Pretty Little Lawyer (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Suddenly a bright light flashed.

  And glass exploded.

  Gunfire.

  Sydney shouted, “I’m hit!”

  Chapter Ninety

  Day Nine—May 13

  Tuesday Night

  ______________

  WHEN TEFFINGER BOUNDED INTO THE ROOM, he wasn’t prepared for what he saw. A woman—no doubt Tashna Sharapova—was lying on a ratty mattress, naked and tied with rope. Robert Sharapova was on his knees behind her with a fistful of hair in one hand and a box cutter in the other, pressed against the woman’s throat. Sydney’s body hung jackknifed through a window, her torso inside and her legs out. She didn’t move. Her arms hung limp and blood dropped to the floor.

  A woman holding a gun stood next to Sydney

  “Drop it!” Teffinger said.

  She almost did but Sharapova shouted, “No!”

  Then he locked eyes with Teffinger and said, “Drop the gun or I slit her throat.” Sharapova looked at the woman with the weapon. “If he doesn’t drop the gun by the time I count to three, shoot her again.”

  The woman swung around and trained her weapon at Sydney’s back. Teffinger held his hands up in surrender, quietly flipped the safety back on, then slowly stooped down and set his weapon on the floor.

  “Now back up,” Sharapova said.

  Teffinger obeyed.

  “Get me his gun,” Sharapova told the woman.

  She did.

  With Teffinger’s gun in hand, Sharapova stood up.

  “Get in here,” he ordered.

  TEFFINGER WALKED SLOWLY. If he charged, there was no way he could get to Sharapova before the man shot. The best he could hope for was the guy didn’t have enough knowledge about guns or enough presence of mind to take the safety off.

  Sharapova said, “Stop there!”

  Teffinger did.

  “Very good,” Sharapova said. “I’m sorry about this, but you understand that I can’t leave any witnesses.”

  Teffinger lunged.

  The gun didn’t fire.

  Both men landed on the floor and the nerves in Teffinger’s back exploded. Then something burned his cheek. He immediately put his hand to it and felt blood, lots of blood, gushing, and realized that Sharapova had slashed him with the box cutter.

  Then Sharapova was up and running out of the room.

  Teffinger forced himself to his feet.

  The woman with the gun stood there, frozen, not knowing what to do. Teffinger turned his head, as if he just saw someone come into the room, and when the woman did the same he pounced. But she dodged him and disappeared out the door as he struggled with the pain in his back.

  Then Sydney’s body fell into the room.

  “Get ’em,” she said.

  “No. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Don’t argue with me.”

  Teffinger rolled her onto her back and ripped her blouse open. She wasn’t wearing a vest. The bullet had gone all the way through the edge of her body, missing her heart and lungs. He untied Tashna Sharapova and put his cell phone in her hands.

  “Call 911,” he said. “Then keep pressure on her wounds. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at Sydney again.

  “Go,” she said.

  He picked up his gun and ran out the door.

  SHARAPOVA HAD A LONG HEAD START but Teffinger didn’t care. He knew where the man was going.

  To the car.

  The car with the flat tires.

  Teffinger slowed to a walk so he wouldn’t be out of breath when he got there. Lightning ripped across the sky and gave enough light to confirm that the man wasn’t doubling back to the house.

  When he got to the road the woman was nowhere to be seen but Sharapova was there, crouching next to the vehicle.

  “Very clever,” he said. “The tires. Give me your keys.”

  “I’d like to but they’re in my partner’s pocket,” Teffinger said. Then he bent down, unscrewed the cap of one of the Honda tires and started to let the air out. “By the time you get them these will all be flat. There’s no escape. You may as well make it easy on yourself and give up now, before you get yourself in more trouble.”

  The man laughed.

  “You cops are all the same,” he said. “Dumb as dirt. You’re going to die because of your own stupidity. How does it feel?”

  Teffinger didn’t understand.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is, there were guns in that room when you ran out and you weren’t smart enough to grab one before you bounded out the door. You have to admit, that was pretty stupid.”

  Teffinger cocked his head.

  The man must think that Teffinger didn’t have a weapon because he hadn’t yelled “Freeze!” or told him to get on the ground.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “What can I say?”

  Sharapova held up the box cutter and waved it back and forth.

  “Like I said before. I can’t have any witnesses.”

  Teffinger could hardly breathe.

  His body was heavy from the loss of blood.

  Then he said, “Put that thing down and I won’t have to use it on you.”

  Sharapova laughed.

  Teffinger quietly slipped the safety back on.

  Then Sharapova charged.

  As he did, Teffinger tossed his gun to the side.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, the last drop of blood that was going to drip out of Sharapova’s neck did. No one was there to watch, not even Teffinger who at that moment was applying pressure to Sydney’s wounds and talking into a cell phone, giving directions to the paramedics.

  A coyote barked back by the road, then another.

  In a matter of seconds a whole pack yelped and yapped.

