Beg for your life, p.1
Beg For Your Life, page 1
Beg for Your Life
by
C. M. Sutter
Copyright © 2022
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 author who resides in Tampa, Florida.
With more than thirty books published in the thriller and crime fiction genres, she can often be found with a laptop in hand and writing at every opportunity.
She is an art enthusiast and loves to create gourd birdhouses, pebble art, and handmade soaps. Gardening, bicycling, fishing, playing with her dog, and traveling the world are a few of her favorite pastimes.
C. M. Sutter
http://cmsutter.com/
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Beg for Your Life
Detective Mitch Cannon—Savannah Heat Thriller Series, Book 4
When a young woman is found brutally murdered in her home, Savannah Homicide Detective Mitch Cannon and his team have no clues or witnesses. Days later, the owners of a pawnshop are killed too. The method of execution is the same, yet the victims themselves couldn’t be more different.
The killer ups the ante and murders three more people in record time, but the killing method has changed. Now the homicide department wonders if they’re dealing with one murderer or two.
But when they finally track down the killer and storm his motel room, they find something none of them expected. Someone is even more brutal and dangerous than the murderer, and it’s clear that he’ll be knocking on Mitch’s door next.
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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 1
Friday night
It was late—the middle of the night, actually. He sat in his car at the end of the block and stared down the street, looking for lights on at the neighboring homes, but he didn’t see any. Erring on the side of caution, he parked and took to the sidewalk in case people had wall-mounted or doorbell cameras. Every time he neared a streetlamp, he ducked into the landscape to pass.
Her home, a row house, was at the center of the block, and he already had the spare key. Getting in would be a breeze—no forced entry. He would take her by surprise while she slept, disable her, and end her life.
Killing was his job, and he was paid well for it. That was thanks to the dark web, where murder for hire was a robust occupation, and the requests were plentiful. Her murder had been planned weeks earlier, and he’d been paid half his fee in advance. He would show the client proof that the deed had been taken care of, collect the rest of his payment, then move on. Soon, he’d have a new client whose problem needed to be resolved.
Pressing his ear against her door, he listened. There was nothing but silence, and he already knew she didn’t have a dog. He’d studied the layout of her home, a two-story with two bedrooms upstairs and the master downstairs. Her room was to the left and down the hall beyond the family room. She was single and lived alone, making the assignment a cakewalk. I’ll be in and out in under fifteen minutes.
After twisting the silencer onto his gun, he slid the key into the doorknob and gave it a gentle turn. The door didn’t make a peep when he pushed it open. He’d been there earlier that day, removed the spare key from under the fake rock in the tiny flower bed near her porch, and oiled the door hinges too.
Once inside, he closed the door, turned the dead bolt, and waited. He listened for noises—a voice, the creak of the bed, or footsteps. Not a single sound gave him pause, so he continued to her room.
At her door, he watched her sleep. She sounded relaxed, with slow in-and-out breaths. She wasn’t aware of his presence, and with the units in the row house so close, he couldn’t afford to wake the neighbors. His moves had to be quick and efficient.
He leapt onto the bed, stretched tape over her mouth, flipped her over, ripped off her nightgown, then secured her wrists behind her back. He taped her ankles then grabbed her hair and dragged her out of the room. He had to complete the job without a single slipup.
He sat her on the dining room chair that he’d placed against an interior wall, then just as fast, tied her to it with paracord so she wouldn’t slip down or try to get away. Backing up to assess how she looked, he was satisfied. It was time to finish the job.
He pulled the gun from his waistband and took aim. As she tried to beg for her life through the tape, he riddled her with bullets. The gun was empty. She was dead, and his job was complete. Smoke swirled and hung in the air. The scent of gunpowder lingered throughout the room. With his gloved fingers, he gathered the still-hot casings, took several pictures with his phone, then walked out, making sure to lock the door behind him.
Chapter 2
10 days later
I knew he was hurting, but calling and coming to the precinct four times last week hadn’t helped. Tracy at the front desk had just warned me that Danny Whitman was on his way up. He would demand answers—answers that I still didn’t have, and I didn’t know if I ever would.
I stared at Rue until he looked up.
“What?”
“You want to take this one?”
Rue shook his head and told me in no uncertain terms that his answer was an emphatic no. He tossed in a few colorful adjectives to get his point across and reminded me that he’d listened to Danny’s complaints for forty-five minutes only three days prior.
