Attorney's Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) (23 page)

“Exactly.”

“Major cool.”

“She’s a believer,” London added.

“She better be.”

“She is.”

“That gives us an ironclad suit against V&B,” Venta added.

London frowned.

“Not exactly,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“It means we have a pretty good case against Mark Remington,” she said. “What we still don’t know is if he was a rogue attorney acting on his own.”

Venta looked confused.

“Tell me how that works.”

“Okay,” London said, “it works like this. If Remington was acting on his own, without the knowledge or participation of the law firm, then the law firm isn’t liable for anything he does. He’s liable, of course, but not the law firm.”

“But Remington said he was representing a law firm,” Venta said. “He said the firm wanted dirt on Bob Copeland.”

“It doesn’t matter what Remington said,” London said. “Nothing he says is binding on the law firm. The only way the law firm itself can be held liable is if it did something wrong. That can come in a number of ways. If, for example, the law firm provided the money that was given to you, or knew what Remington was doing and allowed it to continue, or knowingly profited from Remington’s actions, or something like that, then the firm itself can be held liable. But if Remington was acting solely on his own, outside the scope of his employment, then the firm isn’t liable.”

“This is complicated,” Venta said.

“Just think of it in terms of basic fairness,” London said. “If Remington was acting on his own, it wouldn’t be fair to hold the firm responsible. If the firm was in on it somehow, then it would.”

“Okay.”

“Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

London looked at Hannah.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“What if Remington was working with someone else in the law firm and that person helped him by giving him law firm money or something like that?” Venta asked.

“That would probably be enough to make the firm itself liable,” London said.

“Then I have only two things to say.”

“What’s that?”

“Thomas,” Venta said. “And Fog. That guy’s dirty. I can feel it in my gut. We need to focus on him.”

London chewed on it.

Then a wild thought came to her.

“We’ve been assuming that Remington was working with Vesper & Bennett since that’s who he’s employed with,” she said. “Maybe, in point of fact, he was working with Thung, Manap & Deringer the whole time.”

69

Day Nine—June 19

Tuesday Morning

ALONE IN A CONFERENCE ROOM, Teffinger sipped coffee as he pulled up the bondage photographs from Alan English’s computer. There were fewer than he thought, only a couple hundred. His primary goal was to figure out if any of them had been taken by English in Bangkok, and in particular, at the place where Venta had been kept, and whether Venta was in any of them.

That answer came easy.

No.

All of the pictures had been downloaded from websites. In fact, most of them had the web name imprinted on them. They had been pulled from cyberspace more than three years ago over a period of six months, meaning they were stale.

So where was the fresh stuff?

HE FLIPPED BACK TO ONE OF THE PICTURES—an unusually beautiful woman wearing only a thong, stretched tight in a spread-eagle position on a bed. It reminded him of that night with Darien Jade, when she tied scarves on her wrists and ankles and told him to tie her down.

He said no.

It was too weird.

But she insisted so he did.

Then he explored her body with a light touch, slowly and teasingly, for a long time, working her into an orgasmic frenzy but backing off before she came.

Then he started all over again, controlling her every sensation until there was nothing left in her universe except the need to come, then denying her that, making her want it even more, reducing her to pure animal lust.

SUDDENLY THE DOOR to the conference room opened, Sydney stuck her head in and then entered. “There you are,” she said.

Teffinger closed the picture on the computer and realized that the little fellow was in a half-happy state.

“Hey,” he said, trying to appear normal.

“Getting anything good?” she questioned.

“This is all old stuff and none of it’s from Bangkok,” he said. “We need to find the new stuff.”

“You think there’s more?”

He nodded.

“This isn’t tap water. You don’t just turn the knob and shut it off.”

SUDDENLY HIS CELL PHONE RANG and the voice of the FBI profiler, Dr. Leanne Sanders, came through. “You called,” she said.

He did.

He did indeed.

“Did you hear about Mark Remington?”

No.

She hadn’t.

“The word is he hung himself in his hotel room,” Teffinger said.

“In Bangkok?”

“Right.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” she said. “Talk to you later, I’m already late for ten things. Every weirdo in the world is suddenly bubbling to the surface.”

The line went dead.

Thirty seconds later she called back.

“How did you find out?”

“Venta Devenelle told me,” Teffinger said.

“Your girlfriend Venta Devenelle?”

“Right.”

“How did she know?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well I want to hear it, but not this second. What’s the name of the hotel?”

Teffinger didn’t know.

“Can you find out?”

He could.

“Let me know,” she said. “If I don’t answer, leave it on my voice mail.”

TEFFINGER LOOKED AT SYDNEY and asked, “So what’s going on?”

She handed him a pile of papers. “These are English’s flight manifests for his Bangkok trips. I cross-referenced the dates to his bank account statements.” She frowned. “It’s not good.”

Teffinger braced himself.

“Give it to me,” he said.

“It seems he took a lot of cash with him every time he went,” she said. “Three or four thousand at least. Nothing ever got re-deposited after he got back.”

