Sudden Guilt (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by R. J. Jagger

  “Me? I’ll be drinking coffee,” he said.

  She gave him a mean look.

  “And having a talk with the husband.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Day Eight—May 12

  Monday Morning

  ______________

  TARZAN DRAGGED SCOTTY MARKS’ bloody body into the garage, closed the door and checked to see if he was alive. He was still breathing but didn’t respond to shouting or shaking.

  “Those women did this,” he said. “And they’re going to pay for it, big time.”

  Del Rae stared at the body.

  “We can’t let this screw everything up,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we can’t get connected to it,” she said. “The last thing we need right now is to be rubbing elbows with the cops.”

  Aaron agreed.

  “We need to get him to a hospital,” he said.

  “How? We can’t exactly just drive up and dump him on the front steps. All those places have security cameras.”

  They found Scotty’s car keys in his pants pocket. Then they drove around until they spotted his car and brought it into the garage. Aaron lifted the man up and set him in the back seat. Then he cranked over the engine and headed west on the 6th Avenue freeway while Del Rae followed in her car. They pulled into a small park in Lakewood, not far from Lutheran Medical Center.

  No one was around.

  There were no cameras.

  Aaron wiped his prints off the vehicle and got in Del Rae’s car. A half mile later he used Scotty’s cell phone to call 911 and make an emergency report about an injured man in a car in the park. Then he wiped his prints off the phone and threw it out the window into a small creek. Thirty seconds later they heard sirens heading for the park.

  On the drive home Aaron was silent.

  His thoughts were on the two women.

  They’d pay for this.

  But he needed to be careful.

  They were a lot more dangerous than he thought.

  What was their problem, anyway?

  IN THE AFTERNOON he loaded up the Wrangler with an eight-foot stepladder, a toolbox, a battery powered drill, several boxes of assorted screws, a digital recorder, cameras, wires and all the rest. Then he slipped into his Dick Zipp suit and made the trek once again to the old farmhouse.

  Tracy Patterson was gone.

  Tashna Sharapova was chained on the mattress in her place.

  Unconscious.

  Beautiful.

  The lawyer already chopped off her hair and threw it in the corner on top of Rain St. John’s and Tracy Patterson’s. Why had he done it already instead of waiting until he came back to kill her? Maybe to avoid getting stray strands on his clothes then. Or maybe to save time later so he could concentrate on the real work. Whatever the reason, the sight brought a smile to Aaron’s face.

  It meant the lawyer was committed.

  Aaron wasn’t sure where the lawyer would kill her. If it was up to him, he’d do it in the bedroom, right there on the mattress, without even unchaining her.

  So he hid two cameras in that room.

  Then, just to be safe, one went into every other room.

  They were motion activated and powered by battery packs. Their signals got transmitted to an expensive digital recorder that accepted up to sixteen simultaneous inputs. Each input wrote directly to a hard drive. They could then be downloaded to DVDs.

  It took Aaron three hours to hook everything up and get it totally hidden.

  He wasn’t too worried about the lawyer dropping by since he’d be rubbing elbows with the cops all day and playing the role of the concerned husband desperately trying to get his poor wife back.

  When he was done the whole system was invisible and operated in total silence, being digital.

  He checked it meticulously to be absolutely sure it operated perfectly and then got out of there. Tashna Sharapova never regained consciousness or saw him. Not that it would make any difference in any event.

  She’d be dead by midnight.

  WHEN TRANE GOT HOME, Del Rae jumped up and wrapped her legs around his hips. He cupped her ass and pulled her tight.

  “He just called me,” she said. “He’s going to do it tonight.”

  “So it’s a definite go?”

  “A hundred percent definite,” she said. “He wants me to be there with him, though.”

  Aaron chewed on it, not sure if he’d let her.

  “I think I need to be there,” she said. “I don’t want to do anything to give him second thoughts.”

  Aaron frowned and realized she was right.

  “Okay, but two things,” he said. “First, be sure you don’t participate in any way, shape or form. If he uses a gun, don’t load it for him or hand it to him or do anything stupid like that.”

  “He’s going to slit her throat,” she said.

  “He is?”

  She nodded.

  “With a box cutter,” she said. “You can get them at any hardware store and they’re easy to get rid of.”

  “You didn’t buy it for him, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Just be sure you don’t touch it.”

  “I won’t.”

  He kissed her.

  “What’s the second thing?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said two things.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “The second thing is this—we only have cameras set up inside the house, not outside. Be sure he kills her in the house. My guess is he’ll do it in the bedroom right where she already is. That’s where I put the most cameras so encourage that. And here’s the third thing.”

  She smiled.

  “You said two things.”

  He chuckled.

  “I’m giving you a third one at no extra charge,” he said. “Don’t be in the room when he does it. I don’t want the camera picking you up.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “That’s important. I can probably edit you out later if I have to, but I’d rather not have to find out. Plus, if I have to edit you out later, he’s going to figure out why.”

  He paused.

  “And here’s the fourth thing,” he said.

  “Fourth?”

