Deadly Days: A Gripping Detective Thriller (Logan Stone Book 1)

by Brad Hart

  He lay on the hard, old mattress. It smelled like dust and smoke. He closed his eyes and drifted off until a few hours later when he woke up. It was the middle of the night. He tossed and turned but he couldn’t sleep. His mind wouldn’t stop reeling. He had no leads and planned to go through town and show pictures of Brianne to people. If that led to nothing, then what did he have to go on?

  Nothing. Not a single clue or lead. No reason she was here. No reason at all.

  He crawled out of bed and took a shower. The water was rust colored at first; not a good sign, but then it turned to a semi-regular clear looking shade and Logan felt it was safe enough to bathe in. It woke him up more, but then he felt like he needed coffee too. It wasn’t even four in the morning. He didn’t know if there’d be a place open nearby, so he figured he’d get in the car and drive to a gas station.

  After that, he’d start work early. Sleep would come when the case was finished.

  He dressed and left the hotel, leaving a do-not-disturb sign on the door for the maid. His computer was in there and he didn’t want anyone messing with it. Especially not after last night. Maybe he was paranoid, but he felt like he was an unwelcome visitor in this community. If they figured out where he was staying, guys might go snooping. He had a lot of important files on his computer, along with a lot of personal information.

  If they got ahold of that, it could end badly.

  But there wasn’t much else of a choice. He had been driving and stopping and walking all day, so he wasn’t going to carry his laptop on him. Especially if he found a trail, and that trail happened to lead him into somewhere unfit for electronics, which it often did in his line of work.

  He drove a short distance into town and then stopped at the first gas station he saw and brought the coffee back out to his car. He sipped and waited. Waited for some sign or clue, which he guessed might never come.

  The clue suddenly fell into his lap, in the shape and sound of two police cars careening down the highway past the gas station. Logan stared into the Toyota’s rearview mirror and then set the coffee into the cup holder and fired up the engine. He hightailed it into reverse as he jerked the steering wheel. The coffee spilled all over the center console and foot mat, but he paid it no mind.

  Maybe it was nothing related to Logan’s case, or maybe it was. Regardless, with nothing else to go on, he feverishly hit the gas and bore out onto the highway in pursuit of the two police cruisers.

  **

  At four in the morning, Anna Lawson was driving home. The mountain road was long and winding, and she was surrounded by nothing but darkened farmland that was impossible to see in the black of the night. She kept her bright lights on and flipped through radio stations until she found a pop song that she had always liked. An oldie to a young girl like herself.

  Anna was smiling. It had been a heck of a night, and she’d even managed to grab a few hours of sleep at her boyfriend’s condo. Now she was driving back home to hop in the shower and throw on her uniform before heading back into town for work. She managed a diner on the highway. A family business, or tradition one could call it. Her father had owned the same diner, and his father before him. It wasn’t her dream to follow in her parents’ footsteps, but there was something special about that place. She found that she couldn’t let it go. The memories, the people.

  She felt unusually happy. The bubblegum pop filled the car, and she rolled down the windows and began to bounce her hands against the steering wheel and sing along. She was feeling good, with work and her dating life finally going as planned for a change. The upbeat mood was most likely also fueled by the energy drink that she kept nestled in the cup holder. She pulled it up and took a long sip of the tangy concoction, then shuddered and put it back down. It was cold, and it sent a chill through her body.

  The chill from the drink was nothing compared to the chill she’d be feeling moments later, creeping down her spine…

  There were no cars on the road, and no street lights this far up into the mountain. She was used to it, however, although she always used her bright headlights. Didn’t want to hit a deer, or a raccoon. Didn’t want to plow right over a bicyclist, which had almost happened on more than one occasion.

  And then, Anna found herself no longer being the only car on the road.

  A bright headlight beamed into the back of her sedan. She squinted and wondered who the hell that was behind her. Where the heck did you learn your roadside manners, buddy? She thought to herself as the car got closer and closer, until it was riding her ass a mere five feet from her bumper.

