Her eyes were green.
He hadn’t noticed that before.
She smelled like Paris.
She pulled him inside and said, “I’ll be ready before you blink. Do you feel like getting a little crazy tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Good. I’ve found a place for us to go.”
“Where?”
She smiled and headed for the bathroom.
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“Mystery woman.”
“Always.”
While she was in the bathroom, Teffinger cast his eyes around for the briefcase. It wasn’t in sight or under the bed. He had his eye on the closet, wondering if he had enough time to open the door and take a quick peek inside. He thought better of it. Even if it were in there it would be closed. He’d have to undo the latches and pull the top up to get to the photo inside. Legally, that would be a search without a warrant. As nice as it would be to know which of the eleven Susan Smith’s was the mark, it wasn’t worth jeopardizing the legality of the investigation.
He stood at the window.
Denver was thick with twilight.
Streetlights were on.
Headlights were on.
The air was full of mischief.
The bathroom door opened.
Portia was now in a short red dress that framed her body to perfection, tighter up top at the cleavage but flaring dangerously loose over her hips, barely covering her posterior. She wore no nylons.
Her lips were the same red color.
So were the high-heels.
“Acceptable?”
Teffinger swallowed.
“I suddenly feel understated.” In jeans and a white cotton shirt with no tie, the words were more than true.
Portia linked her arm through his.
“You’re fine,” she said. “Tonight’s my treat so just sit back and enjoy.” She pulled a flask out of the top dresser drawer, shoved it in her purse and said, “Let’s go.”
“Let’s.”
Downstairs in the lobby Portia hesitated for a moment as she looked around and then headed over to a stunning little blond in a white skirt sitting in a white leather chair by the fireplace.
“Are you here to meet Portia?”
Yes, she was.
“That’s me,” Portia said. “You’re prettier than I expected. What’s your name?”
“Seven.”
“As in the number?”
“Right, six plus one.”
“This hunky guy here is North.” To Teffinger, “She’s from Escorts en Secret. She’ll be partying with us this evening, unless you have an objection.”
Teffinger didn’t and extended his hand to prove it.
The woman’s skin was pure sex.
Her eyes were voodoo blue.
They jammed into the back of a cab with Teffinger in the middle. Portia pulled out the flask, took a hit, passed it to Teffinger and told the driver, “B.T.s.”
“The strip club?”
“Right, the strip club. Not the church.”
They ended up in a dark roped-off couch area of the club, an oasis in a world of high-energy, pounding music and twisting sin. There were several stages and most had two dancers getting down and dirty and wrapping their thighs around the faces of as many female takers as males. In the middle of the club was a gyrating dance floor. The women were armatures. Most had their tops off.
There had to have been five hundred people in there.
Over in the far corner was a stage of male entertainers, muscular men with swagger and attitude, awash in a sea of hollering women laying down green and getting their faces close in. The lucky ones got their drunken bodies pulled onto the stage and placed into a compromising position.
Portia got very touchy very fast.
Drinks landed on their table.
Dancers came over to party.
Hands went to Teffinger’s thighs.
Lips landed on his.
Sexy little thighs straddled his lap and the heavenly weight of beautiful young things grinded down for attention.
An hour into it, Portia’s hand slipped into Teffinger’s pants.
He needed to pull it out but the fire in his veins wouldn’t let him.
The plan changed, just like that.
The whole world changed. It shrunk and turned into Portia. There was nothing else, only her; her and her short little dress and her sweet little mouth and the smoothness of her golden skin.
“You’re an evil little thing,” he said.
“Me? I’m an angel.”
9
Day Two
July 9
Wednesday Morning
Jori-Lee woke Wednesday morning with a scary realization of just how serious a secret she was sitting on. The files she extracted from the MacBook last night weren’t just explosive, they were almost beyond comprehension.
She needed to figure out what to do.
She needed to do that this morning.
At five-one, she wasn’t big.
Her apartment wasn’t much bigger. She had to suck her stomach in to turn around. The thing that made it tolerable was the fact that it was temporary. Her Harvard law degree, now two months old, would make sure of that—assuming she passed the bar in October, which she would as long as she got time to study.
She showered, dressed for work and took a look at herself in the mirror. A mildly but not wildly attractive face stared back. Above her left eye was jagged three-inch scar, not highly-contrasting or thick or deep, but perceptible and capable of causing confusion when the person looking at her for the first time tried to figure out what was wrong.
There was no great story to it.
She fell off her bike when she was ten.
No foreign spies or acts of courage were involved.
Her stomach churned.
The thing she wanted more than anything in the world was to not go to work this morning.
She had to, though.
