West End Justice (Detective Morgan Foster Vigilante Justice Thriller Book 1) Read online

  WEST END JUSTICE

  KJ KALIS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 KJ Kalis

  eISBN 978-1-955990-06-6

  ISBN 978-1-955990-07-3

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved, no part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise including technology to be yet released), without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher are 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.

  Published by:

  BDM, LLC

  ALSO BY K.J. KALIS:

  The Kat Beckman Thriller Series

  The Cure

  Fourteen Days

  Burned

  The Blackout

  The Bloody Canvas

  Sauk Valley Killer

  * * *

  The Emily Tizzano Vigilante Justice Thriller Series

  Twelve Years Gone

  Lakeview Vendetta

  Victim 14

  * * *

  The Jess Montgomery Thrillers

  The Trident Conspiracy

  The Patriarch Code

  Never Call Home

  * * *

  The Detective Morgan Foster Vigilante Justice Thriller Series

  West End Justice

  Blister

  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

  Epilogue

  Girls are dying…

  A Note from the Author…

  1

  Morgan Foster sat in her pickup truck for a few minutes before she dared to open the locked door. It was dark, the West Virginia mountains soaked with a round of bone-chilling spring rain. It was the kind of rain that got into your bones. Morgan glanced down at her cell phone. It was five minutes until five, just enough time to make it into work before her breakfast shift started. “Five a.m. is too early to do anything,” she grumbled. Morgan reached down into the cup holder for a ponytail holder and tied her shoulder-length black hair behind her head. Adjusting it, she could see the evidence of blonde roots. She’d need to color her hair again soon. Grimacing at how tight the ponytail was, she tugged at the strands of hair a little bit. If she didn’t tie it back, Stuart and Jenny would yell at her before her shift at the truck stop restaurant ever got started.

  Morgan glanced out of the truck window one more time before putting her hand on the door handle. She hoped Danny would get himself to the bus on time. She should have gotten him a car already. He was seventeen after all. His dad, Peter, would have done it the minute he’d gotten his license, but Peter was dead. A shiver ran down her spine, the same feeling she had every time she thought about the day she found Peter murdered. She pushed the thought out of her head and stared toward the truck stop. The rain was streaming down the windshield, everything cold was icing up within seconds. Behind her, she could hear the sound of the tractor-trailer wheels humming on the freeway not far from where she’d parked. There were a couple big rigs pulled up under the industrial-sized canopy that covered the fill-up station, plus a few passenger cars and a couple of delivery trucks waiting for their tanks to fill. The morning used to be her favorite time of the day. It wasn’t anymore.

  After checking the lot, Morgan unlocked the door and pushed it open, flipping the hood on her jacket up, shoving her hands deep into her pockets as she locked the truck, dropping the keys inside. The rain was coming in sheets, pelting her face as she crossed the parking lot, making it hard to see. It hadn’t been raining when she left her apartment. A sudden squall must have blown up over the mountains, covering everything in a cold damp sheet of slushy weather. With any luck, it would all melt and be gone by the time she left work. Morgan pressed her lips together and stared down at the ground, her eyes only focused on putting one foot in front of the next. In the dark, it was hard to see where she was walking. The glare of the headlights from the trucks crisscrossing the parking lot temporarily blinded her as she made her way towards the door of the truck stop restaurant. As she glanced up at the doorway, trying to see how far she was from shelter from the driving rain, she accidentally stepped in a puddle, the cold water seeping into her tennis shoe and getting absorbed by her sock. “Come on!” she shouted, trying to shake the water out of her shoe. Before she could, she heard the honk of a semi horn right behind her, making her jump from the parking lot onto the sidewalk. As she glanced back, she saw the driver with both of his hands in the air as if he was telling her to pay attention. She gave a brief wave over her shoulder and ducked her head again, trying not to curse him out. It wasn’t a good start to the day.

  Pushing the door to the West End Restaurant open, Morgan stood in the doorway for a second, watching the droplets of rain fall from her jacket onto the floor. She sighed. Five days a week over the last two years, she’d made the journey from the parking lot into the building, most of the days in the dark. It had been her only job since she and Danny arrived in West Virginia.

