Demon's Stand

by Dahlen, K. J.

  “Let’s hope so. I don’t like what happened earlier. If Simon knows you’re back in town he might come after you again.” Charlie yawned nodded at Demon, “Maybe, as long as you’re here for a while, I’ll swing by the office and see what’s going on in town then go home and take a nap for a while. I didn’t sleep too well last night on that sofa.”

  Demon nodded. “I’m free all day. I can stay as long as I’m needed.”

  Shiloh got up and walked Charlie to the front door. She stood there and watched as he got into his car and drove away. Then she carefully turned the front door lock. As she pulled her hand away from the lock, she found herself staring at the door. There was something niggling at the back of her mind. Then she remembered yesterday when they got here. Charlie pulled a key for the front door out of his pocket. What if someone else had a key to her front door?

  She turned and swiftly went back to the kitchen. “Demon, how quickly can you get a locksmith over here to change the door locks?”

  Demon turned around from the sink where he had been washing the dishes and asked, “Why do you need the locks changed?”

  “Think about it for a moment, if Charlie has had a key to the front door all this time, Simon may not have had to break in. What’s to say Simon doesn’t have his own key?” Shrugging her shoulders, she added, “You said it yourself, there was no sign of a break in this morning.”

  Demon wiped his hands with a towel. Leaning against the counter, he stared at her for a moment. “I know you’re suspicious of Charlie and while I agree his actions last night and this morning are a little fuzzy, I know Charlie and before now, I’ve never had any reason to doubt him. As a cop, he’s one of the best I’ve ever known.”

  Shiloh raised her head a bit. “Yes, I’ll admit he’s doing everything the way he should. If I hadn’t heard him last night on the phone and if you hadn’t caught him searching my room I would believe in him one hundred per cent but if my aunt taught me anything over the last twenty years she taught me not to trust anyone. My parents were murdered for a small bag of gems and a green book. What makes you think for one moment Simon won’t hesitate to kill again to get his things back? What if Charlie is working with Simon? Do you think for one moment, Simon would actually keep his word and his partnership with Charlie once he got his stuff back? Charlie’s life is over the moment Simon gets the jewels back.”

  “How do you know that?” Demon asked.

  “I saw his face the night he beat my parents to death. I saw the rage in his eyes as he stood over their bodies. I heard the rage in his voice when he demanded that my father give him back his book.” Shiloh shivered. That’s what had frightened her the most. It was the wrath in his eyes and voice, not what he’d done to her parents. His face was so twisted with fury she hadn’t recognized him at all.

  Demon pushed away from the counter. “I’ll make some calls. Someone from my club can change the locks, that way no one in town will know about it.”

  “I want an alarm system too. If they can’t get in the front door, I don’t want them coming in a window.” Shiloh tipped her head to one side and asked as she remembered something from earlier, “How do you know sign language?”

  Demon grinned. “My grandmother Inez was deaf. We grew up with sign language in our house. It was our second language. Why did you learn it?”

  “When I was four, my best friend was deaf. My mom took me to classes so I could speak to her and later I wanted to continue them, so Donna went with me.”

  “It’s a handy skill to have at times,” Demon remarked. “We used it a lot in the service. Everyone in my club knows some version of it.”

  “I still want the locks changed and the alarm system installed before Charlie gets back,” Shiloh reminded him.

  Demon nodded.

  Chapter Nine

  When she was alone in her room, Shiloh looked around. If Demon hadn’t told her Charlie had searched the room, she would have missed the subtle hints someone had gone through her things. Without touching anything, she looked around. She could see where Charlie had moved her stuff and put it back where he thought it should be but some of her things were slightly out of place.

  She went over to the bed and looked at it. It hadn’t been disturbed since she made it this morning. She lifted the mattress and pulled out the packet of papers she’d hidden in the early morning. Everything was as she’d left it then. She sat down on the bed and laid the papers out so she could get a better look at them.

  There was nothing in the papers that hadn’t been there before. Then Shiloh remembered the slip of paper she discovered yesterday. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the combination of the safe she found taped to the bottom of the drawer.

  She stared at the little slip of paper and couldn’t help but wonder what Simon would do if he knew the paper existed. With this tiny piece of paper he wouldn’t need to keep her alive, once he found the safe. Shiloh stared at the numbers on the paper and knew what she had to do. She had to destroy the paper before Simon realized it existed. That might buy her a little more time but not a lot.

  She tore the paper into little pieces and went to the bathroom to flush them down the toilet. When she went back to the bedroom, she heard a knock on her door. Opening it, she found Demon standing there.

  “My guys are here to change the locks and install the security system.”

  Shiloh followed him to the foyer and found a couple of men changing the lock. While one man was changing the lock, two others were standing there watching. She looked around and found two other men busy placing alarms on the windows. She turned to follow Demon into the kitchen and waited while he poured them both a cup of coffee. She noticed he seemed upset for some reason.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Demon glanced at her over the top of his cup. “I guess I’m still having trouble believing Charlie is working with Simon Pratt. There has to be another explanation for who he was talking to last night.”

