No more shouting came from above.
“Hey, are you up there?”
No answer.
He called, again and again and again.
For at least two minutes.
Still no answer.
The water was definitely rising. He was certain of that now and struggled with all his might to free his body.
Damned rock!
Then a voice came from above. “Here’s the deal. You’re going to tell me where Megan Bennett is. Then I’m going to send someone out there to verify it. If we find her and she’s alive, then I’m going to call a rescue team in here to get you out. If you don’t tell me where she is, or if she’s dead, then you can rot in there. My report’s going to say you ran off into the night and we had no idea where you went.”
He screamed.
“Get me out of here!”
TEFFINGER PACED ABOVE THE HOLE, then kicked rocks into it.
He got on his hands and knees and shouted in, “Last chance, asshole. You tell me where Megan Bennett is, right this second, before I start dropping rocks on your goddamn head!”
A pause.
“Get me out first. That’s the deal.”
He picked up a rock the size of a golf ball and threw it down with all his might.
“There’s your deal!” he said. “How do you like it, huh? Is that good enough for you?”
“Nick, stop!” The words came from Heatherwood, who shoved him hard in the chest. “Don’t do it! He’s not worth it.”
Teffinger knew she was right but didn’t care.
He pushed her to the ground, picked up another rock and threw it so hard that his arm hurt.
“Talk!” he shouted into the hole. “Where is Megan Bennett? Where is Megan Bennett? Where is Megan Bennett? Do you hear me? Where is Megan Bennett?”
A pause, then, “Okay, stop, I’ll tell you . . .”
“Tell me now!”
“Okay, calm down, she’s south of Denver . . .”
Teffinger got Katie Baxter on the phone and fed her the directions, staying on the line as she tore down I-25 at well over a hundred miles an hour.
“How you doing?” he questioned.
“Two miles to the turnoff,” she said. A short time later, “Okay, I’m getting off.”
“Good,” he said. “Head east for about two miles . . . you should see a gravel road on your left . . .”
“What marks it?”
“Nothing . . . it’s just a road . . .”
“Got it,” she said.
“Two hundred yards, on your right, a metal building . . .”
“Bingo, there it is!”
The vehicle slid to a stop in the gravel, so loud that Teffinger could hear the wheels locking. “The back door should be open,” he said.
“I’m heading around.” Then, after a moment, “Oh my God!”
“What?”
Baxter’s voice disappeared, and Teffinger could tell she was running, then the phone clanked, as if she dropped it on the ground.
“She’s strapped down to a table,” Baxter shouted. “There’s something on her head, a helmet or something . . . she’s moving! She hears me! Come on baby, hold on, let’s get this thing off . . .”
Seconds passed.
Someone gasped for air and choked, as if they’d just broken the surface of the water.
“You’re okay baby, breathe!”
More gasping.
“Nick, we got her,” Baxter said. “She seems okay . . .”
Teffinger slapped his hand on his thigh.
“We got her!” he told Heatherwood.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Day Thirteen - April 28
Saturday Morning
____________
TEFFINGER AND A TEAM of ten other people, armed with flashlights, frantically searched the area all night long. The rain never let up, not a bit, and instead just got colder and heavier. Then the wind kicked up and pushed it sideways, keeping the chopper planted even more firmly on the ground. Kelly didn’t show up anywhere.
They found her skirt and her panties but not her.
The prevailing theory was that she went down a mineshaft, either at Ganjon’s hands or at her own misfortune trying to escape.
Then he found her, just after daybreak, way off the beaten path.
She was in a sheer walled pit about thirty feet deep and ten feet wide, more bloodied and bruised than he’d ever seen anyone in his life.
He waved until he got the attention of one of the other men and then jumped down, splashing into chilly water about a foot deep.
He untied her hands, took her in his arms, gently, and held her.
“Baby, you’re okay now,” he said. “We’re going to get you to the hospital.”
She cried.
For a long time, neither of them said anything. Then she said, “It was so horrible. I jumped in, because I knew he couldn’t follow, but he threw rocks at me. Every time he threw one, he told me exactly where it would hit.”
Teffinger held her, picturing it.
“I couldn’t protect myself.” A pause, “Then he left. He could have killed me but wanted me to rot to death instead. He knew no one would ever find me in here.”
“Yeah, well, don’t worry about him, he won’t be bothering you anymore.”
They held each other, there in the water, while the paramedics scrambled above, rigging up a stretcher and ropes.
Then, at one point, she moved ever so slightly, and said, “What about Megan Bennett?”
“We got her,” Teffinger said. “She’s at Lutheran Medical Center right now, which is where we’re going to take you. Maybe you two can be roommates.”
She squeezed his hand.