  The West End Restaurant wasn’t typical for truck stops positioned along the highway, especially in a rural area like where she lived in West Virginia. Positioned strategically between West Alexander and Claysville, the truck stop was perched on a stretch of I-70 that was dotted with nothing more than small towns, their economies barely large enough to sustain the people that had lived there for generations and whose jobs had gotten eliminated or absorbed with the popularity or unpopularity of coal mining, agriculture or one of the other industries West Virginia offered, depending on the politicians in charge at the moment. West End was no exception to the swaying tide of the economy. The thing that made it different though was the truck stop restaurant. When Morgan met Stuart and Jenny Clark, the owners, they didn’t look like the typical truck stop restaurant owners. Both of them were neatly groomed and fit, each having an accent that told Morgan they weren’t originally from the area. They had a southern accent, but it seemed tinged with something of not just the East Coast. Where they were actually from, though, Morgan couldn’t tell. She’d never been good at accents anyways. “We have a dream for this truck stop, Maddie,”
Stuart had said to Morgan as he walked her through the restaurant on her first day. “We want to offer the best food a truck stop has ever offered this side of the Mississippi. I’m not just talking your normal eggs and hash and cheeseburgers and over-salted, limp, greasy fries, but gourmet burgers, eggs Benedict with lobster, you know, things like that.”

  Morgan nodded, feeling a little bit confused. Didn’t Stuart know they were in the middle of nowhere?

  As he walked her around the restaurant, he pointed to Jenny, “That’s my wife, Jenny. She manages the front of the house and bakes all of our desserts. We even make homemade bagels and biscuits here. This isn’t your traditional truck stop restaurant. If you want to work here, you’re going to have to work hard. Does that sound like something you’re interested in, Maddie?”

  Every time Stuart said her new name, Morgan bristled. She didn’t want to be called Maddie Franklin, but that was the name that the US Marshals had given her when she relocated from Florida after entering the WITSEC program. “Sure,” she said, trying to sound enthusiastic about Stuart’s vision for the truck stop. Whether it would work or not, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. She was there in body, but definitely not in spirit. Honestly, she didn’t really care what happened to the truck stop as long as there was a paycheck at the end of every couple of weeks. It was money she’d need to support her and Danny until she could figure out her next step. Not that she had many options after what happened...

  Standing inside the doorway, Morgan noticed the light was off in the kitchen, the little window on the swinging door between the kitchen and the serving area black, no light behind it. By now, Stuart and Jenny were usually in the kitchen, the buttery smell of biscuits coming out of the oven, Stuart working on whipping up batches of Japanese pancakes and French crepes filled with fruit and cream cheese filling. The truck stop restaurant opened at six, unlike many of its counterparts in the area that were open twenty-four hours a day, but Stuart didn’t think they could afford to be open all night, at least not yet. “We can’t pay staff all night long. There’s just not enough money in it,” he told Morgan after her first day. “So, if you can get here at five, Maddie, we can get the restaurant open by six. That will make the truckers that have a long day ahead of them happy. We’ll get a good meal into their bellies and send them on their way.”

  After working at the restaurant for a couple of years, Morgan knew exactly what to do before her shift. As soon as she got in, she checked the tables, started the coffee and hot water for people who wanted hot tea or coffee to go and stacked cups nearby. She swept the floor and got piles of plates ready for Stuart while Jenny was finishing some of the baking. Part of her was always curious what time they got to the restaurant, but part of her really didn’t care. Squinting, she took off her jacket and hung it out one of the hooks by the front door wondering why the kitchen light was off.

  Although the food at the West End Restaurant was upscale, the setting definitely wasn’t. It had all of the markings of a truck stop that was in desperate need of an update. Cracked red vinyl seats on chairs and booths paired with pale yellow Formica tables dotted the space. There was a long semi-circle bar that separated the kitchen from the dining area, stools every couple of feet, a bakery case of Jenny’s pies at one end. During the morning rush, they were so busy there might not be one seat available. Over the last year or so, Morgan had seen more and more regulars stop at the restaurant, eager to try Stuart’s newest concoction.

  As Morgan walked toward the kitchen, darting around the end of the drink station, she noticed the coffee machines hadn’t been turned on yet. Usually, Jenny flipped them on ahead of time so Morgan could just start the coffee perking when she got there. They took a good half hour to get warm enough to perk the first pots of coffee. Morgan frowned and flipped the switches on the machines, watching the red lights pop up on the front, the machines starting to click and hum as they filled with water and started to heat. Morgan shook her head. The restaurant was quiet. Too quiet. A tingle ran down her spine. Something seemed off. Walking toward the kitchen door, Morgan pushed it open, surprised to see there really were no lights on in the kitchen. She hadn’t been imagining anything. Stuart and Jenny weren’t there. Morgan felt around on the wall to her left, flipping the lights on. Had Stuart and Jenny overslept? That wasn’t like them. They were always at the restaurant. Morgan pulled her phone out of her back pocket, trying to see if there was a text from them letting her know they were on their way. There wasn’t. Maybe they decided not to open the restaurant today and just forgot to tell her? Maybe they were sick? Questions ran through Morgan’s head, but as she glanced at the time, she realized she’d have to get a few things started and then try to figure out where they were. The first customers would be arriving in less than an hour. Standing in the empty kitchen, she sighed, her hands dangling down at her sides, still numb and cold from the freezing rain. Morgan tugged at the neck of her hoodie, trying to get it away from her throat. Having to wear heavy clothes, even in the spring, was something she still wasn’t used to. She was a warm weather girl.

