In his shirt pocket was a photograph of Paige Lake.
She didn't die pretty.
Someone stripped her naked, tied her spread-eagle to the bed, and cut the head off a live chicken above her. After she was covered in blood, he played with her nipples and all the other lovely parts. Then he slit her throat.
That was two years ago.
She was twenty-nine at the time; a school teacher.
She had no enemies.
She had no lovers.
Now she was just one more cold case in a stack of cold cases.
Teffinger's cell phone rang and the voice of Sydney Heatherwood came through.
"Nick, are you okay?" she asked.
He hesitated.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"
"You were weird all day," she said. "Something's wrong."
"No, nothing's wrong."
"I know when something’s wrong," she said. "I'm coming over."
"Don't you dare."
TWENTY MINUTES LATER SHE SHOWED UP, found him in the garage, got a glass of wine from the kitchen and slipped into the passenger seat. She was twenty-seven, African American, athletic and a natural born hunter. Although she was still the newbie of the homicide unit, she had already cut her teeth on Denver’s worst.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong or am I going to have to pry it out of you?"
He handed her the picture of Paige Lake.
"You want to hear a stupid story?"
"Why, do you have some other kind?"
He smiled, then got serious.
"The lady you're looking at is Paige Lake," he said. "She got killed just short of two years ago. I handled the case personally and never got close to solving it."
"Yeah, well, join the club," Sydney said.
"No, no, this isn't a pity party," Teffinger said. "Here's the thing. Seven months or so after she died, I got an email out of the blue. It said:
WHERE: Johannesburg.
WHEN: Next week.
That's all it said. I had no idea what it meant or who sent it, but it was weird enough that I contacted the Johannesburg authorities and let them know about it. They called five days later and let us know that a woman by the name of Jewel Brand had been murdered."
"The same way as Paige Lake?"
Teffinger shook his head.
"No, not the same way, not with chicken blood or anything like that, but it was with the same intensity," he said. "There was no question in my mind that the person who sent me the email was the same person who killed Paige Lake."
Sydney took a sip of wine and studied him.
"So what'd you do?"
"WE SENT JOHANNESBURG OUR FILE, they sent us theirs, and we had lots of telephone calls, mostly handled by Katie Baxter," he said. "In the end, none of it did any good."
Sydney frowned.
"How about the email itself?" she asked. "Did you try to trace it?"
Teffinger nodded. "The best we could get was that it originated somewhere in Athens—but even that we're not sure of. The geeks say there are ways to relay things, to make them look like they came from somewhere when they really didn't. Or, he might have just contacted someone in Athens and paid them to send it. Who knows? As for the email address, it was just one of those Internet freebies that someone opened using bogus information."
Sydney scratched her head.
"So why is this so much on your mind all of a sudden?"
"Because I got another email today," he said. "It was the exact same as Johannesburg, except Johannesburg is Tokyo this time."
Lightning arced across the sky.
Thunder rolled over Denver.
Teffinger drank the last swallow of beer, crushed the can in his fist, and dropped it out the window onto the garage floor. Then he reached into the back seat and pulled a fresh one out of a cooler, ice cold, dangerously good.
"So what you're saying, if I'm getting you right, is that the guy who killed our woman here in Denver—"
"—Paige Lake—"
"—right, Paige Lake—that guy is going to kill someone in Tokyo."
Teffinger nodded.
"There you go. Next week, to be precise."
SYDNEY TOOK A LONG SWALLOW OF WINE, then looked at him and said, "So what are you going to do?"
Teffinger groaned.
"Nothing, if you ask the chief," he said. "I had a long talk with him this afternoon. He doesn't have the budget to send me on a ten thousand mile fieldtrip if there's no realistic possibility that something good will come of it."
Sydney contemplated it.
"I hate to say it," she said, "but he's actually right. There's no way you can stop this guy. About the best you could do is help Tokyo mop up after the fact."
Teffinger shrugged.
"That's what I thought at first," he said.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that you're right," he said. "How could I possibly find someone in a foreign city of ten million people? I kept thinking about it all day and couldn't figure it out. But then after I unwound and had a Bud Light, it came to me."
"What came to you?"
He patted her on the hand.
"The obvious."
She thought about it, then punched him in the arm. "Damn it, Nick, stop being you for a few minutes.”
He combed his hair back with his fingers.
"Here's what I figured out," he said. "The only possible way I could find him is if he finds me. So I sent a reply to his email and said I would come, but only if he promises to kill me."
Sydney sat there, stunned, saying nothing.
Teffinger took a swallow of beer and watched the storm.
Then Sydney asked, "So what did he say?"
Teffinger shrugged.
"I don't know, I haven't checked my messages yet."
4
Day 1—May 15
Friday Evening
KINJO NESTLED IN THE TOKYO SHADOWS across the street from his apartment building and kept an eye on the windows of his unit, looking for a light to turn on, or a flashlight to flicker, or for some other sign that someone was inside, waiting to kill him.
He was lucky to be here.
He was lucky to have gotten out of Egypt.
He was lucky to be alive.
Since Monday night he had replayed the events a hundred times and, even now, couldn’t think of anything he should have done differently. After diving into the sea, he swam out until the dark totally engulfed him. Then he paralleled the shore for a kilometer, maybe more, before he came back in and crept back to the scene.
The shooter was gone.
The money was gone.
The masks were gone.
Everything was gone.
Except for Rafiq’s body—that was still there; that and the dinghy.
Now what?
