Shadow Suspect Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART I - Caterpillar: Chapter 1Chapter 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

  PART II - Chrysalis: Chapter 20Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  PART III - Butterfly: Chapter 46Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Epilogue

  END

  Author’s notePrologue

  Part I – Natural Causes: Chapter 1Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  More by Patrick Logan

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  I only ask to be free.

  The butterflies are free.

  -Charles Dickens

  Butterfly Kisses

  Detective Damien Drake Book 1

  Patrick Logan

  PROLOGUE

  The man wiped sweat from his brow and then hooked two fingers between his tie and throat and yanked it loose. Heart racing, he stumbled into the alley, heading toward the single light that cast a jaundiced glow over a metal door roughly halfway down the narrow passage.

  He hurried towards the door, no longer attempting to avoid the puddles that threatened to soak his custom alligator loafers.

  A delicate splash, like a marble being dropped into a swimming pool, sounded from somewhere behind him and he whipped his head around. Squinting, trying to force his eyes to focus, he scanned the alley.

  Where are you? What do you want from me?

  Remaining completely still, the man waited. When the sound didn’t recur, and he didn’t detect so much as a flicker of movement in the shadows, he turned his attention back to the door.

  His searching hand confirmed what he already suspected: the door had no exterior handle.

  There was no way to open it from the alley.

  The man swore, then, as much as he was opposed to the idea of being seen here, in this place, this alley, he realized that he had no other choice.

  Not with him coming.

  With a deep breath, he made a fist and pounded against the door.

  “Hey! Anyone in there! Hey!” he shouted. “Hey! Open up! Please!”

  The man’s voice was strangely tight, almost unrecognizable to even himself.

  With the hand not pounding on the door, he reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone, hoping that it had recharged while laying dormant.

  Just enough to turn on, to make a single call.

  “Hey! Anybody in there?”

  His heart fluttered in his chest when rubbing his thumb over the button near the bottom failed to illuminate the screen. He swore again and slipped the dead phone back into his pocket. Desperation reaching a fever pitch, knowing that the man couldn’t be far behind, he used both hands to pound on the door now all the while shouting for someone to open up, to open the goddamn door.

  Something fluttered beside his ear, and the man yanked his head away, a scream caught in his throat. He swatted about his head madly with a free hand, his heart jackhammering in his chest so hard that he thought it might burst from his ribcage and thrum across the concrete alley like a gnat on a steel drum.

  “No,” he moaned, trying to evade the flying insect that seemed to have taken keen interest in him. “It can’t be.”

  The insect banked hard to avoid his palm, and the light reflected off its wings.

  “Please. That was so long ago,” the man whimpered, “Please.”

  The yellow light above the door reflected off the insect’s wings and for a brief moment, he thought that it was a Monarch butterfly, with beautiful orange wings segmented by smooth black lines.

  It can’t be—it’s too early for butterflies… it—it can’t be.

  But then the flying insect drifted upward toward the light, and he realized that it wasn’t a butterfly. It was just a generic moth, drawn, much like he had been, to the only light in the alley.

  And yet this realization did nothing to slow his racing heart.

  On the verge of hyperventilating, he pounded on the door again.

  Monarch or not, he knew that this wasn’t over.

  Not yet.

  “Please, someone—”

  And then, unbelievably, the door did open, if only a crack.

  “Shifty, that you? Whatchu doin’ out der at 3 AM? Whatchu—” a woman’s scratchy voice demanded.

  The man didn’t hesitate.

  He thrust his manicured fingers into the two-inch gap between the door and frame, and gripped it tightly. The woman immediately tried to pull the door closed again.

  “You ain’t Shifty,” she said, a tremor in her voice. The door was crushing his fingers now, but he didn’t care.

  Nothing in this world would make him let go now.

  The sound of footfalls in puddles in the alley behind him forced the man into action. Gripping the door tightly, ignoring the pain as the metal bit into his knuckles, he pulled with all his might.

  At first the woman in the dark interior of what he thought might have been a crack den, resisted, but she was no match for his strength, for his determination.

  After all, she didn’t know what was chasing him.

  The woman cried out. She had been trying so hard to keep the door closed that when it was finally swung wide, she went with it, her rail thin body thrown into the alley.

  The man saw her emaciated arms peppered with red track marks, her damp, mangy hair, and sunken eyes as she flew by him.

