Blood equity, p.1
Blood Equity, page 1
Blood Equity
by
C. M. Sutter
Copyright © 2021
All Rights Reserved
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction by C. M. Sutter. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used solely for entertainment. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. M. Sutter is a crime fiction writer who resides in Florida, although she is originally from California.
She is a member of over fifty writing groups and book clubs. In addition to writing, she enjoys spending time with her family and dog, and you’ll often find her writing in airports and on planes as she flies from state to state on family visits.
She is an art enthusiast and loves to create gourd birdhouses, pebble art, and handmade soaps. Gardening, bicycling, fishing, and traveling are a few of her favorite pastimes.
C. M. Sutter
http://cmsutter.com/
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Blood Equity
FBI Agent Jade Monroe - Live or Die Series, Book 5
FBI Agent Jade Monroe has fond memories of Savannah. She loves the Southern charm, the history, and the South’s slower pace, but arriving there as a serial crimes investigator, she finds a different side of the city.
A request for help has come in from the PD because people in the Hostess City of the South are literally falling over dead in broad daylight after consuming a dangerous drug cocktail.
When Jade disappears during a victim’s funeral, the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place, and the only way Renz will find his partner is by learning the reason for the murders. Will Jade escape the killer’s terrifying grip, or will she be forced to drink that same drug cocktail and end up on public display as the killer’s final victim?
See all of C. M. Sutter’s books at:
http://cmsutter.com/available-books/
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Table of Contents
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
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
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 1
Saturday noon
North Bend, Wisconsin
Up to her elbows in fresh black dirt, Amber washed her hands at the spigot on the side of the condo. She had been bugging me to help get the flower beds cleaned up and replanted, and with precious time at home, we dug in—literally. We had a number of outdoor and indoor projects to address while I was working the Milwaukee area instead of being on the road. After Amber decided it was time for lunch and washed up, Kate took over her planting duties. With years of being roommates under our belts, we found that pitching in with household and yard chores worked out well for all of us.
We’d wrapped up a case in Montana six weeks ago, and the head honcho and ranch hands were charged and indicted for murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. They were behind bars, and the main players would never see freedom again. Justice had prevailed but at the cost of many innocent lives.
SSA Taft had recently decided that the out-of-state cases needed to be divided more evenly between our team’s eight agents—four groups of two—and had sent Charlotte and Kyle to central Florida to help local authorities track down and apprehend a spree killer who was terrorizing the Orlando area. Tommy, Fay, Mike, and Carl had been dispatched to New York to help the FBI team there work on recent murderers targeting religious groups.
I loved going to new cities and states and meeting people from all branches of law enforcement, but it was about apprehending the serial criminal and getting that person off the street no matter where they were located. Each of us needed our turn doing just that, and I was fine with Taft’s decision. Having time to catch up with my old coworkers at the sheriff’s office was a treat all its own, and I took full advantage of that whenever I could.
“Hey, you two, lunch is ready!” Amber yelled.
“Yeah, what are we having?” I eased the last petunia out of the pot, sank it into the hole I’d dug, then filled the space around it with soil from the bag. After pushing off my knee, I headed to the spigot with Kate right behind me.
“We’re having grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta salad, and sangria.”
“Oh, yum. You better have made extra sandwiches,” I said, “and a tall pitcher of sangria.”
“Don’t worry. We’ve got plenty.”
I couldn’t wait to eat. A relaxing weekend at home was just what I needed.
Chapter 2
Saturday night
Savannah, Georgia
The late-night ghost tour was well underway with a crowd of fearful but fun-loving adventure seekers. The chimes from distant church bells rang out twelve times. It was midnight, and the group had just entered the Colonial Park Cemetery. Considered by some to be the most haunted place in Savannah, the cemetery was always the highlight of the tour.
Tour guide Kenny Dupree led the group of twenty in through the large iron gates that groaned in protest and provided great sound effects as he pushed them forward. As he told the story of the ancient cemetery and the ghosts who roamed its grounds, he noticed that his words were hitting their mark. People huddled, held hands, and stayed close to one another. They giggled but were scared nonetheless and rightfully so. Colonial Park was also known as “Paranormal Central,” where shadowy figures were often seen floating by during the tours.
Kenny pulled the crowd deeper into the darkened place as he led them from notable grave to notable grave and described the violent and twisted acts some of the cemetery’s residents had committed before and after they died.