  Teffinger pulled up an image of sharp yellow teeth tearing the flesh off Robert Sharapova’s body.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Day Ten—May 14

  Wednesday Afternoon

  ______________

  IT WAS THREE IN THE MORNING before Teffinger arrived at the hospital to get the cut on his face, and the gash on the top of his head, stitched up. Both turned out to be a lot more serious than he thought.

  “Do a hack job,” Teffinger told the doctor. “I need a couple of good scars.”

  The doctor chuckled and said, “Hack jobs cost extra.”

  The chief showed up, wrinkled his face and personally drove Teffinger home. Teffinger fell into bed and didn’t open his eyes again until noon.

  When he got to the office, the FBI profiler, Dr. Leigh Sandt, was using his desk and didn’t notice as he walked in. He got a cup of coffee and sank into the chair in front of her.

  “Meet Frankenstein,” he said.

  “This is so unfair,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You still look good, even with five hundred stitches in your face.”

  He leaned towards her.

  “To tell you the truth, I sort of like it. I took a couple of pictures. After it heals, I’m going to have it tattooed on.”

  He expected her to smile but instead she put a serious look on her face and said, “Are you up for some work today?”

  “No, but I will be, after two more cups of this brown stuff.”

  She stood up.

  “Bring them with you,” she said. “We’re wasting time.”

  THEY TOOK HER CAR, an Avis rental, and winded west through the city under a perfectly blue Colorado sky. On the way she explained where they were going.

  A skinhead named Mitch Mitchell got stabbed to death last night in his crappy little house on the outskirts of Golden, not far from a rock quarry.

  The Golden cops found lots of stuff by the body.

  Neck collars.

  Chains.

  Blue rope.

  And most importantly of all, lots of newspaper articles and Internet downloads about a number of victims—the victim
s of the razorblade killer. The word spread fast and worked its way to the FBI.

  Leigh got the call about six this morning and went straight to the scene. The newspaper articles were all genuine. So was the stuff. Everything pointed to the fact that the guy was the razorblade killer.

  “There’s only one problem,” she said. “He isn’t the right guy.”

  “He isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the guy we’re looking for is big,” she said. “We know that for a fact. This guy’s a little twerp. Plus I’ve already been able to verify that the guy was reporting to work right here in Denver when some of the murders took place out of state.”

  Teffinger scratched his head.

  “Then how do you explain all the stuff?”

  “My guess?”

  “Right.”

  “He was set up. Now who would want to do that, other than the genuine article?”

  “No one.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So who set him up?”

  “I don’t know, but we found a couple of very interesting fingerprints on one of the collars,” she said. “They belong to a man named Gordon Andrews, from California. He got pulled over one night for a broken taillight and just happened to have a dead woman in the trunk of his car, bound in blue rope.”

  The words shocked Teffinger.

  “Like Marilyn Poppenberg,” he said.

  “Right,” she said. “He got off on a technicality, moved to Denver and changed his name to Aaron Trane.”

  THEY WERE APPROACHING THE RAILROAD YARD where Ta’Veya’s cell phone had been found. Leigh pulled to the side of the road and killed the engine.

  “Trane lives in that building over there,” she said. “He’s a big man. Six-three.”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “I know. I’ve met him. He looks like Tarzan.”

  “You have?”

  Yes, he had, and explained how.

  Then he remembered his conversation with Rain, about the man who abducted her, and the fact that the man was stronger, in fact a lot stronger, than Teffinger.

  “One more thing,” Leigh said. “The car out by the farmhouse last night where you had your little party is registered to one Del Rae Paris. Her phone records show lots of calls to and from our little friend over there, Mr. Trane.”

  “You figured all this out this morning?”

  “I’ve been busting my behind for over seven hours,” she said. “You don’t even want to know how many markers I called in and how many blowjobs I owe.”

  Teffinger chuckled.

  Then he frowned.

  “So now what?” he questioned.

  “Now we find out if Aaron Trane is the person I’ve been hunting for the last four years.”

  “We have enough for a warrant,” Teffinger said.

  “I’m not so sure,” she said. “It’s too complicated. I don’t want to search his place, find everything we need, and then have some judge throw it all out after the fact. He walked on a technicality once. It’s not going to happen again.”

  “So what are you proposing?”

  “I’m proposing that we go knock on his door and hope that he says or does something to give us a reason to arrest him.”

  “That’s your plan? Knock on his door?”

  “Right.”

  Teffinger frowned.

  “If you’re looking for an opportunity to kill him,” he said, “don’t do it.”

  She looked at him hard.

  “I’m going to knock on his door. You can come with me or not, your choice.”

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Day Ten—May 14

  Wednesday Afternoon

  ______________

  PAIGE ACCEPTED TA’VEYA’S apology a long time ago and it wasn’t an issue anymore. The manhole thirty feet above them was unreachable. There wasn’t a single thing in the tomb they could stand on. There was nothing above for the ropes to hook to. The surfaces were totally smooth.

  They were sealed tight and had come to accept it.