  She had initially felt annoyed, but that feeling quickly turned into something else. Worry. What’s this person doing? She tapped lightly on her brakes – not aggressive, not too hard. She didn’t want to get rear-ended, especially out here. More importantly, she didn’t want to piss the driver off, whoever it was.

  “Pass me… Come on,” she whispered, and then put her arm out the window and tried to wave him on. “Come on, pass.”

  She had slowed to a crawl on the road. She was going ten miles an hour. The car wouldn’t pass. It kept right on her ass, and it hadn’t turned off its bright headlights.

  “Okay, I seriously can’t see a thing.”

  The headlights of the vehicle behind her were so bright that they were blinding. Anna slowed down to five miles an hour, and then less, until she was practically a snail on the road. Her worry had turned to something else by that point. Dread. This person was trying to terrify her, and they were succeeding at that.

  At that point, she decided to try something else. She looked ahead, straight out her window. She tried not to focus on the glare on the rearview and door mirrors. She knew these roads well. She could outsmart the person behind her. She could get away from them.

  She moved her foot from the brake and slammed it on the gas.

  The little car was nimble around the turns, and Anna kept her lead foot on the gas until she was at fifty miles an hour and the vehicle behind her had all but vanished. Its headlights grew smaller until they were tiny dots, and then she turned a winding curve and the dots disappeared.

  She breathed a deep sigh of relief. Okay, stalked by a creep. Can cross that off my bucket list. Now I’m okay. It’s okay. Everything is okay. They’re gone. You did it, girl – got away from them.

  She slowed back down to a reasonable speed, but she kept the speedometer a bit higher than it had been when she’d been driving alone on the road. She wasn’t completely out of the woods yet, and she knew that.

  The song was coming to an end. She’d almost forgotten about it, having not even heard the section with the chorus because she’d been so distracted by whoever was behind her… Taunting her. Bubblegum pop wasn’t what she was in the mood for now. She needed silence. She needed to calm down and think straight. She needed to focus on watching her mirrors in case the nutcase popped back up in her view. She switched off the radio just as the song finished.

  As she had finally managed to get her senses back to a relative state of normalcy, the headlights appeared again. They grew larger and larger in her rearview mirror. This time they were growing larger fast. She watched with horror as she pressed her foot down on the gas until she broke seventy miles per hour on the dark and winding road.

  She was beginning to cry. It made the road even harder to see. Her eyes were burning; the tears were stinging relentlessly. And then the curve came. The curve that sent Anna barreling into the guardrail.

  The car was totaled on impact. She was wearing her seatbelt, which saved her life. But her life wouldn’t last for very long. The airbag deployed immediately, and then the car ricocheted back for a moment before settling in the dust and smoke.

  Anna opened her eyes, stunned. She tasted blood in her mouth, and her nose was throbbing. She was conscious, but barely. She didn’t hear when the door of the car behind her slammed shut. She didn’t hear the loud footsteps on the pavement. She did hear, however, when her own car door was jerked open and the man gru
nted as he grabbed hold of her.

  She was out of it. Her mind was a wreck like the car she’d been driving. She couldn’t fight back. She couldn’t even move. It was over, and there was no point in fighting back. Her voice was barely there, but she managed a cry for help, which never came.

  The tears had dried in her eyes, but her vision was cloudy, and she was seeing double. She could see the man who was holding her. He towered over her. He was wearing a raggedy mask the color of blood. Either that or she was hallucinating. His chest was bobbing up and down, back and forth with his heavy breathing. It was the last thing she saw before her vision dimmed and everything turned to black.

  Chapter Six

  Logan Stone followed the two patrol cars until they turned off at what appeared to be an overlook on the California 1 Highway. He kept at a reasonable distance, watching. The two cars had joined three others. Lights were flashing. Logan drove on, and then turned in and parked beside the cop cars. He wasn’t going to try to hide. In fact, it was best that they knew he was in town. Sometimes small-town police forces liked to have his help, but only sometimes. Most of the time they didn’t like outsiders butting in, especially one who was a private eye.

