Also by Vincent Zandri

  A Chase Baker Thriller

  Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds

  A Chase Baker Thriller Series

  Young Chase Baker and the Cross of the Last Crusade

  A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 1

  The Shroud Key

  A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2

  Chase Baker and the Golden Condor

  A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 6

  Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity

  A Dick Moonlight PI Series

  Moonlight Falls

  Moonlight Weeps

  Moonlight Breaks Bad

  A Dick Moonlight PI Series Short

  Moonlight Gets Served

  Moonlight Goes Viral

  A Dick Moonlight PI Thriller

  Moonlight Falls: New and Lengthened Editor’s Cut Edition

  A Dick Moonlight Thriller Book 9

  Dog Day Moonlight

  A Gripping Ava "Spike" Harrison Thriller

  The Concrete Pearl

  A Gripping Dick Moonlight PI Thriller

  Moonlight Sonata

  A Gripping Tanya Teal Corporate War Chronicles Thriller

  Primary Termination

  (A Jack Marconi PI Series)

  The Guilty

  (A Keeper Marconi PI Thriller Book 5

  Dressed to Kill

  A Sam Savage Sky Marshal Thriller

  Dead Heading

  The Sam Savage Sky Marshal Boxed Set

  Tunnel Rats

  The Empire Runaway

  (A Thriller)

  The Scream Catcher

  A Vincent Zandri Hard-Boiled Short Read

  Bingo Night

  Pathological

  Dick Moonlight PI

  Full Moonlight

  PI Jack Marconi

  Arbor Hill

  The Handyman

  The Handyman: Full Season I

  The Handyman Season I, Episode I

  Lust and Letters

  (Vincent Zandri on Writing Book)

  Pieces of Mind: Fictional Truths & Non-Fictional Lies about Writing and the Writing Life

  Standalone

  Permanence: A Love and Death Story

  Head

  Pathological: Collected Short Reads of Sex, Lies, and Murder!

  Watch for more at Vincent Zandri’s site.

  Interested in free books and other specials? Please join Vincent’s “For your eyes only” mailing list today @ WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

  PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

  “Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.”

  —New York Post

  “(A) chilling tale of obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”

  —Booklist “Starred Review”

  “My fear level rose with this Zandri novel like it hasn't done before. Wondering what the killer had in store for Jude and seeing the ending, well, this is one book that will be with me for a long time to come!”

  —Reviews by Molly

  “I very highly recommend this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.”

  —Life in Review

  “(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”

  —The Times-Union (Albany)

  "The action never wanes."

  —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  "Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting."

  —Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years

  "Tough, stylish, heartbreaking."

  —Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.

  “A tightly crafted, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.”

  —MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure

  “A classic slice of raw pulp noir . . .”

  —William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob

  Other Novels by Vincent Zandri

  The Detonator

  When Shadows Come

  The Remains

  The Concrete Pearl

  Permanence

  The Scream Catcher

  Everything Burns

  Orchard Grove

  The Chase Baker Action/Adventure Series

  The Shroud Key

  Chase Baker and the Golden Condor

  Chase Baker and the God Boy

  Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse

  Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity

  Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal

  Chase Baker and the Dutch Diamonds

  The Jack Marconi PI Novels

  The Innocent

  Godchild

  The Guilty

  The Corruptions

  The Dick Moonlight PI Novels

  Moonlight Falls

  Moonlight Mafia

  Moonlight Rises

  Blue Moonlight

  Murder by Moonlight

  Moonlight Sonata

  Full Moonlight

  Moonlight Breaks Bad

  Moonlight Weeps

  Dog Day Moonlight

  Moonlight Gets Served

  A Dick Moonlight PI Short

  By Vincent Zandri

  CHAPTER 1

  I’m sitting at my desk in the second-floor office loft having a drink and cleaning my gun -when I hear the footsteps running, not walking, up the wood stairs.

  “Heels,” I tell myself. “Most definitely high heels.”

  I set the semi-automatic onto the desk, grab the bottle of Jack, do my best to shove it into the bottom drawer. But she’s already entered the office before I can manage to get the bottle from desktop to bottom desk drawer. Moonlight the slow-on-the-draw.

  “Fuck it,” I whisper to myself and set the bottle back down on the desk where it belongs in the first place. In fact, I set it right beside a sealed envelope that contains a summons and a set of divorce papers that are supposed to go to a lawyer who works in the high rent district down on State Street. I might have delivered it during normal business hours, but my client requested that I deliver it to a certain downtown Albany address at a certain hour of the early evening when for certain he’d be shacking up with his illicit affair. Sounded like a decent enough idea to me, even though it meant I’d be working late . . . again. But, as usual, I badly needed an injection of cashesh into a thoroughly hemorrhaged bank account.

