Third Time's the Charm Read online

  THIRD Time’s the Charm

  A Sidney Stone Private Investigator (Paranormal) Mystery Book 3

  K. J. Emrick

  S. J. Wells

  First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, January 2020.

  Copyright K.J. Emrick (2012-20)

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

  - From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  No responsibility or liability is assumed by the Publisher for any injury, damage or financial loss sustained to persons or property from the use of this information, personal or otherwise, either directly or indirectly. While every effort has been made to ensure reliability and accuracy of the information within, all liability, negligence or otherwise, from any use, misuse or abuse of the operation of any methods, strategies, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein, is the sole responsibility of the reader. Any copyrights not held by publisher are owned by their respective authors.

  All information is generalized, presented for informational purposes only and presented "as is" without warranty or guarantee of any kind.

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  Contents

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  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  More Info

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

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  Prologue

  Being a private investigator isn’t a bad gig.

  I get to work for myself. Be my own boss. I get to keep my own hours, I get to decide which clients I take on—or not—and if I sleep through my alarm there’s no one to kick my ass for being late for work. There’s no retirement plan, of course, and no dental insurance, but there’s other perks. Like staying up as late as you want and eating ice cream for dinner. What other job lets you do this, huh?

  Which is the positive spin I’m putting on sitting in the driver’s seat of my 1968 Mustang, in the middle of Detroit’s lower East Side until two-thirty in the morning, waiting for a suspect to drag himself home from whatever bar he’s been drinking in.

  Well. I didn’t say it was all fun and excitement. But at least there’s ice cream.

  The pint of Moo-Berry Swirl is from the corner store and it was either this or a microwaveable burrito that included something in the list of ingredients called ‘interesterified fat.’ I don’t have any idea what that is, and I try not to eat things I can’t identify, so naturally I went for the ice cream.

  Hey. A girl’s got to eat.

  I’ve got to make a living, too, and say what you will about little old Sidney Stone, but I earn my money. Sitting here, staring out through my windshield at a row of apartment buildings for six hours straight may not qualify as the best Friday night I’ve ever spent in my life, but sometimes my job is to just sit still. Sometimes, the job is standing up. Sometimes it’s even fighting. I’ve got the training and the skills to hold my own, but I try to avoid that. I get paid the same for trading punches with some jerk as I do for sitting and watching a house, and of the two I’d much rather get paid for sitting right here, with the seat back, and chocolate ice cream melting on my tongue.

  Actually, if I’m being honest, I didn’t really need to take this job. I don’t need the money at the moment thanks to another client who is paying me really, really well. Better than my usual fee, that’s for sure, because the work I’m doing for him isn’t my usual sort of work. Li Qiang Chen—or Arnie, as he likes to be called—is paying for more than just the best private investigator in the city. He’s paying for me to be discreet. I’m always discreet with all of my clients, but Chen wants Discretion, with a capital ‘D.’

  Understandable, considering who he is.

  Or rather, what he is. Honestly I don’t know what he is. I just know he isn’t human.

  Don’t laugh. There’s more things out there than any of us know about. One of my best friends is a genie, after all. As for what Chen is… yeah. I don’t know.

  With a sigh, I stick another spoonful of vanilla-chocolaty goodness into my mouth. That was a puzzle I’d have to untangle sooner rather than later. I’ve already been working on his case for weeks now and I have to admit, for a woman of my talent and my to-die-for hips, I haven’t gotten very far with it. His case… is complicated.

  It’s also not my concern right now. Tonight, my only concern is watching the front apartment in the two-story walk-up across the street. This parking spot is ideal for watching the door over there, with the streetlights shining down to illuminate the entire stretch of sidewalk. The upstairs apartment has its entrance in the rear, so the only person using that front door will be Jacob Demers. The very guy I’m waiting for. Should be any minute now. If he’s alone, my whole night has been wasted.

  But…if he’s got a woman with him, then I’ve got my man. So to speak.

  Okay, so catching a husband cheating on his wife with another woman isn’t the most glamorous thing in the world. I’ve done them before, lots of times, and I always come away feeling a little dirty. The only plus side is they don’t usually take very long to wrap up because no matter how sly a man thinks he is, when he’s thinking with his little head, they always make mistakes. When you get led around by your crotch, you wind up falling on your face.

  Heh. That’s pretty good. I should put that on a bumper sticker.

  Anyway. Cheating husband cases like this one are quick and easy. Just take a few explicit photos of the guy doing things he shouldn’t, maybe get a name on the other woman, and you’re done. Collect your paycheck and walk away. Or, in this case, collect the two cases of Motor City Pale Ale I agreed on for my payment. Like I said, I didn’t need the money. This one I’m doing as a favor for a friend.

