She got out of the boxcar.
Crying.
Broken.
Resigned to her fate.
Jekker actually felt a little sorry for her and asked, “Is there any particular place you want to do it?”
She looked around.
“Can we do it by that tree?”
Jekker nodded.
“Yeah, sure.”
She walked over, timidly, with Jekker three steps behind, and stopped at the base of a forty-foot Ponderosa. Then she turned and looked at him, unsure what to do next.
“Kneel down and face the tree,” Jekker said.
There was no sternness in his voice.
She complied.
Jekker took the safety off.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he said. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you see my face.”
She cried.
“This won’t hurt,” Jekker added.
Then he brought the barrel to the back of her head.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
His cell phone rang.
THE SOUND BROKE HIS CONCENTRATION. He lowered the weapon, pulled the phone out of his pocket, looked at the incoming number and decided he better answer.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” the voice said. “We’re in a situation. We have no choice but to release the woman even though she’s seen your face.”
Jekker waved the gun in the air.
“But—”
“We know that puts you in jeopardy,” the voice said, “so we’re going to relocate you. We have openings in Hong Kong and Western Europe, meaning you can base yourself in London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, wherever you want. Take through Monday noon to cash out your bank accounts and do whatever it is you’re going to do to get ready. Don’t worry about the big stuff like your loft and cars. We’ll pay you the value of everything you can’t take with you, so you won’t loose a cent. We’re also kicking in a relocation bonus.”
Jekker took ten steps away from Tessa Blake and lowered his voice.
“How much of a relocation bonus?”
“Two fifty.”
Two fifty.
Not a lot, but not something to sneeze at either, especially if he chose Hong Kong.
“Let us know by tomorrow where you want to go. We’ll have a flight lined up for you for Monday afternoon.” A pause. “The other thing you can do is retire, if you want, and go wherever you choose. You still get the two-fifty.”
Jekker played with the idea.
Maybe he’d head to Mexico.
Live on the beach.
Or Rio.
Or, hell, just wander the world.
Sample the pleasures of all the nooks and crannies.
“We won’t release the woman until after you get to your new country,” the voice said. “Until then, just be sure she doesn’t escape.”
The face of Brandy Zucker jumped into Jekker’s brain.
“I’m not sure where I have her is all that secure,” Jekker said.
“Why?”
“Nothing specific,” Jekker said. “I just don’t like being in one spot too long.”
A pause.
“Do you have another place?”
“Not at my fingertips,” Jekker said.
“Then just stay there,” the voice said. “Moving her around is too dangerous.”
A bluebird landed on a branch directly above Jekker’s head.
He studied it for a second and then moved over a step so he didn’t end up with something unpleasant on his head.
“Amsterdam,” he said.
The decision surprised him.
But he didn’t take it back.
“Good choice.”
HE WALKED OVER TO TESSA BLAKE who still kneeled on the ground, facing the tree. “I have a proposition for you,” he said. “If you can convince me that you will never ever tell anyone about me under any circumstances, and if you can convince me that you will never ever assist the police in any way in finding me, I might just let you go.”
She wrinkled her forehead and studied him, trying to determine if this was one last cruel trick before he killed her.
But she must have seen the truth in his eyes.
“I won’t,” she said. “I promise. Not ever.”
“Get up,” Jekker said.
She complied.
“I just want my baby to be born,” she said. “I’ll do anything you want. Just let us live, please.”
Jekker put on a pensive face, as if weighing the words.
“I’ll never tell anyone about you,” the woman added. “I swear to God. Not a soul.”
Jekker looked at her hard.
“If I let you go and find out you lied to me,” he said, “you won’t get a second chance.”
“I’m not lying to you,” she said. “I promise.”
Jekker smelled urine.
The woman’s pants were soaked.
“We better get you a shower,” he said.
She lowered her eyes, embarrassed.
Then she peered up demurely and said, “I’m sorry to be such a bother.”
“You’re not a bother,” he said.
AFTER THE SHOWER he gave her a clean T-shirt. Then he let her sit on a boulder, under a cloudless Colorado sky, and get sun on her face as she watched him shoot the bow.
She studied his every move.
“You’re good,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“I’m not just saying that,” she said. “You really are.”
Jekker knew that.
Almost every shot had been within five or six inches of the bull’s-eye.
“I’ve been doing it a long time,” he said.
“Still—”
“It’s not that hard,” Jekker said. “You want to try?”
She looked hesitant.
Then she said, “Sure, if you want.”
His thoughts turned to Bethany, the stripper.
Maybe he’d take her with him to Amsterdam.
38
Day Five—June 15
Friday Evening
IN MIAMI—UNLIKE DENVER—THE WARMTH of the day didn’t evaporate when the sun went down. The heat stayed, then the mosquitoes came, looking for blood and ending up with lots of London’s. And that was just during a short walk around the block to clear her head.