  “Can you help me?” she says out-of-breath. “Help me, please.”

  First thing I notice, besides her panicked state, is how attractive she is with her long dark hair all mussed up. Big green eyes. Long legs. Nice rack. All of it neatly packaged in a tight, sleeveless lime-green dress that shows off gym-toned arms covered in tats. And those heels? Stilettos. Red. My favorite kind.

  “What is it you need?” I ask. “As you can see, I’m kind of busy.”

  “I’ve just been robbed,” she says. “Or, I mean, I’m being robbed.” Some of the mascara painted around her eyes is running down her face along with her tears. She’s really upset and if my eyes don’t deceive me, a little strung out.

  “Why don’t you call the cops?” I suggest. “And what did you say your name was again?”

  “I’m Carissa,” she says. “And you’re a detective, aren’t you? Says so on the sign nailed to the wall downstairs.”

  I should learn to lock the door at night.

  “Yeah, Carissa,” I say, leaning back in my swivel chair. “But I’m private. It’s not like I can arrest whoever robbed you or is, at present, robbing you.”

  She takes a step forward. Inhales. Exhales. When she pouts with those thick red lips, my heart sinks into my stomach.

  “I can’t exactly go to the police,” she says. “Not in my line of work.”

  A lightbulb flashes on over my head. Sometimes my brain doesn’t always work as quickly as it should. I’m lucky to be alive, truth be told. Not many men can live after attempting to blow their brains out. But I was lucky to get away with screwing up the suicide attempt. In the end, just a piece of .22 caliber hollow point lodged itself inside my brain right beside my cerebral cortex. As for the medical prognosis? Situation inoperable. Major problem these days is, I could die at any second. The lesser problem is that during times of stress, I sometimes make the wrong decision. The fucked up decision.

  For instance, right now . . . right this very second . . . I am fully aware that I should do the right thing and tell this hooker to buzz off. That I should concentrate on the task at hand and deliver those divorce papers to the specified party at the appointed hour. But instead, my eyes lock on this damsel in distress . . . this castaway. Her green eyes pull me in as she slowly crosses the wood plank floor, her heels providing the rhythmic drum beat to her swaying hips.

  When she comes around the desk and positions herself behind me, her long fingers and red-painted nails pressing against my chest, I hear that little voice inside my head telling me to kick her lovely heart-shaped ass right out the door and down the stairs. Absolutely nothing good can come of this. But then, there’s the voice inside my other head screaming at me to bend her over the desk, pull her skirt up, yank her panties down, and enter into that most lovely of warm, wet lovelies. Do it before I change my mind.

  “Can’t you please help me, Mr. Moonlight?” she says, in the saddest heartbreaking voice you ever heard. “That is your name, isn’t it? Moonlight?”

  “I have another job to take care of,” I confess. “Can’t your’s wait a little while?”

  “He’s in my place right this second. If we leave now, we can catch him in the act. Please, I’m only down the road. It won’t take you but a few minutes.” She runs her hand down until it’s rubbing my hardness through my black jeans. “I promise to make it worth your while, big fella.”

  “It is kinda big, isn’t it?” I whisper.

  “I’ll say,” she says, her voice deep, sultry. “I don’t know if I’d be able to fit it all in my mouth.”

  That does it.

  I push out my chair and stand. I pick up my gun, slap a full magazine into the grip, then shove it into my shoulder holster. Grabbing the summons, I shove that into the interior pocket on my leather coat. Maybe I can kill two birds.

  “Let’s go get this bastard,” I insist. “Make him regret the day he was born.”

  CHAPTER 2

  We exit my riverside office in the abandoned Port of Albany and take my dad’s old black 1978 hearse into the heart of the city. Not far from where I’m supposed to be serving the divorce papers in five or so minutes.

  She points me in the direction of Lark Street where all those Victorian townhouses still stand, most of them converted into cheap walk-up apartments with the first floors converted into head shops, tattoo parlors, gay bars, or Ben and Jerry’s overpriced ice cream parlors.

  We climb four flights of stairs until we come to a top floor that’s been divided up into four cramped apartments.

  “That’s me there,” she says. Then, her ear pressed against the door, she raises her index finger, presses it against her luscious lipstick red lips. “Shhhhhhhh. Be quiet. I think he’s still in there.”

  I draw my gun, thumb the safety off.

  “You really gotta use that, Mr. Moonlight?” she says. “Guns scare me.”

  “You want me to do my job or not, lady?”

  She cocks her head towards the door.

  “Just remember,” she whispers. “You shoot him, you won’t be able to go to the cops. You’d have to dispose of the body all by yourself.”

  “I just plan on scaring him a little is all.”

  She raises the gold chain hanging from her neck and reveals a single key that’s connected to it. Pulling off the chain, she slips the key into the door lock.