“I had him on Friday, and you know it.”
“The hell you did.”
“Anyway, my guts are rumbling. I think I need to head to the men’s room.” Rue scurried away.
“Liar! It’s your turn, damn it.” No sooner had those words left my mouth than a knock sounded on the door.
I sucked in an agonizing breath and remembered what Royce had said. You’re representing the precinct, so be helpful. The man is grieving his murdered sister.
After I called out for him to come in, the door swung open. Before I had a chance to say hello, Danny Whitman was already in prime interrogation mode. With his typical urgency, he dropped down in one of the guest chairs that faced our desks. The second he began, I glanced at the clock—9:37 a.m.
“So, Detective Cannon, what’s the latest? Do you have an update for me? I took the weekend off like Detective Rue suggested on Friday.”
I rubbed my forehead. Nothing I could say would satisfy the man except that the killer had been apprehended and would sit on death row until his day of reckoning—and he hadn’t.
“Danny, I’ve told you countless times that I’d call you if I had anything new to report.”
“Well, I’m here now, and you are the lead detective in Homicide, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I don’t work around the clock. The rest of the detectives take an active role in all homicide cases.”
“So, what do you have to tell me?”
“Nothing. We’ve exhausted every lead, had Forensics dust the entire house for prints without luck, and our detectives have spoken with every person Kim was acquainted with. Nobody saw, heard, or knows of anyone who would want to harm—let alone kill—your sister.”
Danny cocked his head and locked eyes on me. “That isn’t good enough, Detective Cannon. I refuse to let my sist
I raised my hand to stop his yammering. I’d heard it a dozen times. “I promise you, I’ll do everything in my power to find Kim’s killer. Murders aren’t always solved in a week, a month, or even a year. You have to come to grips with that. It’s a fact of life, but in the end, we usually catch the perp.”
“But—”
I cut in. “Please let us do our job. It’s a process and not always one that fits the family’s timeline, but I assure you, we’ll do everything in our power to find the person responsible. Now”—I rattled my fingertips on my desk to disrupt his train of thought—“what time is the funeral?”
He let out a long sigh. I hoped it meant he was going to comply with my request and stop badgering us every other day.
“The church service is at one o’clock, and the burial is at two thirty.”
“Okay.” I stood, and he followed suit. Patting his shoulder, I said we would be there to pay our respects and check out the people in attendance.
Danny left, and Rue returned with a doughnut and a coffee from our cafeteria. I greeted him with a middle finger. “Funny how you came back right after he left and with food in your hand. I thought your stomach was rumbling.”
“I looked out at the hallway from the lunchroom with a perfect view of people walking by. I guess the rumbling was actually hunger pangs.”
I grumbled at him even though I was well aware that Rue had spoken with Danny on Friday. “Kim’s funeral is at one o’clock. We need to watch the crowd closely. Anyone who seems too interested and goes to both the church and graveside services should be checked out thoroughly.”
“Yeah, and we’ll place plainclothes officers in the crowd too. We’ll catch the perp sooner or later.”
My mind went back ten days earlier to when that call had come in. It was a Friday morning, not unlike any other except I hadn’t yet dressed for the day. My phone rang on the nightstand as I was drying off from my shower. With still-wet feet, I cautiously walked to avoid slipping on the hardwood floor as I made my way across the bedroom to my phone. It was Royce. He rattled off an address on East Huntingdon Street and said I was to get there right away. Rue was also en route. I was told it was the scene of a grisly homicide. The first responders were there and had already searched the premises and cordoned off the street.
After I hung up, I dressed and yelled downstairs for Marie to fill my travel mug with coffee. I didn’t have time for breakfast. Minutes later, I rushed into the kitchen and said good morning and goodbye to the family then Marie jammed half an English muffin into my mouth. I nodded a thanks, grabbed the coffee, and headed out.
I clearly remembered arriving at the scene. East Huntingdon was a street filled with turn-of-the-century or older row houses and Victorians. The officer at the front door stared at his shoes as if he wanted to erase what he’d seen inside. As Rue and I stepped up to the door, Officer Petrie shook his head and forewarned us—it was the worst murder he’d ever seen.
