Bad Client (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

She said nothing.

  Her breathing filled the room.

  Her body was warm and her skin incredibly smooth. He touched her, letting his hands roam, finding that she had stripped herself of all clothing. Her lips came to his and, there in the darkness, he let her. Her hair cascaded down over his face and she pressed her body to his.

  It was wrong but there was no stopping it.

  Not even close.

  THE NEXT TIME HE WOKE IT WAS 6:28 A.M. This time he was in Rain’s bed and hints of orange daylight filtered into the room. She lay next to him asleep, breathing deeply.

  He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.

  This is a place he could stay the rest of his life, if his life would let him. Right here, just like this. Never go anywhere or do anything else for as long as he lived.

  Then he remembered Ashley Conner and the woman from Soft Sell who saw a van in the alley Saturday night.

  Three minutes later he was in the shower, lathering up, thinking about the encounter with Rain last night and fighting to keep an erection down. When he came out she was in the kitchen pouring water into the coffee maker. She came over, put her arms around his neck and brought her mouth to his.

  “How are we ever going to top that?” she asked.

  He couldn’t help but grin.

  Good question.

  Very good question.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m willing to try.”

  She kissed him and walked back to the kitchen. “I’ve never slept so good in my entire life. Honest to God.”

  He frowned.

  “What?”

  “You’re a potential witness,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be messing around with you. That’s Rule Number One in every book they’ve ever written.”

  She shrugged. “It’s our business,” she said. “No one else needs to know.”

  “I wish it were that simple.”

  She opened the fridge and pulled out the milk. “It is that simple.” She looked into his eyes. “We have a secret.”

  “I guess we do.”

  “You’ve had secrets before, haven’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Did you keep them?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Well, me too. So what’s the plan today?”

  Teffinger knew exactly what the plan was, at least the immediate plan. One of the women from the Soft Sell had seen a van in the alley on Saturday night, about 10:15. She was walking by when brake lights went on for a split second, no doubt from the driver’s foot hitting the pedal inadvertently. She turned and saw enough to know that the vehicle was a van, but nothing more. She couldn’t even tell if the color was light or dark, whether the rear doors had glass or were solid, or whether it was new or old. But it was definitely a van, not an SUV or a car.

  That wasn’t much to go on but it was more than they had twenty-four hours ago.

  “The first thing we do this morning,” he said, “is take a walk down Broadway and look for security cameras that might have picked up a van on Saturday night.”

  She smiled.

  “Perfect. I could use the exercise.”

  FIRST THEY STOPPED IN A LITTLE PLACE across Broadway called Mama’s and grabbed breakfast. The waitress couldn’t have been nicer and looked like she was barely making ends meet. The bill came to $8.49. Teffinger waited until she came around, handed her a ten and a twenty and told her to keep the change. He knew better than to leave the money on the table.

  “You made her day,” Rain said as they stepped outside.

  Teffinger shrugged. “I was just showing off, trying to make you think I’m a nice guy.” He looked at her. “Did it work?”

  “Maybe. We’ll find out later.”

  They walked north on Broadway. The temperature was supposed to bust a hundred again but right now, early in the morning, it was absolutely perfect. Rain wore shorts and a tank top, with lots of golden brown skin on display. Three or four cars honked at her within the first two blocks, even with Teffinger walking next to her.

  He spotted a bank a block farther up and picked up the pace.

  “Sydney Heatherwood says you don’t exist,” Teffinger said. He didn’t know why he said it and as soon as the words came out he wondered if he’d made a mistake. He studied Rain to get her reaction.

  “She’s the one who came by the alley yesterday, right?”

  “Right, the detective.”

  “So you had her check up on me?” she questioned.

  Teffinger shook his head.

  “No.”

  “So she just took it upon herself?”

  Teffinger gestured with his hands, as if to say, What can I say?

  “Why?”

  He thought about it. “She has a bad habit of taking care of me sometimes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, she just does.”

  Rain grunted. “That’s because she’s hot for you.” A concerned look fell over her face. “Have you ever slept with her?”

  Teffinger laughed. “Are you kidding, we work together,” he emphasized.

  “Meaning no?”

  “Exactly, meaning no.”

  Rain paused and then said, “She’s got an incredible ass.”

  Teffinger couldn’t disagree.

  “You could bounce a quarter off it,” Rain added.

  He laughed. “Now that I have done,” he said.

  She looked incredulous. “You have? When?”

  “A bunch of us were in a dive bar once, getting falling-down drunk, celebrating the end of a case involving a guy by the name of Gajon.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Consider yourself lucky. Anyway, someone came up with a challenge to see who could bounce a quarter the highest off Sydney’s ass,” Teffinger said.

  “And she went along with it?”

  “Like I said, we were all pretty drunk.”

  She laughed, picturing it.

  “You won, I suppose,” she said.

  Teffinger shrugged.

  He couldn’t remember.

  “We all won,” he said.

