Blank (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)
Page 6
Sydney tilted her head.
"Did you say likable or lickable?"
"Lickable."
She rolled her eyes.
"You're getting worse."
"It's not easy," he said. "I have to work at it. I've been thinking about Pantage's memory problems. Maybe they're not from that fire hydrant encounter at all. Maybe they're from that first encounter with me."
Sydney smiled.
"You've been known to have that effect on people."
"That I have." He took a sip of coffee, wrinkled his brow and said, "We need to find our friend with the long hair. It's making my teeth hurt knowing there's someone out there who can potentially wrap this whole thing up."
Sydney frowned.
"It's going to bust a hundred again today. I need to be in air conditioning."
Teffinger looked out the window. Across the street were old houses converted into bail bond joints painted in cartoon colors.
"You know what, you deserve air-conditioning," he said. "Go to the law firm. Keep an eye on Pantage today. I'm sure they'll let you set up in a conference room or something. If she goes out to lunch, go with her. Keep reviewing the other files. Call the detectives in charge. Get your brain wrapped around all the details."
"Are you serious?"
He nodded.
"I am," he said. "Most of all be accessible. Be sure everyone knows you're there. Maybe one of the attorneys will wander in and whisper something in your ear."
21
Day Two
July 19
Tuesday Morning
Yardley woke Tuesday morning by the ringing of her phone. She opened her eyes a found a golden patina of sunlight awash on the walls. The clock said 10:32.
She answered.
“Hello?”
A voice said, “That was a big mistake. A very big mistake.”
The voice belonged to Sanders Cave.
She sat up.
“What was?”
The line went dead.
She called her boss and said, “I just got a call from Cave. He said, That was a big mistake, then hung up. He sounded insane.”
Silence.
Then, “Meet me at the bookstore at 11:30.”
“Okay.”
Thirty minutes later Yardley was out the door, showered and dressed. She swung into Starbucks long enough to get a carryout, then sipped it from her left hand and smoked with her right as she negotiated the downtown buzz over to Wazee. When she got to the bookstore the door was locked and the lights were out.
That was wrong.
Deven was supposed to open at ten.
It was 11:22.
Yardley opened the door, stepped inside and saw something she didn’t expect. The reception desk lamp was on the floor, shattered. Next to it was a stapler lying quietly on its side.
“Deven?”
Silence.
Yardley headed into the back.
To her shock, the back door was wide open. Something reddish-brown was on the floor, shaped in drops, looking like blood. Yardley ran a finger over it. It was dry but definitely blood.
Behind the store was an alley.
Someone could have pulled a car back there, dumped Deven into a trunk and taken off without anyone seeing them.
Cave.
It had to be Cave.
The thought was simultaneously comforting and frightening; comforting in that at least she knew who she was dealing with, frightening in that she knew what Cave was capable of.
At exactly 11:30 the door opened and Yardley’s boss walked in dressed exactly like what she was, an expensive lawyer.
“Cave took Deven,” Yardley said. “What the hell’s going on?”
The lawyer exhaled.
“The Miami deal was a set up,” the woman said.
“What do you mean?”
“It was orchestrated to eliminate Cave.”
“Eliminate Cave?”
“There are reasons,” the woman said.
Yardley took a step back.
“You had no right to involve me without my knowledge,” she said.
The woman said nothing.
Her face didn’t move.
“You never told Cave who I am, correct?”
Yardley nodded.
“No, I haven’t.”
“He’s smart enough to know that it was orchestrated by me, not you,” the woman said. “If he thought you were responsible, you’d already be dead. He took Deven to force you to tell him who I am. You’re not going to do that. We need to get that clear, right here, right now.”
Yardley shook her head.
“I’d never do that.”
“Yes you would,” the woman said. “If you do though, I’ll have a plan in motion to take Deven out, first her, then you. So be assured you won’t be advancing your cause by giving me up.”
“I already said I wouldn’t.”
The woman pulled a pack of smokes out of her purse, tapped two out and handed one to Yardley.
She lit them both up from a fancy gold lighter.
“We need to get Deven back and kill Cave,” she said. “That’s our only option.” She blew smoke. “Either you’re in or you’re out.”
Yardley paused.
Then she said, “I’m in.”
The woman nodded.
“Hold on.” She pulled her phone out, dialed a number and said, “It’s me. I have an assignment for you. If I die at any time within the next month, and I don’t care what the cause is—I don’t care if I get hit by a bus or get a bullet in the head, either way—you’re to kill two women, one’s named Deven Devenshire and the other’s named Yardley White. Money will be in your account within the hour.”
She closed the phone and looked at Yardley.
“Do we have an understanding?”
Yardley nodded.
“When this is over, though, I’m done with you.”
The woman blew smoke.