She had to make sure that everything was normal and no one knew about what she did last night. She needed to know that her face hadn’t been captured on a security camera or that someone had seen her and made a phone call. She needed to know that the FBI didn’t have her in its crosshairs.
She made two extra copies of the flash drive.
One went into the bottom of her purse.
Another went into a box of frozen Lean Pockets in the freezer.
The third went into an envelope, stamped and addressed to herself.
She dropped it in a mailbox.
Then she got on an eastbound bus.
Thirty-five minutes later, at One First Street, she stepped off.
10
Day Two
July 9
Wednesday Morning
Teffinger woke late Wednesday morning with Portia on one side and Seven on the other. Both women were passed out. Portia was face up. Seven was face down. Both were on top of the covers. Both were naked. Teffinger’s head still spun to the trance of the liquor and the smoke and the pounding speakers and the gyrating bodies and the raw shameless sex of last night.
He twisted onto his back and stretched.
His watch said 10:32, five hours past what it should.
He shouldn’t have done what he did last night but he did it and that was all there was to it and now he needed to deal with it. To be fair, there had been too much beer and body contact and dark lighting for too many hours for the night to not have ended in some kind of grand culmination.
Having officially and irrevocably slept with Portia, his credibility as a witness against her was forever tainted.
If she ever came to trial and he had to testify against her, the defense would say he’d been jilted or rejected after the fact.
Now he was out for revenge.
Now he was lying.
Just look at him.
Still, the case wasn’t necessarily in the gutter. What he needed to do was be sure it got built on physical evidenc
e.
He slipped out of bed without waking either woman, grabbed his clothes and made his way next door to his own room—the room of North Reynolds—for a shower and a change. Forty-five minutes later he walked into homicide, deflected a stern look from Sydney and headed for the coffee. He stayed there and drank half the cup slow enough that he didn’t burn his tongue, then topped off and headed for his desk.
Sydney plopped down in a chair, looked at her watch and then at him.
No one was overly close.
They had privacy if they kept their voices low.
He leaned forward and said, “I ended up spending some time with Portia last night.”
“I’ll bet you did. Did you sleep with her?”
Teffinger exhaled.
“Technically, yes.”
“Technically?”
“Right, technically.”
“As in, you didn’t enjoy it?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“So you did enjoy it?”
“Well, yes, technically speaking,” he said. “In my defense, though, someone else slept with her too.”
“Who?”
“Seven.”
“Seven men?”
“No, one person, a woman. Her name is Seven.”
Sydney rolled her eyes. “Who’s Seven?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“She’s an escort with something called Ladies en Secret. That’s probably not her real name.”
“Is she an accomplice?”
“I’m not sure there’s anyone to be an accomplice to,” Teffinger said. “If Portia’s a killer, she’s keeping it well hidden. She doesn’t fit the profile. She’s not detached or cold or calculating. I didn’t pick up any personality flaws or deep hidden issues. All night long, she didn’t say a single thing that was incriminating.”
“So what is she then, a link in the chain to someone else? A courier or something?”
“I don’t know. I need more time with her.”
“I’ll bet you do. Who paid for Seven?”
“Portia did.”
“Lucky you. Did you ask her what the tattoo on her neck says?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because every guy in the world who’s had the chance has asked her that,” he said.
“So you’re not every guy?”
“There you go.”
An hour later his phone rang and the voice of his D.C. counterpart, Randy Johnson, came through. “Have you ever heard of a law firm called Overton & Frey?”
“No.”
“Well, let me tell you about them,” Johnson said. “They’re relatively well-connected as D.C. firms go. Their office here has 150 or so lawyers and they have branches all over the world—London, Paris, Hong Kong, you name it. They’re the go-to firm for the big and relevant. One of their top partners out here in D.C. is a man named Leland Everitt. Have you ever heard of him?”
“No.”
“Well, our P.I. friend Oscar Benderfield has,” Johnson said.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning they had a little meeting just a while ago. I’m not talking about a lunch meeting. I’m talking about a quick little meeting on a street corner, four blocks off the grid. We don’t know what they talked about but the interesting thing is that Everitt gave Benderfield a briefcase.”
“Money?”
“Given what you told me about what happened in Denver, my guess would be yes,” Johnson said. “Benderfield took it back to his office and that’s where he’s been for the last hour. When he leaves, we’ll be with him. It’ll be interesting to see if he passes it on to someone else.”
Teffinger raked his hair back with his fingers.
It immediately flopped back down.
“If it’s for Portia, she’s still out here in Denver,” he said.
“Has she made a move yet?”
“No.”
“Have you found out anything on her?”
“Just one thing,” Teffinger said. “Her skin is very, very smooth. I’m guessing she uses lots of lotions.”