  “Allow me,” I say, grabbing her arm, pulling her backward. “You stay close behind.”

  I twist the lock slowly, turn the opener counter-clockwise. The door opens. I give her a look like, I’m going in.

  Her face tight as a tick, green eyes wide, she nods.

  Gun gripped in my hand, palms sweaty, heart beating in my throat, I step inside the dark apartment . . .

  CHAPTER 3

  “Whaddya wanna do with him?” A man’s voice. It’s the first thing I hear when I come to.

  “I don’t know, Brad,” says a voice I recognize. A female voice. Definitely the voice that belongs to the tall drink of poison water that arrived at my office unannounced and uninvited this evening.

  Carissa.

  “Whaddya mean you don’t know, doll?” the man says. “We can’t just keep him tied up like this. We gotta take care of him like we planned. You know, before the wife shows up. Shoot him in the brains.”

  If that last comment doesn’t loosen my bowels, nothing will. I attempt to shift myself on the chair, but the hold is too tight.

  Here’s the deal. I’m blindfolded and tied to a ladder-back chair with arm rests. Rather, not tied, but duct-taped. Wrists bound together behind my back, ankles bound to the chair legs, respectively. There’s a piece of tape covering my mouth so I can’t say shit. The blindfold, however, is a kerchief. The kind for blowin’ not showin’. It’s not all that tight around my eyes so if I position my head at just the right angle, I can aim my eyes downward and at least get a look at their legs and feet.

  Carissa’s still got on those stiletto heels, and he — Brad — is wearing loose charcoal trousers with two-inch cuffs, blue and white polka dot socks, and a pair of black Gucci loafers that would cost me a small mortgage. That is, I had any credit.

  “Moonlight’s kind of cute,” she says. “Kind of sexy. Be a shame to have to kill him prematurely.”

  That’s it, baby. Stall, stall, stall . . .

  “All you think about is sex, Carissa,” Brad says. “You’re a freak. A freak of nature.” I hear him inhaling on something. And I smell dope. Definitely dope. Maybe laced with something else. Like smack or crack. I hear him drinking too. Ice cubes clinking in a glass. Scotch. I can bet it’s scotch. I can bet broads-to-bullets they’re wired out, on edge, fucked up.

  Carissa says, “You happen to enjoy the freak of nature quite a bit these days. And give me a hit off that. I’m coming down already.”

  “I blame my parents,” he says. “They didn’t raise me right. All those dirty magazines they had all over the trailer. All that dope they used to smoke. The way I was raised, it’s a wonder I was able to put myself through law school without getting arrested for touching some underage teen.”

  He’s a lawyer. Interesting. His name is Brad, too. Sounds familiar. Maybe too familiar. But why did Carissa accuse him of stealing from her? Why did she come all the way to my office to bring me back here only to tie me up? What the hell is she talking about when she says they’re supposed to kill me before the wife shows up? Doesn’t make an ounce of sense.

  “It’s okay, honey,” she says. “I don’t mean to upset you. Here, let me take care of you.”

  I shift my head so I can get a look at what she’s doing. Damn if she isn’t lowering herself onto her knees. She’s unbuckling his belt, pulling his pants down. She’s taking him in her mouth, working the hell out of him.

  That’s where I stop watching.

  “Yeah, sweetheart,” he moans. “You know just what to do.”

  A silence then fills the apartment that’s not really silent. There’s the flesh-on-flesh sound of her working him, and the traffic below on Lark Street, and somebody in a nearby apartment blaring classic rock. Free Bird. I fucking hate Free Bird.

  Then, “Wait, Carissa,” he says. “Don’t make me cum yet. I want you to do something for me. Something nice.”

  She stops. “What is it?” she asks.

  “Take a look at Moonlight,” he says. “You seein’ what I’m seein’?”

  They shift themselves so that they’re facing me.

  “My, my,” she says. “He’s got quite the tent pole going, now doesn’t he?”

  Maybe I can’t see the tent pole she’s referring too, but I can damn well feel it. Moonlight the head-case.

  “Tell you what,” Brad says, “why don’t you ride him for a while, and I’ll take a picture or two.”

  “Bradley,” she snaps. “You naughty boy.”

  “Come on, Carissa baby,” Brad says. “You know I like watching you. It’s one of my favorite things. And having Moonlight here, tied up like that, well, it’s like a freebie. An opportunity we can’t pass up.”

  She slowly gets up off her knees.

  “Well, since you put it that way,” she says.

  I see her use her hand to lift her skirt and drop her black lace thong. She kicks the thong to the side, steps over to me. She unbuckles my belt and unzips my pants. Meanwhile, the adrenaline pumped into my brain is reaching a boiling point.

 

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