Client On The Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller) Read online

  D alton Wrey took one more look at his 28-year-old face in the bathroom mirror and decided that he wasn’t just looking good, he was looking totally, absolutely, one hundred percent GQ. Long brown hair, parted in the middle, flopped over his face and hung down two inches past his shoulders. He pushed it to the side. Hypnotic hazel eyes peeked through, perfectly framed by a sexy tanned face.

  Totally GQ.

  Capital G.

  Capital Q.

  Physically, at six-three, he had never been stronger or in better shape. That didn’t come free, of course. He paid for that body with insane workouts at the Denver Athletic Club; workouts that he took to total muscle failure, painful but worth it.

  Women couldn’t get enough of his body and weren’t embarrassed to prove it.

  He flicked off the bathroom lights and walked through 2,500 square feet of primo loft space, hardly paying any attention to the floor-to-ceiling windows in spite of the ten-story view of the Rockies. He took the elevator to the lobby and walked out the front door, directly into the trendy heart of LoDo.

  A bright Colorado sky hung overhead.

  Nice.

  It would be hot later.

  That was fine.

  He liked the heat.

  He wore expensive, perfectly cut clothes.

  Denver was his.

  He owned this freaking cow town.

  The five-block walk to Martin Productions, Inc., on 17th Street in the center of the financial district, took hardly any time. He pushed through stately revolving doors, crossed an expansive lobby and took a marble-walled elevator to the 42nd Floor.

  The receptionist, too-cute Rebecca, demanded a hug when he pushed through the glass entry door. He gave her one, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to Mandy Martin’s oversized corner office at the end of the hall.

  She was strutting her perky little 33-year-old physique back and forth in front of the windows with a phone to her ear and waved him in.

  He eased into one of the contemporary white leather chairs in front of her desk and sipped coffee as he watched. She wore a crisp white blouse, a short black skirt and expensive high-heels.

  No nylons.

  No need, either, given the tan.

  She saw him studying her, smiled, and flicked her skirt up just long enough to flash a white thong.

  He chuckled.

  Martin Productions brought events to Denver, mostly concerts, but occasionally other types of shows too. The company had been around forever, originally founded by Mandy’s father, who handed the reins to Mandy four years ago and said, “Here, you drive for a while.”

  Everyone said she was too young, too pretty, too flighty.

  Everyone said she would take the company down in flames.

  Big flames.

  Hot flames.

  Deadly flames.

  Instead, she pumped new energy into the organization, got in the trenches, worked her posterior off, and actually increased the client base to the point where even top-name acts had to be turned away. Bookings under her recent tenure included Torn Lace, Rio, Can’t Explain, Maria Costa and Garage Juice, to name a few.

  The company had fifteen employees.

  They rented the venues such as Red Rocks, the Pepsi Center and Coors Field. They determined the scope of media promotion, contracted with promoters, and pre-approved all promotional materials. They contracted with Ticketmaster and arranged for ticket sales. They made sure that each event was properly staffed and secured. They arranged for post-event cleanup.

  Etcetera.

  Etcetera.

  Etcetera.

  They worked hard.

  They got big checks.

  Dalton was the No. 2 person in Martin Productions, higher than everyone in terms of importance and money, except Mandy, who spotted him in a restaurant two days after she took control and introduced herself as his new boss.

  His job was to use his GQ looks and infinite charm to interface on a person-to-person basis with the acts and their agents.

  His job was to schmooze; to find out what the talent wanted and make sure they got it, no matter how strange, or expensive, or illegal—within reason.

  He had every first-class escort service in Denver on speed dial. His job was to make sure the acts wanted to come back to Denver; and that they wouldn’t even think of calling anyone except Martin Productions when they did.

  Mandy hung up, hugged him and said, “This day’s already crazy.”

  “How crazy?”

  She ran a finger down his chest. “Crazy enough that I might need some stress relief later,” she said.

  He ran a finger down her chest and said, “Be careful. I might call your bluff one of these days.”

  He worked non-stop through lunch and left the office at three. An hour later, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he pulled up to a gate in a chain link fence that surrounded an unoccupied building in an industrial area at the north edge of the city.

  He got out, unlocked the gate, drove through, and relocked everything behind him.

  The building, a long-forgotten suitcase factory was one tall story, with windowless cinderblock walls, a solid roof, massive square footage and an asphalt parking lot big enough for a whole lot of cars. Railroad tracks ran behind it. Across the street was vacant land. There were buildings on either side, but both of them were more than two hundred yards away, and both were vacant. Reportedly, they had contaminated soil.

  Dalton bought the building six months ago for hardly any money out of a bankruptcy proceeding.

  The plan was to gut it, get it jazzed up, and use it for raves and private parties where people could get insane. It would tentatively be called Refuge-7.

  The rest of the plan was to install a playroom in the back, for a handful of special clients who requested it and demanded absolute discretion.

