Bad Client (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  “Don’t get too excited,” she said. “I don’t have any brilliant ideas.”

  “You will,” Teffinger said.

  “One thing I did note,” she added, “relates to the work that Paul Kwak’s doing, trying to match the two crime scene crowds to see if the same face is in both places.”

  “Right.”

  “We have a software program where we can take an off-center shot of a face and rotate it to the front—all the way around, actually—so you can see it from whatever angle you want. If Paul takes all the faces from the crowds and converts them to front shots, it might be easier to find a match.”

  Teffinger grinned.

  “See,” he said, “you already earned lunch.”

  UNFORTUNATELY, THE SOFTWARE PROGRAM not only worked well, it also worked fast. Within three hours they had their answer.

  The same face wasn’t in both crowds.

  It was another dead end.

  “This guy’s giving me a headache,” he told Leigh.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Day Eleven - July 21

  Friday

  _____________

  JACKIE DEVOTED ALL FRIDAY to her neglected law practice, shoring up the cases that were in the most danger of washing away. It almost killed her to sit in a chair that long but she had no choice.

  At seven o’clock, long after Claudia left, she opened the safe and pulled out the Smith & Wesson handgun, together with the concealed weapon permit and a box of bullets.

  She checked the clip.

  It was full.

  She checked the action.

  The gun seemed to be in perfect condition.

  She shoved everything in her purse and locked the office behind her. She went home, ate a few pieces of fruit, worked out at 24 Hour Fitness and went back home to shower. As twilight set in, she hopped in the Porsche, threw her purse on the passenger seat and headed downtown.

  It was time to hunt a killer.

  THE MEETING WITH TEFFINGER LAST NIGHT at the bar had been productive, well worth the effort. It took her a while to get him off guard, but his tongue loosened up after a few beers.

  From what she could tell, Teffinger had no idea that the man terrorizing Denver lived on a farm, much less the general location of it. So Sarah’s body seemed safe from discovery, at least for the time being. In fact, Teffinger’s hunt overall didn’t appear to be going very well.

  He confirmed that the man was driving a van but told her that the information she overheard about the black glasses was, in hindsight, misplaced.

  The man may or may not wear glasses.

  BY THE TIME SHE ARRIVED AT LARIMER SQUARE the streetlights were on. With no Rockies game tonight, parking places weren’t as scarce as normal and she managed to find an empty space in a lot on Blake Street.

  She wore the shortest shorts she could find, showing plenty of leg. Up top she had a skimpy tank top. She also wore tennis shoes, laced tight, in case she needed to run. A long blond wig completed the picture.

  She looked young and sexy, perfect little bait.

  With the purse over her shoulder, she headed to the darker areas, where clubbers were forced to park after all the good places were taken.

  Her plan was to draw in the van, get a good look at the guy and jot down a license plate number.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Day Eleven - July 21

  Friday Night

  _____________

  AFTER CIRCLING AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, Wickerfield finally spotted Janelle Parker’s blue Tacoma—FOTOG—in a lot on Blake Street. By some miracle the space next to her car was actually open. He stepped on the gas to get there two seconds before a red Porsche, then looked around for surveillance cameras as he went to the box to pay.

  There were none.

  He hoofed it over to the Ragged Page Bookstore.

  At 9:10 the sky still had some light in it but not much. In fact, half the streetlights had already kicked on.

  When he got to the bookstore, as before, Janelle Parker was already into her slide presentation. She wore expensive black pants, leather pumps and a white short-sleeve shirt. She talked energetically, in a good mood, and had the audience hanging on every word.

  She looked great.

  It almost amazed him that she would be his.

  Life could definitely be worth living at times.

  In a perfect world, though, Ashley Conner would be dead. This afternoon he drilled through the keyhole with a ½” carbon drill bit in hopes of freeing the lock mechanism. That didn’t work and a phone call to the door manufacturer confirmed that drilling couldn’t defeat the lock.

  “It’s a security door,” they reminded him. “Our very best.”

  So he decided that the best way to break into the dungeon would be to rent or buy a powerful enough torch to cut a hole in the door. He didn’t want to do that, however, until he had a replacement door. So he ordered one this morning and it would be delivered on Monday. Then Ashley Conner would die, but not before he taught her a lesson.

  HE WENT BACK TO BLAKE STREET with his hands in his pockets and wandered around the fringes of the parking lot, just to be absolutely sure there were no surveillance cameras. In the dark it was hard to tell, but it didn’t seem like there was much in the area that anyone would want to keep an eye on.

  He had mixed emotions about bringing the van instead of the Camry. The integrity of the van may have been compromised last week when Teffinger’s woman seemed to recognize him on Speer Boulevard. She must have remembered his face from the encounter in the stairwell of the apartment building, when he walked down with Alicia Beach’s news crew and she walked up with a bag of groceries.

  Teffinger might be on the lookout for a van, but not a Camry.

