by R. J. Jagger
She laid her head on his chest.
“Can I tell you what happened?”
“I saw what happened.”
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “I have a younger sister, Jacqueline St. John. She’s twenty-two. Last year she disappeared. That’s how this whole thing got started.”
“What do you mean, got started?” Teffinger said.
“Jacqueline was wild from birth,” she said. “She left the house when she was fifteen and went to New York. She never graduated from high school even though she’s smarter than me times two any day of the week. She had a face and body that let her get her way and ended up bouncing from guy to guy. Last year she dropped off the face of the earth.”
“What happened?”
Chase shook her head.
“I don’t know,” she said. “In spite of our differences, we kept in touch. I was her rock and strangely, in a way, she was mine. One day when I called her, her phone didn’t work, and that was it. I’ve never heard from her since. That was more than a year ago.”
“I could look into it, if you want,” he said.
She squeezed him.
“I hired a private investigator,” she said. “What he found out is that according to Jacqueline’s boyfriend at the time—a guy named Sean Strappen—Jacqueline had been talking about getting into porn, just for kicks. He said he’d leave her if she did because it was no different than cheating. She promised that if she did it, it would only be with women. He still didn’t want her to do it and she dropped it—at least, that’s what she told him. Her phone records, however, showed several calls to and from a phone number here in San Francisco. That number turned out to belong to someone named Troy Trent.”
Teffinger raised an eyebrow.
“Troy Trent?”
Right.
Troy Trent.
As in the dead man.
“The PI dug deeper and found out that Trent was affiliated with a company called Concrete Cactus, which in turn produced S&M movies. He watched a bunch of them and discovered they always ended in a snuff—that was their MO. They tried to make the murders look as authentic as possible. All the movies were filmed in one of three different settings. The PI traced the dungeons, for lack of a better word, to New York, Denver and San Francisco. Are you with me?”
Teffinger nodded.
He was.
He was indeed.
“THE PI CAME UP WITH A THEORY that Jacqueline had set up a filming in New York, behind her boyfriend’s back,” Chase said. “It was his belief that she was the submissive and when it came to the part where they killed her, things got out of control and she actually ended up dying. To support that theory, the PI tried to find out if Troy Trent was in New York during the time when Jacqueline disappeared.”
“Don’t tell me,” Teffinger said, “he was.”
Chase nodded.
He was.
He was indeed.
“After that, the PI tracked every DVD produced by Concrete Cactus,” she said. “Jacqueline didn’t show up in any of them. He thinks that’s further proof of what happened. It’s his theory that the DVD was never released because there had been an actual murder.”
Teffinger swept hair out of his face.
He pulled up a visual of the two clear-case DVDs from Trent’s dresser.
Was one of them Chase’s sister?
“Makes sense,” he said.
“Unfortunately, he was at the end of his rope at that point,” Chase said. “There was nothing more he could do. That’s when I decided to infiltrate Concrete Cactus.”
106
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
THE MARRIOTT MARQUIS was a stunning, 39-story contemporary structure at the corner of 4th and Mission in the financial district. Tag and Jonk parked on P-2, took the elevator to the lobby and walked into the lobby bar, an enclave called Bin 55. Part of the Friday Afternoon Club was already there getting a buzz on.
They sat at a table with a view into the lobby and ordered white wine.
Then they waited.
Less than thirty minutes later, Amaury and his girlfriend strolled across the lobby with no suitcases in hand and disappeared out the front door. They waited for five minutes and then walked over to the reception desk.
An elderly woman smiled and asked if she could help them.
“We’re here to see Landon Lee,” Tag said. “Could you call his room and tell him Carol and Bob are waiting for him in the lobby.”
Sure.
No problem.
The woman pressed 2203 on the phone.
Jonk memorized it.
2203.
2203.
2203.
Then the receptionist frowned and said, “He’s not answering.”
Tag looked at her watch.
“We’re a half hour early,” she said. “We’ll just come back. Thank you so much.”
THEY HEADED OUTSIDE and strolled down the block. Five minutes later they came back, walked nonchalantly to the elevators and got out on twenty-two.
A maid’s cart was halfway down the hall.
They walked over to 2203 where Jonk pulled out his wallet, searched inside and then swore. They walked down to where the cart was and found the maid inside a room making a bed.
Jonk flashed his driver’s license at the woman and said, “I’m Landon Lee, Room 2203. I did something stupid and left without taking my keycard with me.”
The woman studied him.
“The front desk can give you a new one,” she said.
Jonk pulled out a twenty and held it out.
“I’m really in a hurry,” he said. “If you could let us in, that would be great.”
She looked at the money
Then at him.
“I’m really not supposed to do that,” she said.
