Last Ditch Effort Read online

  Last Ditch Effort

  Moonlight Detective Agency™ Book One

  Isobella Crowley

  Ell Leigh Clarke

  Michael Anderle

  This book is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 Isobella Crowley, Ell Leigh Clarke & Michael T. Anderle

  Cover by Fantasy Book Design

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  This book is a Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, September 2019

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-455-5

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-456-2

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Author Notes - Isobella Crowley

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Books written by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Books By Michael Anderle

  Connect with Michael Anderle

  Last Ditch Effort Team

  Thanks to our Beta Readers:

  Mary Morris, Chrisa Changala, John Ashmore, Larry Omans, Kelly O’Donnell, Diane L. Smith, Suellen Wiseman, Sara Keyes, Jackey Hankard-Brodie

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Dave Hicks

  Deb Mader

  John Ashmore

  Jackey Hankard-Brodie

  Jeff Eaton

  Dorothy Lloyd

  James Caplan

  Peter Manis

  Micky Cocker

  Nicole Emens

  Timothy Cox (the myth)

  Misty Roa

  If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  SkyHunter Editing Team

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  to Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  to Live the Life We Are

  Called.

  Prologue

  In a dark and cavernous space, ancient stone ground heavily against stone and the scraping rasp echoed with mock finality. The lids of coffins, particularly those crafted in distant times, were not made to be opened and closed more than once.

  Soon, the noise ceased and silence returned. The coffin was again still, its covering perfectly aligned with its body.

  Those with sight that could penetrate the darkness would have seen a beautiful coffin, whose crisp, elaborate carvings had softened very little despite the long span of time since the ancient artists had shaped the stone.

  It was an old, ornate house, which had been there almost as long as New York City had been independent of the Crown. The great metropolis was not far. But there, in the far and wooded outskirts, one could easily forget the city’s proximity or even its existence. The venerable trees were both tall and dense. Dawn was delayed by their grasping arms that blocked out most of New York’s light and noise and activity, just as they blocked the sun when first it began to peek over the horizon.

  But each day, the sunlight crept in and filled the sky beyond with blazing light. And although the coffin’s inhabitant would have no way of knowing, it promised to be a beautiful day.

  Chapter One

  Midtown Manhattan, New York City

  Most people would have been horrified.

  It would be a rare privilege to ascend to the top of the finest condominium in all of Manhattan and see the palatial penthouse, where most plebeians could never, ever afford to live. And then, if a visitor stepped through the door for the proverbial unveiling, they would find the place utterly trashed.

  The expected opulence would be little more than polished turd—a gilded shithole and the obvious abode of a gold-plated shithead.

  Of course, David Remington—the sole permanent resident and scion to the vast wealth of the New York Remingtons—had been called far worse things than that. Had someone flung such feeble insults directly into his face, he would not have cared.

  In all honesty, he didn’t really care about most things.

  He had been unconscious—for one reason or another—and sprawled on the perfectly-shaped cushions of his loveseat in only his silk boxers. Now, however, he began to stir and wake up.

  The inane prattle from his state-of-the-art television with its intricate sound system was what woke him. A news anchor with a standard-issue newsman’s voice—a clear, self-important monotone and clipped, well-enunciated delivery—seemed to go on and on. His alcohol-dampened brain began to recognize the words.

  “Two weeks ago,” the uninspiring anchor said, “we reported on an incident in which the police were called to restore order at the bacchanalian bash hosted by a wealthy Manhattan playboy.”

  David allowed one eye to drift open. He wondered who they could possibly be talking about.

  “A number of lawsuits were issued in the wake of the chaos. Due to confidentiality issues—as well as the fact that this is a family-friendly program—we cannot divulge all the details. However, information is still coming in, even now, and we do have one important update. The lawsuits are still being pursued. There are, at present, no fewer than three of them.”

  He rubbed the one eye that seemed to have returned to life. “No, they’re not still being pursued, you imbecile. Not all of them.” He scowled with moody displeasure while he fumbled beside the loveseat for the familiar and comforting neck of a large glass bottle. “We’re down to two. I paid that slut in Twelve-A off with a spare Rolex last week. Get your research right—there might be more after last night, after all.”

  If there was anything he truly hated, it was journalists. They prided themselves on informing the public but half the time, they couldn’t even inform themselves.

