Client Trap (Nick Teffinger Thriller)
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“That won’t be a problem, but as far as your question goes, the guy’s eyes were on me. I could feel them. I can still feel them. I’m his target. I don’t have any doubt in my mind.”
THE AIR WAS STILL, without a wisp of wind. The lake was smooth and quiet except for the occasional low-wake Lund trolling with a fishing pole or two draped off the stern. Raven spotted a flat rock and skipped it across the water.
“I could never do that,” Erin said.
“Sure you can.”
“No, I tried.”
“When?”
“When I was small.”
Raven taught her how to do it.
Within five minutes, Erin was skipping like a pro.
Then Raven said, “We have the guy’s picture, but I don’t know how much that’s going to help. The police have it too and so far it doesn’t look like they’ve been able to attach a name to it. If they haven’t been able to do it with all their resources, we won’t be able to either. We do have one thing going for us that they don’t, however.”
“What’s that?”
“We know that the guy is either after you or your friend.”
“Me.”
“Okay, say you,” Raven said. “That means we have bait.”
Chapter Seven
Day One—July 12
Monday Afternoon
______________
AT THE DUNGEON in the back of the machine shop, Dalton pulled a ski-mask over his head, unlocked the door, pushed it open a couple of inches and said through the crack, “I’m coming in. I want you to move to the back corner of the room. Do you understand?”
No response.
He pushed the door all the way open and spotted Lindsay Vail, crouching in the back corner, staring at him with wide eyes. Her hands were empty.
Good.
She hadn’t tried to dismantle anything to make a weapon.
She wore tight jeans and a skimpy white tank top; a tanned bellybutton showed between the two. She wasn’t big, five-feet-two at the most, 110 pounds. She was about twenty-five, in good shape, with a pretty face and white teeth.
“Don’t let the mask scare you,” Dalton said. “The only reason I’m wearing it is so you won’t recognize me when I let you go. Don’t try to pull it off because if you ever see my face, things will get complicated. I’ll either have to gouge your eyes out or kill you. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
Her lower lip trembled.
“What do you want with me?”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, “as long as you do exactly what I tell you to and don’t give me a hard time. So it’s going to be up to you how things go.”
She said nothing.
“Stand up,” he said.
She did.
“Take off your shirt and your bra,” he said. “You can leave your jeans on.”
She hesitated and stared into his eyes.
THEN SHE PULLED THE TANK TOP OVER HER HEAD and dropped it on the floor. She reached behind her back, unclasped her bra, and dropped it on top of the tank. Then she covered her breasts with her hands.
She was built better than Dalton thought.
She’d be more than fine for the average guy.
But she didn’t compare to the women Dalton ran with.
He liked them taller.
Five-ten or five-eleven.
And built stronger.
She had a tattoo on her left breast, a red rose on a thorny stem. A second tattoo wrapped around her left arm, something in the nature of a tribal band.
“Turn around,” Dalton said.
She swallowed.
Then she obeyed.
On her back were two more tattoos—one on her upper left shoulder, a flower piece; and a second on her lower back, just above her ass, an abstract that disappeared into her jeans.
“Come over here,” Dalton said.
She turned and walked towards him.
Halfway there, she stopped.
Dalton went to her, held her left hand in his—almost as if they were lovers—and led her over to the rack, which sat on the opposite side of the room, about four feet from the wall.
“Lie down,” he said.
She didn’t.
So he picked her up in his arms and set her on it. She didn’t resist. Then he pushed her down, gently, until she was flat on her back.
“Put your arms above your head,” he said.
She did.
Then he fastened cuffs on her wrists and ankles, clipped them to chains and stretched her tight. Not so tight that she was uncomfortable, but tight enough that she could barely move.
“I’m going to blindfold you now so I can take my mask off,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Day One—July 12
Monday Morning
______________
AFTER LEAVING RADCLIFF & SNOW, Teffinger went back to headquarters, poured a cup of coffee, hunted around in the cold-case storage room until he found the Whitney White file, and brought it back to his desk. As soon as he sat down, Sydney came over.
“So how’d it go?”
Teffinger took a long slurp of hot coffee and said, “The managing partner’s a guy named Jeff Salter. He denied knowing anything about Ryan Ripley or anyone else in the firm being into voodoo.”
“So what’s your take on him?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“He’s smarter than me.”
Sydney chuckled and said, “I’m not touching that one.”
“Good.”
“I could though,” she said, “just for the record.”
“I understand.”
“Without even having to work at it,” she added.
“I get the picture.”
“In fact, I already have three or four things I could say, but I’m not going to.”
“Thanks. You’re too nice. Salter’s a businessman at heart,” Teffinger said. “He spent about two seconds concerned about Ripley being dead and spent the rest of the time worried that clients would find out that one of the firm’s lawyers was a John. He already knew about Ripley’s indiscretions, though, and wasn’t pleased about it.”