  Shiloh nodded. “Me too, but I know what heard last night and what earthly reason would he have to go through my room? If you can come up with another reason for his actions, I’m so willing to consider the fact I could be wrong. Hell, my aunt trusted him for over twenty years and Donna trusted very few people after her sister died in her arms.”

  Demon nodded. “Charlie always came back from his weekly vacation refreshed and renewed. I think he looked forward to seeing your aunt. It didn’t matter to him where the two of you were living at the time.” He chuckled. “We always used to tease him that he was going to see his long-distance sweetheart. My aunt did not appreciate the humor.”

  Shiloh thought about what Demon just told her. “I don’t think they were sweet on each other. I asked him about that but all he would do is blush. When he mentioned having a wife, I was sorry for that. I would have liked to see Donna happy for a change. Too bad his trip was cut short this year. He told me he’d just arrived the day before the funeral.”

  “What do you mean by that? Charlie left here a week ago yesterday,” Demon said.

  Shiloh frowned. “He told me he only arrived the two days ago. That was the day I buried my aunt.”

  Demon didn’t look pleased by her news. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “I don’t know but I swear he told me two days ago he had just arrived in Seattle. He said he was too late to stop my aunt’s death.” She hesitated and told him, “The Seattle police were also at the funeral.”

  “Maybe I should talk to the officers in the case and see what more they’ve uncovered,” Demon suggested.

  “You’ll want to talk to Tony Galen and Rick Craig. They’re the officers I spoke to.”

  “I’ll give them a call a little later.” Demon swirled the cold coffee in his cup. “As I’m not a cop, they might not give me the details but I’ll try.”

  Shiloh reached across the table and grabbed his restless hand. When he looked up at her she begged, “Please don’t leave me alone with him tonight. Maybe I am wrong abou
t him working with Simon but I’m not willing to trust my life to that.”

  Demon nodded slowly. “I can see your point. I can’t believe everything I know about the man is false but I can see your concern. There’s something going on here that we have to find out about.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You have to promise me something.” Demon asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know how deep Charlie is involved with Simon, in fact we don’t know for sure that he even is. Something isn’t kosher here but until we know for sure let’s just wait and see. I want you to promise not to say anything until we know for sure.”

  Shiloh sighed. “Ok but I’m not going to wait until I’m looking down the barrel of a gun before I say something.”

  Demon nodded. “I don’t want that either. We need to buy a little time for you to remember where the safe is. That’s the key to this plan working. I have a feeling the jewels and the green book will only be a little piece of the pie.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Simon had been just under the radar for a long time now. Do I think he’s broken the law? Yes, I do. I think he and not your father is the smuggler, but we can’t prove it. We have to have the evidence that will stand up in a court of law before we can move forward in this case. I don’t want to allow him to escape justice. I know that man has a lot to answer for, including the murder of your parents, but he also has to answer for the murders of eight men over in the sandbox. We need to find that green book. I have a feeling if we did, we would be able to nail down a smuggling ring a whole lot bigger than just Simon Pratt.”

  “Y-you… he has killed before? What makes you think it’s so much bigger?”

  “When I was in the service, I had a friend who lived in New York. He worked on a task force dealing with smuggling. They were trying to track a European ring with American connection. Whoever the connection was or is, is pretty good. He’s gone undetected for more years than we know. I have a feeling that Simon is the connection. If Simon is who I think he is, he’s got more blood on his hands than just your parents and my eight friends.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Demon got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. “When I was home on leave about five years ago, I went to New York to see my friend Pete Webber and when I was there, Pete and I were on stakeout and we got close to one of their shipments. We got too close and Pete died one night in a hail of bullets. I was shot but survived. Pete left a wife and two small kids behind.”

  “What did you do after that?” Shiloh asked.

  “I went back to my unit in Iraq. I thought I’d left all that crap behind me but the more I think about it the more sense it makes. If the green book has in it what I think it does, it will tie Simon in with some very nasty people, people that don’t want the authorities knowing their business.”

  Shiloh didn’t know what to think. “Does Charlie know any of this?”

  “About the smuggling? No, I haven’t told anyone. My wound wasn’t all that bad and I tried to forget what I’d seen until you mentioned the little green book.”

  “Why did that mean anything to you?”

  “The night my friend was gunned down one of the smugglers dropped a small green notebook. Pete and I managed to get our hands on it for a few minutes. It was the log of shipments and a list of names both in Europe and here in the States. We would have been able to stop the smuggling ring on both ends.”

  “What happened?”

  “The guy who dropped the book came back and there was a battle. Pete was wounded but still alive. He’d told me to get the hell out of there and I thought he was behind me but he wasn’t. He defended himself but it was too late. When the shooting was over, I had to lay there wounded and watch the bastard who just killed my friend walk out from behind a barrel and pick up his book. Then he simply walked away. He left me for dead or thought I was already dead, I don’t know which.”

