Dark Hunger (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by Jagger, R. J.

  “I don’t know,” Twist said, “let me take another sample.”

  Then she kissed Rave again.

  Longer and wetter this time.

  “It’s good,” Twist said.

  An uneasy feeling gripped Rave.

  Not because she was being kissed by a woman.

  But because that woman already had a lover.

  “Where’s Kat?” Rave asked.

  “Relax,” Twist said. “I’m allowed to kiss other women, so long as they’re vampires. Kat couldn’t make it tonight. But Natalie will be joining us.”

  Natalie.

  Natalie Fox.

  The petite, quiet vampire.

  “You don’t mind tasting her, do you?” Twist asked.

  Rave shook her head.

  No.

  Not at all.

  “Good,” Twist said, “because she’s really excited about it. Vampire blood is better for you anyway. It has more strength in it.”

  THEY DRANK WINE.

  Twist, unbelievably, had a Billie Holiday CD and put it on.

  Rave felt good.

  No, not good, perfect.

  “I may never leave,” she said.

  “Then don’t.”

  Rave looked at her.

  “I want to be sure everything is out in the open,” she said. “Did Parker tell you that I shot Forrest?”

  Twist nodded.

  “You had no choice,” Twist said. “The only chance he had was for you to shoot. It wasn’t your fault. You did the best you could. If Forrest was here today, he’d be the first to tell you that.”

  “Did Parker tell you I was drunk?” Rave asked.

  The look on Twist’s face said it all.

  No.

  Parker hadn’t.

  Twist had no idea.

  “Both Parker and Forrest told me to be absolutely sure that I stayed totally sober all evening,” Rave said. “I didn’t listen to them. I drank screwdrivers. I smoked pot. Then, when I went to leave the club, Parker saw that I was in no condition to go through with the plan. He told me to abort, but I didn’t. Then, because I was drunk, I ended up stopping at the wrong place. Forrest had to run a long way to get to where I was. By the time he got there, he was out of breath and no match for the slayer. So I was the one who got him into that position to begin with.”

  Twist looked at Parker.

  “Is that true?” she asked.

  Parker nodded.

  Twist got off the couch, walked to the kitchen, pulled the cork out of the bottle, and refilled her glass. She almost set the bottle back down on the granite countertop, but instead walked over and topped off Parker and Rave. Then she sat back down and patted Rave’s knee.

  “None of us are perfect,” she said. “We do what we can. The main thing is that we stick together.” She clinked her glass on Rave’s and added, “To the death.”

  Rave exhaled.

  And clinked Twist’s glass.

  Then Parker’s.

  And said, “To the death.”

  NATALIE FOX SHOWED UP ten minutes later, carrying a leather briefcase and looking like she just won the lottery. “Brought my goodies,” she told Twist.

  “I thought you might.”

  Natalie walked straight to Rave and kissed her on the mouth. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she said. She drank a large glass of wine in about ten minutes and said, “Parker, will you do the honors?”

  Sure.

  Natalie and Parker disappeared into the guest bedroom.

  And closed the door.

  Rave must have had a look of curiosity on her face because Twist said, “You’ll see, in a minute. We all develop our own little comfort zones on how we like to be sucked. Natalie, for example, likes to be worked into a sexual frenzy beforehand.”

  When Parker came out of the bedroom he asked Rave, “You want me to leave?”

  She squeezed his hand.

  “No. I already told you that this afternoon.”

  IN THE BEDROOM, Rave found Natalie spread-eagle on the bed, naked except for a black thong. She had black leather cuffs on her wrists and ankles. The cuffs were secured to the four corners of the bed with rope.

  She was stretched tight.

  Immobile.

  Helpless.

  “No one can suck me unless you can get me to beg you to let me come first,” Natalie said.

  Twist climbed between the woman’s legs and ran her fingers gently up and down the woman’s stomach. Then she paused, looked at Rave, and said, “Pet her. She won’t break.”

  Rave sat on the bed.

  And ran an index finger in little circles on the woman’s forehead.

  The woman moaned and strained against her bonds.

  Incredibly sexy.

  Incredibly vulnerable.

  “It looks like you’re in our control,” Twist said. Then she looked at Rave and said, “Let’s tease her until she goes out of her mind.”

  Rave hesitated, debating, then looked at Parker and said, “Get over here and help.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Eighty

  Day Seven—April 18

  Monday Night

  ______________

  THE FLIGHT BACK TO DENVER from San Francisco was fine until they passed the continental divide. Then one lightning bolt after another ripped through the black skies, and explosions of thunder resonated with such force that the aircraft actually shook. Maniac rain tried to rip the wings off. Somehow the pilot cut through the whole mess without being swatted out of the sky and brought them down to earth alive. As they taxied to the gate, Teffinger wiped sweaty palms on his pants and said, “I am never flying again. Ever.”

  London chuckled.

  “It was just a little storm.”

  “Little?” he said. “Something like that is what wiped out the dinosaurs.”

  On the drive home, he called Sydney.

  “Tell me you got Geneva derailed,” he said.

