Demons (A Detective Pierce Novel Book 2) Read online

  “This Amy, did she really dump you for her college professor?”

  “It was like I was suddenly radioactive. One minute we were a couple, and the next day she treated me like a stranger.”

  Val snuggled against Pierce again and held him tighter. A month after they began couples therapy, they started living together.

  ***

  Lieutenant “Coke” Dyer patted Pierce on the shoulder as a gesture of comfort as he made his way around the desk in his office to take a seat.

  Jake Collins was out in the squad room. He was busy completing paperwork from a case that he and Pierce had finished that day. Pierce wanted to have as little as possible on his plate so that he could focus on finding his friend’s murderer.

  “I feel sick about what happened to Al, Rick,” Dyer said.

  “He liked you, Coke. He always said that you were one of the few suits who remembered what it was like to be in the trenches.”

  “He’ll be missed. He’ll also be avenged. You do whatever it takes, but you find his killer.”

  Pierce blinked rapidly at those last comments.

  “I’m working Al’s murder?”

  “Technically, no, of course not, because you were a friend of his. However, you will be working the biker’s homicide. We both know that the two deaths are linked.”

  “Fine, but who’s catching Al’s murder? He was friends with everyone in homicide.”

  “The Feds will be investigating.”

  “That’s unusual.”

  “I made a few calls. I knew I had no hope of getting you assigned to investigate directly, but I managed to get the next best thing.”

  “What was Al working on when he died?”

  “Al was working on the case of a missing fifteen-year-old girl named Jenna Raines. His last entry stated that he had found a connection between Jenna Raines last known location and a sighting of the Bay Street Demons.”

  “Was Al on duty or off tonight?”

  “He was off, but his lieutenant says that Al was never really off the clock, sort of like you.”

  “Yeah, and Al would have been driving by that massage parlor the Demons used as a hangout as he drove home. He lives—lived, only a few blocks from there. He must have seen their motorcycles and stopped in to ask a few questions, then... I guess all hell broke loose.”

  There was a knock on the lieutenant’s door and Pierce looked through the glass insert to see two familiar faces. They were FBI Agents Rodgers and Abrams. Pierce had first worked with the men on the Murphy and Owens case, and he knew that they were top-notch investigators.

  Coke Dyer hollered for the men to enter, and after everyone said hello, Rodgers and Abrams offered their condolences for the loss of Al Finder.

  “Thank you,” Pierce said. “And I hope that your presence here tonight means that you caught the case?”

  Rodgers smiled and pointed at Coke. Rodgers was forty-one, balding, but in good shape, while his partner Abrams was doughy-looking with reddish blond hair. Abrams also had the habit of keeping his mouth slightly open.

  Rodgers was sharp and looked it, while a glance at Abrams would lead you to believe that he was a dim bulb. Abrams’ looks were deceiving. Pierce had been present more than once when Abrams, who rarely spoke, displayed guile, and even brilliance.

  “Coke called me and I pulled some strings to catch the case,” Rodgers said. “The girl that Detective Finder was searching for, Jenna Raines, we think there’s an outside chance that she may have been abducted and sold as a sex slave to a group of Salvadorans.”

  “Whoa,” Pierce said. “Either you guys are better than I thought or you know something that I don’t.”

  “The FBI was looking into the Bay Street Demons. They recently came up in connection with another case.”

  “I know they were suspected of drug smuggling, but white slavery? That’s a whole other world,” Pierce said.

  “Yeah, but here’s what we believe. The Bay Street Demons are grabbing young girls off the street to sell to the Salvadorans in exchange for weapons. They then pass the weapons to a representative of a Mexican cartel for drugs. Once they sell the drugs, it’s all profit because the young girls don’t cost them a dime.”

  Pierce shook his head in amazement.

  “That’s not just sick; it’s diabolical, but can it be proven?”

  “I’ve been told that Homeland Security is looking into it from the Salvadoran angle, but I think the Demons are the key, and we need to nail them,” Rodgers said.

