Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (37 page)

Suddenly talking came down the hall.

Teffinger peeked out the keyhole.

A muscular Asian man was standing in front of his room across the hall, putting his ear to the door, listening with intensity. The man examined the keycard device as if memorizing it and then disappeared quietly down the hall.

Teffinger’s eyes tightened.

“We got to get out of here.”

“You go,” she said. “I’m done.”

“What do you mean, you’re done?”

Her eyes got even more watery.

“Nick, I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”

“No you don’t,” she said. “You love who you think I am. I’m not that person though.”

Teffinger wasn’t in the mood.

“Pull yourself together,” he said. “I’ll take all the drama you can give me tomorrow but right now isn’t the time.”

“This isn’t drama,” she said. “This is serious.”

She meant it.

It was in her eyes.

He held her shoulders.

“What’s going on?”

She stepped back.

“I’ve been blackmailing a Supreme Court judge by the name of Nelson Robertson,” she said. “I’ve been doing it for two years. I’ve been getting him to swing his vote. He’s done it eight times.”

Teffinger smiled, waiting for the punch line.

It didn’t come.

“This is a joke, right?”

The woman lowered her head.

Teffinger said, “Blackmailing him for what?”

“He was kinky,” she said. “I found out about it and set him up. My friend T’amara Alder helped me; she’s the one you and me had a threesome with, the one I call Trouble. We videotaped him having his sick little sessions, both with me and with T’amara. I didn’t want money. I just wanted his vote. We came to an arrangement. Everything was working just fine but then T’amara saw his picture somewhere and realized who he was. She called me up and said,
Remember that creep we were videotaping? He’s on the freaking Supreme Court of the United States. This is going to be worth a fortune.”

“So she wanted to blackmail him for money,” Teffinger said.

“Right,” Del Rey said. “I told her I already had a deal going with the man and for her to just stay out of it. She said, no way. The dollar signs were already in her eyes. I did everything I could to talk her out of it but it did no good. She tried to shake him down even though I disapproved. This happened just a few weeks ago. That put Robertson over the edge. He decided to take both me and her out.”

“That’s why you’re a target.”

She nodded.

“From what I can figure out—and a lot of it’s guesswork, I’ll admit—Robertson somehow got that hitwoman Portia Montrachet on my ass. The Susan Smith she came to murder in Denver was me.”

Teffinger shook his head.

“That can’t be,” he said. “She was killed outside the apartment of the other Susan Smith, the model. She was the target, not you.”

Del Rey exhaled.

“What I’m about to tell you, you have to promise it’s off the record.”

He shrugged.

“We’ll see.”

Del Rey paced.

“I knew Portia was after me because you were feeding me information on her,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. I told a friend about it. He decided he was going to step in and help me. He thought that if Portia ended up dead, Robertson would back off. He killed her. It didn’t happen at the alley outside Susan Smith’s apartment. He did it somewhere else and then dumped the body there. That way it would keep the attention off me and, correspondingly, off him.”

Teffinger grunted.

“The boxer,” he said. “Danny Rainer.”

She shook her head.

“No, he’s not the one,” she said. “If you start digging you’ll find that I actually did some legal work for him a couple of years ago. We have some history together and it looks incriminating. It wasn’t him though, I can promise you that.”

“Then who was it?”

“I can’t tell you,” she said. “You’ll never figure it out otherwise I wouldn’t even mention it. The bottom line is that Robertson didn’t take the hint. All he did was hire someone else to kill me.”

“Jean-Luc Baxa.”

She nodded.

“He killed T’amara first and then came after me. Teffinger, I’m going to tell you something and it’s the honest to God truth,” she said. “I’ve been hanging around you for protection but that’s not the only reason. It’s not even the main reason. The main reason is because I’ve fallen back in love with you. It happened the second you walked into my law office and I looked back into your eyes after so long. That’s why I’m done. Baxa’s after me, and you’ve almost been killed twice because of it. I’m not going to put you at risk any longer, not one second more. I can’t be selfish anymore. I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life but if you end up dead that’ll be something I can’t live with.”

He smiled.

“Me either.”

The corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly.

Teffinger squeezed her.

He squeezed her long.

He squeezed her tight.

He squeezed her until the sobbing stopped.

Then he held her by the shoulders, looked into her eyes and said, “We’re going to work this out. We’re going to survive this. Right now though we need to get out of here.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“No,” he said. “Nice try, but no. You’re stuck with me so just get used to it.”

109

Day Eleven

July 18

Friday Noon

Sanders said very little
at lunch, which was strange given that it was his idea. Jori-Lee knew something was wrong but couldn’t imagine what. Finally she said, “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No.”

“Something’s wrong.”

He nodded.

“I think Leland Everitt killed Robertson,” he said.

Jori-Lee understood the words but they were so strange she couldn’t process them beyond their four corners.

“That’s crazy.”

“I think Leland Everitt’s dirtier than dirt and that Zahara Knox has been acting as his spy all along,” he said.

“His spy?”

He nodded.