  Logan hoped that wasn’t going to be the case in this town, but he wasn’t holding his breath.

  He stepped out of the car and then the patrolmen went for their holsters. He flashed his card. “Private investigator Logan Stone. I’ve been hired by the family of a missing girl.”

  The cops relaxed a little. Then one took a step toward him. He had a big, thick mustache, and a fat gut. “Right about now we’ve got something real important going on, hotshot. Following police to the scene of a murder isn’t typically a good idea. How about you get in your little car and drive back to where you came from?”

  “I need to ask who the victim is.”

  “Did you hear a word I said? You’re not police – but I am. Now get in your car, sir, and drive.”

  “Cool it,” a female voice spoke up in the distance.

  Logan turned his head. A young, good looking woman was eyeballing the idiot. She looked like she could put him in a chokehold and knock him out. Logan liked her already. Someone tough. Someone with sense. She was young enough to be a rookie, but old enough that she probably wasn’t.

  She shook hands with Logan. “I’m Walsh. And this clown is the local jerk,” she said, motioning toward the buffoon. “Don’t let him get to you, he’s just got something stuck up his ass all the time. We’ve got no problem with private eyes around here. At least, the ones of us who matter don’t. Idiots like Richards do. I think they make him insecure about something…”

  “I’m Logan Stone.”

  “Mr. Stone. Don’t mind the clown. We need all the help we can get right now.”

  “He acts like someone took his favorite toy. Like I’m going to steal the thunder from him,” Logan said, grinning slightly.

  “He’s desperate,” she said, and then spoke loud enough for Richards to hear. “Because he’s a garbage cop. Hasn’t made a single case in a long while – and yet he likes to torment me that I’m the one who sucks at my job.”

  “I can hear you, Walsh,” the idiot said. Angry. Sweating. He wasn’t going to do anything. He was scared of her, and he was scared of Logan. With the two of them together, all he could do was stand there huffing and puffing.

  “Yeah, don’t mind him,” a relaxed voice said. A man stepped forward. Graying hair, clean shaven face, medium stature. He had intense blue eyes, and he used them eyes to look Logan up and down. “Richards, get lost,” he waved at the mustached patrolman.

  Walsh shook her head. “Anyway, good to have you around,” she said and walked off.

  “Shit, chief. Come on, we don’t want another private eye messing things up for us, do we?”

  “Richards. Get lost,” the man repeated, with much less patience in his voice.

  “Alright. Alright, okay. I get it,” the mustached man gave one last look to Logan. “I’ll see you around, detective,” he laughed.

  “See you, champ,” Logan said, as the cop’s face turned beet red.

  He looked like he was going to say something, but the Chief cleared his throat and then the mustached cop nodded and walked off. Logan looked over the Chief’s shoulder. There were cops surrounding an old car. Nice, shiny Buick. Nice, that is, other than the window that had been busted out of it.

  But the rest of the cops were surrounding something else on the ground. Something they were paying much closer attention to. Logan could see a shape down there, flat on the dirt. A body, and a dead one at that.

  “Sir, I’m Logan Stone. I’m here looking for a young woman named Brianne Jones. She went missing not long ago right here in San Feliz, as far as her family is concerned. I’m hoping that’s not her lying face down on the ground.”

  The cop looked like a straight shooter. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and stuck one in his mouth, then fired up a match and let it burn for a moment before raising it to the tip and sucking in a deep plume of smoke. He took a lengthy drag, not looking at Logan, and then exhaled slowly with his face turned to the ocean.

  He looked like a guy who’d had a bad night. Maybe a few of them in a row. Logan could understand that.

  “It’s a guy lying over there, not a girl. So that means it’s not your woman.”

  Logan thought for a moment. “Okay.”

  “I’m Chief Walker.”

