Demons (A Detective Pierce Novel Book 2) Read online

  DEMONS

  A DETECTIVE PIERCE NOVEL – BOOK 2

  By

  REMINGTON KANE

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  DEMONS - A DETECTIVE PIERCE NOVEL - BOOK 2

  First edition. March 26, 2016.

  Copyright © 2016 Remington Kane.

  Written by Remington Kane.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Please join my Mailing List and Learn about New Releases. Also, get access to FREE Books and Short Stories, including The TAKEN! ALPHABET SERIES & THE FIVE STAGES OF TANNER | REMINGTON KANE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  COMING MAY 7, 2016!

  COMING SOON FROM REMINGTON KANE

  A PLEA

  ALSO BY REMINGTON KANE

  Please join my Mailing List and Learn about New Releases. Also, get access to FREE Books and Short Stories, including The TAKEN! ALPHABET SERIES & THE FIVE STAGES OF TANNER | REMINGTON KANE

  Further Reading: Angels - A Detective Pierce Novel - Book 3

  About the Author

  Please join my Mailing List and Learn about New Releases. Also, get access to FREE Books and Short Stories, including The TAKEN! ALPHABET SERIES & THE FIVE STAGES OF TANNER

  REMINGTON KANE

  http://www.remingtonkane.com/contact.html

  CHAPTER 1

  Detective Ricardo Pierce knelt down beside the body of his friend, Detective Al Finder.

  Finder lay on his back with his eyes open, and the front of his white dress shirt was stained red with his own blood. It was night, and raining, and so the blood had been diluted somewhat before the CSI techs arrived and erected a protective tarp over the crime scene.

  Raindrops pattered down on the tarp like the tears Pierce felt like shedding over his friend’s fate.

  Pierce saw a shadow pass over the body and stared up at the medical examiner. The man was in his fifties with graying temples and bright blue eyes. His name was Dr. Yates.

  “How many times was he stabbed, doctor?”

  “Well over a dozen, but I’ll know for certain once I clean him up.”

  “And slice him open on your table?”

  “Well, yes, Detective, I’ll need to examine him on my table.”

  Pierce sighed as he gave an apologetic shake of his head.

  “Sorry Doc. I don’t mean to be an asshole, but Al was a friend.”

  “I understand, Detective, and I knew him as well. The two of you were involved in that media circus of a case about a year ago, correct?”

  “Yes, Murphy and Owens, the Press called them ‘The Monsters.’ It was one of Al’s cases that first led me to them.”

  “The women they killed, were you ever able to recover their bodies? I don’t recall hearing about that?”

  “Murphy and Owens had buried them all inside an old abandoned factory. It was a place that they had worked at together after high school. The Feds handled the autopsies, and be glad that they did, there were more than a dozen victims.”

  Pierce stood, took two steps, and bent down to take a look at the other body at the scene.

  It was a large white male, a biker in his forties with a scraggly beard and a host of tattoos. His hair had been long, but a good chunk of it was lying several feet behind the rest of his body as the back of his head had been blown apart by a massive exit wound.

  The first cops on the scene had thought that Finder and the biker had killed each other, but then they noticed that the biker’s clothes weren’t bloody. At least, not bloody in the way that stabbing someone would result in. There was also no knife found at the scene.

  The biker’s body was face down in the street, and he was dressed in leather and wore cowboy boots. Pierce knew without looking that a red patch with a smiling devil on it would be found on the front of the biker’s jacket. The man had been a member of a motorcycle club called the Bay Street Demons.

  The Demons were often seen hanging out in the storefront that was just several feet away. The two bodies lay right outside its front door. It was a massage parlor, and whoever had been present at the time of the murders had fled the scene.

  When the coroner flipped the biker’s body over, Pierce saw there was a neat, almost surgical hole in the center of the biker’s forehead. It was too large to have been made by Al Finder’s weapon, and it sat near the top, at the border of the dead Demon’s receding hairline.

  Pierce understood the significance of the angle, turned his head, and looked up at the three-story office building across the avenue.

  “Why are you looking over there?” asked a voice from behind him. When Pierce turned his head, he saw his young partner, Rookie Detective Jake Collins.

  Collins, a member of the force for less than three years, rose up the ranks in the department with meteoric speed. It was due to several circumstances, not the least of which was the fact that Collins was a hell of a cop.

  Another factor in his promotion was a purge of dirty veterans of the force who became swept up in a huge sting set-up by Internal Affairs. Collins was also instrumental in the Murphy and Owens case.

  Jake Collins was in his mid-twenties, blond, and handsome. He was also as dedicated to finding murderers as Pierce was.

  When Pierce’s old partner, Bob Jerold retired, Pierce asked to have Collins take his place.

  “I’m looking up there because I think that may be where the shot came from that killed the biker. Al’s weapon hadn’t been fired, and the round appears to have entered on a downward trajectory.”