  “Jenny? Stuart?” Morgan yelled, wondering where they could be. Why she bothered yelling for them when the kitchen was pitch black, she wasn’t sure. She glanced back towards the door of the restaurant, uncertain if she should put a sign on it saying they were closed today. She frowned for a second, looking behind her. It was strange that the front door had been unlocked. Her stomach tightened into a knot. Morgan had always assumed Stuart and Jenny had unlocked it when they arrived, but if they weren’t there, who had opened the door? Sighing, Morgan pulled her phone out again, sending them a text, “Where are you guys?” she wrote, sending the text and shoving her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. The chill from the cold rain outside was still wearing off. Her fingers were still numb. Why it had to be so damp and cold when it was supposed to be warm and sunny, she still couldn’t figure out.

  Staring at the kitchen, Morgan walked over to the ovens, turning them on. At least if things were warming up when Stuart and Jenny arrived, it wouldn’t take them as long to get the food going. Morgan walked by the flat top grill and turned that on as well. If she had to, she could always get breakfast started when the truckers came in. It might not be Stuart’s fancy fluffy Japanese pancakes, but she could make eggs and toast.

  Eggs.

  Morgan stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the door to the walk-in refrigerator that was near the kitchen door. The eggs were in the walk-in. In order to get them out, she’d have to go in. It was a small space. A very small, cluttered space. In the two years she’d worked in the kitchen, she’d only been in the walk-in refrigerator one other time. When she’d come out, Stuart was staring at her. “You okay, Maddie? You’re white as a ghost!”

  “I don’t like small spaces,” Morgan remembered stuttering, the muscles in her legs starting to quake. She’d avoided the walk-in ever since then. Anytime they needed something from inside, she’d send someone else to get it for her, making an excuse that the limited ventilation aggravated her allergies. It was a flat-out lie. She had a nasty case of claustrophobia, one that could nearly paralyze her if she wasn’t careful.

  But she was there by herself. There was no one else to go into the walk-in for her and retrieve the eggs. The other servers weren’t due until closer to seven, so that wouldn’t help. Morgan pulled the early shift so she could be home by the end of the day when Danny got off the bus. He was nearly done with his Junior year at West End High School. It was hard to believe he was seventeen already. He’d only been twelve when it all happened.

  Morgan pushed the thought out of her mind and stared at the door to the walk-in again. To her, it looked like the metal door of a jail cell. It was thick and painted pale gray, with a shiny silver handle on it. In her head, she knew the walk-in couldn’t close her in — there was a mechanism on the inside to make sure the door didn’t lock behind her. She’d seen other people go in and out of it successfully probably thousands of times. All she ha
d to do was walk in and wait for the lights to flip on, turn to her left and grab the eggs. It seemed like a simple enough operation, but just staring at the door was making her heart pound. Morgan took a couple steps towards the door, wiping the palms of her sweaty hands on her jeans before reaching for the handle. She closed her eyes, her breath raspy in her throat. Glancing around, she looked for another option, something she could do to make it feel not so closed in, to help her not feel so trapped while she was getting the eggs. Near the wall was a stool, a heavy metal one Jenny sat on while she was kneading dough and her feet got tired. Morgan let go of the handle to the walk-in refrigerator for a second and went and got the stool, dragging it across the floor towards the door. Maybe if she propped the door with the stool, she’d at least be able to see outside while she got the things needed to start breakfast.

  Sighing, Morgan closed her eyes for a second, trying to think of something peaceful. It wasn’t working. Her heart was still pounding in her chest. She looked over her shoulder for a second, willing Jenny or Stuart to show up and get the eggs for her so that things would run like normal. They didn’t.

  Morgan bit her lip as she pulled the heavy door of the walk-in refrigerator open, the plastic seal making a sucking noise as she tugged on it. A wave of cold dry air filtered out of the refrigerator, sending a chill into Morgan. “As if I wasn’t cold enough,” she mumbled, dragging the stool in front of the door and putting it into position, giving it a bump with her hip. She glanced at it for a second, making sure the stool would catch the door and keep it open even if it started to slide. Grunting, she spent a second adjusting it. The door on the walk-in refrigerator was heavy.