  His fingers finally brushed glass and with tremendous relief, he wrapped his hand around it and hoisted it up with a semblance of a grin. It felt awfully light. He held it in front of his eye and his grin turned to a frown when he saw it was empty.

  “Fuck.” He tossed it halfheartedly to the floor, the thud muffled by his excellent plush carpets. They absorbed sound almost as well as they absorbed fluids of various kinds.

  With a heavy sigh, David decided he ought to open the other eye. It took a fair amount of effort but he managed. The lids and lashes parted, and depth perception returned to his otherwise fuzzy and blurred vision.

  And now, he realized, came the hard part—getting up.

  “Uhhh…” He rocked forward to test the proverbial waters. Moving his head did feel like bein
g on a boat in a storm, so the metaphor was apt. He took a couple of deep breaths before he made another attempt.

  This time, he summoned enough momentum to roll clumsily forward, far enough that his feet had no choice but to spasm off the couch and find the floor to support him.

  David wobbled but did not fall. He also heaved but did not vomit. That reassured him that he was doing fairly well thus far.

  He was still a young man—relatively—but not as young as he used to be. It showed in a weakened resilience to the ravages of partying. There ought to be, he thought, some kind of boot camp to prepare people for this kind of shit.

  And he’d not even done any of the drugs which had been passed around last night—joints and lines and colorful pills. Wasn’t sticking to booze supposed to be healthier?

  The dizziness and nausea eventually subsided after a couple of long, deep breaths. A little more sure of himself, he rubbed his eyes and looked around.

  Someone would definitely have to do some cleaning. Sadly, the last few cleaning services he had engaged had all terminated their services with him, stating unreasonable working conditions. This was an issue he might have to contemplate resolving right away.

  “My friends,” he observed, “are all mysteriously gone.” They must have wanted to give him time to himself since they were such good friends and all. He’d wager that they’d even continue to respect his space and privacy if he were to call them and ask them to come over to help tidy up the present fiasco.

  He picked at a crust that had formed in the corner of his eye and tried to ignore the inner sinking feeling as he surveyed the devastation. Ridiculously, he felt like a politician making a show of touring a natural-disaster area.

  “Ugh. I might actually have to do this myself.” Something brushed against his toes. He glanced down at it and noted with approval that his vision was returning to normal, which meant he hadn’t permanently damaged his eyesight. That old saying about “drinking yourself blind” was full of shit. However, everything about headaches was all true.

  The object at his feet was a disposable takeout container that had probably contained Chinese or Thai food at some point but now held a mixture of ashes, seeds, and torn condom wrappers. It gaped like someone who had passed out, open-mouthed, with their head sprawled back on the floor.

  David knelt and closed the carton. He picked it up, along with a few other random scraps of party detritus, and went in search of a trash can.

  Bizarrely enough, it almost felt good to do this. For a moment, it occurred to him that he might even be accomplishing something.

  The problem was that he couldn’t find any of the fucking trash cans. The penthouse was large enough that they could be anywhere. Wasn’t there generally a big one next to the kitchen sink?

  “Where are you?” he asked and grimaced when he heard how wheezy his voice sounded. “Bastard. Trying to evade your duties.” He was now tired of holding the carton and all the other garbage.

  A hasty exploration under the sink unearthed a plastic trash bag. Relieved, he stuffed the flotsam and jetsam elbow-deep into it and left the bag on the floor for now. It was a start.

  “Maybe,” he suggested, “I should drink some water. Eat some food. Something like that…”

  He had drunk an entire glass of water last night and he was very proud of himself. But perhaps he needed more than one? And he’d forgotten the aspirin.

  Unfortunately, he made the mistake of opening his refrigerator.

  “What?” he exclaimed and his jaw dropped. “How the hell did the trash can get in here?”

  Someone had removed one of the empty shelves and placed it lengthwise against the inner wall of the fridge before they shoved the trash receptacle into the wide bottom space that was left. David was almost angry but mostly merely flabbergasted.

  He shook his head and seized the can by its edge. It was slick with cold condensation and it took a fair amount of effort to pull it out. He had to jerk it a little from side to side to gradually free it from its tight and chafing confinement.