  According to my new smartwatch, which I bought with Mister Chen’s sizeable retainer, it’s now 2:13 in the morning. My ice cream’s gone with that one last bite, and I… am… so… bored! Maybe there’s something good on the radio…

  Oh wait.

  Here comes somebody. Finally.

  In one, two, three…

  A guy and a woman come into view when I reach the end of my count, and the guy’s wearing a Detroit Tigers windbreaker just like I was told he would be, and the woman…well, she probably should be wearing more than she is. The clouds have rolled in
and there’s rain in the air and this close to the Great Lakes, that always means a cold night. That black dress is only just barely decent. If the hem was any higher, I’d be able to see the color of her panties. If she’s wearing any. Hard to tell with the way that ass is swinging. Those six-inch heels sure weren’t made for dancing, though. They’re meant to be taken off, just like the rest of the platinum blonde’s wardrobe.

  That’s my guy. Mister Jacob Demers. And that woman, hanging on his arm, is most certainly not his wife. Not just because his wife is currently in California visiting her sick mother. Even if I hadn’t known that, I would know this isn’t his wife. There’s a certain way that a man walks next to a woman he expects to take to bed. A stiffness in his back. A swagger in his step. A cockiness that he’s going to do something he knows he shouldn’t do. A possessiveness that says this is mine, get your own.

  It’s easy to spot once you’ve seen it once or twice and that’s what I’m seeing from Jacob over there. He’s a guy who expects to get his rocks off.

  And yes, I knew he was coming before I saw him. I always know when something, or someone is coming, but only three seconds ahead of time. My future-sense. It’s my gift. Or it’s a curse, depending on how you look at it. I’ve had it since birth, so I’m used to it now. It’s kind of like living my life on fast forward, all the time. I can’t tell you what next week’s winning Lotto numbers are going to be, but I can tell you if the milk’s turned sour just before I smell it. And I can tell when someone’s about to walk into a streetlight that I’m staring at.

  Oh, did I say I always know what’s coming? Maybe that’s an overstatement. There’re exceptions to the rule. We’ll get to those later.

  Right now I need to focus. Leaning all the way back in my seat, I slip my cellphone up above the lip of the window, camera app open and the flash off, and snap several photos. It wasn’t until the turn of the century, around the year 2000, that phones could do this. Before that, a hard-working private investigator had to buy a five-thousand-dollar digital camera setup that didn’t have half the resolution of the images a modern cellphone can capture.

  Gotchya.

  When they go inside, I sit up and scroll through the gallery of the shots I just took. You always have to make sure you got the evidence before you drive away. Yup. This’ll do it. There’s a couple of nice ones of the woman’s face, even. She’s pretty. I mean, I’m no slouch. Athletic body, honey-blonde hair layered just so down to the nape of my neck, the kind of legs that make a man look twice. That’s me, but this woman is gorgeous. I can see why she could hook any man she wanted. Even the married ones.

  There’s plenty of good photos of Jacob in there, too. The bastard isn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one with his wife. The woman might be pretty, but that’s no excuse for putting his manhood where it doesn’t belong.

  So that’s it. All I have to do is send these photos to my friend, who happens to be the brother of Jacob’s wife, and then everybody will know for a fact what a cheating slimeball this guy is. My job here is done.

  Okay. Yes, I know he’s in there right now ‘getting busy’ with a woman who isn’t his wife, and yeah that’s wrong, but it’s not my job to stop him. Adultery is still a felony level crime in Michigan, but I’m also not the morality police. My only part in all of this was to get proof of the affair so my friend can finally convince his sister to leave this guy. Well, I’ve done that. Now I get to go home, and finally get some rest. And some real food. And some decent coffee…

  Wait.

  A light flicked on inside Jacob’s apartment, and now I can see the two of them standing, holding each other close, apparently not worried about who might be looking in from this side of the glass. Yeah, that’s going to get hot and heavy real quick.

  Or worse.

  In a future flash, I could see that sensual moment turning into something very nasty.

  Sometimes seeing things ahead of time sucks. It’s just three seconds. In three seconds, you can dodge a bullet. You can duck a punch. You can keep from stepping on a rusty nail and ruining your whole day. Stuff like that is good, and it’s helped me out more times than I care to admit throughout my life.

  Three seconds is not, however, enough time to run across the street and up the front steps and into their apartment to stop Jacob from smacking his girlfriend across her face.

