by R. J. Jagger
They were immobile.
They couldn’t talk.
They couldn’t scream.
He walked them to the hole and forced them in, feet first, standing up. They fought but it did no good.
“This was dug just for Kelly, so sorry if it’s a little bit of a tight fit,” he said.
Their heads were a foot below surface level.
They were looking directly into each other’s eyes.
“There’s a man who uses this place by the name of Ghost Wolf,” he said. “This is how he buries all his people. It’s weird how people develop these little quirks, wouldn’t you say? You have to wonder sometimes how they get started on them.”
With a shovel, Northway filled the hole past the women’s stomachs, to just below their breasts.
“That’s it,” he said. “If I put any more in the compaction will keep your chests restricted and you won’t be able to breathe.” A beat then, “This way you’ll be able to last for as long as you last. What will happen after you die is that the walls will eventually cave in and cover you up, then the weeds will grow and the butterflies will fly. Pretty neat, huh?”
He scattered the remaining dirt.
Then he bent down.
“I don’t know exactly how it is you’ll die,” he said. “I don’t know if the coyotes will find you and chew your heads, or whether the insects will eat you, or whether the sun will bake you to death or whether you’ll just last a really long time and eventually starve to death. It’s interesting to think about though, wouldn’t you say?”
He was gone.
Ten seconds later he returned.
“Oh, and there’s one I didn’t think of,” he said. “Maybe the rain will just fill the hole and you’ll go gulp, gulp, gulp. It wouldn’t be pretty but it’s still probably better than the other ways.”
Then he was gone.
He didn’t come back.
110
Day Six
July 23
Saturday Night
Yardley had no idea how long she was unconscious. The storm was still plummeting down. Her helmet was partially filled with water. It took her a while to locate the Kawasaki but when she did it fired up. The taillight didn’t work. The headlight did. With it, she located the gun and stuffed it back in her belt.
Then she headed east.
If her suspicion was right, Cave was headed to where Ghost Moon took her yesterday. It made sense not only because this was the exact way there, but also because Cave and Ghost Moon did the same work. They must have crossed paths and talked at some point, or talked to a mutual acquaintance.
The storm slowed her.
The front wheel wobbled.
Still, now able to use the headlight, she kept the pace up and got to the cutoff in half an hour. There she turned off the headlight and worked the bike through the pitch-blackness and the mud and the ruts.
When she got near the end where the old house was, the headlights and taillights of a parked car suddenly sprang to life.
The right taillight was weaker than the left.
It was Cave’s car.
There was no question.
It turned around and headed her way, a hundred yards off, leaving.
She got the Kawasaki off the road and laid it down.
Then she waited at the edge of the road, nestled into a rabbit brush, with the gun in her hand and the safety off.
The vehicle was approaching steadily but slowly, keeping the momentum up enough to not get stuck while not going so fast as to lose control.
She’d have plenty of time to fire.
When the car got to her, she pointed at the driver’s window and pulled the trigger three times.
The vehicle slowed and coasted off the road.
She approached slowly, one careful step at a time.
She opened the door and the interior lights shot on. Cave was slumped face first into the wheel.
The side of his head was a bloody mess.
At least two of the bullets landed there.
She pulled him back.
He wasn’t Cave.
He was someone else.
Her chest tightened.
She popped the trunk to see if the woman was in there.
It was empty.
She got on the bike, turned on the headlight and headed for the house. No one was there, not in the barn either. The woman who got taken from Cave’s house was undoubtedly dead and buried out in the north forty.
She got on the bike and pointed the headlight towards Denver.
It was time to get to New York and leave all this shit behind.
She’d come back for Cave in a month or two. For right now, enough was enough.
111
Day Six
July 23
Sunday
Sunday was hell in the making. The manhunt for Cave continued to turn up nothing; whatever rock the little asshole slithered under, it was a big one. Pantage and Kelly both remained missing. Teffinger was subconsciously preparing himself for the worst. The gladiator had a solid alibi and had been ruled out.
Out of desperation, Teffinger drove over to September Tadge’s house.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t care that you turned me in. That’s not what I’m here about. Cave has Pantage. Every minute’s critical. I need to see your notes on him and I need to see them now.”
She hesitated, deciding.
Then she said, “Let me get my purse.”
Teffinger drove.
On the way to the woman’s office he learned a few things.
For one, September never told Condor to communicate with the department or the chief in any way, much less give them the videotape.
“Well he did,” Teffinger said. “My career’s shot.”
September stared out the window.
Then she turned.
