by R. J. Jagger
“Sorry about last night,” he said. “I had two homicides. First a woman out at a club called the Rikki, then two black men downtown, actually not too far from where your gladiator friend lives. I didn’t get home until four.”
“When can I see you?”
“Whenever you want.”
“Can I see you right now?”
“I just got up.”
“I’ll come to your house.”
“What about work?”
“Work can wait. I’m on my way. Be there, okay?”
“Okay.”
59
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
Teffinger found Pantage in the kitchen firing up the coffee pot when he got out of the shower. She wore Saturday-night legs encased in nylons, a hip-hugging white skirt and loose raven hair. His hands went around from behind and squeezed her breasts.
She turned just enough to give him a quick peck on the lips.
“I’m sorry I’m in your face this morning,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind too much.”
No.
He didn’t.
“What’s going on?”
She turned and put her arms around his neck.
He wore jeans but no shirt or socks or belt.
“I’ve had a couple of flashbacks,” she said.
“From Jackie Lake’s?”
“No, from a year or so ago.”
Teffinger moved his hand down and fondled her ass.
“Good.”
“They weren’t pretty,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I may have done something,” she said. “Something bad.”
“Like what?”
She laid her head on his chest.
“I can’t talk about it,” she said. “I just wanted to warn you that I’m not the person I might seem to be.”
Teffinger wasn’t impressed.
“None of us are,” he said. “We’re all someone else deep down.”
“No, this is worse.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
Teffinger poured two cups of coffee, handed one to Pantage and said, “There’s a woman I know named Kelly Ravenfield. She’s a lawyer. Do you know her?”
“No.”
“Well, me and her had a thing at one point,” he said. “Yesterday she sort of made a reappearance.”
Pantage’s face tensed.
“This thing, did you love her?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“Are you still in love with her?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s the one who ended it, not me. To be honest, I don’t know if I can ever really feel secure with her again, deep down. What I do know is that my feelings for you haven’t changed. I mean, except for that one night, we’ve only known each other a few days. But there’s something there. Am I wrong?”
No.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t at all.
“So what happens now?”
“That’s up to you,” he said. “I’m just being as honest as I can.”
“Does she know about me?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“What’d you tell her about me?”
“I told her I might be in love with you.”
She laid her head on his chest.
“I want to meet her,” she said.
60
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
Yardley wandered the city lost in the fact that she was responsible in large part for Deven’s death. She’d underestimated Cave.
That wouldn’t happen again.
Not in a thousand years.
Madison called and said, “I talked to Marabella. She’s bringing in someone fresh to take care of Cave. It’s scheduled for tonight. In the meantime, you and me are to drop out of sight, separately not together. Either me or Marabella will call you when it’s okay to surface.”
“I understand.”
“It will all work out.”
“We’ll see.”
“By midnight it will all be over.”
“I hope so.”
“Trust me, it will.”
Five minutes later she was crossing Sherman when her phone rang and Cave’s voice came through. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “Your little friend Madison Elmblade is going to die. There’s nothing in the world either you or her can do to stop that. She was going to kill me. That’s first blood and first blood is last blood.”
“Screw you.”
She hung up.
Ten seconds later the phone rang.
“You better listen because this is your only chance,” Cave said. “Elmblade’s going to die but that doesn’t mean you are. Tell me who’s at the top. Do that and we’re even.”
“I don’t know who’s at the top.”
“That’s bullshit and we both know it,” Cave said. “Tell me who’s at the top and don’t just feed me some stupid name, either. This time you’re going to need proof. Do that and you can keep your pathetic little life. Don’t do that and I swear that sooner or later I’m going to get you alone and your world will get very, very ugly. You have until six o’clock tonight to call me.” A beat then, “And by the way, I already know that someone will be brought in to kill me. It’s not going to work. Even if it did, I’ll be leaving something behind for the police to find. If I go down you’ll all be coming with me. Six o’clock, not a minute later.”
The line went dead.
Yardley did a one-eighty and headed back to her car over by the library, then drove back to the bookshop and opened for business.
“Come on Cave. Come on and get me.”
Ten minutes later the door opened and a man walked in.
The power of his presence filled the space.
He raked his hair back.
It immediately flopped back down.
“My name’s Nick Teffinger,” he said. “I’m with Denver homicide.”
“You’re here about Deven Devonshire,” she said.
He nodded.
“It’s my understanding that she worked here.”