  Damn it.

  All I could do was watch it happen. The woman stumbles from the blow and falls to the floor. Jacob bends over her, and I can’t hear it but I can see from his face that he’s shouting at her now. He’s angry about something.

  I also know there’s worse coming. Another punch. Maybe more. The girlfriend’s night is going to get progressively worse, three seconds at a time.

  I’m not the police. It’s not my job to help her. It’s not my job to save her.

  Maybe not my job, but it is my responsibility, just like it’s everyone’s responsibility to step in when they see violence like this.

  This time I don’t hesitate. I’m out of my Mustang and flying across the street, ignoring the blaring horn of a taxi that had to pump its brakes to avoid making me into a hood ornament. There’s four steps at the front and I take them all in one leap. I put my hand on the doorknob, meaning to twist it open and throw myself in there. I stop before I even bother to try.

  It’s locked. I could see a future flash of myself trying it and being denied. No sense in wasting the time to try something when the future has already shown me it isn’t going to work.

  Thankfully, there’s more than one way to open a door.

  Pro tip. To break through a door, you have to separate the locking mechanism from the door jamb. This requires a lot of force to be applied just to the side of the doorknob. Some people accomplish this by ramming their shoulder against the door in this spot again and again until something breaks—either the door, or their shoulder.

  I prefer a much more direct approach.

  Bracing a hand on the stair rail I lift my right knee up to my chest and launch my foot straight forward, right on target, and I’m rewarded with a loud crack as the door casing breaks apart into splinters.

  Now I can hear the woman’s screams as they cut short behind the smack of another blow.

  Around the corner from the entryway I find the both of them, Jacob standing over her, his knuckles bleeding, the woman on the floor with one arm raised up defensively and blood leaking from her cracked lip.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she blubbers over and over again through her tears. I can’t imagine what she could have done that would make this her fault. Nothing, that’s what. There’s nothing she could have done to deserve this.

  Jacob looks over at me when he hears the door come crashing in, and I can hear the idiotic question he’s about to ask with my future-sense before the words even leave his mouth.

  Who the hell are you?

  “Who the hell are—?”

  “I’m your girlfriend’s ride,” I cut him off. There’s no need to let him finish when we both know what he’s about to ask.

  He snarls at me, rubbing at his sore hand. “She didn’t call for no ride.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure she didn’t, but I’m still taking her out of here. I’ll let her decide about pressing charges on you but in the meantime, I’m going to get her someplace safe. Which is basically anywhere but here.”

  Jacob blinks at me, trying to figure out what’s happening. “You a cop? You going to arrest me, officer? Is that it?”

  “No, I’m not the police. I’m just someone who was, um, nearby when I saw—”

  “Then buzz off.” This time, he interrupts me. “This is a private matter between me and Jolene. Ain’t that right, Jolene?”

  The woman on the floor looks at me with pleading eyes, but she nods as she pushes herself up to a sitting position. “Yes. He’s right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jacob. I don’t know what I did to make you so angry, but I won’t do it ever again and I promise I won’t tell your
wife—”

  “Shut up!” Jacob roars, not wanting any of that out in the open.

  His hand whips back again, and this time his fingers are curled into a fist.

  I don’t need to tell you what I see coming in the next three seconds. I’m sure you get the idea.

  Besides. I stopped it before it happened.

  I am across the floor in two steps, my arm hooking his at the elbow as he tries to hit the woman—Jolene—again. Using his own momentum against him I swing him around and unbalance him, which lets me toss him over onto a very comfortable looking blue sofa. He looks up at me from that position, completely baffled by what just happened. The Marines trained me to fight insurgents in the Middle East. One abusive, cheating husband doesn’t stand a chance.

  A flash of something in his hand.

  He gets up in an explosive rush, shouting an unintelligent string of profanities in my general direction while his hand goes to a leather belt pouch with a snap closure at his side. When it’s open, he takes out the thing I saw him holding in my future flash.

  A knife with a short handle and a double-sided blade.

  What an idiot.

  If he’s going to take this up a notch, then so am I. Smirking at him, getting a perverse sense of pleasure from slapping this abuser around, I reach around to the small of my back and the concealed holster tucked into my waistband. My .38 revolver has never failed me, not from the day I first purchased it. Sometimes I think it’s a better shot than I am.

  And I’m a damned good shot.

  Maybe this guy can tell that, or maybe he just knows that old adage about bringing a knife to a gunfight. Whichever it is he’s at least got the good sense to drop the blade to the rug. He doesn’t make any move to stop Jolene from coming over to stand behind me, either.