  “Would you know this green book if we could find it?”

  Demon nodded. “I’d know it. When the bullets started flying, Pete bled all over the cover of the book. When he came back, the smuggler surprised us out in the open.”

  “Well then, we have to find the safe don’t we?” Shiloh told him after a moment or so. “Let’s hope when we do find the safe the book is still there, but would it be the same green book? I mean the book my father found has been locked in the safe for the last twenty years.”

  “It may not be the same book but there is something in the book Simon wants back. We know that much.” Demon nodded. “Maybe this book will lead us to the book I found six years ago.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Shiloh asked.

  Demon just shrugged. “Have you remembered anything about the location of the safe yet?”

  Shiloh shook her head. “Not yet. It’s like the information is right behind a thin veil I just can’t get to it. I can see the shelves and stacks of papers and deeds but I can’t see the outside of it. I can’t see where in the house it is either.”

  Demon reached over and took her hands. “The memories will come, don’t push yourself so hard. You are remembering the past. You remembered the night your parents died, that’s a start.”

  Shiloh looked at him. “But will it be enough? Will I remember in time or will Simon win this round too?”

  They both heard a knock on the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Shiloh turned and saw one of Demon’s guys standing there.

  “Sorry to interrupt but we’re finished with the new lock and security system.” Looking over to Demon he said, “You know where we’ll be.”

  Demon nodded. Before the man could turn around and leave Demon called him back, “Lucifer, I’d like you to meet Shiloh Corbin. Shiloh, this is my president, Lucifer.”

  Shiloh had noted the same leather vest and the fact that Lucifer had the word President on the left side of his chest. She nodded and Lucifer nodded back.

  He held out a set of keys.

  Shiloh took two sets of keys from him.

  “If you’d like I can go over the security system with you and you can set it.”

  Shiloh nodded and went to set the system. When she returned a few minutes later, she pocketed the keys. She did feel better about the new locks but she was a little worried about how Charlie would take the news. “I want to go see the shop,” Shiloh announced.

  “I thought you didn’t want Simon to know you were here?”

  “I don’t, I just want to see the shop. I’m not going to go inside.”

  “That might be dangerous, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I just can’t sit here doing nothing. Besides, it’s not like Simon is going to know what I look like anyway. The last time I saw him, I was all of four years old.”

  Chapter Ten

  Twenty minutes later, Demon parked his car across the street from the C/P Import-Export shop on River Road in Wabash. They parked across the street and could see into the shop. When Simon came into view, Shiloh frowned. He was an older man with silver hair brushed back away from his face. He was well dressed in a dark suit and a bright red tie. His shirt looked crisp white and he had a rose bud pinned to his lapel. Shiloh stared at him for the longest time before she turned to Demon and said, “I don’t think I know that man. I thought maybe I would if I saw him but he’s a stranger to me. Are you sure that’s Simon?”

  Demon studied the man in question. His height and mannerisms fit the man he knew as Devlin. He nodded. “Yeah that’s Pratt. Don’t worry about it, you haven’t seen the man for over twenty years, and you were just a child the last time you saw him.”

  “But how could I identify him in my dreams if I can’t identify him in real life?”

  Demon shrugged. “Maybe there was something about the man you will remember when you see him face to face.”

  “What would be different then?”

  “I don’t know, imagine you were blind. What senses would you use
then?”

  “Touch and sound I suppose.”

  “What do you remember about Simon Pratt from your childhood?”

  Shiloh thought about his question for a moment. “Simon had a pocket watch that every time you opened it, it would chime a tune. I remember that because I would dance to the music every time I heard it play.”

  “Try to remember the night your parents died, did you hear the tune that night?”

  Shiloh closed her eyes and relived the memory of that night. She could see and hear everything that happened. It wasn’t until she was hiding in the closet she remembered hearing the elusive tune from the pocket watch.

  Shiloh opened her eyes. “I remember now. It wasn’t until after my parents were dead that I heard the sound of Simon’s watch. I was hiding in the closet when I heard the tune.”

  “Damn, we might need something more than the tune if we’re going to get Simon.”

  They sat there for some time before a well-dressed middle aged man walked into the shop. They saw Simon greet the other man. When they were deep into the conversation Shiloh gasped.

  Demon looked at her and asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “Does the name Pieter Stanovic mean anything to you?” she asked.

  “Why do you ask?” Demon asked.

  “Because the man that just went inside the shop is his nephew Mischa,” Shiloh told him.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I can read lips,” Shiloh told him.

  “What else are they saying?”

  “Oh dear,” Shiloh said. “Mischa is telling Simon that Pieter died last week.” She paused while she read the conversation. “He’s telling Simon that before his uncle died, he promised Mischa the jewels Simon had as an inheritance to start a new life in the United States. Mischa has come to collect the jewels. He says he’s anxious to start his new life here with the money he was promised by his uncle.”