Jonk nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”
As he turned, the woman said, “I guess I could make an exception this one time, since you’re in a hurry.”
Jonk handed her the bill.
She took it.
“Thanks,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”
THE ROOM had one large bed and a bank of windows along the wall with nice city views. The lines were contemporary and clean. A long desk sat in front of the windows. On that desk was a laptop and a small spiral notebook.
They checked the closet.
Inside were four large suitcases.
Jonk picked one up.
It was heavy.
He threw it on the bed and opened it.
Eight nylon bags were inside, filling it almost to capacity.
He unzipped one.
It was filled with gold coins.
Ancient gold coins.
HE ZIPPED IT UP and put it back in the suitcase. There was a little room left, so he stuck the laptop and the spiral notebook in there as well.
With a beating heart, he picked up two of the suitcases.
Tag grabbed the other two.
Then they walked out of the room, kicking the door closed as they headed down the hall.
107
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
SONG CALLED Nuwa and Shaden to let them know that she’d been attacked and warn them that whatever was going on might spread to them. They were potentially in danger and needed to take precautions. Neither woman answered, so she left messages. Then she locked the office door and got busy again on the Condor case.
The going was slow.
It was hard to concentrate.
108
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
CHASE INFILTRATED the Concrete Cactus. Her first filming was Monday night in a building here in San Francisco. She insisted on wearing a mask, not wanting her law career destroyed. “Troy Trent was in the room directing. I was supposed to keep choking Amanda until he told me to cut.” She diverted her eyes, then looked up. “I could feel the lif
e going out of her but kept pressing my fingers into her throat and waiting for Trent’s cue. I was counting on him to know what her limits were. I should have stopped when my gut told me to but I was too afraid to blow it.”
Teffinger studied her.
So, that question was answered once and for all. Chase actually was a murderer.
Now another question surfaced—Did Chase kill Troy Trent?
The evidence fit.
She thought he killed her sister. Then he got her into a position where she killed someone else. Last night, she had to confront Amanda Wayfield’s dead body. That sparked the realization that she might be on her way to getting caught. So she killed Trent out of revenge while she still had a chance.
He almost asked her, point blank, Did you kill Troy Trent?
But he didn’t.
He didn't want to know the answer.
He could understand how she killed Amanda Wayfield.
He could still love her, even knowing that was part of her past. Troy Trent was different, though. His murder was intentional. It was in cold blood. He was stabbed repeatedly in the back.
She nudged him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I know nothing when I see it,” she said. “That’s not nothing.”
He pulled two beers out of the fridge and handed her one.
SUDDENLY SHE GOT SERIOUS.
“Teffinger, I still need to know about Jacqueline,” she said. “I need to get into Trent’s house. This is my chance. I’m not talking about you letting me in or anything like that. I’m talking about me breaking in on my own.”
“That’s not smart.”
She leaned against the cabin wall.
“The more I think about Monday night, the more I think Trent knew Amanda was dying. I think he knew when to call it off but didn’t.”
“Why would he do that? That would ruin the whole shot because he wouldn’t dare release the film. He’d have to scrap it.”
True.
Very true.
“He did it because he got off on it,” she said. “It was a personal snuff show directed and produced by him for an audience of one—also him.”
Teffinger chewed on it.
That could actually be true
If Trent was as sick as Condor, it could definitely be true.
“If that’s what happened to Amanda, maybe it was the same exact thing that happened to Jacqueline,” she said. “Maybe she didn’t die as a result of a fake murder getting out of control. Maybe she was killed with full intent, just so Trent could get his rocks off.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s something I need to find out,” she said. “I also need to know how deep Condor was involved in all of this. I need to know if he knew what was happening. I need to know if he watched the films afterwards and jacked off to them.”
“What are you going to do if you find out he did?”
She looked directly into his eyes.
And didn’t hesitate.
“I’m going to kill him.”
109
Day 5—September 25
Friday Afternoon
JONK AND TAG managed to muscle the suitcases all the way to the car without incident and then drove down 4th Street, not caring where they were going so long as it was away. They couldn’t stop smiling. Tag punched the radio buttons, landed on an old 50 Cent song, “In Da Club,” and cranked it up. When it was over, Jonk lowered the volume and said, “So where do we stash this stuff?”
Tag scrunched her face.
Her place would be too dangerous.
Same for a hotel.
“Zoogie’s sailboat?”
Jonk chewed on it. Amaury knew about it—that’s where he intercepted Winter—but he’d undoubtedly searched it by now. The chance of him going back was low. Still, low was more than zero.
“No,” he said. “It needs to be someplace fresh.”
“How about one of those U-Haul storage places?”
Maybe.
But Jonk didn’t like the idea of being away from it at night.
“We need a house,” he said.