THE DEAD LAWYER clearly had something to do with Whitney White’s murder. It was coincidental enough that the woman died from being stabbed with something through the left eye and that Ripley had a voodoo doll in his dresser drawer with the same injury. Add to that the fact that they both worked for Radcliffe & Snow, and no doubt knew each other, and the connection was inescapable.
Was Ripley the one who killed her?
Teffinger looked at Sydney.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Call the coroner and be sure he checks to see if our dead lawyer had any saliva on his dick. I want to know if he was really getting a BJ or whether the whole thing was just staged to make it look that way.”
“I noticed something,” she said.
“What?”
“The more coffee you drink, the more things you think of for me to do.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Teffinger walked into Wong’s on Court Street, and spotted Geneva Vellone in a corner booth. Geneva was the radio half of the Vellone sisters, a 27-year-old brunette beauty who had an insanely popular morning show on FM 104 called Hot Talk.
Teffinger listened to it a few times.
And found it a little too over-the-top for his taste.
She was the younger sister of Matt Vellone, Teffinger’s best friend in high school. Being six years his junior, he hardly noticed Geneva back then. Four or five years ago, they turned into flirting buddies, and occasionally got each other drunk.
TEFFINGER WAS SURPRISED to see that Geneva wasn’t alone. She had a woman with her; and not just any woman, a black woman with a Polynesian mix, or vice versa, a combination that worked whatever it was. Her hair was long, panther-black and perfectly straight. Her skin was smooth and golden-brown. She wore black heels, a short white dress and a baby-blue, sleeveless blouse.
No wedding ring.
>
She looked to be about twenty-five.
He swallowed as he crossed the room, already in lust.
“Nick,” Geneva said, spotting him. She stood up, gave him a big chest-press hug, motioned him into the booth and then scooted in next to him. “This is Venzelle Oceana.”
Teffinger looked into the woman’s eyes.
And knew he had to have her.
All of her.
Her mind.
Her body.
Her soul.
Her passion.
Her ups.
Her downs.
All of it.
Venzelle studied Teffinger for a second, then turned to Geneva and said, “I’ll be damned. I thought you were exaggerating.”
Geneva chuckled.
Then she told Teffinger, “Venzelle’s going to be a co-host with me on Hot Talk, starting tomorrow morning. She’s coming from a sister station in Cincinnati.”
Teffinger looked deep into the woman’s eyes.
And he said, “Cincinnati, huh? I’m going to tell you something, and you’re probably not going to believe it, but it’s absolutely, one hundred percent true.”
She put an intrigued look on her face.
“And what’s that?”
He leaned across the table.
As if it was so important that he needed to whisper.
She leaned in and met him halfway.
Almost close enough to kiss.
And Teffinger said, “About ten years ago, I knew a guy, who had a brother, who had a friend, who knew how to spell Cincinnati.”
She looked astonished.
“No way.”
Teffinger nodded.
“True story,” he said. “In fact, the guy could spell Cincinnati so good, that he could even do it with two T’s.”
“The elite version,” she said.
“He even did it with three T’s once,” Teffinger said. “But that turned out to be a one-shot deal. It just about killed him. He was never able to do it again.”
“A triple,” she said. “I’d heard rumors about someone doing that but always thought it was a myth.”
Chapter Nine
Day One—July 12
Monday Morning
______________
MOST PEOPLE HAVE A MISCONCEPTION that any author who has a book published is automatically raking in the big bucks, shopping for a house in a gated community and trading their Ford in for a Ferrari. The reality is that most debut authors, like Raven Lee, get an upfront advance of $15,000 or less. Compared against the number of hours spent writing the manuscript, the pay was about the same as behind the McDonald’s counter. With her law practice in remission and her writing hours increasing, Raven didn’t exactly have a pot full of gold coins to skip across the water.
Her savings account hadn’t been that big to start with and was now dangerously low.
In February, she moved from her apartment into the back of her law office; illegal but cost effective. In April, an upstairs tenant got careless with a cigarette and burned the building bad enough to make it uninhabitable. Luckily, Raven’s files didn’t get destroyed. John Anderson, a former client from the old R&S days, offered to let her live on his sailboat for the summer while he toured Europe. She accepted, moved her furniture into a storage unit in Arvada, and turned the inside of her 4Runner into a file room for her cases.
She was set for the next three or four months.
Then it would be time to make some decisions.
Things were a lot different now than eighteen months ago, when she was an upper-level associate at Radcliffe & Snow, Denver’s largest law firm.
Still, she wouldn’t go back.
Ever.
Screw that place.
AFTER HER NEW CLIENT LEFT MID-MORNING, Raven fired up her laptop and Googled Lindsay Vail, the woman who got abducted Saturday night, to see if she and Erin Asher had anything in common.
Something that might help identify the mystery man tailing Erin.