  “You ain’t Shifty!” she cried, as she pulled herself to her feet in an action that was all knees and elbows. “You ain’t Shifty!”
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  The man ignored her and stepped inside the pitch-black building. As he did, the toe of one of his loafers clipped something lying on the floor. The object skittered across the surface, which seemed uncharacteristically soft, like sand or dirt. It made a whoop whoop whoop sound as it receded into the darkness, before it struck something hard and exploded into what could only be breaking glass.

  Where are the lights? Where are the lights? His mind screamed. Where the hell are the lights?

  He ran his hands along the wall, ignoring the rough texture that scratched his palms.

  “You ain’t Shifty!” the woman screamed from the alley, her voice even more shrill now.

  That’s good; keep yelling, wake others.

  “Shifty gonna come back and he gonna—”

  Her words came to an abrupt halt, and without looking back, the man stumbled deeper into the building, frantically rubbing the walls now, desperate for a light switch that didn’t seem to exist.

  Sweat dripped down his forehead and stung his eyes.

  Just when he was about to give up hope, his fingers struck something jutting from the wall.

  Yes! His mind screamed.

  He flicked the switch up.

  Nothing happened.

  He flicked it down.

  Still nothing.

  Close to tears now, he flicked the switch up and down repeatedly, as if trying to manually prime a building whose only electricity seem to feed the sickly yellow bulb in the alley.

  “Please,” he moaned. “It was—”

  But a gloved hand slipped around his nose and mouth from behind, cutting off his sentence just as it had done to the crackhead in the alley.

  He screamed, but the sound was muffled by thick leather. His own hands grabbed for the glove, tore at it, trying to peel it from his face.

  But the grip was just too strong.

  Something sharp pricked him in the side of the neck, just above the collar of his dress shirt.

  And then… nothing.

  Time seemed to slow, and he thought that the hand on his face was loosening.

  Hope crept him into him like a virus. Hope that he might just make it out of here after all. That the man would let him go, forgive him his sins, his transgressions, like a compassionate priest or chaplain.

  But then he felt a deep burning sensation in his throat and lungs, a burning that flooded his system with such intensity that it dropped him to his knees.

  From there, the man was lowered gently to the ground, before being flipped onto his back. This deep into the building, the darkness was all encompassing, but the man in the alligator loafers thought he saw something in the blackness nonetheless.

  A butterfly.

  A beautiful Monarch butterfly spreading its wings and ascending toward the heavens.

  And then it, like the man in the suit, was gone.

  PART I - CATERPILLAR

  ~

  CHAPTER 1

  A GUNSHOT SHOCKED NYPD DETECTIVE Damien Drake from his slumber. His hand immediately slid between his jacket and shirt, his fingers searching for the gun buried in the holster beneath his armpit.

  He blinked once, twice, then moved his hand away from the butt of his gun. Breathing heavily, he worked his fingers into the pocket of his worn sport coat, and squeezed the small, glass bottle between thumb and forefinger.

  As he teased the miniature bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label out, he tried to stretch his legs, pushing his feet into the floor of the car between the gas and brake. He groaned, then closed his eyes for a moment.

  He had heard a gunshot, but it hadn’t come from outside.

  It had been in his head.

  As had been the face of his partner, Clay Cuthbert, his eyes wide, moist.

  His pale cheeks hollow with the tangible wrench of terror.

  Drake heard another sound now, but unlike the gunshot, this one was real: the unmistakable clink of metal tabs breaking as he unscrewed the cap on the miniature.

  When he opened his eyes again, he was surprised that the sun had decided that today it would finally shake free of its frosty shroud. For March in New York City, this was no less than a formidable feat.

  As Drake brought the bottle to his lips and took a sizable gulp, he observed the squat brick building with the circular drive outside his window, his eyes skipping along the fence that cordoned off a small park.

  I must have been out for three hours, he thought, unwilling to confirm or deny this by expending the effort to look at his worn Timex.

  He supposed he could have looked at the digital clock embedded in the dashboard, but he had never bothered to set the damn thing. For twelve years he had owned the creme-colored Crown Victoria, and yet in none of that time had he bothered to fiddle with the damn thing. Unlike the sun, some things just weren’t worth the effort or frustration.

  He grunted, and took another sip. Aware that the interior of his car reeked of stale sweat and staler alcohol, he cracked the window an inch, relishing the familiarity of smog-tinged air.