  “Wish I could say it was nice to meet you, but I think we both know it’s not,” Logan said.

  “Considering the circumstances, yeah. You’re right. It’s not nice,” he paused. “A woman’s missing?” He asked, taking another drag of the smoke. “By the way, you want one?” He started to pull the pack of cigarettes from his coat.

  “No thanks, Chief.”

  “Good. Healthy guy. So, a woman’s missing?” He said again.

  “Since July sixth. Last seen in LA, but this sleepy little town was her destination. Father thinks she went missing here, but me? I don’t know. Could have been anywhere between LA to San Feliz. Could have gone somewhere else, even, but she told her folks she was heading this way.”

  Chief Walker paused. “What makes them think she went missing in this town? Other than the fact that she was heading here. Like you said, she could have gone missing anywhere along the way,” he eyeballed the body on the ground and looked like he was in denial.

  Logan took a breath and paused. “Well, I wondered about that myself. She could have gone missing before she even drove past the LA County border. But now that I see that body on the ground, I’m thinking the odds are more in favor of her having gone missing here.”

  Chief Walker dropped the cigarette to the ground and stomped on it with the heel of his boot. “This isn’t a dangerous town. The murders aren’t related.” He said it like he was trying to convince himself of it being true.

  “I’m looking at a dead guy on the ground. Looks like somebody pulled him out of that car over there.”

  “No,” Chief Walker said. “Somebody pulled a girl out of the car. The dead guy followed and put up a fight. There’s hair everywhere. Long hair.” Then he winced, as if he regretted saying too much.

  “Where’s the girl?” Logan asked.

  “You know, my brother’s a private investigator. Yeah, out in Utah. I respect the profession. But there are some things a police officer just can’t disclose with a private investigator. I’ve already told you too much.”

  “Sir, I’m just trying to save a girl’s life. We got a dead guy here, and his girl is missing from what you’re telling me. You didn’t find another body?”

  “No.”

  Logan looked at the ground. He looked at the Buick with the busted window. Then he looked at the dead guy on the ground. The cops were still hovering over him. Some of them were chuckling. Most of them seemed courteous enough. Logan hoped they were chuckling about something else.

  Then he looked at the ground some more. “Chief
…” He said.

  “What?” Chief Walker said.

  Logan pointed at tracks on the ground and used his phone as a flash light. The two of them walked carefully along a couple different sets of foot prints. Sections of the prints had been destroyed by tire tracks from the patrol cars that had driven into the lot since they were made, but the trail was still visible enough, and it came to an end near a small bench next to a big bunch of brush. There were two tracks. One would obviously belong to the woman. The footprints were small.

  The tracks that followed it were large. They looked like boots with a thick lugged sole, good for hiking and traction in harsh climates. Logan stared at the ground some more, eyes carefully scanning in every direction. Then he looked up at Chief Walker.

  “There is no body,” he said. “At least not here, Chief. She’s gone. Her foot prints are all over the place. Look at the ground. It’s dirt and sand, Chief, so it’s easy to see. She ran, or stumbled rather, over to this bench. Probably fell over it when she didn’t see it in the dark. Then the son of a bitch who did it dragged her over to whatever he was driving. Probably tossed her in the trunk and drove off.”

  “Shit.”

  “So, what now?” Logan asked.

  “This isn’t your business, detective.”

  “It is my business when we’ve got a murder and two missing girls, Chief – one of which I was hired to find.”

  “You’re not going to make it easy for yourself. I’m a reasonable guy, but my men aren’t,” Chief Walker sighed.

  “How’s their performance?”

  “As cops?” He pulled the pack of cigarettes back out, lit one and sucked in the dirty air. He coughed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Their performance is good,” he said, in a voice that wasn’t entirely convincing. “They’re decent men. Not bad. I’ve seen worse,” he sighed again.

  “You sound tired, Chief.”

  “Tell me what the girl’s name is again.”

  “Brianne Jones.”

  “I’ll take a note of that. Have a picture?”