“Evil people don’t often rest in peace,” Kenny said, “and many late-night sightings of spirits wandering the grounds have been reported.”
As if on cue, a woman from the group let out a blood-curdling scream, then so did another and another. Several men laughed and pointed at a woman who came out from behind a large gravestone and stumbled forward. Wearing a blood-smeared shirt and jeans, she seemed extremely agitated, yet her gait was zombielike.
“Nice addition to the tour, dude,” one man said. “That makes it even better than I thought it would be.”
Kenny retreated as the woman got closer. “Um, folks, let’s head back toward the entrance.”
Men elbowed one another as their wives, still frightened, pleaded to leave. “Come on. It’s all part of the tour,” one man said to his wife.
“Actually, it’s not,” Kenny said, “and I have no idea who she is.”
The woman—whose face, neck, and hands were covered in blood—was only feet from the crowd. She yelled out in a raspy voice before falling face-first to the ground, “Help me!”
“Out of the way.” A man from the back rushed up and knelt at the woman’s side. “I’m a doctor.” He waved his hand at Kenny. “Shine the light down here so I can see what I’m doing.” The doctor rolled the woman over as Kenny pointed the flashlight’s beam at her face.
When the light hit the young woman’s face, the ladies in the group gasped. Her neck was scratched and bloody, and her lips were a startling shade of blue. Her unblinking eyes stared up at them.
“Holy shit,” Kenny said.
The doctor looked up and shook his head. “There’s one thing I know for sure. Nothing holy just happened here. Somebody call 911.”
Chapter 3
Mitch swatted at the slobbery bulldog named Gus who was licking his ear, but the only thing he hit was air. “Leave me alone and let me sleep.” The dog persisted, and Mitch’s only recourse was to cover his head with the pillow. Using his fat paws, Gus dug and scratched to get his owner’s attention. The dog was relentless, and after uttering a few choice curse words, Mitch was forced to sit up. He flicked on the light and frowned at his pup. “What do you want, boy? Do you have to pee?” Mitch grabbed his phone to check the time and realized it was vibrating in his hand. He’d forgotten to set the ringer to music after switching it to vibrate during the interrogation he’d conducted earlier that evening. But it was nearly one a.m., and somebody wanted to speak with him. He groaned. “Is that why you were trying to wake me up, buddy? Good boy.” Gus snorted, spun three times on the bed, and resumed his earlier position of lying with his head and drooling tongue taking up half the pillow.
Mitch yawned, took a swallow of water from the glass on the nightstand, and answered. “Mitch Cannon speaking. Uh-huh, where? The Colonial Park Cemetery? That’s a new one. Yep, I’m on my way.” After raking his disheveled black hair and giving both eyes a good fist rub, Mitch tossed back the blankets and stumbled to the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, ran the toothbrush across his teeth, finger combed his hair, and gave his reflection a quick look in the mirror. “Good enough. Come on, Gus. Get outside and take a leak. I have no idea how long I’ll be gone.” After giving the dog a push to coax him out of bed, Mitch dressed then walked downstairs and put a cup of water in the microwave. He set the timer for two minutes and, from the bottom of the stairs, yelled back up. “Gus, let’s go!”
Making his appearance a minute later, Gus waddled down the stairs and to the back door, grunting. Mitch shook his head, let his beloved buddy outside, and finished getting a thermos of coffee to go. After pouring a bowlful of kibble and topping off the water dish, Mitch brought Gus back in and gave him a thorough scratch behind the ears and a kiss on his flat nose.
“Someday, we’ll see what we can do about a doggy door, but as fat as you are, a person could probably get in through it too. See you later, pal, and don’t sleep all day.”
Mitch set the house alarm and exited the beautiful historic home he’d inherited from his mother, who’d recently moved to an all-inclusive independent living retirement home. Mitch’s house wasn’t a two-hundred-fifty-year-old historic brick mansion that all the tourists oohed and aahed over, but it was still worth a small fortune due to its location and charm. The highly desirable Thomas Square area was just a few blocks south of the famous Forsyth Park, and Mitch had grown up in that house with his parents and two sisters. As the youngest sibling and unmarried, he lived there and took care of all the home maintenance and yardwork. Except for the dorm he’d lived in during college, the Thomas Square house was the only place he’d ever called home.