  Still, the van offered greater security. All he had to do was get the woman inside and get the door shut. She could be totally conscious and screaming like a madman after that but it wouldn’t make any difference.

  She couldn’t get out.

  No one would hear her.

  But with the Camry, he would probably have to knock her out. Then either get her in the trunk or into the back seat and put a blanket over her. In the process of knocking her out there was a chance he’d kill her.

  And he needed her alive.

  HE WAITED IN THE SHADOWS ACROSS THE STREET. He wore a dark blue, loose-fitting Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt and jeans. An eight-inch serrated knife lay hidden under the A&F.

  His heart pounded.

  He had to be careful with the woman.

  She had to be every bit of five-nine, maybe even five-ten, and had the body of a surfer or a volleyball player. If they ended up in a wrestling match or a physical struggle, she’d be able to fend him off for a while and make lots of noise in the meantime.

  His watch said 9:52.

  She shouldn’t be much longer.

  The conditions were right.

  There were no lights in the parking lot.

  The surrounding lights were minimal.

  There weren’t many people around.

  He saw her a block off, walking towards the parking lot, carrying an oversized briefcase, probably filled with books or literature.

  He scooted over to the van and opened the side door a crack, just enough so that he could slide it back effortlessly and throw her in. Then he went around to the rear and crouched in the dark, with his heart racing.

  He slipped on latex gloves and then pulled out the knife and held it in his right hand.

  Her footsteps became audible.

  He swallowed hard, then looked around one last time and saw no one.

  When he heard her keys rattle, he jumped.

  HE HAD THE KNIFE IN FRONT OF HER FACE before she even knew he was there. “Don’t make a sound!” he warned.

  She froze, perfectly quiet.

  Then her body jerked and a terrible pain exploded in his groin. The bitch kneed him!

  She screamed and turned to run, but he got a handful of hair and pulled as hard
as he could. Her head snapped back and she fell to the ground.

  He punched her face.

  Then again.

  And again.

  Unable to stop.

  The little bitch!

  Then he heard a man’s voice, not far away, coming fast in his direction: “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Wickerfield stood up.

  “Help,” he said. “This woman had a seizure or something.”

  When the man bent down to take a look, Wickerfield stuck the knife in his back and twisted. The man made an awful sound, twitched for a few seconds and then stopped moving. Wickerfield grabbed the man’s wallet, wedding ring and watch. Then he picked up the woman, threw her in the back of the van and got the hell out of there.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Day Eleven - July 21

  Friday Night

  _____________

  AS THE DESERT SHOT BY at over a hundred miles an hour, the man went back to running a finger ever so teasingly up and down the inside of the woman’s thigh. Then finally, after an eternity, he touched her where it counted, with that magic rhythm of his.

  The road went on, perfectly straight.

  The heat built up between her thighs and her hips gyrated with a mind of their own, getting the most from his contact.

  They crested a hill. Then . . .

  They were on the wrong side of the road.

  Headlights from another car came directly at them.

  There was no time to get back in their lane.

  They were going to crash head-on.

  She clenched the steering wheel with all her might and stared at the lights. Then, just before impact, she shut her eyes as tight as they would go and screamed . . .

  THE ONCOMING VEHICLE VEERED AND SWEPT BY so close that the woman actually felt their car get sucked over towards the vacuum. It was at that exact nanosecond that she realized that they hadn’t crashed and that they wouldn’t. She opened her eyes and saw that she was even farther on the wrong side of the road and now veering onto the shoulder.

  She slammed on the brakes and brought every muscle in her leg to bear down. Her body immediately lunged towards the windshield and then abruptly jolted when the seatbelt snagged her. The man flew into the dashboard, shouting. The cooler pounded into the back of her seat and things flew through the air. Somehow she fixed her eyes on the rearview mirror and saw the red taillights of the other car rolling over and over, in the process of a violent crash even as she watched.

  The vehicle eventually muscled itself to a stop.

  It took her several seconds to process the fact that the movement had actually ceased and that she could lighten up on the brake pedal.

  The man pushed himself off the dash, opened the door, and fell outside, as if wanting to be anywhere in the world except inside that car. He smacked the ground and shouted, “Damn it!”

  The CD still played as if nothing had happened. The woman fumbled with the controls, turning the sound up even louder before she managed to turn it off.

  The smell of spilled wine and beer permeated the interior. Outside, a cloud of desert dust rose up around the car, looking like smoke where the headlights cut through it.

  She turned the engine off and stepped outside.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked.

  Her neck felt a little weird, as if it might have been whip-lashed, and she rolled it around to test the motion. When she turned it to the left, the muscles on the right side felt like they were being pulled overly tight. That wasn’t normal, but wasn’t serious.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

  He had a minor cut on his forehead that he was padding dry with his shirtsleeve. Otherwise, he was fine.

  Their vehicle didn’t have a scratch.

  The man walked off the road and took a few steps into the darkness. A few seconds later, she heard him urinating on the ground.

  “That scared the piss right out of me,” he said.