That turned out to be a good idea in theory but a bad one in execution. Rentals required references, credit checks and the like, meaning Tag would have to use her real name. In the end as a temporary solution, they rented a room in a two-story, zero-star hotel called The Blue Toucan, paying cash and using a fake name. They got the suitcases into the room. Jonk guarded them while Tag stashed the car on a side street two blocks away and hoofed back on foot.
When she got back, Jonk already had all four suitcases on the bed, opened.
“Well?” she asked.
“Good news and bad news,” he said. “They’re all filled with gold coins. None of them are duds. But the mask isn’t here. Either are the jewels.”
They counted the coins.
The number turned out to be approximately one-fourth of the inventory list.
“This is good, but most of the treasure is still out there somewhere,” Jonk said. “The mask is what I want. That’s the one thing that’s priceless.”
HE LEAFED THROUGH the spiral notebook taken from Amaury's desk, which turned out to be filled with Egyptian handwriting. The last few pages, however, had some English words that related to San Francisco.
The last entry on the last page was interesting.
Song Lee.
Tag Googled it and found that the name belonged to a San Francisco attorney with an office in Chinatown.
“She’s an attorney and so was Rock,” Tag said. “Maybe they were working together.”
Jonk walked to the window, pulled the covering back and looked outside.
Everything was normal.
Then he turned to Tag and said, “Let’s find out.”
110
Day 6—September 26
Saturday Morning
TEFFINGER WOKE BEFORE DAYBREAK in the cabin of his boat with no Chase scrunched up next to him. His head hurt mildly but not wildly from too many Anchor Steams last night. Chase was supposed to come over at nine and spend the night but didn’t show. Maybe she was busy breaking into Troy Trent’s. Maybe she needed quiet time. Teffinger didn’t know. All he knew is that he drank beer and closed his eyes to rest them for a moment.
Now it was morning.
He was on top of the covers, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes.
No messages were on his phone.
Strange.
He called her, got her voice mail and left her a message.
Then he threw on sweats and headed out for a jog.
This was it.
The big day.
September 26th.
SJK day.
Unless Teffinger got lucky, Condor would take his next victim by midnight.
Probably London Fogg.
They’d find her body tomorrow or in a month. With Condor, you never knew.
Teffinger picked up the pace, stretching his legs and pumping his arms. Nothing felt as good as cool morning air in his lungs. The oxygen made him an animal. That’s when he was the most alive.
He did a five-mile circle and slowed to a walk at the marina’s edge, letting his metabolism wind down.
The sky was beginning to wake up but not by much. The sun still hadn’t punched over the edge.
There were no messages on his phone.
He got the coffee pot going and took a shower.
When he got out, it was 6:30.
He didn’t know quite what to do.
Northstone and the chief were holding their final team meeting right now.
HE ATE TWO BANANAS and a large bowl of cereal, then filled a thermos with coffee and walked down the dock to Bertha, who was still sound asleep.
He slapped her on the ass as he walked up and said, “Morning, Glory.”
She actually started.
No problem.
Sipping coffee, he swung by Condor’s place.
The lights were off.
Then he had a wild thought.
He parked down the street, walked back on foot and snuck into Condor’s garage to see if the GPS transmitter was still in place.
Condor’s car wasn’t there.
The transmitter was hanging from a string in the middle of the vacant space.
Shit.
He left, walked back to Bertha and called Chase.
She didn’t answer.
It was 7:30.
She was usually up by now.
He called Rapport, Wolfe & Lake to see if she was at work. A receptionist answered, even this early in the morning, but didn’t get an answer when she buzzed Chase’s office.
“Sorry,” she said.
HE DROVE into the financial district, found a place to park Bertha for an amount that was almost as much as she was worth, then wandered over to the lobby of the Transamerica Pyramid.
Chase didn’t walk past, not any time in the next half hour.
He called her.
She didn’t answer.
He called the receptionist.
Chase hadn’t shown up to work yet.
Damn it.
What the hell was going on?
He swung by Troy Trent’s place to see if her car was there.
It wasn’t.
Then he headed across the Golden Gate to her house.
HER CAR WAS IN THE DRIVEWAY.
She didn’t answer the door, not for the bell and not for the pounding. He walked around to the back and found the sliding glass doors of the lower level wide open.
“Chase, it’s me.”
No answer.
He stuck his head in the dungeon as long as he was right there, found it empty and headed upstairs.
The woman’s purse was on the granite countertop.
Her keys were in the purse.
So was her cell phone.
So was her wallet.
She, however, was nowhere.
Not inside.
Not outside.
Not anywhere.
HE PUNCHED THE WALL. He punched it so hard that his fist went all the way through the plaster.
Then he ran outside and hopped into Bertha.