  Collins looked across the street.

  “I guess we go over and look for brass up there.”

  “That’s right,” Pierce said.

  ***

  They found no brass casings, but checked several other rooftops, where they also came up empty.

  “Rick, I’m sorry about Al. I was friends with him, but I know you two were close.”

  “Thanks, Jake.”

  “That means we won’t be working this case, right, because we were friends of his?”

  “Probably, but we weren’t friends with the biker, so I think we’ll be working Al’s murder from one end or another.”

  “Good,” Collins said. “I want this one. Some bastard thinks that they can get away with killing a cop, but we’re going to prove them wrong, aren’t we?”

  “Damn right,” Pierce said, even as his phone rang. When he saw who was calling, he realized that he had forgotten to cancel their monthly dinner. It wasn’t a date, but an obligation to a friend, a man named Jimmy Drake.

  “I’m sorry, man; I had to work and I forgot to call and let you know.”

  “No problem, dude,” Jimmy said, with his gruff voice. “We’ll hook-up for a beer soon, or better yet, you can drop by later, you know I’ll be up late.”

  “Let’s postpone it altogethe
r. I’ve a feeling I’ll be going non-stop for a while.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “A cop was killed, and he was a friend.”

  “Fuck! Who was it?”

  “Al Finder.”

  “Damn, I met him a couple of times when I came to the station to see you. And we all had a beer together once, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You get back to work and catch the bastard that killed Al, Rick. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Right, take care buddy.”

  As Pierce put away his phone, he saw that Collins was near the edge of the roof they were on and staring down at the crime scene.

  “I take it that was Jimmy?”

  “Yeah, we were supposed to have dinner and I forgot to call and cancel.”

  “You two are really close, aren’t you?”

  “Yes we are, and I owe him a lot.”

  Collins said nothing for a moment, as he walked along the roof and looked down at the scene below from different angles. He then turned and smiled at Pierce.

  “Hey Rick, our second deceased is definitely a biker, right?’

  “Yeah, a Bay Street Demon.”

  “Okay, then where is his motorcycle?”

  Pierce looked down at the scene and saw that Collins was right. The Demon’s bike was nowhere to be seen.

  “I’ll be damned. How did I miss that?”

  Collins frowned.

  “You would have noticed sooner if not for Al. I’m sure you’re in shock, Rick.”

  Pierce sighed.

  “Yeah, but I’ll find the bastard that killed him; I swear it.”

  “Damn right we will,” Collins said. “Damn right.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Pierce’s obsession with his old girlfriend, Professor Amy Lowe, had driven him to stalk her from a distance. He regularly spied on the woman by watching her through her kitchen window.

  His stalking post was the back corner of a supermarket parking lot that was near Amy’s house, and which sat at a higher elevation.

  One morning, just a few weeks after the Owens and Murphy case had ended, Pierce had an unexpected visitor.

  Pierce was parked and had been looking through his binoculars at Amy and her husband, the man she had dumped Pierce for, when there came a loud knock on Pierce’s passenger window that startled him.

  When he looked over, Pierce saw a man who was about his own age bent over at the waist and smiling at him. The man was bearded, had lots of unruly hair, and was tall and muscular. After the man made a hand signal that told Pierce he wanted him to lower the window, Pierce shouted for the man to go away.

  “I can’t do that, partner. We need to talk.”

  Pierce had taken out his badge and held it up.

  “I’m a police officer and you’re disturbing an undercover investigation.”

  The man laughed.

  “That’s bullshit and we both know it. Now you talk to me or I turn your ass in for stalking that hot little blonde you’ve been watching. Which will it be?”

  Pierce had given Jimmy Drake a better look after the man issued his ultimatum, and a sick feeling came over him.

  “You’re with IA, aren’t you?”

  Drake looked disgusted by the accusation.

  “Fuck no, I’m not with Internal Affairs, but I am an ex-cop. Now unlock the door and let me in.”

  Pierce had hesitated, but then hit the button and unlocked the door.

  After sitting beside Pierce, Jimmy said five words.

  “Tell me your story, brother.”

  ***

  Pierce had done just that, over the course of an hour spent at a nearby diner. When not speaking, Pierce had picked at his breakfast and nervously slurped down four cups of coffee.

  While Pierce had talked, Jimmy Drake had mostly listened. When he did ask a question, he stared at Pierce as if he could read his mind. That had unnerved Pierce, and he was a man who was seldom intimidated.

  “What are your plans?” Drake had asked him. “We both know that you wouldn’t have been satisfied with just spying on her forever.”

  Pierce had shaken his head.

  “No plans, but how long had you been watching me?”

  “I’m a private detective. I was hired by the supermarket to find out who was stealing from them. They thought that one of the guys that worked at night stocking the shelves was the thief, but no, it was their own security guards. It took me a little over a week to catch them. During that time, I saw you parked back there in the corner of the lot three times.”