Yardley started to answer but the words didn’t come out. Instead she was focused on the man’s eyes.
They were two different colors.
One was blue and one was green.
"I've seen you before," she said. "You were on the cover of a magazine."
"You have a good memory."
61
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
From Teffinger’s place Pantage drove to Jackie Lake’s house, parked a block down the street, snuck around the back and broke a window to get in. In the bedroom, she kneeled on the mattress in the position she would have been straddling Jackie if she was the one who killed her.
Her memory didn’t jog.
She shut her eyes and focused.
Nothing happened.
She pounded the mattress.
Come on!
Come on!
Come on!
She squeezed her eyes as tight as they would go and pictured Jackie beneath her, panicked, desperate to stay alive. She pictured herself slicing the woman’s ear off and strangling her over and over.
No memory sparked.
No vision entered her brain other than the one she forced there. It had been there before, though, clear as sin. She needed to get it back and extend it. She needed the next ten seconds to roll through her head.
It didn’t happen.
Then she had a thought, namely, do it the other way. Become Jackie, looking up.
She rolled onto her back, put her arms up as if tied to the headboard, and pictured herself as Jackie, staring into the face of the person killing her.
Nothing happened.
She bounced her head up and down.
Nothing happened.
No vision appeared.
> Then, bam!
A chill ran up her spine.
She was going to die and she knew it. She looked at the person straddling her.
It was her.
She was the one there.
“No!”
She screamed, rolled violently and fell to the floor.
She got the hell out of there and headed for the office, in desperate need of a sane environment. She hadn’t been there more than two minutes when Renn-Jaa came in and closed the door.
“Where were you? You had me worried sick.”
“Teffinger’s.”
“During working hours?”
Pantage exhaled.
“One of his old girlfriends came back into his life yesterday,” she said. “She’s a lawyer. Her name’s Kelly Ravenfield.”
“Kelly?”
“Do you know her?”
“Yes.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Not as pretty as you.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“Google her,” she said. “You should be able to find a picture.”
Pantage did it.
The woman was with Locke & Banner, P.C. The firm’s biography page showed a stunning blond with a solid pedigree, including a clerkship with a federal judge back in Cleveland.
“I can see Teffinger’s point,” she said. “I’d probably do her myself.”
“Maybe you’ll get the chance.”
62
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
Teffinger talked to the bookstore owner, Yardley White, for half an hour and learned that she had irresistibly hypnotic eyes. He also learned that the victim, Deven Devonshire, was a dependable worker, good with customers, honest, and had no known problems with men, finances, drugs or anything else. She wasn’t in any kind of trouble, had no enemies and flossed after every meal.
“Thanks,” he said.
He gave her his card and left.
She was withholding something from him, that’s what his gut kept saying as he drove back to homicide. When he got there, Sydney was at her desk.
Teffinger headed for the coffee machine, poured two cups and carried one over.
“There, we’re even,” he said.
She smiled.
“You can’t stay mad at me,” he said. “It’s physically impossible. People have tried. It’s never worked.”
She shook her head.
“The sad thing is there’s probably some truth to that.”
He took a sip and studied her over the rim.
“I want you to go to New York and run down our lead on Michael Northway.”
“We had three homicides last night. Three as in one, two, and then another one, three.”
“I know, I’ll handle them,” he said.
“Northway’s a cold case,” she said. “Whatever leads are there will still be there in two weeks.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Let me put it this way—Please.”
She cocked her head.
“You have Kelly Ravenfield on the brain,” she said. “That’s why you want to catch Northway, to score points with Kelly. Personally I like Pantage better.”
“Good to know,” he said. “When I invite you to a threesome, it will be with Pantage.”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Sydney said. “We’ll do the threesome tonight and I’ll leave for New York in the morning.”
Teffinger smiled.
“I’m going to call your bluff one of these days if you’re not careful.” He took a sip and said, “Northway's a cold case but the lead is fresh. If I let it slip away I’ll never forgive myself. So let me say it one more time—please?”
She exhaled.
“God I hate you.”
He nodded.
“Thanks,” he said. “Come back with something. I want that little insect behind bars before he eats his next steak.”
She studied him.
“Kelly dumped you,” she said. “If she did it once she’ll do it again. Stick with Pantage.”
“We’ll see.”
His phone rang and Kelly came through.
“Bad news,” she said. “I stopped over at September’s office and had a chat with her. She wasn’t receptive to my ideas. Sorry.”