  “If we find the Bay Street Demons we’ll get some answers about what happened tonight too,” Pierce said.

  “What about the shooter, any idea who killed the Demon who was found near Detective Finder?”

  “No, but whoever he is, he can shoot. Our crime scene techs found brass on a rooftop half a mile away. I never even thought to search that far back. There were also signs that the shooter may have been there for a while. There was a shooter’s hide constructed out of a black tarp, and a wooden box inside to sit on.”

  “Any food wrappers or water bottles left behind?” Rodgers asked.

  “No, and the brass contained no prints either, but it was from a 7.62 cartridge.”

  “The shooter is ex-military,” Abrams said.

  Pierce nodded.

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Maybe the Bay Street Demons are in a turf war and one of the rival gang members is an ex-sniper.”

  Another knock came on the door and Coke yelled, “Enter” once again. It was Jake Collins, Pierce’s partner. Collins knew Rodgers and Abrams, and he was soon brought up to speed.

  “What’s your next move, Rick?” Dyer asked.

  “I’m going along with the uniforms while they roust all known associates of the Bay Street Demons. Once I locate one of the gang, then we’ll get a handle on this thing.”

  Someone else knocked on the door, but she didn’t wait for an answer and just stuck her head into the room. It was one of the newer detectives, a woman named Stacey Hightower. She was a good looking redhead in her thirties who was high-strung and ambitious. She was also someone that the younger Jake Collins had a crush on.

  “Sorry to bust in, Lieutenant, but there’s been another murder. The person who called it in said that the DB was a biker.”

  Coke looked over at Pierce.

  “I’m thinking we just found a Bay Street Demon.”

  “Yeah,” Pierce said, as he was headed out the door, “But it doesn’t sound like I’ll be getting any answers from him.”

  CHAPTER 4

  On his way to the scene of the second dead biker, Pierce learned the name of the first dead Demon.

  His name had been Harold Jones, but he’d been going by his biker name of Beelzebub. Apparently, all of the Bay Street Demons had taken the name of a demon of religion or mythology.

  Pierce was driving to the scene with Jake Collins riding shotgun and Stacey Hightower following behind in her own car. When Pierce saw Collins turn in his seat to look back at Stacey, he chuckled.

  “When are you going to ask that woman out?”

  Collins sighed.

  “She wouldn’t go out with me. I don’t even think she likes me.”

  “What’s not to like, and you’re a good looking kid too.”

  “Yeah, a kid, and that’s how she thinks of me.”

  “You’re not that young, Jake.”

  “I’m twenty-six, Stacey is thirty-four, divorced, and has an eight-year-old daughter, to her, I’m a kid. Plus, I think she resents me for making detective so young.”

  “Hell, we all do. At the rate you’re going you’ll be police commissioner before you’re forty.”

  “I got lucky, with no small thanks to you, but Stacey spent eleven years in uniform before she became a detective.”

  Pierce glanced away from the road and looked at his partner.

  “You sure know a lot about her. Did she tell you all that?”

  “No, but you hear things, and after all, I am
a detective.”

  “Yeah, but don’t get too nosy, or worse, obsessive. That can lead to trouble. Trust me, I know.”

  “Do you think she would go out with me?”

  “Ask her. The worst she can do is say no, and if she does, you wait a few months and ask her out again.”

  “Okay, but what if she keeps saying no?”

  “Then you ask other women out. Stacey is not the only woman in the world.”

  “You’re lucky you found Val, Rick. It’s tough out here in the dating world.”

  “I remember, kid, but you’ll find the right woman someday.”

  “I want Stacey.”

  “Tell her, not me,” Pierce said.

  ***

  The second Demon was shot to death outside his front door, and the shooter had also killed his dogs. The dogs were two Rottweiler’s that Pierce guessed each weighed more than he did.

  Their equally dead master, a Bay Street Demon named Ronald Austen, had gone by the name, Zagan, and Zagan had been a big boy, over 350lbs.

