by R. J. Jagger
Teffinger pulled up the scene.
It was so real that his chest tightened.
“I got a knife from the kitchen, stabbed Tookta to death, smeared you with blood and put the knife in your hands. You never moved a muscle the whole time. Then I slipped back out the same window I came in.”
Teffinger shook his head.
“None of that’s true,” he said. “I killed her.”
“No, I did,” Jinka said. “When we ended up there the next morning, I locked the closet window from the inside.”
“I don’t care about that,” Teffinger said. “I killed Tookta. I don’t know why you’re trying to make me think otherwise.”
“YOU THINK YOU KILLED HER,” Jinka said.
“I don’t think, I remember,” Teffinger said. “I remember tying her up. I remember teasing her. I remember it raining outside. I remember straddling her. I remember stabbing a knife into her chest over and over and over.”
“Your so-called memory is wrong.”
Wrong?
That doesn’t make sense.
How can a memory possibly be wrong?
“Here’s what I think happened,” Jinka said. “The drug Tookta gave you is something called Brandraxiin It causes delusions and memory loss. When you regained consciousness, you were still under the influence, right?”
He nodded.
Correct.
“Your head was spinning and you couldn’t think straight, right?”
Right.
Exactly right.
“You remembered a lot of things correctly,” Jinka said. “You remembered tying her up and teasing her and straddling her. You didn't’ remember killing her, though. Then you checked the front door and windows and found them all locked from the inside. Am I right?”
Yes.
Right.
“Your detective mind told you that no one else could have done it.”
Right.
“Because no one else could have,” he said.
“Once you convinced yourself that no one else could have done it, you remembered doing it. But that memory was false. It was just a drug-induced delusion. You were just playing out in your head what must have happened.”
“But I remembered it afterwards, too,” he said. “I remember it even now, this moment.”
“What you remember now is your prior memory,” she said. “Your prior false memory. Like it or not, you didn’t kill Tookta. I did. Remember, Teffinger, I’m telling you all this for your benefit, so you can have peace of mind. Give that some thought before you decide to hate me. I was going to tell you all this at some point. The right time just hadn’t come yet.”
Teffinger looked at her.
“Are you telling me the truth?”
She wiped tears out of her eyes.
“A hundred percent,” she said. “But I have one more confession to make. I planted the souvenirs in Petchpon’s safe. I went out and bought them when you thought I was in a training session.”
He processed the words.
“To get me to kill him,” he said.
Right.
That.
“He’s on the verge of closing in on me,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you but I don’t want there to be any more secrets Now you know everything. I love you, Teffinger. You know that.”
Yes.
He did.
“Don’t hate me,” she said. “We can put all this behind us. What’s important is that we stick by each other.”
100
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
TEFFINGER RAPPED HIS KNUCKLES hard on Wing’s fancy loft door. A man opened up and Jinka said, “That’s him.” Teffinger pushed the man inside, slammed the door behind them and said, “Give me one reason to kill you because that’s all I need.”
Wing’s face wrinkled.
“What’s going on?”
Teffinger recognized the voice.
It belonged to the mystery man down at the river, the one who said he had been blackmailed to kill Teffinger and wanted him to fake his own death.
“I know all about how your assistant killed Mint and how you covered it up,” Teffinger said. “I also know how Tookta blackmailed you and you had your attorney Sarapong put a hit on her. Tell me about the American woman, Aspen Leigh.”
Wing hesitated.
“She was there when Mint got killed, wasn’t she?” Teffinger said. “She saw what happened and you killed her.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what’s going on?” Teffinger said.
Wing slumped down on a couch.
Teffinger stood over him.
“You’re ten seconds away from dying,” he said.
Wing looked around.
Frantic.
Then said, “Yingfan and Mint had an altercation down by the river.”
“I already know that.”
“A woman was walking in the area and saw it,” Wing said.
“Aspen Leigh.”
Right.
Aspen Leigh.
“Yingfan and her friend chased her down and knocked her out,” Wing said. “They didn’t want to kill her though. They didn’t even want to kill Mint. None of it was supposed to go that far. They called me and wanted to know what they should do. I told them to take the woman to a small canal house I own until we could figure it out. We kept her captive there, not wanting to kill her but not being able to release her, either.”
“Is that where she is?”
Wing shook his head.
No.
“Someone figured it out,” Wing said. “A blackmailer sent me four photographs. Two of them were of the woman, Aspen Leigh, chained and unconscious. There was enough background to show the pictures were taken inside my house. One of the other pictures was of Yingfan and her friend Mod coming out the front door. Another one was similar, but of me. As soon as I got the photos, I relocated the woman to a shed I have behind a warehouse I own.”
“Is that where she is right now?”
Wing nodded.
Teffinger pulled him up by the face and said, “Take me there.”
THEY TOOK WING’S CAR and ended up at a old warehouse on the outskirts of Bangkok. Wing parked in front and led them around to the back. In the far corner was a grouping of three smaller buildings which might have been tool sheds or small workshops.
Wing pointed to the one on the left.
“She’s is there.”
Teffinger picked up the pace.
If Aspen was dead, he’d kill Wing.
Not quickly, either.
It would be ugly.
He’d pull his face off.
WING PULLED HIS KEYS OUT as they approached. He unlocked the door and they stepped inside.
No one was there.
“Where is she?”
Wing walked over to a mattress on the floor.
The chain that had been shacked to the woman’s leg was cut.
A window in the back wall was busted. The glass was on the floor, inside.
