Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (29 page)

Del Rey didn’t move.

Then she said, “Fine. We’ll hide around the corner and kill him when he shows up.”

Teffinger winced.

He’d killed two men in the last week.

He was tired of it.

At the same time, he was also tired of being a target.

He was tired of looking over his shoulder.

They pulled
the curtains tight, left the lights on and took up a place in the deep shadows at the far corner of the parking lot, behind a rusty van perched on cinderblocks next to a chain-link fence.

Time passed.

The black sky clouded over.

The clouds dropped water.

The wind blew that water into their bones.

An hour passed, then another.

Their bodies stiffened.

Their minds tired.

“I think we’re out here for nothing,” Teffinger said.

“You think so?”

“Unfortunately, yes. We’ll give it five more minutes. Then we’re done.”

Four minutes passed.

Then something happened.

The dark shape of a man appeared from out of nowhere, silently walking up the stars at the far end and making its way towards the rear of the hotel, nothing more than a menacing black silhouette hunched against a wicked storm.

Teffinger’s blood raced.

He recognized the feeling.

It was the same one he had when Oscar Benderfield lunged at him with a knife.

“Stay here,” he whispered.

Then he was on his feet, maneuvering through the shadows to the stairs with the cold steel of his weapon in hand.

He started up, one silent step at a time.

In fifteen seconds someone would be dead.

He could feel it.

85

Day Nine

July 16

Wednesday Evening

The law firm
was coffin-quiet when Jori-Lee and Zahara entered. Not a voice, not a radio, not a spec of a sound came from anywhere. They did a quick sweep and found the place deserted. Empty trashcans indicated that the cleaning crew had already come and gone.

Zahara grabbed a discovery file from her office, a case she was riding second-chair on, under Leland Everitt. It was their excuse to be in the man’s office should they get caught. She tucked the red-rope under her arm and turned to Jori-Lee.

“Are you still with me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. The important thing is to not touch anything unless we have to. And if we do, we need to put it back exactly the way we found it—
exactly.”

“What if we need to copy something?”

Zahara chewed on it.

“The new copy machines all scan to copy,” she said. “If someone got motivated enough they could figure out what got copied, actual images of the paper. I’m sure all that gets stored in a hard drive or something in there. For how long, I don’t know. Maybe it even gets backed up occasionally.” Her face brightened. “There’s an older copy machine in the dead files room.”

“Does it work?”

“On and off.”

“Ouch.”

“Let’s worry about finding something, first. There might not even be anything. You got your phone with you?”

Yes, she did.

“Good. Use it if we need to take a picture of anything. Turn the ringer off, though.”

Jori-Lee complied.

Then they headed for Leland Everitt’s office, not sneaking, walking the walk of hurried associates having to work late and not particularly enjoying it.

As they turned
down the corridor that led to their target office, time slowed. Every step took forever. Jori-Lee could see nothing but the closed door at the end of the corridor. It made her palms sweat and her breath jagged.

The screwdrivers were still in her system.

They wobbled her legs.

They fogged her thoughts.

In hindsight, this was crazy.

They were into it, though.

They were too far to turn back.

Zahara didn’t hesitate when they got to the office. She put her hand on the knob as if she owned it and twisted. It turned, unlocked. They stepped inside, quietly closed the door behind them and left the lights off. Twilight filtered through the windows, not a lot but enough.

Jori-Lee expected to get worse once inside.

Surprisingly her breath relaxed.

Her brain focused.

“Do you want the computer?” Zahara said.

“No, I’ll hit a wrong key.”

“Start with the credenza then. I doubt he’d leave anything too incriminating on his desk.”

“Okay.”

She tried.

It didn’t open.

“It’s locked.”

“He keeps the key in the top desk drawer.”

Jori-Lee found it, unlocked all six drawers and then put it back exactly where she found it.

She opened the top left drawer.

Inside, to the far right, was a black revolver.

Also inside were fifteen or twenty red-rope files.

She pulled the one on the far left out.

It was labeled, “
Client X.”

Privileged & Confidential
was stamped on the front in red ink. Inside were three manila folders.

Attorney Notes
.

Investigator’s Reports.

Transcripts.

Her chest pounded.

“Point of no return,” she said.

Zahara grunted.

“We’re long past that, darling. Work fast.”

“He’s got a gun in here.”

“Did you say a gun?”

Yes, she did.

Zahara looked in, then at Jori-Lee.

“What the hell is he doing with a gun?” She pulled it out and checked it closer. “It’s a Glock. There should be a serial number on here somewhere—” A beat then, “Here it is. Get a pencil, write this down—”

86

Day Nine

July 16

Wednesday Night

In fifteen seconds
someone would be dead. The feeling grew more and more pronounced as Teffinger came up the stairs. The weapon got colder in his grip. The muscles got tighter in his face. The air got heavier in his lungs. His head came up to where he could see down the walkway. The man was at the far end spying in a window.

His face was perpendicular to Teffinger, even pointed away to an extent.

Teffinger raised the weapon and headed that way one silent step at a time.

Then something happened.

A door opened.