  Dalton had already built the most of the playroom, two months ago, in the rear NW corner of the building. The space was about 50 by 50 feet, windowless, with a shower, bathroom and a thick steel door. So far Dalton had laid carpeting, installed a king size bed, and, for the more adventurous at heart, strategically placed eyehooks here and there, and build a number of simple devices; a rack, a cross, that kind of thing.

  The building had eight exterior doors, all told.

  They were all metal.

  Dalton had fresh double locks installed on all of them.

  They were also all chained tight from the inside, except for the entry door. Of course, they’d be unlocked for raves and parties, but for now, when he wasn’t around, they were exactly what he needed.

  He unlocked the front door, stepped inside, and locked it behind him. Then he walked back to the playroom to see how his captive, Lindsay Vail, was doing.

  4

  R adcliff & Snow, LLC, occupied three floors of the Republic Plaza building in the financial district. Teffinger bypassed the elevators, hiked up fifteen stories, told the R&S receptionist he wanted to speak with the firm’s managing partner, and then checked out the oil paintings in the reception area with a cup of coffee in hand.

  Ten minutes later he ended up in the office of Jeff Salter.

  Salter was an attractive man, taller than most, about forty, with medium-length blond hair, slightly disheveled, as if he had unconsciously raked it back with his hand all morning. Fifteen years ago he would have been right at home on a California beach with a surfboard under his arm.

  The office was a corner one.

  The exterior walls were almost entirely glass.

  The two interior walls held six oil paintings, each laid with an impressionistic brush, so incredibly good that Teffinger had to check them out as he introduced himself. He recognized all the signatures—Edgar Payne, Hanson Puthuff, Marion K. Wachte, Maurice Braun, Benjamin Brown and John Gamble.

  “You have quite the gallery going here,” Teffinger said.

  “I started out collecting the Taos Ten,” Salter said. “They were okay and would never go down in value. But to be honest, they nev
er knocked my socks off. Then one day I said screw it, if I’m going to collect, I’m going to get stuff I like. So I moved into the American impressionists.”

  “Smart move,” Teffinger said.

  “Do you collect?”

  Teffinger chuckled.

  “Maybe someday,” he said. “Right now the only collecting going on in my life is the collecting of my dollars by my mortgage company.”

  Salter nodded.

  “Understood,” he said.

  Teffinger swallowed and got serious.

  “I’m assuming that you haven’t heard about Ryan Ripley yet,” he said.

  No.

  Salter hadn’t.

  He looked concerned.

  “What happened?”

  “He got killed Saturday night,” Teffinger said, “in an alley off Colfax, a place known for cheap blowjobs. His pants were off. His wallet was missing; and if he had a watch, it was gone too.”

  “He had a Rolex,” Salter said.

  Teffinger nodded, not surprised.

  “He had two stab marks in his back,” Teffinger said. “From a pocket knife with a three-inch blade.”

  Salter stood up, walked to the windows and looked out.

  Teffinger stayed quiet and let the man process the information.

  Salter turned, leaned against the glass and said, “I warned him that his dick was going to get him in trouble.”

  “So he went down there a lot?”

  Salter shrugged.

  “I don’t know if it was a lot or not, but more than he should,” Salter said. “Every time he did it, he put the firm’s reputation on the line, which didn’t exactly make my day. I’m going to seem callous, but when I’m in this office, the firm comes before everything. So, approaching this from a managing partner viewpoint, the thing I’m wondering about is this—how much of this is going to become public information?”

  Teffinger understood.

  Dirt and smut didn’t help build the client base.

  “Right now, at least short term, I don’t see a whole lot that will be public information, other than the fact that he was a homicide victim. The rest of the details, at this point, are part of the investigation file, which isn’t public.”

  Salter looked relieved.

  “Long term is a different story,” Teffinger added. “Everything leaks, sooner or later. That’s just the way the world is built.”

  “Understood,” Salter said. “It’s the next couple of weeks that I’m primarily interested in. By then we’ll have new lawyers handling his cases.”

  Teffinger picked up a pencil, wove it in his fingers, and studied the lawyer. Then he said, “Was Ripley into voodoo?”

  The word clearly took Salter by surprise.

  “Voodoo?”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “Right.”

  Salter shook his head at the absurdity of the question. “No, why?”

  “No reason,” Teffinger said. “Do you remember a secretary who worked here a couple of years ago named Whitney White?”

  “Of course,” Salter said.

  “Was she into voodoo?”

  “Whitney?” Salter said. “Not that I know of. Why? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, just curious,” Teffinger said. “Is anyone in the firm into voodoo, that you know of?”

  Salter walked to the desk, put his hands on it and leaned across. “This firm represents some of the biggest and most sophisticated corporate clients in the country,” he said. “They wouldn’t spend two cents worth of time on anyone dumb enough to believe in anything as stupid as voodoo. And neither would I.”

  “That’s kind of what I figured,” Teffinger said.

  5

  T he marina got hot. There was no way Aspen would survive much longer in her architect attire, so Yardley gave her a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to swap into. They walked down the beach barefoot and tried to figure out what to do next. Yardley asked a lot of questions designed to find out if anyone had a motive to kill her client..