  The sound of a bell ringing cut through the miasma that filled the Crown Vic. This time, Drake stopped his hand before it made it to the butt of his gun.

  Cut it out. Get control of yourself.

  As if to prove to himself that he was indeed in control, he finished the miniature, screwed the cap back on, and tossed it to the floor of the passenger seat. When it clanged against several other bottles, he cringed, expecting to hear the sound of glass breaking. But after several more clinks, it eventually settled, and he relaxed his shoulders.

  The damn things were usually made of plastic, anyway.

  The muscles in his upper back had tightened, and the fact that he had slept in his car more nights than a bed since his suspension had started had done nothing in terms of making him more accustomed to the conditions.

  Isn’t the body supposed to adapt? Get used to shitty thoughts, shittier accommodations?

  A gaggle of children, ranging by Drake’s estimation to be anywhere between five and fifteen years of age, flooded out of the side door of the school as if the building itself was regurgitating them. Their high-pitched squeals of glee, jubilant cries, and amorphous grunts filtered up to him through the crack in his window, and he instantly regretted opening it. And yet he made no move to close it.

  Instead, he watched their smooth faces, most lineless even in smile, his gaze following them across a paved area with basketball hoops that hadn’t seen an actual net for longer than most had been alive.

  The younger kids—Drake only identified them as such as they seemed to have not yet gained the insight of self-awareness, their eyes locking in on a play structure without first darting to their friends for approval—went mostly to the swings and slides, while the older kids moved toward the giant field at the back of the school. The field was bordered by chipped white soccer goalposts, but during all the days Drake had parked outside Hockley Middle and High School, he had never actually seen anyone playing soccer.

  Or basketball, for that matter.

  As the kids spread out and their incessant drone became more diffuse, Drake found himself staring at three boys with spiked hair and backpacks adorned with chrome spikes and patches from bands that he didn’t recognize. They shuffled instead of walked, their heavy boots barely rising off first the paved basketball area then the newly shorn grass field. The teenager on the left, who was two or three inches taller than the others and sported long blond hair that nearly reached his shoulders, leered at a much younger girl in a miniskirt.

  The boy said something, and while Drake was too far to pick out the exact words, and an experienced lip reader he was not, the toothy expression on the kid’s face said enough.

  The girl responded sharply, and her grimace allowed an exchange to play out in Drake’s mind.

  The boy stopped smiling and the trio tucked behind the school, their backs pressing up against the wall.

  What are they doing?

  But when the blond boy, eyes darting again, reac
hed into his backpack, Drake felt a sudden pang in his chest.

  Columbine was a long time removed, and now most everyone in NYC expected the next attack to come from a dark-skinned man speaking Arabic, Drake still felt on edge.

  Without thinking, his hand snaked over to the door handle, and he gripped the warm metal tightly, ready to pounce.

  He let go when the boy pulled out a worn pack of Marlboro’s and furtively held it out to his friends.

  What the hell is wrong with you? Get a grip!

  Drake took a deep breath and looked away from the wannabe punk rockers smoking cigarettes, his eyes drifting back to the front of the school.

  And that’s when he saw her. At first, he tried not to overreact—it’s not her, just like the cigarettes weren’t miniature pipe bombs—but as he stared more intently, he realized that it could be her. Her back was to him, a pink backpack slung over one shoulder, her long, straight, brown hair descending halfway down her back. She was wearing tight dark jeans, and a pair of worn converse sneakers. A white blouse clung to her thin shoulders.

  It’s her.

  Drake swallowed hard and grabbed the door handle again, although this time he wasn’t trying to strangle the metal. Instead, he pulled gently and the door opened. Warm air rushing against his face, which he only now realized was covered in a thin layer of sweat.

  As Drake stepped out of his Crown Vic, another car pulled up beside the girl and the window slowly lowered. She turned and must have recognized the person inside, as she walked over to the car and leaned on the half open window.

  Now in profile, Drake knew it was her. He recognized that nose, straight but thin, and the long eyelashes, full lips.

  Drake closed his car door and started toward her, wondering who this person in the car was.

  The girl suddenly threw her head back and laughed, her long hair quivering like a cape.

  Squinting hard, knowing that he shouldn’t be here, that he was overreacting, he peered through the rearview window of the Mercedes.

  It was a man, he concluded. And judging by the way the shadow of his hair was thinning, it was an older man at that.

  No, this isn’t right.

  Drake realized that his hands were balled into fists, and he slowly forced them open.