The Habersham police precinct where Mitch worked butted up against the well-known Colonial Park Cemetery, and that night, it sounded like it was about to become even more infamous. He climbed into his three-year-old Corvette, lowered the windows, and drove the six-minute distance to the station. It was late Saturday night, and even at one in the morning, the mid-June temperature was a humid eighty-two degrees. Mitch parked at the precinct and walked to the northeast entrance of the cemetery, where his partner, Devon Rue, was waiting.
“What the hell is going on?” Mitch asked as soon as he saw Devon. “Do we have a murder on our hands?”
Devon shrugged. “Don’t know about a murder just yet, but I assume because our precinct is right next door and we’re on call, we were notified. Anyway, the group thought the woman was part of the tour, looking the way she did.”
Mitch tipped his chin as they walked. “Like how?”
“Disheveled, and her face and hands were raw and bloody.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. I could see how they’d think she was there to scare the crap out of them since the cemetery is known for its ghost sightings, but then the guide said he had no idea who she was. According to statements the first responders got, including one from a doctor who was also a ticketed guest of”—Devon air quoted the next few words—“‘The Haunted Cemetery Night Tour,’ what they’d thought was a patterned shirt was actually just smeared with blood. She zombie walked toward them, fell face-first to the ground, and was dead within seconds.”
Mitch pulled back. “Zombie walked? You mean outstretched arms and stiff-legged style?”
“Who knows. It’s how the tour guests described her as she stumbled toward them. They also said she seemed agitated and yelled out ‘Help me!’ before she died.”
Mitch rubbed his forehead. “Sounds like a made-for-TV movie.” He looked around as they approached the scene.
The tour group had been ushered away by the police except for the doctor who had rendered aid, and Kenny, the guide. Crime scene tape had been stretched around the Spanish moss–draped live oaks, making the scene look even eerier, and Tapper Lowe, the county medical examiner, knelt at the body.
Mitch and Devon walked to his side, where the portable lights had been set up.
“Any guesses?” Devon asked.
“Nope, not yet. Still waiting on Billy and Martin to show up before I touch her. By a quick visual, I’d say she’s in her mid-twenties. The obvious blood looks to be from scratches, and I see some kind of secretion coming from her mouth. That’ll have to be tested, of course.”
Mitch backed away, scanned the area, and nodded at the nearest officer. He recognized the man as Jared Petrie, a longtime beat cop who—fittingly—worked the graveyard shift in the historic district.
“What do you know, Jared?”
“Terry and I were the first on scene when the call came in. Kind of a mess when we got here. Women crying, men cursing, more walking around like they couldn’t believe what they’d just witnessed.”
“I’m sure they got their money’s worth tonight. What time did the call come in?”
Jared checked his notes. “Twelve thirty-one so actually Sunday morning. Terry and I were on scene four minutes later. We had to do a little crowd control to preserve the area, told everyone to back away, and called in another unit to lend a hand with taping off the grounds. We spoke with a few tourists who were front and center when the woman appeared. We spoke to the doctor who administered aid, and then the tour guide, Kenny Dupree. We have statements from all of them. After that, the crowd was asked to leave, and the gates were closed.”
“Good enough. When are we expecting Billy and Martin to show?”
“Any second, I’d expect. Pretty sure both of them were at home sleeping.”
“Yeah, same here. How about you get Tony and Brian over there to watch for Forensics to arrive. They can let them through the gates when they get here. We really don’t want too many officers inside trampling the area if you know what I mean.”
“Sure thing, Detective Cannon.”
Mitch gave Jared a thank-you nod and walked to Kenny. “You’re the tour guide?”
“I am, and I’ll tell you one thing for sure.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“I’ve been guiding these nighttime tours for six years, and I’ve never had anything like that happen before, and of course on a busy Saturday night of all times.”
“Right. So who noticed the woman first?”
Kenny shrugged. “Just some lady in the tour. The group was facing me, and I was facing them as I ran through the script.”
“So the deceased woman came from behind you?”
“Yep.”
“And where were you standing at that time?”
Kenny pointed at a notable gravestone. “Right next to Button Gwinnett.”
“Ah, Button. Okay. Did anyone see where the woman actually came from, as in before she approached the group?”
“Nope. They were listening to my speech about Button when that first woman screamed, then two more joined in. I spun and saw the bloody lady zombie walking toward us.”
Mitch nodded. “Hmm… seems like that’s everyone’s description of how she approached the group. How about showing me how she zombie walked?” Mitch pointed outside the crime scene tape. “Maybe over here so we aren’t in the immediate area.”