Teffinger’s chest tightened.
It wasn’t until that second that he realized how much he’d been hoping to get that little problem behind him. The specter of getting fired gnawed at his foundation once again.
“Okay,” he said. “Thanks for trying.”
“I might have a Plan B,” she said. “Why don’t we meet for lunch and I’ll outline it for you.”
Fine.
Wong’s.
Noon.
63
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Afternoon
Yardley called Marabella to report Cave’s demand for the name at the top no later than six. She also allowed herself a moment to evaluate whether she should make an anonymous tip to the police that Cave killed Deven. That, even on brief reflection, was a bad idea. Cave needed to silently disappear and then his apartment and office needed to be sanitized.
The detective, Teffinger, could be a problem.
Yardley had all the right answers to the man’s questions but could feel the needle on his bullshit detector twitching. The most telling giveaway was that he didn’t flirt with her, not an iota, even when she invited him.
Six o’clock.
Not a click more.
That’s how long she had before Cave put on his freak suit.
She checked her watch.
Six o’clock came in five hours and thirteen minutes.
What to do?
Her phone rang, not the store’s landline, the cell. The incoming number was long distance, one her phone didn’t recognize.
She answered.
A timid woman’s voice said, “Hello, my name is Kimberly Lee. I’m calling about an important matter and hope I can have a few minutes of your time.”
“Sure.”
“I had a brother named Rydell Rain. Is his name familiar to you?”
“Vaguely. I’m having trouble placing it though to tell you the truth.”
“He disappeared a couple of months ago,” she said. “The police haven’t gotten very far with figuring it out.”
“So why are you calling me?”
“The reason I’m calling you is that I was going through his old cell phone records in the past just to see if I spotted anything unusual, your number was one of the ones that came up.”
“How long ago?”
“Let me see … more than a year ago; the Fall of last year, October to be precise.”
“October … I remember him now,” she said. “He was looking to buy a book. It was going to be a gift for someone.”
“A book?”
“I sell rare books,” Yardley said. “I have a store in Denver.”
“So he called you about a book?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m trying to think of which one it was … I don’t know, it’s evading me. Anyway, I remembered we had some negotiations and finally reached an agreement. He sent me money and I sent him the book. I probably have records if it’s important to you.”
Silence.
“You know, if you don’t mind—”
Two minutes later she was back on the phone. “I have the receipt,” she said. “He purchased a signed, first edition printing of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Do you have a fax number?”
Yes.
She did.
“It’s on its way,” she said.
The talk continued until the fax arrived.
Then it ended.
After Yardley hung up she called Marabella and said, “We might have a problem.”
64
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Afternoon
Pantage called Teffinger mid-afternoon and said, “Before you said you’d give me the dates and loca
tions of the women who were killed the same way as Jackie Lake, so I could compare them to my calendar as proof that I wasn’t involved.”
He wasn’t amused.
“You’re not the killer. Let it go.”
“I want you to do what you said.”
“Pantage—”
“Please.”
A beat then, “Check your emails in half an hour.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She almost hung up. “Are you still there?”
Yes.
He was.
“Is my lipstick still on your mirror?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The email arrived twenty minutes later.
Her breath tightened.
All the murders took place before she was Pantage Phair.
They were back in time when she was London Winger.
She had no memory of doing them or not doing them.
Everything was blank.
Renn-Jaa glanced in as she walked down the hallway, then swung in and closed the door.
“Are you okay?”
She forced her mouth to say, “Yes.”
“Are we still up for the gladiator tonight?”
The gladiator.
According to the kinky little blond from the Concrete Flower Factory, the gladiator liked to bind women with rope, inextricably and beyond escape, with multiple wraps and fancy knots, taking up to an hour or longer just to get her fully tied. He brought his own rope, red, precut into assorted lengths. Once he got the woman fully bound he’d tease her, bringing her close to orgasm, then back off and start all over again.
It wasn’t exactly the same as what happened to Jackie Lake.
It wasn’t exactly dissimilar either.
There were overlaps.
“Hey, are you there?”
Yes.
She was.
“So are we still up for the gladiator tonight or not?”
“Yes.”
65
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
Kelly had a corner booth at Wong’s with two plates of almond chicken when Teffinger got there. She kissed him on the mouth, told him again about the disaster at September’s this morning and said, “Here’s Plan B. She has dirt on you so what we need to do is level the playing field and get some on her. Then we make a swap, silence for silence.”