  A pause.

  “I went over and talked to her, like you wanted. She said all the right words and nodded when she was supposed to. But if you want my gut feeling, she was blowing me off.”

  Teffinger hung up and called Geneva.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Trouble?” London asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  WHEN THEY GOT TO TEFFINGER’S HOUSE, the windshield wipers were still going full speed. Teffinger was too wound up to go to sleep, even though he should, so they opened the garage door, sat in the ’67 Vette, and watched the storm.

  He had a Bud Light in his left hand.

  Half gone.

  With a second one, still full, sitting on the floor.

  Waiting its turn.

  “Can you do me a favor tomorrow? Because I’m probably going to forget,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “Google that guy Jake VanDeventer and see if you can pull a picture of him off the net,” Teffinger said. “If you can, I’m going to email it to Amanda Pinehurst in Chicago and ask her if that’s the guy she saw following her and Kennedy.”

  “I thought VanDeventer was a dead end.”

  “He is.”

  “So why are we bothering?”

  “Because when you’re desperate, that’s what you do.”

  He dialed Geneva again.

  No answer again.

  Lightning ripped across the sky.

  Immediately followed by an explosive crack of thunder.

  A dog barked.

  “That was close,” Teffinger said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He returned two minutes later with Alley, who curled up on his lap and purred. “I need to get out of the detective business,” he said. “It’s just too frustrating sometimes. I’ve been letting too many people down. I need a month on a beach somewhere. No bad guys; no missing people; no dead bodies. Just sand and water and sun.”

  “And me?”

  He chuckled.

  “That’s understood
.”

  “If you’re serious, we can go to Jamaica,” London said. “I still have relatives there, so it would be free.”

  Teffinger pictured it.

  White sand.

  Blue water.

  London lying on a towel in a bikini.

  “Maybe when this is all over,” he said. “First I have to find Jena so I can return this animal to her.” He looked down and said, “No offense, Alley.”

  London leaned over and put her head on Teffinger’s shoulder.

  Teffinger looked at his watch.

  9:52 p.m.

  He should head to bed.

  But knew he couldn’t sleep.

  “I NEED TO TAKE A QUICK TRIP,” he said. “You want to come with me?”

  “Where you going?”

  “To Cameron Leigh’s house,” he said. “She’s the dead female vampire. There was something in her house that reminded me of Chicago but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is. It’s been nagging at me ever since I found out about the Kennedy Pinehurst case.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They brought Alley with them.

  Teffinger made London put on latex gloves when they got to the victim’s house, same as him, so they wouldn’t contaminate the scene.

  They left Alley in the 4Runner and headed inside.

  Everything was exactly as Teffinger remembered it.

  So, where to start?

  Chicago.

  Chicago.

  Where are you?

  London spotted the wall of books and headed in that direction. “Those are all vampire books,” Teffinger said.

  “Wow.”

  “She was definitely living the life,” he said.

  “Can I look at them?”

  He almost said no, just because his basic nature was to not mess up crime scenes, but he said, “Okay, but one at a time, and put them back exactly where you found them.”

  Chicago.

  Teffinger gyrated towards the computer desk, which was covered with hundreds of pieces of paper; most of which contained handwriting. He started reading them when his eyes fell on a one-page calendar from last year. Each month was about the size of a business card. There were a couple of notes scribbled on the edges, with arrows drawn from the notes to a particular date.

  Bingo.

  One of the handwritten words was Chicago.

  From that word was an arrow drawn to May 19.

  “What the hell?”

  He must have said the words out loud, because London walked over and asked, “What’d you find?”

  Teffinger showed her.

  “Chicago,” he said. “This is what I remembered seeing.”

  “What’s it mean?” she asked.

  “See the arrow pointing from the word to this date?” he said, putting his finger on the date.

  Yes.

  She did.

  Of course she did.

  “Kennedy Pinehurst was from Chicago. And this is the day she disappeared.”

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Day Eight—April 19

  Tuesday Morning

  ______________

  TRIPP WAS A HUNDRED MILES outside Vegas doing 85 when Brittany called with bad news. Her flight was cancelled due to a nasty storm. The next fight wasn’t until the morning.

  “I’ll make it up to you,” Tripp said.

  Two hours later, shortly after midnight, he got VanDeventer situated in a suite at the Mirage. Then he took a cab to the Rhino and let the dancers dangle their legs over his shoulders and rub their crotches in his face for a couple of hours. He was down three hundred dollars and decided it was probably time to leave, before he ended up buying one of them a car.

  In the morning, he dropped VanDeventer off at the bus station. Then he opened his cell phone, pulled up the address book, and wrote Lefty on a piece of paper, together with a phone number.

  He handed the paper to VanDeventer and said, “Call this guy if you want some fake ID.”

  VanDeventer studied it.

  “What can he do?”

  Tripp chuckled.

  “What can’t he do?—driver’s licenses, passports, social security cards, whatever you want.”

  “Can he be trusted?”

  “Yeah, but he’s pricey. So be prepared.”

  VanDeventer folded the paper and stuck it in his wallet.