  They were almost at the bank now and Teffinger had already spotted a number of security cameras mounted on the outside of the building. One of them sat above the entrance and pointed towards Broadway. It looked like it would pick up the traffic but he couldn’t be sure.

  “I don’t care,” Teffinger said.

  “Don’t care about what?”

  “Whether you exist or not,” he said.

  “Good.”

  “Besides,” he added, “you’ll tell me yourself when you’re ready.”

  She retreated in thought, then said, “Don’t count on it.”

  THE BANK WAS STILL CLOSED and no other good prospects were obvious from this vantage point. So they turned around and walked the opposite way on Broadway, passing the alley and continuing for another seven or eight blocks. Teffinger spotted no security cameras. So they turned around and walked back to the bank.

  It was open now.

  It turned out that the security camera over the entrance did in fact pick up Broadway traffic. Teffinger signed for two original tapes that included the time periods between 8 and 12 p.m. on Saturday night.

  He walked Rain back to her apartment and then headed down to headquarters, anxious to see what the tapes showed, if anything.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Day Three - July 13

  Thursday Morning

  _____________

  THE BIGGEST PROBLEM JACKIE had being a lawyer was sitting in a chair for longer than five minutes straight. Her body just wouldn’t let her. So she constantly got up to refill her coffee or send a fax or walk over to the window and look out.

  But even that wasn’t enough.

  Once an hour, at a minimum, she actually had to get all the way out of the office. This morning was no different. At a little after ten she slipped into her tennis shoes and headed for the door.

  “I’ll warn Denver
you’re coming,” Claudia said.

  Jackie made a face.

  Outside the temperature had already climbed into the nineties and was in the process of baking the brick and mortar. The high today was supposed to be near a hundred, yet another scorcher with no relief in sight. She couldn’t remember a summer this hot.

  Fewer people than normal were in the street and those who were hugged the shady side. She passed a hotdog vendor sitting on a folding canvas chair, waiting for customers, seemingly dazed by the heat. He looked like he just walked across the desert. “Look up and you’ll see buzzards,” she said to herself.

  A woman walking towards her caught Jackie’s eye. The woman stared directly at her as she approached, almost as if studying her. Jackie half expected her to stop and say something but at the last second she averted her eyes and walked by.

  Weird.

  Three blocks later Jackie turned around to head back to the office. The woman was there again. She’d been walking behind Jackie. Now she was stopped and pointing her face into a store window.

  Jackie pretended to not notice and crossed the street.

  SHE WALKED DOWN THE MALL and then headed east on Glenarm, purposely not turning around, instead trying to find a diagonal window or something she could use to see behind her without giving herself away.

  Nothing useful appeared.

  So she stepped into an Einstein Bros and bought a coffee to go. She pointed her face to the street only when it would be normal to do so.

  Sure enough, the woman was outside on the other side of the street, down about twenty yards.

  Pretending to study something in a store window. She looked to be about twenty-five, tanned and extremely fit. She wore khaki shorts, sunglasses, a baseball cap and black hiking boots.

  Jackie stepped back outside and continued down Glenarm, sipping the coffee, trying to think of why anyone would want to follow her. Maybe it was related to one of her cases. Possibly an opposing counsel trying to get some dirt on her. Well if that was the plan, they’d be out of luck. Sure, she slept around, but so what?

  She finished the coffee, threw the cup in an overflowing waste receptacle, pulled out a book of matches and lit them as she walked, shaking each one until it went out and throwing it on the sidewalk.

  Maybe she should just turn around and confront the woman.

  No.

  The woman would deny everything and then disappear down the street. Jackie would never get an answer that way. She turned right on 17th Street, wanting to get a good circular route going to be absolutely sure the whole thing wasn’t just a big coincidence.

  A man walked towards her, a businessman with a red power-tie, actually wearing his jacket in spite of the heat. He looked to be about thirty-five, muscular and important. She moved in front of him and stopped.

  “Hi there,” she said.

  The man smiled. “Hi there back.”

  “This is really weird,” Jackie said. “But I want to ask a favor of you.”

  “Oh you do, do you?”

  “Look over my shoulder,” Jackie said, “and tell me if there’s a woman back there, a tanned woman with shorts and a baseball hat.” She emphasized: “Don’t be obvious.”

  The man looked that way, nonchalantly, and nodded. “Sure is.”

  “Is she stopped?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “I helped you, so you owe me now.”

  “Look . . . ”

  “I’m talking about supper,” the man said. He already had a business card in his hand and was giving it to her. She looked at it: Sean Michaels, President and CEO of Fossil Oil and Gas Company.

  “I don’t date rich guys,” she said.

  He tilted his head. “Okay, then. I’ll give my money away.”

  She studied him. “What do you think of lawyers?” she asked.

  “Why, are you one?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I don’t like them much,” he said. “As a general rule.”

  “Me either,” she said.

  “So we have something in common.”

  She looked at the card, then back at him. “We’ll see,” she said. “Do me a favor. Don’t look at that woman when you pass her. I don’t want her to suspect we were talking about her.”