“Think about it,” he said. “Here he is, taking you into the firm at Robertson’s request. Obviously you’re still a potential threat to Robertson, even though supposedly you and him had reached a truce. Leland is going to want to monitor you. He’s going to want to be absolutely sure you’re no longer a threat to Robertson. So what he does is set up Zahara as a spy.”

Jori-Lee shook her head.

“No, that’s nuts,” she said. “She’s been on my side since moment one.”

“That’s my point,” Sanders said. “There she is in your very first meeting with her, warning you—a perfect stranger—to stay away from the firm. That immediately creates a bond. From there she capitalizes on it. It’s called keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Jori-Lee shook her head.

“You’re being paranoid.”

“Am I? It was her idea to break into Robertson’s office, right? And what did you find in there. You found a mysterious
Client X
file, which I believe was planted there for you to find. It made it seem like Leland was representing Oscar Benderfield, trying to find out for Benderfield who hired him to in turn hire someone to take out T’amara Alder.”

“Right—”

“That exonerated Leland and at the same time gave him a reason to have been talking to Benderfield, as a client, in case anyone ever asked. In reality, I think the whole file was a hoax. I think Leland actually hired Benderfield to take care of the person who was blackmailing Robertson. He did it at Robertson’s request.”

The smile fell off Jori-Lee’s face.

She didn’t expect Sanders to make a case.

He was, though.

“What about the gun in the credenza?” she said. “Why would they let me see it if the whole thing was a hoax?”

“My opinion? I think that was just a slipup. Maybe Zahara wasn’t supposed to break in with you until the following night. Maybe she jumped the clock.” A beat then, “If my guess is right, that’s the gun that was used to kill Robertson.”

Jori-Lee frowned.

“If Leland was going to all these lengths to help Robertson then why would he kill him?”

Sanders took a sip of water.

He smacked his lips.

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s the one thing that doesn’t add up. It’s the one thing we need to figure out. I know this seems sudden but I’ve been building this theory up in my mind over the last few days. It was already in my mind last night. When you and Zahara came back home and I made the argument that we should never tell anyone anything we knew, that was all for Zahara’s benefit, knowing she’d relay it to Leland. It was the only way I could think of to keep you safe short-term. The disc that I burned on the stove, by the way, wasn’t the real one. I still have the real one.”

“You do?”

He nodded.

“Go back to work as if you didn’t hear a word of this. Watch your back though. Leland Everitt killed Robertson. He’ll kill you just as fast if he has even an inkling that you’re on to him. He’s in too deep at this point to do anything other than murder his way out.” He put his hand on hers. “I love you so don’t go and get yourself killed.”

“Likewise.”

“Likewise on the love part or on the don’t-get-killed part?”

She smiled.

“Both.”

110

Day Eleven

July 18

Friday Night

Friday night
after dark Teffinger carefully set the Van Gogh in the belly of the dinghy, throttled up the 5hp Johnson and let it warm up.

“This will go smoothly,” Rail said. “Trust me. You’ll be back in half an hour. Everything will be fine.”

“We’ll see.”

The night was full dark, moonless to a fault.

An eerie thin fog played over the salty water, allowing fairly good visibility for a hundred meters and then messing with it. The brighter lights of San Francisco managed to punch through.

The weaker lights had no chance.

The exchange was to take place directly under the Golden Gate Bridge, midway between the two towers. Teffinger was to motor out from the city side. Yoan Foca would come from the Sausalito end. They’d meet, they’d exchange, they’d motor away in separate directions and everyone would live happily ever after.

Teffinger swallowed.

He didn’t like water.

He especially didn’t like cold water.

Cold water had tried its best to kill him on more than one occasion.

A breeze blew, stronger than Teffinger preferred.

Small waves washed in from the Pacific, not more than one to two feet, not to the point of whitecaps but more than enough to make the dingy nervous.

“Do me a favor,” Teffinger said. “If he kills me I want you to kill him back.”

Rail chuckled.

“He’s not going to kill anyone.”

“Yeah, but if he does, I want you to, too.”

“He won’t but if he does, I will.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise. Time to go.” Rail pushed the dinghy off shore and said, “I’ll be waiting for you. Good luck.”

Teffinger kept
the motor in reverse until he got clear of the rocks, then swung the vessel around bow first and headed for the massive orange structure, which was three or four hundred yards up the shore.

The waves slapped at the boat.

The noise was louder than Teffinger expected.

It made his eyes narrow and his palms sweat.

He got directly under the bridge and followed it.

He passed the first tower.

He kept going.

He had a vision of Yoan Foca pulling a gun at the last minute and shooting everyone dead—Teffinger, Dandan and Susan Smith, all of them, dead. He had a vision of their bodies falling into the merciless cold water and sinking deeper and deeper into the horrific darkness.

He should have brought his gun.

Should he turn back?

Suddenly
a small vessel punched out of the fog up ahead.

Teffinger flashed his light.

The other vessel did the same.

Then they slowly approached one another.

111

Day Seventeen

July 24

Thursday Evening

Del Rey
kept her eyes on the back entry of One First, waiting for Justice Preston Wendell to emerge. Her chest was tight. What she was about to do was serious. Every word mattered. The day was hot. She stayed in the shade of an elm.