  A large baggie of cocaine had been found on Zagan’s body, while a Glock 19 laid at his feet. He hadn’t been killed with a sniper rifle, but had taken a shotgun blast from about twenty feet away.

  Jake Collins gestured at the grass along the side of the front steps, where the motorcycle of the late Demon lay on its side with a shredded front tire. The engine was off, but the headlight still glowed weakly.

  “This one kept his motorcycle.”

  “What did Rushinsky and Toliver have to say?” Pierce asked.

  Pierce had been talking to the crime scene techs while Collins had spoken with the first cops on the scene, officers Gene Rushinsky and Grant Toliver. Collins referred to his notepad as he answered Pierce.

  “According to Zagan’s nearest neighbor, an old man named Simms who lives in that house across the street, Zagan spilled his bike at the same time the first blast from the shotgun went off.”

  “And then he made it into the house and released the dogs, right?” Pierce said.

  “You got it. Then came blasts two through four. That was followed by Zagan yelling like a madman and firing seven shots before taking the fifth and final shotgun blast to the chest.”

  Pierce knew from the techs that there were seven 9mm shell casings found at the scene. They would match the seven shots that Collins had mentioned.

  “Did the old man actually say seven shots?”

  “He did; Toliver says that the old guy is retired from the army and saw action in Vietnam.”

  Pierce nodded.

  “Sharp old guy, I’d bet from the time the bike spilled until Zagan took the blast to the chest couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, and yet the old man was able to keep track of the shots. Did he see the shooter?”

  “No such luck, he heard it all while lying in bed. By the time he looked outside, the shooter was gone,” Collins said, he then looked down at the dead dogs and shook his head sadly.

  “Zagan must have freaked-out over his dogs being killed and charged the shooter. If he had locked himself in the house, he might still be alive.”

  “Someone, or a group, is hunting down the Demons, and I’m getting the feeling that it’s personal,” Pierce said. When he saw Agent Rodgers speaking to another of Zagan’s neighbors, he walked over to talk to him.

  “You got something, Rick?”

  “Just a feeling, tell me about this missing girl Al was looking for, Jenna Raines? Does she have a brother or father with military experience?”

  Rodgers took out an iPad and began searching his files.

  “Remember, I just caught this case, so give me a second to check.”

  It took twenty-eight seconds, but Rodgers found what he was after.

  “Jenna Raines has an older brother named Bo Raines. Bo Raines is a decorated Marine.”

  “He’s also someone that I want to talk to. If these are revenge killings for his sister’s disappearance, Raines won’t stop killing. How many Bay Street Demons are there?”

  Rodgers looked down at his iPad again.

  “They’re estimated to have sixteen members.”

  Pierce smiled.

  “Two down, fourteen to go.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Bo Raines was watching Pierce and Rodgers talk, as he sighted in on them through the Leupold scope on his Remington Rifle.

  Not knowing their names, he thought of Pierce as the skinny detective, while FBI agent Rodgers was the Fed with the thinning hair.

  Bo watched the crime scene from the roof of a Walmart that was six blocks away, and the night vision optics of his scope gave everything a green glow.

  Bo Raines was twenty-four. He joined the Marines the day after he graduated from high school at seventeen, and he loved three things—God, his country, and his family. But the person he loved most in the world was his little sister, Jenna.

  If it was the last thing Bo would do with his life, he would find his sister and bring her home.

  He was a big blond farm boy who looked as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly. In reality, he was a highly-trained Marine Scout Sniper with over fifty-seven confirmed kills.

  Bo had learned that the Bay Street Demons might have been involved in his sister’s disappearance, and he confronted the Demon named Beelzebub inside the men’s room of a biker bar on Route 9.

  He told him his sister’s name, laid a picture of her atop a sink, and told Beelzebub to deliver her to a police station by a certain date and time. If Jenna wasn’t returned, Bo had promised Beelzebub that he would begin killing the Bay Street Demons one by one until they delivered her.