I couldn’t have imagined the grisly homicide there until we walked in. I recalled the appearance of the room and the way Kim was displayed as if I’d just come across the scene minutes ago. Although I’d been to dozens of murder scenes in my years as a homicide detective, that one was seared into my memory. “Grisly” wasn’t a good-enough adjective for what we’d seen in the house that morning. None of the neighbors had heard or seen anything, and that could happen only if the perp had a silencer on the gun and committed the murder well after midnight, under the cover of darkness and after everyone on that block had gone to sleep.
Inside, a hush had overtaken the house even though four officers were there along with our daytime forensic team, Billy Tremont and Martin James.
Gloved up and wearing booties, Rue and I approached the officers who surrounded Billy and Martin. They were obviously waiting for our arrival and would begin canvassing the neighborhood on our go-ahead. They stepped aside and allowed us through.
“Holy shit.” When I saw her, I pulled back, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Who in the hell could hate this woman enough to do such a thing?” Rue asked, clearly not expecting an answer.
We were stunned. I’d seen all manners of killing—knife wounds, bullet wounds, and beatings—but I’d never seen anyone shot as many times as Kim Whitman had been. She was tied to a chair with paracord, and the only reason the chair hadn’t tipped over from the numerous shots was because it was butted up against an interior wall, which was coated with blood spray, organ parts, and drip marks. Kim was nude, making every bullet hole easy to see. Rue and I moved in closer and counted. There looked to be seventeen holes.
I winced. “A little overkill, excuse the pun, but what the hell?”
Billy stopped taking pictures and addressed us. “Her nightclothes are on the bedroom floor. It appears that the killer got into the house somehow, took her by surprise while she slept, and for whatever reason, wanted to display her in this degrading way before ending her life.”
I nodded. “Make sure to take all the bed linens and her nightclothes back to the lab with you.” When Tapper Lowe, our county medical examiner, walked in, I turned. “There’s no question about how she died,” I said as he approached the body.
“Jesus.” He scratched the top of his head then scanned the floor. “Any shell casings?”
“Not that I’ve seen. He must have picked all of them up before he left.”
“And how many—”
I knew what Tapper was about to ask. “Seventeen. The killer obviously felt the need to empty the entire magazine on her. He must have used a silencer in order to fire off that many rounds without somebody hearing the shots.”
“Rage killing?”
“Too early to know anything. We literally got here twenty minutes ago.”
Tapper unfolded his portable stool, took a seat, and began the field exam. We stepped aside to look through the rooms after tasking the four officers to start the neighborhood knock and talks. We needed to know something other than the fact that Kim Whitman had been brutally murdered—and with no obvious reason for it staring us in the face. The house hadn’t been ransacked, nothing appeared to be stolen, and there was no forced entry either. Luckily, her phone remained next to her bed on the charger, and we would use that to call every person on her contact list.
“So, will that work for you? Earth to Cannon.” Rue shot a rubber band that hit me in the chest.
I frowned. “What the hell was that for?”
“Because I asked you a question, but it’s obvious you’re on a different planet right now. So, do you want to ride together to Kim’s funeral or not?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s leave at twelve fifteen. That’ll give us time to check out the crowd.”
“If there is a crowd. It doesn’t sound like there’s family in the area other than Danny. The mom and stepdad are dead, and she was his only sibling. Plus, it’s going to be a closed-coffin service. Pretty much a memorial and that’s it.”
I pointed my chin at the mounting stack of paperwork in front of me. “We need to go over everything again. Maybe we missed something.”
Rue groaned. “We didn’t miss anything, Mitch.”
“We must have since we don’t have a perp or a motive. The only thing we do know is that Tapper pulled out a dozen slugs from her body. The rest went through the wall. He’s guessing they came from a nine-millimeter handgun.”
Rue and I spent the next few hours going over the police reports, autopsy findings, and friends and family accounts of Kim, her life, and what she did on a daily basis. She was a thirty-four-year-old single woman—Danny said she was too picky—yet she was outgoing, belonged to a few clubs, and had two close girlfriends. Kim worked side by side with Danny in their bail recovery agency. She handled the paperwork, and Danny posted the bail and went after people who skipped town after being released from jail. Essentially, she handled the books, and Danny kicked in the doors. He’d lost not only his sister but his business partner too. I understood why he was so persistent and impatient. Our role in finding Kim’s killer wasn’t much different from his job chasing down jerks who skipped out on court dates. He would be on the hook for their bond, and a criminal would be in the wind.