“One step at a time,” she said. “I’m being a businesswoman and you know it. Right now my goal, just like yours, is to get Deven back. That call I made was just an insurance policy, nothing personal against you.”
22
Day Two
July 19
Tuesday Morning
Pantage was besieged with work when she got to the law firm Tuesday morning. The echo of Jackie Lake’s murder still resonated up and down the halls but the day-to-day operations of the firm were back to normal. Luckily no one talked to her about anything in the too distant past. She was able to hold her own memory-wise.
Sydney showed up to keep an eye on her.
Pantage got her set up in a conference room, poured two cups of coffee and settled into a leather chair. “So what’s the deal with Teffinger?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, should I worry about getting in too deep with him?”
Sydney patted her hand.
“Girlfriend, you’re already in too deep with him.”
Pantage shrugged.
“You’re probably right,” she said.
“No probably about it,” Sydney said. “I’m big-time jealous, just for the record.”
“Did you ever—you know—do it with him?”
Sydney reflected.
“You mean have sweaty edgy sex in the back of his pickup down by the BNSF switchyard under a pitch-black night?”
“Right, that.”
“No, nothing like that ever happened. I’ll admit, though, there were a few drunken nights when I wore a short dress and let my panties flash more than they should have,” she said. “His excuse is that we’re partners. He doesn’t want to cross the line.” A beat then, “So, is he any good in bed?”
Pantage shook her head.
“No, you’re not missing a thing.”
Sydney punched her on the arm.
“You liar.”
“Did you just call me an attorney?”
“I guess I did.”
It was mid-morning before
Pantage got enough clear space around her to do what she’d been aching to do all morning, namely close the door and see if the internet had any information on Chiara de Correggio. The woman would be able to tell Pantage about her past.
Google had nothing on her.
It had hits on “London Winger,” but on deeper investigation they weren’t Pantage, they were separate people.
She got a listing of private investigators in Malibu and called the only female on the list, a woman named Aspen Gonzales, who had a soft Hispanic accent.
“I’m trying to get information on two people who lived in or around Malibu three or four years ago,” she said.
“Hold on, let me get a pencil.” A beat, then, “Okay, go on.”
“The first is London Winger, 3883 Three Seagulls Drive, Malibu. The second is Chiara de Correggio. I don’t have an address on her. She was a friend of London Winger’s.”
“What’s your interest in these women?”
“It’s personal.”
Silence.
“I’m sort of in a hurry, too,” Pantage said.
“Okay, I’m willing to see what I can do. I’ll need a retainer, five thousand. That’s standard. There are no guarantees. I’ll do my best but that doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily find anything.”
Pantage swallowed.
Five thousand.
That was a lot of money.
“Do you take credit cards?”
“As long as it goes up to five-K, sure.”
“Hold on a second, let me get my purse.”
She gave her the digits.
“All this is confidential, right?”
“Absolutely.”
23
Day Two
July 19
Tuesday Morning
Most people along the front-range knew Jena as the Channel 8 TV roving reporter, the charismatic blond with the big blue eyes who wasn’t afraid to get in the middle of the mess. Teffinger knew her from the old high school days in Fort Collins when she was the ticklish tomboy down the street, three years younger than him.
He called her mid-morning and said, “I want to buy you lunch.”
“Who is this?”
“Me, Teffinger.”
“It can’t be,” she said. “The Teffinger I know doesn’t use the word buy.”
He smiled.
“Are you free?”
“No.”
“Good. Wong’s? Noon?”
“Let me see if I have this right. If I somehow do an incredible amount of work to rearrange my schedule and actually go, you’re the one who’s going to pay. Not me, you.”
“Right,” he said.
“Okay then, Wong’s at noon.”
“When I say right, that means we’ll flip for it.”
“So now I have to flip for it?”
“That’s fair,” he said. “That way you have a 25 percent chance.”
“Fifty,” she said.
“Twenty-five,” he said. “If you win the first one, we flip again. That one will definitely count though.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll just pay.”
“Fine, if that’s what you want.”
Wong’s at noon was a study in motion, fast, crowded and energetic to the point that it was a mystery why no one got trampled to death. Teffinger got there ten minutes early and managed to grab Daisy, who in turn grabbed a corner booth for him.
She leaned in.
“I’m on the menu today,” she said. “For you only.”
“In that case I’ll take an extra large helping,” he said.
“Would you like that with or without screaming?”
“With, please.”
“Good choice.”
Jena showed up five minutes late, looked around frantically, then scurried over and slipped in next to him on the same side of the booth.
“Last time we were here you promised to take me out and get me drunk,” she said.
“I did?”
She punched his arm.
“Why am I hearing from you today? It’s been three months—”
He narrowed his eyes.
“You’re familiar with the murder of the lawyer, Jackie Lake, right?”
“Of course.”
“This is between you an me,” he said. “A guy actually ended up in a fight with the killer outside the house, a guy with long hair. I need to find him. That’s where you come in.”