  “I might give him a call,” he said.

  “I would, if I were you,” Tripp said. “Cut your hair, dye it black, get some of those big oversized nerd glasses, wear a business suit and tie—if you get all that going together with a fake name, even I wouldn’t know you.”

  They hugged.

  And parted.

  TRIPP WASN’T IN THE MOOD to spend eleven or twelve hours on the road, so he parked the rental in the long-term lot at the airport and took a flight back to Denver. He rented a green Impala, drove downtown, parked at the edge of LoDo and hoofed it over to the abandoned warehouse.

  Everything was as he left it.

  Good.

  Who would end up here?—that was the question.

  Lauren Long?

  Rave Lafelle?

  London Fontelle?

  Some spur-of-the-moment stranger?

  Not Brittany, though.

  Definitely not her.

  He looked at his watch—11:48 a.m.

  He called Brittany. “Are you free for lunch?”

  She was.

  Fifteen minutes later they met at Marlowe’s on the 16th Street Mall. She wore a conservative, gray pantsuit with her hair up, very professional.

  She looked nice.

  “I didn’t feel like driving back this morning so I took a flight instead,” Tripp said. “I’m thinking that you and me can fly down this weekend, stay at the MGM for a few days, and then drive back—if you’re in the mood.”

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Day Eight—April 19

  Tuesday Morning

  ______________

  UNABLE TO GET OUT OF HER GIG at the Old Orleans, Rave kissed Twist goodbye Tuesday morning and flew to Denver. London picked her up at DIA and told her that Teffinger took her to Cameron Leigh’s house last night; and what they found.

  The calendar.

  Chicago.

  The arrow.

  “Somehow, Cameron was connected to Kennedy Pinehurst,” London said. She, in turn, ended up in an abandoned warehouse, naked, suspended by her ankles in an upside-down spread-eagle position, with her throat slit from ear to ear.

  “I just find it troubling that Cameron was also tied down in a spread-eagle position,” London said.

  “So what are you saying?” Rave asked. “That the slayers killed this woman—”

  “—Kennedy Pinehurst—”

  “—Right, her.”

  “That to me seems pretty obvious,” London said. “What that means is this—if we can figure out who killed Kennedy Pinehurst, we’re going to learn the identity of one or more of the slayers.”

  Rave chuckled.

  “What?” London asked.

  “How are we going to figure that out if the Chicago police haven’t been able to?”

  “We have two things going for us that they don’t,” London said. “First, we know about the connection. Second, Cameron’s house is here in Denver, not in Chicago. And we have access to it.”

  “We do?”

  “I unlocked the back door last night before me and Teffinger left,” London said.

  THEY PARKED TWO DOORS DOWN from Cameron’s house and headed straight for the back like they owned the place. To Rave’s surprise, London pulled two pairs of latex gloves out of her pants pocket and handed a pair to Rave.

  “Put these on.”

  Rave grinned.

  “You’re such an organized little criminal,” she said.

  “Yes I am.”

  They looked around.

  Saw no one.

  Then turned the doorknob, entered, and closed the door behind them.

  “We need to
be careful to not mess things up,” London said. “I don’t want Teffinger to know anyone’s been here.”

  They were looking for more information on the connection between Cameron Leigh and Kennedy Pinehurst, and figured it would most likely be on one of the hundreds of pieces of paper on the desk. So that’s where they devoted their attention.

  They divvied up the papers.

  And read every single one.

  Starting with the ones on top.

  Then moving into the drawers.

  They found nothing of interest.

  “It must be in her computer,” London said. “Unfortunately, the cops took it.”

  “Now what?” Rave asked.

  London shrugged.

  Then she put a curious look on her face and said, “Maybe she stuffed it in one of her books.”

  They walked over to the wall of books and started leafing through them, putting each one back exactly where they found it.

  “So how well did you know Cameron?” Rave asked.

  “Very,” London said.

  “Did you ever suck her blood?”

  “Many times; and vice versa.”

  “How about Parker?” Rave asked.

  “Cameron was like Twist,” London said. “There was a lot of sharing that went on.” She paused and added, “Parker’s fallen pretty hard for you. I suppose you know that.”

  Rave nodded.

  “I hope you two can make a go of it,” London said. “I’d like to see Parker happy. He deserves it.”

  “Have you ever been intimate with him?”

  London shook her head.

  “If you mean sex, no.”

  “Did you ever want to?”

  “Of course,” London said. “Early on. But he was always looking past me, for something more.”

  Rave laughed.

  “More? What could be more than you?”

  “You, apparently.”

  IN ONE OF THE LARGER HARDCOVER BOOKS, they discovered something interesting.

  Very interesting.

  Namely, several printouts from Internet searches.

  Printouts of newspaper articles on the disappearance of Kennedy Pinehurst, to be precise.

  Mostly from the Chicago Tribune.

  “Bingo.”

  None of the sheets of paper had any handwriting.

  “So what does this mean?” Rave asked.

  “It means she was researching the Kennedy Pinehurst murder,” London said.