  They huddled in the corner and held each other in the dark, talking about people they knew and things they did when they were kids, trying to keep their minds off the fact that every breath they took robbed the air of that much more oxygen.

  “At least we have the razorblades,” Paige said.

  Ta’Veya agreed.

  “I can’t go by suffocation.”

  “Me either.”

  “We’ll do it at the same time.”

  “Okay.”

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  Day Ten—May 14

  Wednesday Afternoon

  ______________

  WHEN THEY KNOCKED on Aaron Trane’s door, and rang the buzzer ten times, no one answered. Leigh headed for the fire escape and said, “I’m going in.”

  “Are you nuts?” Teffinger said. “We’re better off with a dubious warrant than an illegal entry.”

  “Del Rae Paris has already tipped him off,” Leigh said. “If he’s on the run and gets too much of a head start, and ends up falling back into his old habits a month down the road, I’m not going to be able to live with myself.”

  Teffinger considered it.

  “I can’t have the blood on my hands,” she added. “I just can’t.”

  Teffinger studied her.

  “We’re wasting time,” she added.

  They headed up the fire escape, broke a window on the second floor and climbed in.

  No sounds came from inside.

  Something that looked like a large spider web hung from the ceiling at the far end of the room. They walked up a stairway to the next level and found it equally vacant. Then they headed up to the top floor.

  That’s where the living quarters were.

  They did a quick sweep, the roof too.

  The man wasn’t there.

  “He’s already on the run,” Leigh said.

  They searched the place, gently, putting everything back exactly as they found it. The man was clearly a photography nut.

  “He’s got souvenir photos around here somewhere,” Leigh said. “That’s what we need to be looking for.”

  Behind the dark room they found another room filled with dozens of drawers, drawers filled with photographs and negatives.

  Leigh searched while Teffinger stood guard outside.

  Two hours later she shouted, “Bingo!”

  TEFFINGER RAN IN and found Leigh pulling a stack of photographs out of a bottom drawer. There were hundreds of eight-by-ten color photographs, depicting a dozen or so different women, all wearing collars.

  He looked over her shoulder as she rifled through them.

  When they came to the last seven or eight in the stack, Teffinger couldn’t believe his eyes and grabbed them out of Leigh’s hand.

  “This is Ta’Veya White and Paige Deverex,” he said.

  Leigh studied the pictures harder.

  “This is Nicole White,” she said. “I know her. She’s the sister of one of the victims. Drew Young.”

  Nicole?

  Then Teffinger remembered that Ta’Veya’s first name was actually Nicole.

  Nicole.

  Ta’Veya.

  Whatever.

  In the photo, she laid on the ground, either unconscious or dead.

  Paige Deverex was looking up at the camera with an all-consuming fear etched on her face.

  “I just had dinner with her last night,” Teffinger said.

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  Day Eleven—May 15

  Thursday Evening

  ______________

  PAIGE AND TA’VEYA slit their wrists at the same time and then laid down on their backs and held hands. Paige felt the life seeping out of her.

  It felt right.

  It felt good.

  It was time.

  In the darkness above, she saw a round tunnel of light and said, “I’m going to heaven.”

  “Me too,” Ta’Veya sa
id.

  “They’re calling for me.”

  “I hear them.”

  “I’ll meet you up there.”

  “You want to be roommates?”

  “Sure. That’ll be nice.”

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Day Twelve—May 16

  Friday Morning

  ______________

  TEFFINGER SLEPT IN FRIDAY MORNING, not caring for a change that he had wasted part of the day. Then he threw on sweatpants and headed outside for a jog under a stunning blue Colorado sky. By some miracle he didn’t break a leg when he dropped down into the tomb yesterday. He didn’t even sprain an ankle, in fact.

  He showered.

  Then he headed east on the 6th Avenue freeway, stopping at the 7-Eleven on Simms for a thermos of coffee.

  Jan and Dean’s “Surf City” spilled out of cheap speakers.

  Teffinger hung around in the store and drank coffee until the song ended. He was just about to leave when he spotted roses. He bought three and then headed to the hospital.

  He gave one to Sydney and one to Paige.

  Then he walked down to Ta’Veya’s room. She was awake and reading a book called Bangkok Laws.

  “How’d you find us?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “In a nutshell, Trane took pictures of the two of you which we were lucky enough to find. The place you were in is pretty unique and we were able to figure out that it was part of an old mining operation. Some of the professors at the Colorado School of Mines helped us pinpoint it. If he had stuck you in plain old 55-gallon drums we wouldn’t have had a chance.”

  “I want their names,” she said. “So I can thank them.”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “They’d like that.”

  “What happened to Trane?”

  Teffinger frowned.

  “He’s on the run, him and Del Rae Paris. We’ll get them, though. It’s just a matter of time.”

  She nodded.

  “How’s Rain?”

  Teffinger frowned.

  “It turned out that Trane’s phone records showed calls going back and forth between him and Rain,” he said.

  “Did you ask her about them?”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “I did.”