“After I give you the notes, I want to talk to the chief,” she said. “I’m going to tell him that Condor was mistaken. He had no authority to speak to anyone on my behalf. More importantly, he was mistaken about the videotape. You were helping me install a security system. What you did was just a test to see if it was working the way it should. It was done with my full permission.” She patted his hand, “When I tell him that, I need you to back me up.”
Teffinger nodded.
He said, “Thanks,” but his mind was on the notes.
There had to be something there to indicate where Cave might be hiding.
Ten minutes later he had the notes in front of him.
They were handwritten.
September deciphered them as necessary.
After the first pass through, Teffinger had nothing of use.
They went through them again.
Still there was nothing of use.
“Do you remember anything that he said or did, anything at all?”
She looked blank.
“I’m sorry.”
112
Day Six
July 23
Monday Evening
Monday was a dismal endless repeat of Sunday, meaning no Cave, no Kelly and no Pantage. Teffinger was officially reinstated given September’s words in his behalf, but he really didn’t care much about it one way or the other.
That evening it rained.
He got a cold blue can from the fridge and sat on the front porch in the weather.
The women had been gone for 48-hours.
That was the unofficial dividing line.
The water matted his hair and soaked through his clothes.
He didn’t care.
Then his phone rang.
It was September Tadge.
“I went over the notes again, twice actually, and remembered something that I never wrote down,” she said. “He mentioned once that he buried one of his victims on some land owned by the Apaches, forty or fifty miles east of Denver. I checked the public records and found that there really is such a place. Do you want the directions?”
He did.
He did indeed.
Two minutes later he was in the Tundra heading east.
The storm thickened.
When he got to the location, he found something he didn’t expect. A car was in the brush off the road. A man’s body was slumped over the steering wheel. The left side of his head had been shot twice.
The smell of death was putrid.
He’d been dead at least a day, maybe two or three.
Teffinger pulled him back and looked at his face.
It was Michael Northway.
The trunk was popped open.
He took a look and spotted dried blood.
Kelly’s?
He got in the Tundra, headed up the road and found an old house. Inside there were signs of recent activity but no one present.
“Kelly!”
No answer.
“Pantage!”
No answer.
A dilapidated barn out back was similarly empty.
Twilight was thick. It would be night in another half hour.
He shifted the truck into four-wheel drive and headed into the field, dodging rocks and yucca, looking for signs of a recent burial. Twenty minutes later he saw fresh dirt to the left and jerked the wheel over to it.
There he found a hole.
Inside about a foot down were two heads, infested with bugs. They were slumped to the side, motionless.
He shook them.
Neither one responded.
He spotted a shovel and started digging.
Don’t be dead.
Don’t be dead.
Don’t be dead.
Don’t you dare be dead!
113
A Month Later
August 25
Thursday Evening
With a little too much wine in her gut, Pantage flashed her legs at a passing LoDo cabbie who jerked to a stop, then got her home just as the twilight morphed into night. She locked the front door behind her and slithered out of a short black dress as she headed for the bedroom. En route a text came from Kelly—Lunch tomorrow?
She replied—Sounds good—then tossed the phone on the bed and checked her body in the mirror.
It was perfect.
It was built for sex.
She got the shower up to temperature but left the bathroom lights off, opting for the softer ambient light that filtered in from the bedroom.
She liked it dark.
The dark felt good after a scorching day.
In the shower, she put her head under the spray and let the sweet, sweet water soak through to her scalp and cascade over her face.
Then she lathered up.
It felt nice.
It felt right.
She turned her back to the spray, put her soapy hand between her thighs and moved her fingers. Her body tingled. She ran the index finger of her other hand in light circles over her right nipple.
Yeah.
That was nice.
That’s what she needed since she got up this morning.
She closed her eyes.
She spread her feet and increased the tempo.
Little sparks of lightning shot through her veins.
Her mouth opened.
Her head rocked back and forth.
The pressure in her thighs grew stronger. When she came it would be a good one, it would be one of those mind-charging bolts of ecstasy that she’d still be feeling in the middle of the night.
She opened her eyes, just a tad.
A man was standing in front of her, a huge powerful man, right there in the shower with her.
He was holding a knife in front of her face.
He was the gladiator.
He grabbed her by the throat and said, “Don’t make a sound.”
She froze.
“Don’t kill me,” she said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
He pushed the tip of the knife into her stomach enough to dent her skin without breaking through.
“Does that feel good?”
Her heart pounded.
“What do you want?”
“Want? Nothing,” he said. “I came here to tell you something. You didn’t kill Chiara de Correggio. I did.”