“You want me to get something on the air?”
He nodded.
“There’s more just between you and me,” he said. “Another lawyer in the same firm as Jackie Lake is in the guy’s crosshairs.”
“Why?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t want to go there,” he said. “Let me just say this. At first, I didn’t want to go on the news to look for the guy with the long hair. I wanted the killer to think that the guy was already in contact with us. That would hopefully suppress him, to a point, and make it less likely that he’d make a move on this other lawyer. Unfortunately, now it looks like I’m not going to find the longhair without help. I already talked to the chief and the public information officer about getting something on the air. I have the green light. What I need you to do is help me figure out exactly how to frame it and then get it done. I want it on tonight’s news.”
She studied him.
“And what do I get in return?”
“What do you want?”
“Remember when we used to go way down the tracks by the cattails and you and Bobby Ray would tickle me to death?”
Teffinger nodded.
“I want that,” she said. “But first you have to take me to a bar and get me good and drunk.”
24
Day Two
July 19
Tuesday Morning
When the lawyer left Yardley got a Colt 45 from the safe and slipped it in her purse, then cleaned Deven’s blood off the floor. Cave could pop out of the shadows at any second. Yardley had to let it happen. It was a necessary step in getting Deven back.
She waited.
Cave didn’t show.
He was making her sweat.
He was emphasizing the fact that Deven was gone and would continue to be gone until he decided otherwise.
Yardley got the coffee pot going and drank a cup at the desk with the gun in the top drawer. Twenty minutes went by, then an hour, and then lunch came and went. In the afternoon a nicely dressed woman walked in, looked timidly around and said, “I’ve seen this place a hundred times and always wanted to stop in.” She had short brown hair in a contemporary style, 2-inch heels, nylons and a sleeveless white blouse. Her arms were tanned and firm. She pulled sunglasses off. “This is embarrassing but do you have a restroom?”
She did.
“In the back.”
“Thanks.”
Two minutes later the woman returned and said, “I had to be sure we were alone. I’m here about Cave.”
“About Cave?”
“Right, Cave. I’ve been brought in to take care of him. Sooner or later he’s going to contact you. When he does, play hard to get but eventually tell him that your contact is a woman named Madison Elmblade. Tell him she lives at 1775 Marion. Write it down.”
Yardley obeyed.
“Describe me,” the woman said. “When you talk to him, try to get him to tell you where Deven is.”
The woman stopped.
The silence hung.
“Then what?” Yardley said.
“Then Cave will end up dead. If the police ever question you about it, this conversation between you and me never happened. That’s important. Do you understand?”
Yardley nodded.
“What about Deven?”
“Getting her back safe and sound is the goal,” she said. “Whether that goal gets met or not, only time can tell. There are no guarantees in something like this and we both know it.”
Yardley exhaled.
“Can I ask you one thing?”
>
“Sure.”
“Are you the one who just got the call about killing me and Deven if the lawyer ended up dead?”
The woman looked confused.
“No, that wasn’t me.”
“Okay.”
“Then we’re done.”
Yardley cocked her head.
“You don’t look like the type to be involved in something like this,” she said.
The woman put her sunglasses on and nodded towards the bookshelves.
“Don’t judge them by the covers,” she said.
“You should turn this assignment down,” Yardley said. “Cave’s dangerous.”
“Cave’s nothing. He’s an hour of work.”
Yardley pulled an old book off the shelf and handed it to the woman.
Moby Dick.
“Have you ever read this?”
The woman opened it up and flipped the pages.
They were heavily yellowed at the edges but white and clean inside.
“No.”
“Read it,” Yardley said. “It’s about a man who goes after something he shouldn’t. It ends up killing him. Take it, my compliments.”
The woman set the book on the desk.
“Thanks but I don’t have time to read.”
Then she was gone.
25
Day Two
July 19
Tuesday Afternoon
Pantage was knee deep in researching jury instructions for a case that Condor and her would be trying together in September when Renn-Jaa stepped inside and closed the door. “You really have this place buzzing with this detective here guarding you,” she said. “Over half the money’s bet on the fact that you’re going to end up dead.”
Pantage leaned back in her chair.
“Where’s your money?”
“I know you too well to take the stupid side of the bet,” she said. “Here’s the thing and this is just between you and me so don’t repeat it.”
“I won’t.”
“I have a gun,” Renn-Jaa said. “It’s totally legal. I bought it from a store, it’s registered and the whole bit. What I’m thinking is that you shouldn’t be alone when you’re outside the law firm. Tonight, I think it would be a good idea if you slept over at my place or I slept over at yours.” She exhaled and added, “I’ve been researching the law on self defense. If you’re in your house and someone comes in, it’s okay to shoot them as long as you have a reasonable belief that your life is in jeopardy.”