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  Already Dead

  A Chase Adams FBI Thriller

  Book 9

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  PART I – Grief

  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

  PART II – Disease

  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

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  PART III – Control

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 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

  Epilogue

  END

  Author’s Note

  Other Books by Patrick Logan

  Already Dead

  Prologue

  Death is a curious state of being.

  Or, more accurately, it would be if you had some alternative state to compare it to. Unfortunately, 22-year-old Ruth Pierce never had that luxury.

  While it was true that she breathed, and occasionally ate, albeit sparingly and only when explicitly directed to do so, Ruth wasn’t truly alive.

  Not by her estimation, anyway.

  And perhaps this was one of the reasons why nobody paid any attention to her. That, and the fact that she was filthy, with stringy dark hair covering most of her face, and she reeked of urine and feces. Ruth sat alone on the sidewalk, her rag-covered back pressed up against a brick wall. The building upon which she rested was unoccupied, but this had nothing to do with her presence.

  That honor was bestowed upon the nightclub not thirty feet away. While this particular hotspot catered to some of the wealthiest Columbusite clubgoers, the music was loud and obnoxious.

  If Ruth had had any thoughts about the building outside which she loitered, she may have concluded that it was likely to remain vacant for some years to come.

  Contributing to Ruth’s anonymity was that when most patrons exited the club and left the comforts of the neon lights above—ironically, or perhaps idiotically, spelling out the club’s name, which happened to be NEON—they turned right. Then they would walk, stumble, trip, and fall their way to the taxi/Uber/Lyft/hooker pickup area. Then they would get in their ride, and annoyingly shout at their driver that they were going to the rich part of town—no, not that part, with the stuffy old people with their ancient money, but the new part. The part where the crypto-millionaires lived. Where tact and tacky had somehow become reversed.

  Nobody turned left outside of NEON—nobody headed toward the parking lot and unwittingly came across the foul-smelling dead girl.

  Well, maybe not nobody. There was one person who had driven to the club tonight. A man who typically used a car service, but tonight had taken it easy. Dr. Wayne Griffith III had surgery scheduled for the morning—he was performing breast augmentation on the wife of a local congressman, and he wanted to be fresh. It wasn’t just that he was friends with both the congressman and his wife, but doing an exceptional job would lead to more work from high-profile clients. Business was good, great even, but just in case things with Mrs. Griffith III didn’t come to a sanguine conclusion, Wayne needed to make sure he was flush enough to support both of their habits—or at least fifty percent of them.

  Unfortunately, the woman who hung on Wayne’s arm suggested that a resolution to their marital strife wasn’t trending in a positive direction.

  “I’m parked over here,” he said, leading Julia toward the abandoned building.

  Unlike some of the men who left NEON with one or multiple female companions, Wayne knew the name of the girl on his arm: Julia Dreger. She was someone he really cared for, which made tomorrow’s surgery even more important.

  He wasn’t positive he wanted things with Mrs. Griffith III to become copacetic.

  Besides, they both needed a fresh start—it was long overdue. Things just hadn’t been the same since Rebecca left.

  And that was two years ago.

  “You okay to drive?” Julia asked. Her lips were painted a deep red, and when she spoke, they never quite touched. She’d imbibed quite a bit more than him.

  “I’ll be fine. I only—”

  A cross between a grunt and a moan cut him off mid-sentence. Most people may not have even noticed it or assumed that it was just one of those sounds generated by the night, but not Wayne.

  He’d heard it before, years ago, back when Wayne had been resident in the Emergency Room. Twice, to be exact. But both experiences were haunting enough to have stuck with him for more than two decades.

  It was a death rattle.

  “Wayne?” Julia asked as she adjusted her white blouse. The top two buttons were undone, revealing large, round breasts. Most men who didn’t share Wayne’s professional experience would have assumed that they were fake.

  He knew them to be very real.

  Death rattle or not, Wayne was distracted, if only for a moment.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked, drawing his gaze from Julia’s chest and scanning the surrounding area. Only one of the three nearest streetlights worked and the sad yellow light that it emitted revealed nothing but an empty sidewalk.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” she glanced over her shoulder. “Except the music.”

  She tried to move Wayne forward, but he remained rooted.

  “Wait, just hold on a second.”

  As Wayne’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, he scanned the dark building next to NEON.

  After nearly thirty seconds, he finally spotted the source of the sound: someone was huddled in what could have been either dirty towels or a blanket and leaning awkwardly up against the brick wall.

  “Hello? Are you okay?” he asked tentatively.

  “Wayne, let’s just go,” Julia urged. “Please.”