A woman’s arm came out, grabbed the man by the shirt and pulled him in.

The door closed.

Teffinger exhaled.

It was just a john visiting the whore, just a stupid john making a booty call out in the middle of a cold lonely night.

He shook his head.

You’re officially the king of the dumbasses.

Everyone bow to the king.

The pounding in his chest slowed, something in the nature of a speeding car that had a foot suddenly lift off the accelerator. At least fifteen seconds were gone now. No one was dead. No one would be dead. No one would even be close to dead.

He exhaled.

It was all for nothing.

Now what?

The blue-car guy wasn’t coming for them. The phone call for Doug was nothing more than that, a phone call for Doug.

Teffinger leaned over the railing and shouted, “Del Rey.”

No one answered.

The storm was too loud.

He waved his hands.

“Del Rey.”

She didn’t see him.

She didn’t answer.

He headed down the landing, then down the stairs, then through the endless puddles of the parking lot, no longer a fan of the storm, now only a fan of dry clothes and a soft bed and closed eyes and a mind a peace.

Behind the van, Del Rey wasn’t there.

“Del Rey—”

No one answered.

He circled the vehicle.

She wasn’t there.

She was gone.

“Del Rey!”

No one answered.

“Del Rey!”

She wouldn’t have gone of her own volition, not without telling him, not in a million years. Someone took her, just like Kelly Nine, right out from under his nose. The guy must have been waiting out there in the storm, wedged into a shadow, probably not more than thirty feet away, just waiting and waiting and waiting for the exact right moment.

“Del Rey!”

Teffinger ran toward the street, weapon in hand.

“Del Rey!”

87

Day Nine

July 16

Wednesday Evening

The Glock was interesting.
More interesting, though, was the
Client X
file, which Jori-Lee flipped through. “This is strange stuff,” she said.

“Should we copy it?”

“Yes.”

Zahara grabbed it and said, “I’ll do it. I know how to un-jam the machine. You stay here and keep at it.”

“What if Leland shows up?”

“He won’t.”

Then Zahara was gone.

Jori-Lee kept searching.

The other files were nothing of interest.

The other drawers were equally bland.

Suddenly the hallway lights turned on. Zahara wouldn’t have done that. Someone else was in the building. Jori-Lee shut the credenza, pushed the locks in, powered off the computer and looked for a place to hide, just in case. In the far back corner was a door. She opened it and found herself in a small private bathroom. She ducked inside and shut the door.

Everything turned black.

She held her breath and listened with every fiber of her being.

Then the worst thing that could have happened did. Someone came into the office. The heavy breathing didn’t belong to Zahara.

It belonged to a man.

A briefcase got set on a desk followed by a squish of air from leather, indicating he just sat down.

Seconds passed.

No discernable sounds came.

Then the computer powered up.

A minute later a printer sprang to life and spit out a page, then another, and then another.

The man walked over to it.

The papers shuffled as if being gathered up.

Feet moved.

The computer shut off.

This was good.

Whatever the man came for, now he had it.

Now he’d leave.

He didn’t leave,
though. Instead he picked up a phone, dialed and said, “It’s me. I have what you want. Ten o’clock at the Big Kahuna. I’ll be there.”

The voice belonged to Leland Everitt.

The phone went down.

A desk drawer opened, keys rattled, and a credenza door got unlocked. A briefcase snapped open and something got dropped inside. The credenza door closed and the keys went back into the desk.

Footsteps left.

Jori-Lee waited
a full minute as she searched for sounds. Then she opened the door a crack, enough to hear clearer. No signs of life came. She poked her head out.

No one was there.

She opened the main door, looked down the hall and saw nothing she shouldn’t.

Then she checked the credenza drawer to see if she was right about what she thought happened.

She was.

The Glock was gone.

She snuck down
to the dead-files room. Zahara, un-jamming paper, said, “I’m going to shoot this bitch.”

Jori-Lee told her what just happened.

Zahara listened without interrupting and then said, “Who’s he meeting at ten?”

“I don’t know. He never used a name.”

Zahara got a distant look, refocused and said, “We’ll get the rest of this file copied and get it back in the credenza. Then we’re going to the Big Kahuna.”

Jori-Lee wasn’t so sure.

“I have a feeling we’re turning into the cat,” she said. “The one curiosity killed.”

“Well, here’s a little known fact. A lot of those cats never got killed at all. Probably not even a majority, if you had the statistics.”

88

Day Nine

July 16

Wednesday Night

The storm
cut into Teffinger’s face as he sprinted from the back of the parking lot to the street. Fifty yards away the lights of a vehicle suddenly came to life, quickly followed by movement as they left the curb. Other than the taillights, the vehicle took no shape. It could be a blue car but it could equally be a red pickup or a white SUV.

He hesitated for a heartbeat, deciding.

The vehicle could be innocent.

It could be a mom and a kid.

If it was then Teffinger would apologize afterwards. In the meantime the important thing was to stop it without killing anyone, not until he knew one way or the other.

He aimed for the back tires and pulled the trigger, one, two, three, four, five, six times.