“Chiara?”
Right.
Chiara.
“Chiara from California?”
“Yes,” he said. “I was hired by Marabella to kill her. She drank wine every night. I laced it with roofies. You were there that night. I watched through binoculars until you both passed out in the living room. Then I came in and did my job. You were moving a little and may have opened your eyes. I didn’t know if you saw me or not. Before I left I put the knife in your hand. I was hoping you’d believe you were the one who killed her. After all, you and her had a vicious fight not more than two hours before that.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to know,” he said. “You actually believed the setup and went on the run. Marabella felt sorry for you. She tracked you down and gave you a new identity and a job. I knew she’d done that but I didn’t know you were in Denver.”
“So I didn’t kill Chiara?”
“No,” he said. “You threw her body off a cliff but you weren’t the one who killed her. That was my one and only job. I didn’t like doing it and Marabella didn’t like that I got someone else involved.” A beat then, “I spotted you on the street. The question I had was whether you would remember me if you saw me. I eventually arranged to bump into you, which was that night down at the Tequila Rose. You didn’t remember me. That was good because if you had I probably would have killed you.”
He ran the tip of the knife up her stomach drawing a thin line of blood.
“You see what I’m doing right now?”
Yes.
She did.
“Let it scar and look at it every now and then,” he said. “Use it as a reminder that you’re not to ever tell anyone what I just told you; no one, ever. If you do, you’re going to get my touch again, only this time it won’t be so nice. Do we have an understanding?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He slid the door open and stepped out.
Then he was gone.
Pantage stood there in the spray, alone and shaking.
Then she ran out.
The gladiator was walking through the bedroom, almost at the door.
“Hey,” she said.
The man stopped and turned.
“Thanks for telling me.”
He stared at her for a heartbeat.
Then he said, “You’re welcome,” and left.
THE END
Confidential Prey
R.J. Jagger
1
Day One
August 3
Wednesday Night
A wicked storm fell out of an evil night sky. Nick Teffinger, the 34-year-old head of Denver’s homicide unit, was in the thick of it with the Tundra’s wipers swishing back and forth to a demonic beat. From the radio Mick was screaming that he couldn’t get no satisfaction and Teffinger was screaming right along with him.
’Cause I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried …
Traffic was minimal.
A woman appeared up ahead at the side of the road, hunched against the weather. Her thumb came out; she was trying to get a ride. Teffinger edged over and powered down the passenger window.
The woman was in her early thirties with dark exotic features. Heavy drenched clothes clung to her body.
Her chest was ample.
She wore no bra.
Her face was serious.
Teffinger unlocked the door and said, “Get in.”
She did.
“Thanks, mister.”
Her voice was timid and laced with stress.
“Where you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you need a ride home?”
“Sure if you’re going to Seattle.”
Her name was Atasha and her story was simple. She and
her boyfriend were passing through Colorado on their way from New York to Seattle. Two hours ago they had a fight, not one of those normal ones, a mean one where things got said. He dragged her out of the car and told her to have nice life. Then he was gone. To his credit, it wasn’t raining that badly out at the time.
Now it was.
She had less than $30 in her purse.
She had no cell phone.
She was a stray cat out in a stray night.
“I’ll get you a hotel room,” Teffinger said. “My treat. Then we can touch base in the morning and figure out how to get you back home.”
“Thanks but I don’t take charity.”
“It’s not charity. It’s just one person helping another.”
“I can’t take money.”
“You can pay it back later if that makes you feel better.”
“I don’t like owing people either,” she said. “Just drop me off anywhere I can get out of the weather. I’ll take it from there.”
Teffinger argued.
He lost.
He did, however, talk her into at least sleeping on his couch.
His neighborhood was in total darkness when they got there. Not a streetlight was on and not a single light came from inside a house. The storm had defaulted the neighborhood back to its prehistoric days.
Inside, Teffinger got a flashlight for the woman, gave her the best dry clothes he scrounge up—a T, a fresh pair of boxer shorts and white cotton gym socks—and showed her where to dry off.
“I’ll be in the garage,” he said. “You want some wine or a beer?”
She did.
A beer.
In fact, a beer would be perfect.
“No problem,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t look under my mattress.”
“Why, what’s under your mattress?”
“Nothing. Just don’t look there, okay?”
He had the garage door open and his six-two frame was behind the wheel of the ’67 Corvette, watching the lightning show, when she showed up. She slid into the passenger seat and flicked the flashlight off.
He popped the top of a blue can and passed it to her.