Pisces: Murders of the Zodiac, #2

By Paris Morgan

After a series of unexplainable suicides, Detective Jesse Burns is at his wits end. Are these deaths part of a suicide cult, or an internet challenge gone horribly wrong? When he feels he's being watched, he knows he's missing something.

When Ryan Foxe receives a cryptic call from Jesse before he's hurt, Ryan has no choice but to join the search for the elusive killer. They believed the "Birthday Killer" to be dead, but a mysterious note hints that he's not done just yet…

The haunting message left on their desk reveals that whoever sent it is obsessed with Ryan and Leslie. Fear is building that there is still a madman on the loose, Ryan needs to convince Leslie to join forces once again to take down a killer.

With Jessie is in a coma and once again it's up to Ryan and Leslie to find the killer before more bloody birthday surprises arrive. But this time the killer wants to play, and Ryan and Leslie have no choice, but to follow the clues that will take them on a dangerous chase.

Paris Morgan writes a gripping psychological thriller that will have you racing towards the last page only to realize nothing is as it seems. Pisces is the second book in the Murders of the Zodiac series where each book dishes up a spine-tingling murder.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Misdirected Tales
• Release date: Dec 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798223671022

Book preview

Prologue

Zodiac Killer

D o you understand your instructions? the voice on the other end of the phone questioned.

Yes, sir. I have planned everything according to your wishes.

Have you taken care of every contingency? My last apprentice didn’t fare well and died only last night because he didn’t follow the plan.

Yes, sir. I have no personal interest in the targets and will do only as you’ve instructed. I will not let you down. Determination laced the apprentice’s words as their fingers tightened on the phone.

See that you do.

The line went dead, and the apprentice’s anger-fueled into a flame that would block out the cold weather blowing through the holes in the walls.

I cannot fail you, master. If I fail, then my reasons for existing would be for nothing, and I must prove there is a purpose for my life. The words echoed in the almost empty room, but the eyes that surveyed it in a final farewell could only see the past staining the walls.

Chapter 1

Jesse

T his is dispatch. We have a possible dead body and need a detective to respond. The radio crackled in my unit. I reached for the button with a sigh. Detective Burns responding.

My day had already been a long one, and there were only thirty minutes left before the next shift came on to take over. It was just my luck to get a call that would put me into overtime again.

I pulled up to a small home in an older neighborhood and parked behind the ambulance.

What do we have going on here? The EMTs were milling about, so I assumed that the person was already deceased.

Oh, hey. We got a call, but the fellow was already gone. I’d say he dived early this morning. Nothing we could do for him. The patrol officer pointed to the house behind him.

Still have to conclude if it was self-harm or foul play.

That’s why they pay you the big bucks. He grinned at me.

Right. I think it just means more headaches for me. I climbed up the three steps into the house and was greeted with a grotesque sight.

The man’s body was hanging from the small landing that led up into the dining room. The railing that was supposed to protect someone from falling hadn’t done a thing for him. He wasn’t a huge guy, and the fall, or jump, had managed to cut off his airway. His eyes looked ready to explode from their sockets.

Now to do my job and determine if this guy had just given up on life, or if he had a little help in leaving this world.

The backdoor barely opened when I tried it, so that didn’t seem like a good place to enter. None of the windows were open, or showed any signs of forced entry.

His office held the key to who he was; a single man that worked for an energy company’s accounting department. George West was only a mid-level man that didn’t have any extreme vices, if his bills and credit cards statements were to be trusted.

Sir? An officer poked his head inside the office where I was riffling through the deceased’s papers.

Yes?

The coroner would like to know if he can take the body, or if you need to leave it a little while longer?

Dead bodies weren’t my favorite thing, especially ones that had been sitting for a while. Those were even worse. But still, there might be something, no matter how small, that hadn’t been noticed when they were moving about that would give me some answers.

Did you find anything to determine the cause of death?

The guy from the coroner’s office gave me a look. You mean, besides the fact that his head almost came off from the rope around his neck?

Yeah, actually. Could he have done this to himself?

From the way his body is hanging over the small railing, I’d say he judged it just right before he did it. If he had been pushed, you would see more bruising on his face and body. Unless there’s a lot more than what’s on the surface, then I’m going to rule that he did this to himself.

Just wanted a second opinion. There are scuff marks down here at the base of the wall where it looks like he backed up to make sure that his feet wouldn’t hit the floor.

I would have to agree. The coroner’s assistant didn’t even bother to glance down at the wall, as if anything other than suicide was the answer.

Do we know who found him? I asked to the room of techs and officers standing around.

Someone snickered. His mother.

Seriously. How did we know that he required help?

His mother called it in, asking for us to do a well check, the patrol officer I’d met outside answered. He was supposed to call her yesterday, and she’d been calling us every few hours since. So, we did a drive-by, but nothing looked out of place. When she called again this afternoon, we got permission to enter the residence and found his body.