  The small hairs on the back of Wayne’s neck were standing at attention, and he felt an odd sense of unease wash over him. There was something strangely unnatural about the situation and, whatever it was, had primed his autonomic nervous system.

  Wayne overrode the fight or f
light response and approached the person slumped against the wall. It was his duty as a physician to see if they were okay, if they needed help, which was undoubtedly the case.

  Julia felt no such compulsion and remained a few feet back.

  “Hello?” The closer Wayne got to the figure the stronger the smell became. There were the odors characteristic of vagrancy—sour urine, putrid feces—but there was something else, as well. Something far worse.

  Wayne was forced to cover his nose and mouth with the crook of his elbow.

  “Excuse me?”

  He reached out with his free hand to touch what he thought was the figure’s shoulder and as he did, the moan recurred.

  The sound was so laden with pain and anguish that it gave Wayne shivers.

  One of what he now saw were rags slipped down, revealing a bare arm.

  Wayne had seen a good many things in his time that would have made other men vomit, but this was the first time that he’d nearly succumbed to the urge.

  The smell that seemed to accost not just his nose, but all of his senses at once, derived from rotting human flesh. The bare arm was covered in weeping pustules, most of which were encircled by dark areas of necrotic skin.

  “Jesus Christ,” Wayne whispered as he drew back.

  The figure moved, just a minor tremble, but this was still startling—it was nearly inconceivable that someone with this degree of putrefaction and gangrene could still be alive.

  “Julia?” When Wayne got no response, he turned his head. Julia had clearly caught a whiff of the stench because she’d backed up a considerable amount. “Call 9-1-1. Tell them—” he stopped when the woman raised a hand and pointed not at Wayne, but behind him.

  “Wayne! Wayne!”

  Movement out of the corner of Wayne’s eye drew his gaze back to the rotting corpse.

  He saw a flash of greasy hair, and rheumy, lifeless eyes. What he didn’t see until it was too late, was the knife in the hand that wasn’t exposed.

  “You need to stay still,” he implored. “Help is—”

  The figure, which he now saw was a woman, lunged. It was so unexpected that Wayne toppled, even though his attacker couldn’t have weighed more than a small dog.

  One side of his neck was still covered with the crook of his elbow, but the other was exposed.

  The woman didn’t hesitate. She jammed the knife into the soft pocket of flesh just below Wayne’s jawbone. He instinctively shoved her backward, which turned out to be a mistake. Before the blade came free, it raked from his jaw to beneath his chin, filling his mouth and esophagus with blood.

  “Wayne!” he heard Julia scream from somewhere behind him. He tried to rise to his feet but staggered. Blood was everywhere, all at once.

  Wayne desperately tried to put pressure on his throat, using both hands, but the hot, viscous fluid sprayed from between his fingers. It was like trying to stem a leak in the Hoover Dam with a tiny ball of plasticine.

  “Julia,” he attempted to say, but the word became a sloppy, wet mess at his lips.

  Wayne experienced a single moment of clarity before darkness swarmed in.

  He saw his assailant raise the blade covered in his blood. He saw her glance skyward and flick tendrils of oil-saturated hair from her face.

  Then he glimpsed the sickly woman drive the knife that had taken his life into her own throat and drag it across without a single moment of indecision.

  PART I – Grief

  Chapter 1

  “Georgie, you need to get ready earlier,” Chase nagged. “You can’t be late all the time.”

  She shoved her niece’s lunchbox into the rainbow knapsack. The zipper protested loudly as it struggled to contain the bag’s contents.

  Jesus, did I really have to bring this much crap to school when I was a kid?

  “I had trouble sleeping,” Georgina Adams said as she turned to face Chase.

  Even though they were running behind—again—and despite the bus driver Mr. Edwards’ threats that if they weren’t standing at the bus stop at eight-fifteen, he’d leave without them, Chase wasn’t about to let this comment pass.

  “Why not? Bad dreams?” she asked as she observed Georgina.

  The girl wasn’t lying, that much was certain; there were dark circles beneath her eyes, which stood out on her pale skin. The eyes themselves were glassy.

  The first thought that came to mind was that Georgina was being bullied, that somehow, they’d found out about her past and were teasing her.

  Chase shook her head.

  That was unlikely. Not only did Bishop’s Academy have a one-strike policy on bullying, but Lawrence and Brandon had taken the girl under their wing and looked out for her.

  They wouldn’t let something happen to her, else face Louisa’s wrath.

  “I don’t know,” Georgina said with a shrug. “Think so, just can’t remember them.”

  When the girl looked away, Chase suspected that she was lying. But instead of challenging her on it, which would only cause her to put up a more fortified wall, Chase softly asked, “You want to talk about it?”