  “But how did you know I was watching Amy?”

  “Easy, I waited for a morning when you didn’t show and watched her myself. I’ll say this for you, she is a cutie.”

  Pierce looked at Drake and felt his heart beating fast from fear. He felt like a perp, like a peeping Tom, and a pervert. What was worse, in truth, he was all three.

  “What’s next, Drake?”

  “I already said. Tell me your plans. What were you going to do with that woman?”

  Pierce opened his mouth to lie and Drake pointed a finger at him.

  “Before you answer, know this. I will verify whatever you tell me. Lie to me and I’ll burn you to the ground.”

  Pierce broke eye contact, swallowed hard, said, “I...” and then shut his mouth.

  “I know about you, Pierce. I asked around, discreetly, and from all I’ve gathered you’re one damn good cop. Just tell me, brother. Tell me the truth, let it out.”

  “I... built... a cell, a fucking cell... it’s in my basement.”

  Pierce had been looking down at the tabletop, avoiding Drake’s gaze. When he saw Drake’s hands ball up into fists, he made eye contact and saw a look that could kill.

  “How many?” Drake asked.

  “What? One, just one cell.”

  Drake hissed at him.

  “Women, Pierce, how many fucking women?”

  Pierce straightened in his seat and shouted.

  “None! I swear.”

  That caught the other diners’ attention, but when nothing else happened, they went back to their own conversations.

  Drake stood and tossed money onto the table.

  “We’re going to your house. Do you live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Drake said, “Good,” and Pierce noticed that he touched the gun he carried on his hip as he said it.

  ***

  A short time later, Drake was down in Pierce’s basement and looking at the cell Pierce had constructed.

  Drake stared at the cot and the chemical toilet for long moments. Then, his eyes took in the slot built into the metal door, a slot that could be used to pass food through to a captive.

  As Drake continued studying the door, his eyes widened in surprise.

  “There’s no lock?”

  Pierce shook his head. He was too embarrassed, far too disgusted with himself to speak, and although he tried to fight them, tears leaked from his eyes.

  Drake touched the door.

  “No damn lock, thank God.”

  Drake motioned for Pierce to head back upstairs and the two men sat together in Pierce’s living room.

  “You need help, Rick. Are you willing to get some?”

  “Yes, but not through the department.”

  “No, but I know someone who can help you. Her name is Dr. Emma Jansen. She’s a psychiatrist, and also a good friend of mine.”

  “Why are you helping me, Drake?”

  “Because you’re worth it, and because there was no lock on that cell door. That tells me that you’re not too far gone.”

  “And if there had been a lock on it?”

  Drake smiled.

  “Let’s not go there, Rick, okay, buddy?”

  Pierce had stared at Drake then.

  “Maybe I should see that doctor of yours.”

  Since that day, Pierce and Drake had grown closer, and the basement cell was no more.

  CHAPTER 3

  On th
e ride back to the station, Pierce sent a text while Jake Collins drove.

  Pierce was texting his live-in girlfriend Val Mangieri to let her know that he was all right. Val was taking a night course at the local college. The last thing Pierce wanted her to do, was to hear about a cop being killed while on her way home from class, and to jump to the wrong conclusion.

  Valeria “Val” Mangieri had come close to being a victim of Owens and Murphy, but had escaped the murderous pair by being tough and fighting back.

  She and Pierce began dating, but he had kept her at a distance emotionally while he was still obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, Amy Lowe. After Jimmy Drake intervened and urged Pierce to get help, Pierce began opening up to Val, and later, he even confided to her that he was seeing a psychiatrist, as well as the reason why.

  “Do you still love her, this Amy?” Val had asked.

  “No. That’s one of the things that Dr. Jansen has helped me to see. I thought I was in love with her, but I haven’t seen her in years. I was in love with the girl I used to know, not the woman she is now.”

  They had been sitting on his sofa when he told her, and Val had stood and began pacing.

  “This is some heavy shit you’re telling me, Rick.”

  “Yes, but you need to know this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you, Val. I don’t want secrets between us. We’ve been getting serious, even talked about marrying someday. If you’re going to take that step you need to know what you’re getting into. You need to know me inside and out.”

  “I thought that I did.”

  They were both quiet for a few moments, but then Val walked back to the sofa and sat beside him.

  “I want to speak with your doctor, this Dr. Jansen.”

  “Why?”

  “I want her opinion. Apparently, she knows you in ways that I don’t.”

  Pierce thought it over and nodded.

  “She does couples therapy, maybe that’s what we need.”

  Val snuggled up against him.

  “I love you, Rick, and I’m willing to fight for us. This also explains the odd vibe I used to get from you at times.”

  “Amy Lowe is in my past, Val. I want you in my future.”

  Val raised her head and stared at Pierce.