  This made it impossible not to imagine the difficulties that must have been involved in putting it there, to begin with. The person responsible would have had considerable time to think about what they were doing—although whether they had been capable of thinking at that point was open to debate.

  When David finally managed to yank the can out, he found it was stuffed with food. He selected a bag of shredded cheese and sniffed it.

  “Oh, God.” He gasped and immediately recognized his mistake. “Why didn’t I throw this out sooner?” He dropped it back into the garbage can. It occurred to him that whoever had put the thing in the goddamn fridge might have been trying to control the stench by preventing all this crap from ever reaching room temperature. There was a certain logic to that.

  Other, similar smells were everywhere, though. He looked around, sniffed again, and once more felt his gorge rising. It took a fair amount of effort to force it down.

  “And this is why I stay drunk,” he remarked to the room at large.

  By this he meant events of the kind that had taken place last night, not to mention two weeks before. It also included mornings like the present one. These were the types of things that had happened far too often for the last decade or more.

  When he thought about it, this really meant his entire life.

  He removed the mostly full bag from the can, tied it off, and set it aside. He replaced it with the mostly empty one into which he’d shoved the carton a moment before. So armed, he made his rounds through his living space to impose order upon the chaos. As he picked things up, he noted their existence and hastily disposed of them.

  “One more or less clean pair of panties with a bow on the front. Bow untied.” He flung them into the receptacle and moved on.

  “One syringe, residual contents unidentified and possibly unidentifiable. Which is probably as well for the good of mankind.” Into the trash it went.

  “One opened can of expensive caviar mixed with vomit.” He unfortunately had to pause his process to clean the vomit that surrounded said can. This unpleasant experience made him truly long for a restorative drink.

  And so it went, seemingly without end. After half an hour, though, he had made considerable progress—an entire quarter of his living room now looked perilously close to being fit for human habitation.

  Once the bag was full, he decided he needed a break—the type best taken leaned over the toilet while he supported himself against the wall with one hand.

  David walked to the bathroom, opened the door, and stepped in.

  “Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker!” he screamed and he stumbled out, his face ashen and sweat running down his temples and jawline.

  That was it. He had, beyond any possible doubt, reached the limits of his ability to resolve this predicament on his own.

  “Why?” he gasped. “Dear God, why?” He shuddered, closed his eyes, and wiped a hand over his face.

  Finally, he straightened with grim resolve and made a solemn vow.

  “I don’t care how much it costs—I will find cleaners in this damn city. That is a job only professionals could manage.”

  A series of sharp knocks interrupted his nascent plan. Someone was at the door.

  Soundview Waterfront, The Bronx, New York City

  The small man was dressed far too nicely for this neighborhood. Especially at this hour of the night.

  He rarely ventured this far into the Outer Boroughs and when he did, it was generally during the day and with a specific destination in mind. Usually, it would be somewhere reasonable and respectable—a legitimate business, a cultural event, or a landmark he’d always wanted to see.

  A location where no one would question the presence of a diminutive, pudgy, middle-aged accountant.

  This current location, however, was the complete opposite. Anyone who saw him now would know he had no good reason to be here.

  Very ill at ease, he looked around. “Which all
ey?” There were two that looked probable. He opted to stand where he was for a moment and consider both of them before he reached his own conclusion as to which one James had meant.

  The neighborhood was well-suited to the night’s business—an almost abandoned slum that sprawled next to a desolate waterfront. He looked inland for a moment, through and past the shadowed alleys, decaying houses, shuttered stores, and old, creaky apartment buildings that brooded in the dim city night.

  Behind him, water lapped faintly against the rotting wood and weathered concrete of a pier. There was something vaguely sinister and downright unwholesome about its irregular sloshes and gurgles.

  The accountant took a couple of steps forward into the stark, cold-white glow of the streetlamp. His hands looked ghoulish in the light when they emerged from the cuffs of his crisp, charcoal-hued suit so he could read the note again, instructing him where to meet his contact.

  Making his presence so obvious was risky but the individual he’d come to meet needed to know that he had, indeed, shown up for the appointment. Truancy was a far greater risk than visibility.

  Thick, hot sweat formed on the accountant’s chest and under his armpits to roll down his body beneath the suit in fat, acrid beads. More perspiration appeared on his palms. He wiped his hands on his pants and stepped forward, out of the light and back into darkness.