When she got back to the house, Mackenzie Vampire and Venta had broken out another bottle of wine and seemed to be celebrating.
“Bingo,” Venta said, handing London a piece of paper, a cellular phone bill to be precise.
“What am I looking for?” she asked.
Venta put her finger on a line halfway down the page and said, “That.”
It was an incoming phone call from a 303 area code, meaning the Denver metropolitan area, eight days before Rebecca Vampire left for Bangkok.
“And that and that and that,” Venta said.
Sure enough.
More calls.
All from the same Denver phone.
“I’ll be damned,” London said.
“True, but not relevant,” Venta said.
“Is this the same phone that you got your calls from?”
Venta shook her head.
“Negative.”
“So is it a Vesper & Bennett phone?”
Venta looked amused, pulled her cell phone out and dialed the number. As it rang she said, “Let’s find out.”
Ring.
Ring.
No answer.
Ring.
Ring.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” Venta said. “Who am I talking to?”
“Security.”
“Security?”
“Right.”
“Security for what?”
“Building security.”
“Which building?”
“Republic Plaza. Who is this?”
“I think I might have the wrong number,” Venta said. “Is this the number for a law firm?”
“No it’s a lobby phone.”
“You mean a public payphone?”
“Right.”
“In the lobby of the Republic Plaza Building?”
“Right.”
“Thanks,” Venta said. “Now I understand. I have the wrong number.”
She hung up and looked at London. “Where’s the Republic Plaza Building?”
London searched her memory. “I think it’s on the 16th Street Mall, or between the mall and Broadway, someplace down around Court Street.”
“How far is it from the Vesper & Bennett building?”
“I don’t know. Two or three blocks, maybe.”
“Is it a big building?”
“Yeah, huge.”
Venta frowned.
“So we definitely have a Bangkok connection coming from Denver, but maybe not from Vesper & Bennett after all. We need to find out what law firms reside at the Republic Plaza Building.” She looked at London. “How do we do that?”
London shrugged.
Then she said, “We can check the directory in the lobby.”
Venta patted her on the back.
“That’s the first thing we do tomorrow morning,” she said.
THEY CAUGHT A REDEYE BACK TO DENVER and slept most of the way. At one point London said, “Maybe we should take what we have to the police.”
Venta moaned.
“The police? You have to be kidding.”
“Why?”
“Because we’d be giving up our only advantage.”
“Which is—?”
“Which is, being small and invisible. We need more information, a lot more information. At this point, no one knows that we know about a Bangkok connection. We need to keep it that way.”
London chewed on it and agreed.
WHEN SHE GOT BACK TO HER APARTMENT, something felt off, almost as if someone had been inside. The feeling was so strong that she pushed down the need to flop immediately into bed and instead walked around, studying the details, looking for something that had been moved or taken or left.
In the end she found nothing.
Not a single thing was a millimeter off from where she remembered it, other than a paperback book which might be slightly over from where she set it, although she couldn’t be sure. Just for grins she booted up her laptop to see if anyone had logged on in her absence.
No one had.
She turned off the lights, got into bed and briefly pictured Venta in the dungeon.
She forced the visual out of her brain and fell asleep before it could get back in.
39
Day Five—June 15
Friday Afternoon
THE HIGHWAY TRASH CREW had collected four bags of litter by the time they stumbled on the discarded envelope with the pictures of Tessa Blake. Teffinger had them sign chain-of-custody forms and then threw all four bags in the back of the pickup and headed back to headquarters.
His thinking was simple.
There was a good chance that whoever took Tessa Blake and killed Samantha Rickenbacker had handled the envelope and/or the pictures. If they could pull prints maybe they’d find the same prints on some of the other refuse, which in turn might tell them something they didn’t know already and maybe even contain DNA.
Say a pop can.
Or a cigarette butt.
Traffic was thick on the 6th Avenue freeway, even heading into downtown, where gridlock was almost certain. Everyone in the city was trying to be somewhere else.
“Too many cars,” Sydney said.
Teffinger nodded.
“May as well be in L.A.”
She looked at him.
“Ever been there?”
Yes he had, once, about ten years ago.
“And?”
“And, they got beaches, we got mountains. What I’m wondering is if Tessa Blake somehow got herself caught up in something that involves more than one person.”
Sydney wrinkled her forehead.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if there’s only one person involved, why would he have a half-dozen photographs of her? He already knows what she looks like. The more I think about that envelope, the more I’m convinced that it’s the kind of package that you give to a hit man, someone who doesn’t know the target. This is what she looks like.”
“Good thought except for two things,” Sydney said.
Teffinger hit the brakes to keep from running up the ass end of a white coupe that suddenly cut him off.
Jerk.
Then he looked at Sydney.
