good idea who it is and what he wants but I’ll be damned if I’m going to give it to him without a fight. If Simon wants what’s in my father’s safe he’s going to have to come through me to get it.” Shiloh raised her head and looked directly at Charlie. “And I don’t appreciate someone trashing my room.”

  “I know you won’t believe this but I didn’t trash your room,” Charlie told them. “I arrived a few minutes before you did. I got through the main rooms and downstairs when I heard your car pull up outside.”

  “Well, it wasn’t Demon, he was with me and we know it wasn’t Simon,” Shiloh said. “We were watching him.”

  “You were what?” Charlie growled as he glared from one to the other of them. “Are you two completely nuts?”

  Shiloh shook her head. “He didn’t see us. We didn’t go into the store, but he was there the whole time.”

  “So my process of elimination I had to be the one that ripped your room apart, huh?” Charlie muttered. He turned his head to glare at his nephew. “Do you agree with her assumption?”

  Demon glanced at him and nodded. “We were together all morning.”

  “Well, I don’t know how I can prove it wasn’t me but let me ask you something, do you think Donna would have trusted me all these years if I was working with Simon?”

  “I don’t know, maybe Donna wanted to believe in you because you were the one link to her past she couldn’t give up.” Shiloh shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” She glanced at Demon then back to Charlie. “Demon told me you left Whiskey Bend a week ago. You told me you got to Seattle two days ago. What am I supposed to believe?”

  Charlie glanced over at his nephew and frowned. “I didn’t realize I was under suspicion.” He took a deep breath and looked at Shiloh. “I did leave a week ago and I made a stop in Montana for a personal reason.”

  “What kind of personal reason?” Shiloh asked.

  Charlie flushed, then told her, “If you must know, I bought some land out there a couple of years ago. It’s always been my wife’s dream to have a vacation home in the mountains. I began building a cabin out there about a year ago. I had a few finishing details and when I was done with those, I was going to tell my wife about it. I knew I had to wait until you were grown.” He shrugged. “I just figured that time might be very close. I mean I’m getting older now and need to take break for a little while. I know my wife would like more of my time.”

  Charlie looked as if he wanted to say something but didn’t. After a few minutes he did ask, “What did you learn from watching Simon this morning?”

  “Simon has problems of his own,” Demon told him.

  “What does that mean?” Charlie asked.

  “While we were watching him this morning he got a visitor. A visitor he wasn’t very happy to have I might say.”

  “Who was this person?” Charlie asked.

  “Mischa Stanovic,” Demon answered.

  “Who the hell is Mischa Stanovic?” Charlie looked perplexed.

  “He’s Pieter Stanovic’s nephew,” Demon informed him. “Pieter Stanovic is a major player in Russia until he moved here about ten years ago. The military has linked him as a big honcho in a smuggling ring in Europe and Africa. This ring smuggles everything from drugs to diamonds to human cargo. A special task force in New York has been watching Pieter for years. My unit caught who we thought was him and an American in Iraq about five years ago. We actually didn’t know who we were watching until the meeting was almost over. We were tracking down the Sheik and witnessed the meeting. We thought we knew who the Russian was but the Ame
rican was only known to us as Devlin. The day after the meeting was over, we were ambushed and missing in action for four months. After we were debriefed, we were booted out of the service as the four that remained of the dozen men that started out were all diagnosed with severe PTSD. They could never find the US connection until today.”

  “And you think Simon is his US connection?” Charlie asked, then he frowned. “You said you thought you knew who the Russian was but you were wrong? Who was the Russian then?”

  “We know he is. All four of us know his face. Your Simon is our Devlin.” Demon watched his uncle’s face but if Charlie was working with Simon, he didn’t see it. “I found the man we saw four and a half years ago. The man we thought was Pieter was actually his nephew Misha. I saw him with my own eyes today. He was in the shop with Simon.”

  “If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Simon who else could it have been?” Shiloh asked.

  “You said you worked in New York on a task force. Who else was on this task force?” Charlie asked.

  “There were eight guys from all over the states, Richy Hall, Peter Webber, Terry Branch, Mark Abbots, Adam Knighter, Jack Harmon, Gordon Ford and Jordan Trainer. They were working with Scotland Yard in England. At least that’s what Pete said. Pete Webber was murdered by this bunch about five years ago and I was shot and left for dead. I’d gone with Pete as backup on a stakeout when everything went FUBAR.”

  “How close did this task force get to finding any connection to Simon?” Charlie asked.

  Demon shrugged. “They could never find a connection. They found a several custom guys that allowed certain boxes to go through without being checked but there was never a direct connection. The crates we watched were already gone by the time they got to Customs.”

  “What else did you discover this morning?” Charlie asked.

  “Mischa Stanovic has given him forty-eight hours to recover the jewels Simon murdered my parents for,” Shiloh answered this. “He’s also not afraid to use violence to back up his threats. He stabbed Simon in the hand with a letter opener.”