Okay. Have we informed the mother of what happened?

No, sir. We did send the request over to her town’s officers so that they could make an in-person visit.

Send me her info so that I can do a follow-up tomorrow in case we missed something. But I’m going to say this is a closed case. Clean it up. I’m gonna go and write up my report.

By the time I finished writing it up, it was two hours past quitting time. It was a toss-up between going through the drive-through or taking a chance that I’d left something to eat in the fridge, so I decided that a meal on the road would be better than sleeping on an empty stomach.

Since my ex and I had parted ways two years ago, I didn’t do any grocery shopping unless it was my weekend with the kids. I hated to cook, and usually tried to buy things that were easy to heat up. During the winter months, my go-to foods were soup or stew that I could make from cans and reheat quickly. This job had taken a toll on my life.

When I entered my small apartment, the empty feeling hit me. I’d never tried to make this a home, and while my kids had never complained, I knew it made a difference. One day, when I actually got a day off, I would have to do some decorating. At least I took out the trash regularly and managed to keep all the dark thoughts away most days.

Suicides were always difficult, especially when there wasn’t an obvious reason for it. I understood being at the point where the world seemed to attack on all sides and there wasn’t a clear way out. Didn’t mean that I wanted to end things like that, but thoughts could hit when you least expect them.

My divorce had taken me to the lowest point of my life, and when it wasn’t certain that I’d get to see my kids, I’d thought about ending it all.

I shook off the gloom and went to get a plate from the cabinet. The only way to help get all this off my mind was by downing a few beers and filling up my stomach. I needed to forget about it all, whatever it took.

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I sat straight up in bed when I heard a noise. Even in my groggy state, my instincts kicked in. Grabbing my gun and throwing the covers off, I moved to the front room and found a huge branch had fallen against the sliding window.

After taking a few moments to check the rest of the apartment, the cold hit my body, reminding me that I was standing in my living room, holding a gun while in my boxers.

Back in bed, I continued to shiver. This suicide was bothering me, and I couldn’t put a finger on as to why it did. I’d worked with others that hadn’t unnerved me this much.

George West hadn’t been terribly old, probably close to thirty. That’s what I was missing. He had died on his birthday. While that wasn’t unusual for people who felt all alone, his mother persistently requesting a well check made me think that this was totally out of the blue. He hadn’t been showing signs that he was dissatisfied with life.

Hey, Ryan just solved the case of the birthday killer. I wonder if he might have some ideas? I picked up the phone to dial when I saw that it was 3 a.m. I’d just have to wait and call him in the morning. No one wanted to wake up a fellow detective in the middle of the night unless they absolutely had to.

I fell into a restless sleep, dreaming of a lady standing over me with a noose, telling me that I had to pay for what I’d done to her. It kept repeating in different versions, and when I woke up several hours later, nothing I did shook off the feeling of doom.

My phone beeped with a text: Body discovered, with an address on the outskirts of Green Bay.

A shower was a must, but I didn’t hang out because I wanted to breathe in some fresh air before arriving at the scene.

Thirty minutes later, I was there. The atmosphere was much different than the one from last night.

The body was lying on the floor at an awkward angle, with a rope around its neck.

Do we know what happened? I asked, waiting to be filled in on the details.

The lady across the street called us because he hadn’t gotten his paper from yesterday or today. She claims that it’s unusual for him because he’s very invested in the financial sections. The few times he’s left town, he’s had someone pick it up for him and check on his cat.

Are we thinking it was an accident, considering the way he’s lying there? I cocked my head to the side, looking at the coroner’s assistant.

Honestly, I think he jumped and the rope couldn’t hold him. He died, but it wasn’t by asphyxiation. It was a broken neck.

Great, another suicide has gone wrong, I muttered under my breath. I guess the upside is that he didn’t suffer by hanging until he died.

It was curious that he was also into financials, but he didn’t work for the same company as George West had, so that wasn’t a connection.

While we didn’t see a ton of suicides regularly, it wasn’t uncommon. The weather affected people differently, and the fact that it had been cold for a large portion of the year could cause someone to snap. Two in just as many days was unusual, though, and they both worked in finance, so I would have to check with a few experts to see if a certain piece of stock had dropped drastically or something. ---------

I didn’t get my kids very often because I was one of the few trained detectives in our division at the moment. We were greatly understaffed, but they were recruiting more every day to take the detective’s test. Hopefully, this overworked schedule would slow down.

The suicides, or murders, as I was beginning to think of them, had ended as suddenly as they’d begun, and I wasn’t about to complain because I missed my kids, and needed to get my head in the right space for a few days.

Patti and her brother, Charlie, were excited to spend the night with me because we had plans to go fishing the next day. Patti wasn’t as much of a fan of catching the fish, but she loved it when I let her be in charge of the tiller, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Pizza was our main source of food, and there were at least four or more different places that delivered to our door, so we never had