  JACKIE WALKED ON. So, she was definitely being followed. Did it somehow relate to Stephen Stepper? Or Stephen’s client—Northwest? How could Northwest possibly have connected her to Stepper? Was the woman Northwest’s girlfriend or something?

  No, probably not.

  The woman looked normal. Plus she was fit and strong, not exactly the kind to be easily controlled or manipulated.

  The matches were all gone now. She stuck the empty cardboard in her pocket and then came up with a plan. She headed over to the shops by the Hard Rock Café and lost the woman in the crowd.

  Then she followed her.

  She followed her to the Cash Register Building at 17th and Lincoln. There the woman entered the area for the elevator banks. Jackie had to stay back and wasn’t able to see which bank she entered.

  She did know one thing, though.

  Stepper’s office was in this building, Suite 3450.

  She waited a few minutes until she was fairly certain that the woman was gone. Then she took an elevator to the 34th Floor.

  When it stopped, she got out, walked straight to Stepper’s office and pushed through the smoked glass doors into the reception area.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day Three - July 13

  Thursday Afternoon

  _____________

  WITH THE RADIO OFF, Wickerfield drove around downtown Denver, without direction, not caring where he was or where he was going just so long as he was in the thick of traffic and there were lots of people around.

  Ashley Conner was in the back of the van, chained down spread-eagle with a breathable gag in her mouth, wide-awake. Wickerfield’s cock tightened against his jeans just thinking about her back there.

  Then at one point he drove down Cherokee Street, right past Teffinger’s office, and even waved at the building as he drove by. Then he headed over to California and took it towards the 16th Street Mall, getting caught at the light at the intersection. Dozens of people crossed in front of him as he sat there and smiled. Down the street, not more than a hundred feet away, two cops sat on horseback. Wickerfield waved to them, as if they were old friends, but they never did see him.

  Twenty minutes later he pulled into an open parking space on Bannock, not far from the Denver Public Library. He got out and looked around for surveillance cameras. Seeing none, he grabbed the black bag off the seat, put five quarters in the meter, walked around to the back of the van, opened the door with a key, climbed in and shut the door.

  The heat immediately engulfed him.

  He’d forgotten that the air conditioning didn’t go back there.

  It had to be a hundred and ten, minimum.

  For a brief second he thought about going somewhere else, or maybe even taking the woman back home, but the look in her eyes told him she might never be this scared again.

  She was gorgeous.

  Drenched in sweat.

  Straining at her bonds.

  Pleading with him with those big brown eyes.

  So alive.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  HE REACHED OVER AND LIGHTLY TWEAKED her nipples, touching her nowhere else, only on her nipples. Within a minute he had them rock hard in spite of herself.

  “You comfortable, baby?” he questioned.

  Her eyes pleaded with him, so perfect.

  Wickerfield unzipped her shorts and slipped his hand in. Her pubic hair was short and silky. He tugged on it ever so slightly until she made a noise and strained even harder against her bonds.

  Then he took off his shirt, so she could see his power, and studied her face.

  She looked like a little girl.

  He blind
folded her.

  Then he leaned against the side of the van and watched her, occasionally reaching over and running a finger up and down her arm, ever so lightly, barely perceptible, just to remind her that he was still there.

  He continued that for over thirty minutes, giving her plenty of time to contemplate her death.

  Then he took her blindfold off.

  “Here we go.”

  HE REACHED INTO THE BLACK BAG and pulled out a see-through garbage bag and some duct tape. He set the garbage bag on her stomach, then reached in his jean pockets and pulled out a pair of dice.

  She already knew the ground rules from Tuesday night but he decided to repeat them again anyway. “I’m going to roll a pair of dice and you’re gong to choose high or low. High means seven through twelve. Low means two through six. If you choose high and I roll a high number, then we go home. Same thing the other way—if you choose low and it turns out to be low, we go home. But if you choose wrong—if you choose high and it turns out low, or vice versa—then I put this bag over your head and duct tape it around your neck. You get to live for as long you can hold your breath, then nighty-night. If you don’t choose either, you automatically lose. So high or low? What’s your pleasure?”

  Wickerfield stopped talking and looked into her eyes.

  Her expression almost made him come, it was so perfect—the fear, the exploding brain cells, the realization of total helplessness.

  She pulled violently at her bonds as if she could rip them off by sheer willpower, but she could have been fifty times as strong and still not budged them.

  “Okay, here we go,” he said. “Blink once for low and twice for high.”

  She did neither.

  Wickerfield shook the dice in his hands, ready to roll. “Remember, not choosing is an automatic loss. High or low?”

  She blinked twice.

  “High?” he asked, just to be sure.

  She nodded.

  “Good choice,” Wickerfield said. “I didn’t tell you this before, but it’s better odds. There are twenty-one combinations that’ll get you a seven to twelve, but only fifteen that’ll get you a two through six. So statistically, you made the right choice.” A pause, then, in a somber tone: “But you never know.”