“That would be nice.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Day Forty-Three
(One Month Later)
Thursday Evening
____________
“GET READY FOR THE BEST FIVE MINUTES of film ever made,” Teffinger said, sitting up straighter on the couch. “Courtesy of Brian de Palma.”
Kelly sat next to him, a glass of wine dangling from left hand and a transcript of today’s trial testimony sitting next to her, unread and unmarked. She hadn’t touched it since Teffinger put Body Double in the DVD player forty-five minutes ago. She’d never seen the movie and was hypnotized by it, especially the haunting music.
“You’re a bad influence,” she said.
“Yeah but that was in the fine print when you signed up.”
“Who said I signed up?”
“Hold on,” he said. “Here we go.”
The Frankie Goes to Hollywood song—“Relax”—poured out of the surround sound speakers and Teffinger cranked up the volume and sang along. “Relax, don’t do it . . . ”
A heartbeat after the scene ended his cell phone rang. “Told you,” he said to Kelly as he picked up the phone. “Best five minutes ever, period.”
“If you like weird stuff,” she said.
The person calling turned out to be Jeannie Dannenberg, who he hadn’t spoken to for over two weeks. “Nick, I need to talk to you, right away,” she said.
Bar sounds filled the background.
“Why, what’s up?”
“You’ll see. I’m down at B.T.’s, on duty tonight. Can you come down?”
He looked at his watch, 9:42 p.m.
“I don’t know . . .”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER HE PAID his six bucks at the door and pushed his way into the strip-club. The place was mobbed, something he didn’t expect on a Thursday, until he realized it was amateur night. Jeannie Dannenberg—Oasis—was working one of the stages, stripped down to a barely-there thong and spreading her strong, tanned legs. Teffinger looked for an empty chair at the stage, found none, stood there until he got her attention, threw a five-dollar bill by her feet and wandered over to the bar for a beer.
Jeannie came straight over as soon as she finished her set and gave him a warm, sweaty hug; then a wet kiss on the lips.
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
“Yeah, so why am I here?”
Another woman wandered over and leaned in. She held a half-empty bottle of beer in her right hand and wore street clothes—shorts, a tank top and sandals.
She was stunning and seemed familiar somehow, but he couldn’t place her.
“Teffinger,” Jeannie said, “meet Alicia Elmblade.” He must have had an expression of shock on his face because she added, “See, I told you it’d be worth the trip.”
“So you’re alive,” he said to the woman.
The woman looked at Jeannie, said “He’s so formal,” then put her arms around Teffinger’s neck, pulled him in and planted a big kiss on his lips. “I understand you’ve been watching out for me,” she said. “Is that true?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” he said. “I thought for sure Northway killed you right after Rick’s Gas Station.”
“Apparently he didn’t,” she said.
Jeannie grabbed Teffinger by the arm and started to lead him off. “Come on, you. You’re going into the back room for a couple of lap dances, on the house.” Alicia Elmblade grabbed his other arm and fell into step.
He found himself in the dim-lit back room, seated in an oversized chair with a six-foot high back, a private unit shaped like a Tilt-A-Whirl, pointed towards the wall. The women stripped down to thongs and turned their powers of persuasion on him.
“So tell me the story,” he said.
Alicia Elmblade shook her head negative and gently rubbed his crotch. “Not until you get hard first,” she said.
It took thirty-five or forty minutes for them to tell him the story, grinding on him the entire time. They were back there so long that one of the bouncers poked his head in a couple of times, just to be sure nothing illegal was going on.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, DRIVING BACK HOME, Teffinger reflected on the lawyer, Michael Northway. So, it turns out that he really did try to sever himself from Ganjon in the beginning by setting up a fake death. Still, he let himself give in to his dark side, eventually, which was too bad. There was no excuse for rolling Kelly into the river.
Michael Northway, Esq., the fancy-schmancy lawyer.
Now just one more dumb-ass fugitive on the run.
When he got home, the house was dark and Kelly was in the bedroom lying naked on top of the sheets, breathing heavy and steady. He watched her as he stripped down to his T-shirt, and then climbed in, trying not to wake her.
“You smell like perfume,” she mumbled.
“Oasis.”
“Yeah, right. What did she want?”
“I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“Umm,” she said, rolling to her side.
Because if I tell you now that you didn’t participate in an actual murder, he thought, you’ll be too excited to sleep. Then your ass will be dragging in court tomorrow.
And we can’t have that.
He leaned over, kissed her, then laid his head down and closed his eyes.
Then he opened them.
“Oh,” he said. “Jeannie gave me a lap dance, just for your information.”
“A good one?”
“Nah. I hardly even noticed, to tell you the truth.”
A pause.
“Is that your last lie of the night?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Okay, good. See you in the morning.”
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Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) Page 28