  THE WOMAN FELT THE SAME WAY. For whatever reason, the wine was suddenly going right through her. She staggered into the desert. The attempt at movement, after having been stuck in a seat for more than an hour, made her realize just how much the wine and pot had screwed her up. She squatted down, feet wide, and pissed in the dirt, looking back down the road for evidence of the other car. It wasn’t visible, hiding behind the crest of the road.

  The man was calling her now, standing impatiently by the passenger door, his voice intense. “Come on,” he said. “We got to get the hell out of here.”

  “What do you mean? Just leave?”

  “Hell yes, just leave. Before the cops show up or something.”

  There was no way she could do that.

  “We got to go back, they got to be hurt.”

  “We screwed up, in case you didn’t notice. If we get busted, we’re in some serious stuff. We need to get our asses out of here, right this second.”

  “No, we’re not leaving. Get in the car,” she said.

  He slammed the fender with his hand.

  “Bad idea. You mark my words.”

  DISORIENTED, SHE FUMBLED AROUND to find the ignition, then remembered it was located to the left of the steering wheel, not the right, found it and cranked the engine over while the man shoved the cooler back into place.

  She turned the vehicle around and doubled back.

  As soon as they reached the crest in the road, she expected to see the red taillights of the other vehicle. Instead, the other car faced them, with one headlight pointing at them and the other one not working. The vehicle was stationary, about a half mile or more down the road.

  She continued driving in that direction with a queasy feeling in her stomach, the kind she got when she was a kid standing in the roller-coaster line as it got shorter and shorter.

  The other car had flipped over more than once, but landed right-side up, in the dirt not more than ten feet off the road. She pulled up about thirty feet short, shifted the vehicle into neutral, put the emergency brake on, and left the engine running, just in case they had to get out of there in a hurry.

  They stepped out and walked hesitantly towards the other vehicle.

  Everything was cemetery quiet.

  “BMW,” the man said. His long hair looked like a mane, backlit by the headlights.

  “Yeah,” she said, recognizing the signatory double ovals in the front end.

  As they walked past the headlight of the other car, to where it didn’t blind them anymore, they saw a female, on the passenger side of the vehicle, hanging halfway through the windshield with her head and torso on the hood of the car and her legs still inside. She was alive and staring straight at them, in obvious pain. Her eyes followed them as they moved. Every part of her looked dead, except her eyes.

  The sight forced the driver’s stomach into her mouth. She turned and ran ten or twenty steps, then dropped to her knees and vomited in the dirt. It was one those violent uncontrolled regurgitations, a merciless one that shot out of her mouth and nose at the same time. She gasped for air, then wretched again. The whole world smelled like putrid wine.

  When she finally got herself together and came back to the wreck, the man had the driver’s door of the BMW open.

  “You don’t want to see this,” he warned her.

  But he was wrong.

  She did.

  She had to.

  A MAN, NO DOUBT THE FATHER, WAS BLOODIED and dead in the driver’s seat. Airbags had deployed from numerous locations but now hung flat and empty. In the back seat, three girls—two with blond hair and one with raven black—lay in a heap of flesh. None of them were older than ten.

  “The driver’s dead and so are the kids,” the man told her.

  She trembled. “You checked?”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, there’s no question,” he added.

  They turned their attention to the mother. She was staring at them and they could tell that she was trying to say something but couldn’t.

  The woman coul
d read her thoughts though.

  Tears filled her eyes.

  This couldn’t really be happening.

  Ten minutes ago everything was perfect.

  SHE RAN OVER TO THE CAR, rummaged around until she found her purse, pulled her cell phone out and opened it.

  There was no signal.

  “Damn it!”

  There was no way they could call for help.

  She pulled her blouse up to wipe her eyes, realizing that she was smearing mascara all over it and wondering if she could really be so petty to even let a thought like that enter her mind at a time like this.

  She disgusted herself.

  She looked at the man. “What do we do?” she asked, desperate for an answer.

  He shook his head, uncertain.

  Seconds went by and neither of them said anything.

  “Should we put her in the car?”

  The man answered immediately. “No. She’s too messed up to move. She could have a broken back for all we know.”

  That was true.

  There was only one other thing she could think of. “You drive to a phone. I’ll stay here with her.”

  The man shifted his feet.

  “And then what?” he questioned.

  “Call for help. What do you think?”

  “Bad idea, very bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because first of all, it won’t do any good. She’s going to die, anyway. Look at her. And, if she does live by some miracle, then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it,” he said. “She lives in a world that has no husband or kids. She lives in a world with a body that’s all messed up, maybe even paralyzed or something. Do you really think she wants that?”

  The woman screamed in frustration and pounded her fists on her legs.

  “If I was her, I’d just want to get it over with, right here, right now. I’d just want to be out of my stinking misery.”

  Oh my God.

  Then, before she knew it, he was out in the desert, walking around, looking for something. She saw him bend down and pick something up. When he got back he was holding a rock the size of a softball.