Lindsay Vail, it turned out, designed and maintained websites.
She owned a small Colorado company called Web Magic, Inc. The address for the company turned out to be the same as the woman’s home address, on Marion Street in Denver. Raven knew the neighborhood.
Small brick bungalows.
Crowded street parking.
City living.
Barking dogs.
Other than those few facts, cyberspace didn’t have much to say about Lindsay Vail.
Raven Googled Julie Pratt, the woman who got stabbed in the back at Lindsay Vail’s house Saturday night. Google never heard of the woman.
Neither did Yahoo.
Now what?
MID-AFTERNOON, RAVEN GOT IN THE 4RUNNER, pointed the front end towards Denver, and punched the radio buttons until she landed on Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” A half hour later she pulled into a parking space on the street two blocks down from Lindsay Vail’s house. She doubled back on foot under a sweltering Colorado sky.
It had to be every bit of ninety-five.
Hot.
Even in shorts and a T-shirt.
Yellow CSI tape stretched around the perimeter of the yard.
The front door was closed.
No cars were in the driveway.
Raven hoped to find someone there.
Investigating.
Someone she could innocently pump for information.
She stood on the sidewalk, staring at the house, wondering what to do next. She looked around to see if any neighbors were hanging around to talk to.
None were.
Suddenly a white Tundra pickup swung into the driveway and two people stepped out, a tall attractive man and an athletic African American woman.
They looked like detectives.
Raven nonchalantly walked over and said, “Did you catch the guy yet?”
The man turned.
He had one blue eye and one green one.
Very sexy.
“Not yet,” he said.
“What’s his name?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Why is he a suspect?”
The man studied her.
“Are you a reporter?” he asked.
“No.”
“So who are you?”
“I’m Raven.”
“Well, Raven,” the man said, “the guy’s a suspect because he’d been following one of the victims around. But that’s between you and me. Don’t spread it around.”
“Following which one?”
“The one who lived here,” he said.
“Lindsay Vail?”
The man nodded. “Do you know her?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know she lived here?” he asked.
“No reason.”
“Are you a neighbor?”
“No.”
THE MAN COCKED HIS HEAD and said, “You know something? I’ve been at this detective game a long time and over the years I’ve developed sort of a sixth sense about knowing when someone knows something that might help me. Right now, I’m getting that feeling from you. So, if I’m right, and you know something, I’d love to hear it.”
Raven stood there.
Not knowing what to say.
“We’re hoping that Lindsay Vail is still alive,” the man added. “The more I know, the better chance she has.” Raven wanted to blurt out the fact that he was hunting the wrong man, but couldn’t, not without betraying the confidences of her client.
So she turned and walked away.
Three steps later she stopped and twisted around. The man hadn’t moved a muscle.
“I hope you catch him,” she said.
She turned again.
Then she felt something on her shoulder.
A hand.
When she twisted, the man was there. He handed her a business card. “My name’s Nick Teffinger and that’s my card,” he said. “If you think of anything, call me day or night.”
Something in the backgrou
nd caught Raven’s eye.
The black woman.
She had a cell phone out.
Raven wasn’t sure but it looked like the woman was using it to take her picture.
Chapter Ten
Day One—July 12
Monday Afternoon
______________
DALTON WREY HAD NEVER BOUND a woman before and was surprised to find that the sight of Lindsay Vail stretched on the rack put a little tingle in his pants. He blindfolded her with three wraps of a long black cloth. After she swore that she couldn’t see a thing and he convinced himself that she wasn’t lying, he removed his ski mask.
Then he studied his captive.
Not in a hurry.
Because she still wore jeans, her upper body seemed all the more naked. He ran a finger gently across her lips. Then it was time to get down to business.
FROM THE TRUNK OF THE CAR, he retrieved a black suitcase, brought it inside, pulled out tattoo equipment and got set up. Before he started he said, “I’m going to put a tattoo on your stomach.”
“No!”
“It’ll probably take about two hours,” he said. “If it gets to be too much, and you need to take a break, just let me know.”
He cleaned the area then applied the pattern to the left of her belly button.
“Okay, here we go.”
Chapter Eleven
Day One—July 12
Monday Afternoon
______________
TEFFINGER HAD TOO MANY THINGS going on in his life to become obsessed with a woman. But obsession wasn’t something that got planned, or pushed aside, or penciled in for a more convenient day. Obsession was more like getting hit in the face with a rock.
There it was.
All of a sudden.
Wham.
Now deal with it.
Right now.
This second.
So he dealt with it by making plans to see Venzelle Oceana this evening. Then he pushed her as far to the back of his mind as he could. Ryan Ripley got pushed there too. And, as much as he wanted to dust off the Whitney White case and find out how she was connected to the voodoo doll, he pushed her back as well.
Lindsay Vail was the one he needed to concentrate on.