11
Day Two
July 9
Wednesday Afternoon
Teffinger walked into the law building of Susan A. Smith and found her in the back office on the main level pacing next to the windows and talking animatedly into a phone. The startle on her face from seeing him wore off quickly and she motioned him to have a seat. He looked around, saw no coffee and left in search of the kitchen.
He had a cup out of the cupboard and half filled when the woman walked in.
“The black man with the bleached hair is someone by the name of Oscar Benderfield,” he said. “He’s a private investigator from D.C. Do you know him?”
She hopped on the counter.
Her skirt rode up.
She dangled her legs.
“No.”
“One of his clients is a lawyer by the name of Leland Everitt. He’s a senior partner in Overton & Frey, which is a mega firm with a main office in D.C. and branches all over the world.”
She wrinkled her brow.
“I’ve heard of them but not that particular lawyer.”
“Were you ever involved in a case with that firm, where they were on the other side or something like that?”
“No.”
“How do you know about them?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “Maybe on the news. Maybe one of their lawyers spoke at a seminar I attended. Maybe I read something in the paper—something like that. I don’t recall. Whatever it was, though, it wasn’t anything direct. I don’t have any tangible connection to them.”
“Is there any reason anyone in that firm would want you dead?”
She ran a finger down his chest.
“Nobody wants me dead. I already told you that. I’ll tell you what. If it will make you feel better, I’ll have a look at this supposed killer. What’d you say her name was? Portia Montrachet?”
Teffinger winced.
“Stay away from her.”
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous.”
“More dangerous than her killing me?”
“You might not be the target,” he said.
“We both know that you think I am,” she said. “Deny it if it’s not true.”
He went to speak.
No words came out.
“Just stay out of it.”
She smiled.
“You said she’s pretty,” she said. “Maybe I’ll like her. Maybe she’ll like me. People don’t kill people they like.”
“Yes they do,” he said. “They do it every day.”
“I’ll give you a choice. Either I’m going to head over to her hotel and see if I can buy her a drink or you can guard me tonight and we’ll see if she shows up.”
Teffinger swallowed.
“Don’t play this game.”
“A or B,” she said. “Your choice.”
He played out both scenarios.
“Give me a couple of hours to think about it.”
She looked at her watch.
“Take until five.”
12
Day Two
July 9
Wednesday Evening
Del Rey lived in Mesa View Estates, an upscale custom enclave riding up the side of Green Mountain. Her particular house was a stucco ranch with a walkout basement nestled in a cul-de-sac and adjacent to open space, with commanding views of the eastern plains that swept all the way from Rocky Flats to Denver to Douglas County. As twilight set over Colorado and the flatland lights began to twinkle, Teffinger parked the Tundra two blocks away, hoofed the balance and knocked on the woman’s door
Bad thoughts chewed at his brain.
In his last communication with Portia this afternoon, she told him she couldn’t do anything with him tonight because she had business. That business, if Teffinger’s instinct was right, was the murder of Susan Smith.
Tonight was the night.
; All the Susan Smiths in the city had been warned to stay away from their homes and to keep an extra careful watch no mater where they were. Most of them planned to hole up at a hotel or with relatives or friends. A few said there was no reason for anyone to kill them and that they weren’t going to get paranoid over something that was someone else’s business. For those Susans, patrol cars would be making regular sweeps.
Del Rey, however, was the target.
Teffinger could feel it.
He could smell it.
He could taste it.
He could feel it pulsing in his veins.
When he closed his eyes he could see Portia sneaking through the open space with a dark heart hammering to a voodoo beat.
There was a good chance Teffinger would be forced to kill her.
He told himself that he could.
He also told himself that the thing he just told himself might not be as true as he wanted it to be. She was under his skin in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
Teffinger wasn’t a stranger to Del Rey’s house. Most of the sex they had during their brief but explosive collision with each other took place there. When the woman opened the door, Teffinger wasn’t prepared for what he saw.
She wore a short, loose sundress; the kind of flimsy thing he could rip off her body with one good yank.
Her hair was soft.
Her eyes were trouble.
Her lips were moist.
Her skin was golden.
Down below she was barefoot.
Addicted, that’s what Teffinger could get if he didn’t guard against it; addicted again, to be more precise. She was the cure, or at least could appear that way. The lightning in his chest was already sparking.
“Come on in,” she said.
“Any sign of her yet?”
“No.”
“She’s coming tonight,” he said. “Tonight’s the night.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m paid to know.” A song was coming from the other room, one Teffinger had never heard but already liked. “What’s that song?”
“You don’t know?”
No.
Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) Page 3