“She should be right here,” Wing said.
Teffinger spotted a piece of paper on the mattress and picked it up. On it was Thai writing. “That’s this say?”
Jinka read it.
“It says, Tell Teffinger to call this number.”
101
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
TEFFINGER DIALED THE NUMBER and a man answered in Thai. The only word Teffinger recognized was “Deck.” The voice seemed familiar but he couldn’t place it. “This is Teffinger,” he said.
“Teffinger, is that you?”
The words were in English now.
“I want Aspen Leigh,” Teffinger said.
“Of course you do,” the man said. “We already both know that. The question is, how far are you willing to go to get her?”
Suddenly Teffinger recognized the voice.
“Greystone?”
“Bingo,”
the man said. “It’s been a long time. Five years if my math is right. You haven’t forgotten about me, have you?”
“Where’s Aspen?”
“She’s waiting for you,” he said. “I’m going to tell you where to go. Here’s the important part. Don’t bring anyone with you. If you do, all bets are off.”
The man gave directions.
Teffinger hung up and told Wing, “I’m going to take your car.”
Sure.
No problem.
Jinka said, “What’s going on?”
“The man who has Aspen is one of my cold cases,” he said. “His name is Decker Greystone. He had a girlfriend named Del Rae. They had this elaborate scam where Del Rae would cozy up to a rich guy and get him to kill his wife. Greystone would tape the whole thing. Then they’d blackmail him. They did it three times that I know of, the last one being in Denver. I hunted them down and almost had them. Greystone fired at me. I fired back and hit Del Rae by mistake. She ended up dying. Greystone escaped and, in hindsight, came to Bangkok. Now he has Aspen.”
“Revenge,” Jinka said.
Right.
Revenge.
“Maybe we should call Petchpon and explain what’s going on. We can get this guy surrounded.”
Teffinger shook his head.
“Bad idea.”
Then he headed for the car.
102
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
THE DIRECTIONS TOOK TEFFINGER to an abandoned steel mill. He killed the engine in front of a chain-link fence blocking the road, scaled it, and walked towards the ominous buildings two hundred meters away. The sun was high and the humidity was thick. Coupled with almost no sleep last night, he’d never been weaker.
He expected Greystone to appear from around a corner.
But it didn’t happen.
Teffinger kept walking.
Past the first building.
Past the second.
Still no Greystone.
He shouted, “Show your damn face you coward.”
A flock of startled Pigeons took to the sky, otherwise nothing happened.
He kept walking.
Suddenly a voice from a distance shouted, “Over here.”
TEFFINGER WALKED THAT WAY, towards a high-voltage substation encircled with a chain-link fence. What he saw he could hardy believe. Aspen was strung up by her wrists with her feet barely touching the ground, gagged and naked, with her back against some kind of electrical connectors.
Greystone stepped into the open.
He was just as big as Teffinger remembered, at least an inch taller than him, maybe two.
He wore no shirt.
His body was ripped with muscles.
His hair was long and blond.
He wore a red bandana and had a large serrated knife in his right hand.
“You’re so predictable,” Greystone said. “That’s always been your problem. The minute I came up with the idea of having my girlfriend, who’s a consultant to Thai Foon, lure Aspen to Bangkok, I knew you’d be right on her coattails. My initial plan, in case you’re interested, was to just kill her, have you show up, then do the same to you. I was about thirty seconds away from doing that the day she arrived. Unfortunately, there was a fight nearby. Another woman ended up dead. Aspen witnessed it and got abducted. I was able to get a license plate number before they got away. I traced the number to a name, Wing, and then traced the name to a small house he owns on a canal. I broke in and there she was. The plan was to kill her but I came up with an even better plan. I blackmailed Wing into killing you. It seemed like a good idea at the time, being risk free for me. The more I thought about it, though, the more I missed the opportunity to kill you myself with my own two hands. So, here were are.”
“Walk away and I’ll let you live,” Teffinger said.
Greystone laughed.
“They turned off the substations but the electricity coming into the plant is still live,” he said. “The switch for the panel that your little friend is resting against is right over there.” He pointed. “Sixty-three hundred volts. In sixty seconds I’m going to throw that switch. Come in here and stop me if you think you can.”
Teffinger climbed the fence and dropped down on the other side, twisting his ankle.
Then he charged.
Greystone stabbed the knife at his face.
Teffinger twisted but not fast enough.
The blade caught him on the temple.
Blood ran into his eyes.
He wiped it out with the back of his hand and charged again.
IT TOOK FIFTEEN MINUTES to kill Greystone, fifteen of the longest and most painful minutes of Teffinger’s life. After he finally managed to pound the last ounce of life out of the man, he collapsed in the dirt on his back and actually had to lie there for some time while the sun beat down on him before he got enough strength to get to his feet and untie Aspen.
“You’re safe now, baby,” he said.
She buried her head in his chest and cried.
“It’s over,” he said. “It’s over.”
THE END
Copyright (c) R.J. Jagger
All rights reserved
R.J. Jagger is the author of over 20 thrillers and is also a long-standing member of the International Thriller Writers. He has two series, one featuring Denver homicide detective Nick Teffinger, set in modern times; and a noir series featuring private investigator Bryson Wilde, set in 1952. His books can be read in any order. For complete information on the author and his ebooks, hardcovers, paperbacks and audio books, as well as upcoming titles, news and events, please visit him at:
Rjjagger.blogspot.com
[email protected]