  “We need light for the cameras,” he said. “Be sure either you or him brings a flashlight. If he does it after dark, be sure you get it lit up. You don’t need to point it directly in his face or anything like that. The cameras are sensitive but they’re not miracle workers.”

  “Got you. What are you going to be doing while all this is going down?”

  He carried her to the mattress, set her down on her back and straddled her.

  “What am I going to be doing?” he repeated. “I’m going to be getting two women out of my life once and for all.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Day Eight—May 12

  Monday Afternoon

  ______________

  A FULL DAY OF LAW SCHOOL made Paige stronger. The learning added value to her life and kept her momentum moving in the right direction. It brought her one step closer to her long-term goals and helped put all this other stuff in perspective. Also, this morning she learned something about herself—she wasn’t the running kind.

  No Greyhound buses for her.

  Ta’Veya was right.

  Things were getting close to the end.

  Paige had the strength.

  She knew that now.

  When her last class ended at 3:30, she drove down to Colfax and picked up her new Taurus .357Mag revolver, together with five boxes of ammunition. The weapon brought mixed emotions.

  It could save her or doom her.

  The secret was to use it if she needed to and not use it if she didn’t.

  She set the gun on the seat, wound over to the 6th Avenue freeway and headed west with the sun in her eyes and the radio turned to a country-western station playing an old Sha
nia Twain song, “That Don’t Impress Me Much.”

  Traffic got thick and moved slowly.

  Normally she hated rush hour for wasting her life but today it didn’t grate her. Instead, it felt more like a protective barrier where she couldn’t be hurt. She set the gun on her lap, feeling its weight, getting strength from it. She needed to shoot it and get comfortable with its action. And get her marksmanship back up to where it was in high school.

  She called Ta’Veya.

  No one answered.

  SHE HOPED TO FIND TA’VEYA AT THE HOTEL. Instead, the room was empty and lifeless. Ta’Veya’s knife and one pair of Bushnell binoculars were gone.

  Not good.

  The woman shouldn’t be screwing around with anything too deep on her own. If they’d learned anything in the last week or so, it was that.

  Paige called her again.

  No answer again.

  Come on.

  Déjà vu.

  She left a message, loaded the gun and set it on the toilet. Then she got the shower to temperature and stepped inside. It felt good but didn’t relax her. When she stepped out, Ta’Veya still wasn’t there.

  Paige called her again.

  No one answered.

  Maybe Ta’Veya’s battery died.

  PAIGE OPENED HER BOOKS and tried to get a jump on her assignments, absorbing only half of what she should, but not knowing what else to do. Then she drove to Wendy’s, bought two combos and brought them back to the hotel room.

  Ta’Veya still hadn’t shown up.

  She still didn’t answer her phone.

  Paige turned on the TV and paced, gun in hand, while her imagination made up horrible little scenarios with Ta’Veya as the star player.

  When the streetlights kicked on and Ta’Veya still hadn’t shown up, Paige stepped into the night and headed for her car.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Day Eight—May 12

  Monday Morning

  ______________

  IN THE HEART OF DENVER’S FINANCIAL DISTRICT, Teffinger walked through the five-story lobby of an office building, holding a half-empty disposable cup of coffee in his left hand. Car-sized pieces of modern art stuck on the walls as if thrown there at high speed. At the elevator banks he groaned. Lots of business types already waited there, carrying leather briefcases, getting ready to pack it in and face the front.

  Naturally.

  He wasn’t in the mood to be a sardine or breathe other people’s fumes.

  So he headed over to the stairwell and walked up. The first fifteen floors were tolerable. Then his legs caught on fire. By the 20th Floor, elevators didn’t seem like such a bad idea. By the 25th Floor, they seemed like a miracle invention. Finally he arrived at the 27th Floor, which was the lowest of the three floors that housed the law firm of Davis, Holland & Owens, P.C.

  He walked into the reception area and stopped in his tracks.

  Shocked.

  No less than ten original Edgar Payne oils hung on the walls. He’d seen the man’s work in magazines but had never been in the presence of an original.

  The receptionist, a cute redhead, looked at him.

  He knew he should walk over but instead he headed to the nearest piece, a California seascape laid with a loose, impressionistic brush. Then he looked in her direction and said, “Edgar Payne.”

  “Glad to meet you,” she said.

  “No. I’m not Edgar Payne. These paintings are by Edgar Payne.”

  “Oh.”

  “This one alone is worth more than my house,” he added.

  She looked doubtful but said, “They’re sort of cool.”

  Sort of cool.

  Well put.

  Ten minutes later Teffinger was escorted by a nicely dressed elderly woman to the law office of Robert Sharapova, Esq.

  SHARAPOVA TURNED OUT TO BE A LOT YOUNGER than Teffinger envisioned. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-seven or thirty-eight, an unlikely age given the size of his corner office and his obvious stature in the firm.

  He looked like he knew his way around the weight room, too.

  He spent a lot of time outside, judging by his tan, maybe on the tennis court or on a sailboat. He looked too full of energy to waste time on a golf course.

  His hair was thick and on the wild side.

  He had a solid, square, manly face, with piercing blue eyes.