  Beelzebub, who was actually a former juvenile delinquent named Harold Jones, had laughed in Bo’s face and shoved him. Bo had skillfully turned the energy of Beelzebub’s shove against him and knocked the Demon to the floor, before pointing a gun in his face.

  After reiterating his demand, Bo left the bar and Beelzebub relayed the story to the other Demons, including their leader, Gorgon.

  Gorgon hadn’t taken Bo’s threat seriously, and now Beelzebub and Zagan were dead.

  Bo could tell that both Pierce and Agent Rogers were leading investigations into the killings he had committed, and wondered if they knew the cop he had seen killed.

  He had witnessed Al Finder’s murder through his scope and could lead Pierce right to Al’s murderer.

  That was valuable information that Bo intended to use to his full advantage, but to do so, he would have to make contact with either the skinny detective, Pierce or the FBI man with the thinning hair, Rogers.

  After spending more time watching Pierce, Bo decided that he would make contact with him. As a fellow cop of his fallen comrade, Pierce would be more vested in finding Detective Finder’s murderer and would work to find Jenna.

  Bo studied the scene, looking at all the uniformed cops, plainclothes detectives, FBI agents, crime scene techs, and reporters milling about.

  All that massive amount of time and energy was being devoted to finding the killer of a man who wasn’t fit to live.

  If even one tenth of the effort expended in finding the Demon’s killer was used to locate Jenna, Bo would be shocked.

  The police investigating her disappearance had classified it as a possible runaway until his parents had pleaded for help. Al Finder had listened to his parents, and he had been on the trail of Jenna’s abductors when he was killed.

  Bo had watched the murder of Finder through his scope, but was unable to prevent it, as Finder’s knife-wielding assailant was too close to the detective to risk firing, and although he couldn’t be certain, Bo thought that the first stab of the knife had ruptured Finder’s heart.

  Bo sighed.

  He would prefer if he could just hand over Al Finder’s killer to the skinny detective, but the intel was a valuable tool to be used in finding his sister, and Bo would get her back, even if he had to kill every one of the Bay Street Demons, and the truth was, he would likely kill them all anyway.

  For after
all, they deserved it.

  ***

  The leader of the Bay Street Demons was a man named Travis Gunn. He went by the name Gorgon. Gorgon was not a happy man.

  He had just learned from one of the younger members of the group that Zagan had been killed, along with his dogs.

  Gorgon had given those dogs to Zagan as a gift, and he and Zagan, who was really Ronny Austen, had been friends since high school. That was nearly thirty years ago.

  Gorgon was a big man. He wore a beard, had long brown hair, and his arms were covered in tattoos. He was six-foot-three and the cowboy boots he wore made him appear even taller.

  He and the other Demons, along with two women, were spending the night inside a house. The home belonged to an old woman they knew worked nights as a cleaning lady in a department store.

  She hadn’t given permission for them to use her house, they just kicked in the back door, walked in, and made themselves at home. If she returned in the morning and gave them any shit about it, they’d kill her, and she would just disappear into a shallow grave in the woods.

  “Was it a sniper?” Gorgon asked the younger biker, a blond kid named Dagon.

  Dagon gave a sad shake of his head.

  “It was a shotgun blast, and the cops are all over the place. I had to take my colors off to blend in with the crowd.”

  “We all know who’s doing the killing. It’s that soldier boy.”

  Those words were spoken by a Bay Street Demon named Moloch. Gorgon had also known Moloch since high school, but he never knew him by any other name. Moloch had always been Moloch. It was his idea to use the demon names in the first place. Moloch was bearded and tattooed like Gorgon, but had more muscle and was two inches shorter.

  Moloch was a hell of a fighter who loved to use his fists to kill. He had watchful gray eyes and moved gracefully for a man of his musculature. He was also full of resentment.

  Moloch had started the Bay Street Demons, but Gorgon had been running it ever since, although friends and allies, they often argued.

  “Beelzebub said that the Marine asshole told him that he wanted his sister back or he would start killing us, and now he’s doing it,” Moloch said. “The question, Gorgon, is what’s your next move?”