  Did she owe anyone money?

  Did she witness a crime?

  Was she cheating on a boyfriend?

  Was she into anything strange?

  Did she take drugs?

  Was she leading a secret life?

  No, no, no, no, no and more no. “And I never kicked anyone’s cat,” she added. “I’m not a threat to anyone in the world. This whole thing just baffles me.”

  “Maybe you weren’t the target,” Yardley said. “Maybe it was the friend you were with.”

  “But the guy followed me when we split up,” Aspen added.

  “Maybe he knew you spotted him and then did that on purpose, to throw you off.”

  Aspen wrinkled her forehead and wasn’t impressed.

  “What was her name again?” Yardley asked.

  “Samantha Dent.”

  “What’s she like?”

  Aspen chuckled. “If I’m Ying, she’s Yang. I’m Ms. Goody Two Shoes. She’s Ms. Wild Woman. We’re about as opposite as two people can get.”

  “I want to talk to her,” Yardley said.

  “That won’t be a problem, but as far as your question goes, the guy’s eyes were on me. I could feel them. I can still feel them. I’m his target. I don’t have any doubt in my mind.”

  The air was still, without a wisp of wind. The lake was smooth and quiet except for the occasional low-wake Lund trolling with a fishing pole or two draped off the stern. Yardley spotted a flat rock and skipped it across the water.

  “I could never do that,” Aspen said.

  “Sure you can.”

  “No, I tried.”

  “When?”

  “When I was small.”

  Yardley taught her how to do it.

  Within five minutes, Aspen was skipping like a pro.

  Then Yardley said, “We have the guy’s picture, but I don’t know how much that’s going to help. The police have it too and so far it doesn’t look like they’ve been able to attach a name to it. If they haven’t been able to do it with all their resources, we won’t be able to either. We do have one thing going for us that they don’t, however.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We know that the guy is either after you or your friend.”

  “Me.”

  “Okay, say you,” Yardley said. “That means we have bait.”

  6

  A t the playroom in the back of Refuge-7, Dalton pulled a ski-mask over his head, unlocked the door, pushed it open a couple of inches and said through the crack, “I’m coming in. I want you to move to the back corner of the room. Do you understand?”

  No response.

  He pushed the door all the way open and spotted Lindsay Vail, crouching in the back corner, staring at him with wide eyes. Her hands were empty.

  Good.

  She hadn’t tried to dismantle anything to make a weapon.

  She wore tight jeans and a skimpy white tank top; a tanned bellybutton showed between the two. She wasn’t big, five-feet-two at the most, 110 pounds. She was about twenty-five, in good shape, with a pretty face and white teeth.

  “Don’t let the mask scare you,” Dalton said. “The only reason I’m wearing it is so you won’t recognize me when I let you go. Don’t try to pull it off because if you ever see my face, things will get complicated. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  Her lower lip trembled.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, “as long as you do exactly what I tell you to and don’t give me a hard time. So it’s going to be up to you how things go.”

  She said nothing.

  “Stand up,” he said.

  She did.

  “Take off your shirt and your bra,” he said. “You can leave your jeans on.”

  She hesitated and stared into his eyes.

  Then she pulled the tank top over her head and dropped it on the floor. She reached behind her back, unclasped her bra, and dropped it
on top of the tank. She covered her breasts with her hands.

  She was built better than Dalton thought, but still, not his style. She’d be more than fine for the average guy but she didn’t compare to the women Dalton ran with.

  He liked them taller; five-ten or five-eleven, and stronger.

  She had a tattoo on her left breast, a red rose on a thorny stem. A second tattoo wrapped around her left arm, something in the nature of a tribal band.

  “Turn around,” Dalton said.

  She swallowed.

  Then she obeyed.

  On her back were two more tattoos—one on her upper left shoulder, a flower piece; and a second on her lower back, just above her ass, an abstract that disappeared into her jeans.

  “Come over here,” Dalton said.

  She turned and walked towards him.

  Halfway there, she stopped.

  Dalton went to her, held her left hand in his—almost as if they were lovers—and led her over to the rack, which sat on the opposite side of the room, about four feet from the wall.

  “Lie down,” he said.

  She didn’t.

  He picked her up in his arms and set her on it. She didn’t resist. Then he pushed her down, gently, until she was flat on her back.

  “Just relax. I’m going to blindfold you now so I can take my mask off,” he said.

  7

  A fter leaving Radcliff & Snow, Teffinger went back to headquarters, poured a cup of coffee, hunted around in the cold-case storage room until he found the Whitney White file, and brought it back to his desk. As soon as he sat down, Sydney came over.

  “So how’d it go?”

  Teffinger took a long slurp of hot coffee and said, “The managing partner’s a guy named Jeff Salter. He denied knowing anything about Ryan Ripley or anyone else in the firm being into voodoo.”

  “So what’s your take on him?”

  Teffinger shrugged.

  “He’s smarter than me.”

  Sydney chuckled and said, “I’m not touching that one.”

  “Good.”

  “I could though,” she said, “just for the record.”