  Teffinger didn’t know if he’d be able to take him in a fair fight. For some reason the man reminded Teffinger of a cat in the jungle, built for survival, the hunter not the hunted.

  “Quite the art gallery you have going out there,” Teffinger said, extending his hand.

  Sharapova shook it.

  “My wife’s,” Sharapova said.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Every one of them,” he said.

  “She’s got a good eye,” Teffinger said. “Payne painted a lot of great pieces, but cranked out his share of duds, too. I didn’t see any of those. Just out of curiosity, what are pieces like that going for these days?”

  “Average? One-fifty or thereabouts,” Sharapova said.

  “Unbelievable.”

  More than a numbers-matching 1967 big block Corvette, Teffinger thought, pulling up an image of the stinger and side pipes.

  Sharapova motioned Teffinger to a chair in front of his desk and said, “I hope you don’t think I’m insensitive because I came to work. I need to be in familiar settings, otherwise I’ll go nuts.”

  Teffinger understood.

  “I want you to know how much I appreciate you coming down here,” Sharapova said. Then he put a serious tone in his voice. “Tell me where we’re at.”

  TEFFINGER HAD ALREADY TOLD HIM SOME OF THE BASICS last night but now laid in the details. A woman named Rain St. John disappeared first, abducted from Bannock Street. She showed up unconscious in the car of Tracy Patterson, who subsequently showed up in Tashna’s BMW. Both had been raped.

  “So if the guy stays true to form, Tashna will turn up in someone else’s car after he rapes her,” Sharapova said.

  Teffinger shrugged.

  “That’s certainly possible,” he said.

  He must not have had too much sunshine in his voice because Sharapova said, “But you think otherwise.”

  Teffinger couldn’t deny it.

  “We don’t know enough about the guy to tell why he let the first two women live,” he said. “You seem like the kind of guy who can handle the truth, so I’m going to give it to you. I’ve been talking to an FBI profiler by the name of Leigh Sandt about this case. In her opinion—and I agree—this guy is a lot more than just your basic sexual predator. He’s a half step away from murder. This is a serious situation. We may or may not get her back alive.”

  Sharapova nodded in appreciation of the candor.

  He walked over to the window, stared at the skyline, and then turned to Teffinger.

  “If it takes money—a reward or ransom, whatever—”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, but I don’t think we’re dealing with a money issue,” Teffinger said. “Did Tashna have any enemies?”

  Sharapova answered immediately.

  “No, never. Why?”

  “No reason, just curious.”

  Sharapova pounded his fist on the desk. “I want to get my hands around this guy’s neck so bad that you can’t even believe it.”

  Teffinger knew the feeling and told him so.

  “If this guy rapes her,” he added, “his dick’s coming off with a chainsaw. It may take some time, but it’ll definitely happen, sooner or later. That’s just between you and me.”

  Teffinger studied him.

  “There’s one more thing,” he said. “The guy has a set of rules that he gives to the women. One of the rules is that if they disobey any of the rules then they die.”

  The lawyer cocked his head.

  “Tashna’s not a tough woman,” he said. “She’s more of an inside person than an outside one. But I have to believe she has enough guts to do what
it takes to get through this. If there are rules, and she understands that she has to obey them to survive, I think she’ll find a way.”

  Teffinger nodded.

  Then gave Sharapova the bad news. “There’s one more thing. Even if the woman obeys the rules, the rules say that the guy still flips a coin to determine if she lives or dies.”

  The shock on Sharapova’s face was palpable.

  The lawyer swept a pile of papers off his desk and scowled.

  “So best case scenario is that she gets raped and then has a fifty-fifty chance of living?”

  “We’re not positive that he really flips a coin,” Teffinger said. “He could just be screwing with their minds. We don’t know.”

  They talked for another ten minutes. When Teffinger stood up to leave, he said, “Think positive.”

  “You’ll keep me in the loop?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “She doesn’t deserve this,” Sharapova said. “I’m going to personally hunt this guy to the ends of the earth and cut his balls off.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Day Eight—May 12

  Monday Night

  ______________

  AFTER DARK, DEL RAE CALLED just as Tarzan got back to the loft from a five-mile run. He pulled an ice-cold bottle of Gatorade from the fridge as he answered.

  “Guess where I’m at?”

  He took a long swallow, draining half the bottle, and said, “Tell me.”

  “Sitting in a King Soopers parking lot,” she said. “The lawyer’s going to be here in five minutes. Then we’re going to take a drive.”

  Aaron snapped his fingers.

  “Whose car you taking?”

  “Mine.”

  He frowned. “Just remember what we talked about,” he said. “The cameras need light. Stay out of the picture. Don’t participate. Wear gloves so you don’t leave any prints.”

  “I remember.”

  “Come over afterwards,” he said. “Can you do that?”

  “I think so,” she said. “The lawyer will have to get back home and be a worried husband.”

  “Good.”

  “He met with some homicide detective this morning named Nick Teffinger,” she added. “Apparently this detective warned him that the guy who took Tashna might very well kill her and that he’s way more than just a sexual predator. So the lawyer’s feeling pretty good about the whole thing right now.”