RETURNING TO THE CLIENT empty-handed wasn’t an option. He’d be tortured and killed even if the client believed the story. Leaving L’il Misfit at the scene wasn’t an option either. That would only implicate the client in Rafiq’s murder. So Kinjo got in the dinghy, paralleled the shore for an hour, and sank it a kilometer out to sea. Then he swam to shore, curled up in a ball and slept until morning. At the break of dawn, he hitchhiked into Cairo and took the first flight out that was going anywhere, which happened to be to Amsterdam.
Then he made his way back to Tokyo.
It wasn’t until Sunday that he called the client, Adrastos Diotrephes, and explained what happened. The man listened without interruption and then said, “Who was the shooter?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence.
“You don’t know.”
No.
He didn’t.
He didn’t have a clue.
“Find out.”
Kinjo swallowed.
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t go back to Egypt. Everyone’s going to think that I’m the one who killed Rafiq.”
“How would the cops know about you?”
; “I’m not talking about the cops,” Kinjo said. “I’m talking about the man’s partners.”
“He has partners?”
“He has to,” Kinjo said. “The theft of the masks was too big for one man.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if your story’s true, they’re the ones who killed him, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” Kinjo said. “It could have been them but it could have been a third party, too. Other bidders knew about the masks. Maybe one of them staked him out and followed him that night.”
Silence.
“I want my money back. You have twenty-four hours to call me with good news,” Diotrephes said. “Not a second more than that. Not a second. Do you understand?”
The line went dead.
That conversation was twenty-five hours ago.
SUDDENLY A LIGHT FLICKERED inside Kinjo’s apartment.
His heart raced.
So, it had begun.
It had actually begun.
He already knew what he’d do when this moment arrived. He’d disappear into the night and go underground, so deep that no one would ever find him. But now that the moment was here, he suddenly realized that his plan was wrong—he would never be able to go deep enough, not unless he was willing to sever every connection in his life including Arai, the lovely Arai.
That wasn’t something he could do, not now, not ever.
Suddenly everything became clear.
What he needed to do was send Diotrephes a message.
Something loud.
Something clear.
He took a deep breath, stepped out of the shadows and headed towards his apartment.
5
Day 1—May 15
Friday Evening
NEVA WALKED SLOWLY across the room to Breyona’s body, looked at her poor lifeless form for a few heartbeats and closed the woman’s eyelids. They were cold to the touch but that was better.
Now she was at peace.
Suddenly the lights went out and a noise came from behind her. She spun, but not fast enough. A terrible pain exploded in the back of her head just as her peripheral vision caught the shape of a shadow. Her legs gave out and everything went black before she hit the floor.
She regained consciousness at some point later.
It could have been two minutes or two hours.
Her brain felt as if little hammers were beating on the inside of her skull.
She opened her eyes.
The room was dark.
She was alone, tied spread-eagle on the bed.
Movement came from the living room. Whoever did this was waiting for her to regain consciousness. She needed to clear her throat but forced herself not to. This was her only chance, to get loose now, this second, before he realized she was awake.
She pulled at her bonds, quietly, forcefully.
It did no good.
She pulled again, this time with all her might. The ropes cut into her flesh. She was tearing her skin.
Come on!
Break!
Break you bastard!
Her breaths came faster and louder. Suddenly a figure was standing in the doorway, watching her, saying nothing.
HER INSTINCT was to say, Fuck you, you bastard! Fuck you to hell! But the thought of enraging him terrified her. He walked towards her, taking his time, emphasizing that she wasn’t going anywhere. He was a white man with a shaved head, bigger than average, wearing jeans and a wife-beater tank top. Strong, heavily-tattooed arms hung at his side.
“Did you have a nice nap?” he asked.
She said nothing.
“What’s wrong, don’t you like me?”
She turned her head away, then stared into his eyes. “What do you want?”
He shrugged.
“Nothing, just the truth, that’s all,” he said.
“The truth about what?”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, pulled her T-shirt up, and ran his index finger in circles around her bellybutton. She struggled, but then stopped when she saw it was bringing a smile to his face.
He pulled her shirt up above her breasts then ripped her bra off and played with her nipples.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” he said. “If you answer truthfully and don’t give me a hard time, your death will be quick and painless—well, as painless as I can make it.”
“Screw you!”
He smiled.
“You’re starting to like me,” he said. “That’s nice.”
She pulled at the ropes.
They tore into her skin.
She screamed.
Then the man put his hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him but couldn’t. Then she realized she couldn’t breathe. She tried to shake her head. The man grabbed her skull with his other hand and held it steady.
“It takes a good five minutes to die by suffocation,” he said. “Did you know that? That’s a long time, don’t you think?”
She couldn’t breathe in.
She couldn’t blow out.
Her lungs were on fire.
The man stared into her eyes, saying nothing, watching her die, not impressed with her pain.
Then he suddenly removed his hand.
She gasped for air, so fast and deep that she sucked saliva into her lungs, which forced her into a choking spasm. The man sat there, patiently, waiting for her to regain her composure. When she finally did, he patted her on the stomach.
“All right, let’s begin,” he said.
SUDDENLY A FIGURE APPEARED in the doorway, moving quietly and steadily into the room.
It was a woman, a young woman with long blond hair.
She was soaking wet.
A knife was in her hand.
The man must have seen Neva staring at something, because he turned. Just as he did, the woman sprang and stabbed the blade into his back. The man sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments and stared into space. Then he drooled blood and dropped sideways to the floor.
No sounds came from where he landed.
The woman stared at him, breathing rapidly. Then she locked eyes with Neva, walked briskly out of the room, returned with a second knife, and cut the ropes. Before Neva could get upright, the woman bolted out of the house.
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Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller) Page 24