  When she saw the conflict on Georgina’s face, Chase almost wished it had been bullies. Bullies, she knew how to deal with. Whatever psychological stress that Georgina was experiencing, she did not. Yet, the girl’s unwillingness to discuss the base of her problems, frustrating as it was, was something that Chase could relate to.

  “No,” Georgina said, her voice just a step above a whisper. “I can’t remember.”

  She needs help, Chase thought. And as much as I want to, I’m not qualified to give it to her.

  While her time with Dr. Matteo had been a far cry from a panacea, Chase couldn’t deny the man’s influence. He’d astutely identified her triggers and offered her suitable coping mechanisms.

  The good doctor had also empowered her with techniques to prevent descending into degeneracy, as well.

  It wasn’t his fault that Chase chose a different path.

  But perhaps Dr. Matteo, or someone like him, could help Georgina before her stubbornness became entrenched.

  Now, already ten minutes late for the bus, however, wasn’t the time for psychoanalysis.

  “All right, sweetie. Just hurry up, okay? We don’t want to miss the bus.”

  Georgina nodded and showed her back. As she tied her shoes, Chase slipped the backpack on, which was so heavy that it nearly brought the girl down.

  With a grunt, Georgina rose and together they hurried to the door.

  It came as no surprise to either of them that the bus was waiting at the top of the street. As she squinted into the early morning sun, Chase saw the familiar outline of Mr. Edwards through the front windshield. The man was constructed like a snowman, made of mostly round shapes. Instead of snow, he was covered in a dew-like layer of gray fluff.

  Chase couldn’t see the man’s expression at this distance, but she knew what face he was making.

  “Shit,” Chase grumbled. She put her hand on Georgina’s back and guided her onto the gravel road.

  “You owe me a dollar,” Georgina said, her tone suddenly jovial.

  “No, you’re going to owe me a dollar if I have to drive you in today,” Chase shot back.

  They broke into a run when the bus started rolling. Chase wasn’t sure if Mr. Edwards had seen her, but the timing seemed awfully suspicious.

  “Let’s go! Hurry!”

  Mr. Edwards either spotted them or decided not to punish them further and stopped the bus.

  Huffing, Chase made it to the door before Georgina.

  As predicted, Mr. Edwards looked as if he’d swallowed a handful of porcupine quills.

  “I’m sorry,” Chase said between breaths. She held up one hand. “My fault—I’m sorry.”

  Her preemptive apology did nothing to dissuade Mr. Edwards from chastising Chase as if she were an unruly occupant of his sacred yellow bus.

  “Every day this week.”

  “I know, it’s just—”

  “
You’ve been late every single day this week, Mrs. Adams,” Mr. Edwards continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  Mrs. Adams.

  It wasn’t ‘ma’am’, but it was nearly as bad. Perhaps even worse.

  What Mr. Edwards didn’t, and couldn’t have known, is that Chase’s estranged husband Brad had sent her divorce papers earlier in the month.

  Divorce papers along with a request for sole custody of their son, Felix.

  In true Chase Adams fashion, her initial response had been one of rage. But after that passed—live in the moment—she realized that the man she’d once loved was trying to do the right thing.

  He’d moved on—literally. With her permission, Brad had relocated to Sweden for work and had taken Felix with him. The man had made numerous attempts to contact her over the ensuing few years, mostly to try to foster what little relationship she had left with her son, but Chase had refused contact.

  She’d told herself it was to protect them from her, but that was probably a lie.

  More likely, it was because of her guilt, the seed of which had been her sister’s abduction decades earlier. But that had been a long time ago. The seed had since sprouted, and a tree had grown. The roots were her drug abuse, the trunk her sister’s death, and the main branch Stitts’ near-fatal injury. Other branches included Drake, Beckett, Floyd, Hanna, Louisa, Tom, Georgina… the list went on and on.

  If you don’t forgive yourself, Chase, then you will never be able to move forward, Dr. Matteo had told her.

  But she didn’t want to move forward—whatever that meant. Chase just wanted to live in the moment, which just so happened to be a cesspool of guilt and pity.

  That was her, and she could not be changed.

  “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again,” Chase said, as she ushered Georgina onto the bus. “Bye, sweetie, love you.”

  Georgina turned on the second step, a genuine smile on her face.

  “Love you too, Chase.”

  “No, it won’t,” Mr. Edwards grumbled. “Because next time, I won’t wait.”

  Chase bit her tongue until the dust from the bus’s tires swirled around her.

  “The fuck you won’t.”

  She felt a pang in the pit of her stomach as she watched the bus disappear through a haze.