“Two things,” he said. “One and two, or A and B?”
“A and B,” she said. “A, on a scale of importance to the universe, Tessa Blake hardly registers. She doesn’t warrant a hit man even under the wildest scenarios. And B, it’s the hit man who would end up with the photos. Like you said, this is what she looks like. Could he really be so stupid as to throw them out the car window while he’s driving down the freeway? I just don’t see it happening.”
She had a point, two points in fact.
“So how do you explain the envelope?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“I don’t. I just shoot down your theories.”
SHE PUNCHED THE RADIO SCANNER and landed on The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun.” Teffinger pulled her hand away before she could skip past. She let it play and said, “So what did your new squeeze do with all the money?”
“What money?”
“You don’t know about the money?”
“No.”
“Well, she owns a house in San Francisco. You know about that, right?”
No.
He didn’t.
“Anyway, she took out an equity loan not too long ago.”
“For how much?”
“Three hundred.”
“Thousand?”
“Yep.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m still checking up on her for you.”
He gave her a sideways look and said, “I asked you not to do that.”
“How long have we known each other?”
“I don’t know. Two years—”
“So what makes you think I’m going to start listening to you now?”
AT HEADQUARTERS, TEFFINGER TOOK THE STAIRS two at a time to the sixth floor and managed to catch Paul Kubiak just as he was about to escape. Teffinger must have had a look on his face like he needed Kubiak’s help and needed it now, because Kubiak frowned and said, “Two minutes; if I had just left two minutes earlier.”
Teffinger handed him an evidence bag and explained about the envelope and photos inside. “I need everything in here printed ASAP, as in, Do you have it done yet?” he said. “Whoever handled it may be the one who took Tessa Blake.”
Kubiak cocked his head.
“You have no idea how starved I am,” he said.
Teffinger looked at his watch.
5:23.
“I’ll have some pizza delivered,” he said.
“Your treat?”
Teffinger nodded.
“You’re not going to look in your wallet after it gets here like last time and say, Gee, I could have sworn I had a twenty in there.”
“That was a one time deal,” Teffinger said. “Plus I said I’d pay you back.”
“But you never did.”
“But I said I would.”
Kubiak rolled his eyes.
“Tell you what,” Kubiak said. “Let’s have a look in your wallet right now, just to be sure.”
“What? You don’t trust me? Just because of one little innocent mistake?”
“Sure I trust you,” Kubiak said. “But why don’t we have a tiny little look-see anyway?”
Teffinger pulled out his wallet and opened it to show he had money.
Except he didn’t.
He had two dollars.
That was it.
“I knew it!” Kubiak said.
Teffinger looked bewildered.
“Hey, I’
m as surprised as you,” he said. “So I’ll tell you what, I’ll order the pizza and pay, except you’ll need to advance me the money.”
“Unbelievable,” Kubiak said. Then he put a somber look on his face. “Are you serious about the prints?”
“Deadly,” Teffinger said. “Come on. We’re wasting time.”
40
Day Six—June 16
Saturday Morning
JEKKER CHAINED TESSA BLAKE in the boxcar, just to be good and sure she couldn’t escape, and wound down Highway 74 out of the mountains under a cerulean Colorado sky. He picked up a large cup of caffeine at the Conoco in Morrison, then headed for the Denver skyline and got to his LoDo loft by 9:00 a.m.
He had a lot to do today, but first he got the coffee going and took a hot shower.
Then he got on the web and researched Cayman banks. He opened an account by phone and then wire transferred all the funds from his checking and savings accounts.
$4.2 million.
When he checked his Cayman account on the Internet an hour later, all the funds were reported as received.
Perfect.
He didn’t envision his departure to Europe as necessarily permanent. If he chose to come back to the U.S. in a couple of years, it wouldn’t be a problem to get a new identity and disappear into the masses of New York, even if Tessa Blake cooperated with the cops.
Which she would, of course, once she was safe and the police pressured her—“He killed Samantha Rickenbacker. Who knows how many other poor innocent women he’ll kill if you don’t help us stop him. Do you really want all that blood on your hands?”
She’d crack in an hour.
No, thirty minutes.
So what?
It wouldn’t matter.
HIS CONTACT CALLED AT 11:00. Forty-five minutes later, $250,000 was wire transferred into his Cayman account, reportedly from a Hong Kong bank—payment of his relocation bonus.
He felt better knowing it had arrived.
It showed good faith.
He needed exercise, right now, so he dropped to the floor and did three sets of fifty pushups, then headed outside for a five-mile run, breathing deep, letting the air clean his lungs.
HE’D JUST WALKED IN THE DOOR, still out of breath, when his phone rang; the landline, not the cell. He didn’t recognize the incoming number. A man’s voice came through. “Is this Dylan Jekker?”
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