“Damn.”

Sydney looked sympathetic.

“We have the names and numbers of all his passengers,” she added. “I didn’t know if you wanted to contact them or wanted me to.”

He thought about it.

“Neither right at the moment,” he said. “First, let’s head to English’s house and find the rest of his bondage pictures.”

“You want me to go with you?”

He nodded.

Reluctantly.

“We’re getting dangerously close to Venta being an official person of interest,” he said. “As soon as we cross that line I’m going to have to take myself off the case, meaning you’ll be in charge.”

Sydney cocked her head.

“I don’t think we’re anywhere near that line,” she said. “Remember, the neighbor across the street from English saw a man casing the place. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but Venta isn’t a man—is she?”

“Not the last time I checked,” he said.

She grinned.

“And you’ve been checking a lot, I assume.”

“I have but remember she’s a P.I.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that if she’s going to stalk someone and kill him, she’s going to be smart enough to wear a disguise.”

Sydney didn’t seem impressed and punched him in the arm to prove it.

“You are so full of conspiracy theories sometimes,” she said. “Come on. Let’s find the rest of English’s pictures, confirm that none of them are from Bangkok, and move on.”

Right.

Good idea.

70

Day Nine—June 19

Tuesday Afternoon

ON THE WAY TO THE BOXCARS, JEKKER stopped at a carwash and sprayed the underside of the Audi. A lot more chunks of flesh came off than he anticipated. He thought that the rain last night would have splashed up and cleaned the vehicle pretty well. That assumption had clearly been wrong.

When he finished, he pulled the Audi out of the stall and inspected the ground. To his dismay, a couple of dozen hunks of flesh were on the concrete.

They weren’t large.

Most were no bigger than a finger but with so many of them, they were clearly noticeable.

He put more quarters in the meter and washed the carnage down the drain.

A man walked past, on his way to the change machine, and gave Jekker a weird look as if he was nuts for spraying the ground.

Jekker tried to think of something to say, a quick explanation, but nothing came to mind so he turned his back to the man and continued working.

Then he hopped in the Audi and got the hell out of there.

A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed the man staring at him as he drove off.

He got to the freeway and brought the Audi up to speed.

A sinking feeling lodged in his gut.

His mind kept playing a movie. In it, the man stood in Jekker’s stall, talking into a cell phone. Two minutes later a cop car pulled into the carwash. The man waved at it. Two cops got out. Then all three of them stooped down and looked at something on the ground in Jekker’s stall. Then one of the cops said, “Let’s get the grate off this drain and see what’s in there.”

Jekker got off the freeway and doubled back to the carwash. He parked the Audi on a side street three blocks short of the place and then hoofed the rest of the way on foot.

The man was gone.

There were no cop cars.

Everything was normal.

Jekker exhaled and got back on the freeway.

WHEN HE GOT OFF C-470 at the Morrison exit, a Conoco appeared immediately on his right, one of the last stops for travelers heading into the canyon. The sight made him check his gauge. What he saw he could hardly believe.

The tank was almost empty.

He pulled in and filled up, paying with a VISA at the pump. Then he went inside to get a cup of coffee. As he waited in a line four deep to pay, the TV on the wall showed a man talking to a female truck driver at a rest stop. The man looked vaguely familiar. So did the woman. Then the man and the woman got in the truck and drove off. The newscaster said that anyone having any knowledge of who the man or woman was should contact the number at the bottom of the screen. Then a picture of Brandy Zucker, the missing woman, filled the screen.

Jekker kept his face calm, paid for the coffee and walked out. The police must have found Brandy Zucker’s car at Vail Pass. They must have figured out that she didn’t drive it there. When they found videotape of Jekker leaving with a trucker, they must have concluded that he was the one who ditched the victim’s car and then hit the trucker up for a ride.

Unfortunately for the cops, the videotape was extremely poor quality. No one would be able to recognize either Jekker or the driver.

It was nothing to worry about.

HE HEADED INTO BEAR CREEK CANYON with a full tank of gas, punched the radio stations, stopped when he got “I’ll Melt With You,” and sang along. In twenty minutes or so he’d be at the boxcars.

It was time to kill Tessa Blake, end of story.

Four miles later, in the heart of the canyon, he came around a twist in the road and slammed on his brakes to avoid running into the last vehicle of a long string of cars that had come to a stop.

What the hell?

Suddenly a cop car and an ambulance approached from behind with their lights on, swung around him, and disappeared up the road, driving the wrong way in the oncoming lane.

A minute later a pickup truck came around the twist, going too fast, and slammed on the brakes.

By some miracle it stopped before it rear-ended the Audi.

The driver immediately jumped out, ran down the road and waved his arms to warn the other drivers. It worked, because six more cars pulled up into the line without a single crash. Another cop car came and told everyone to stay where they were and to not turn around. They were keeping the opposite lane open for emergency equipment.

Jekker killed the engine.

People were out of their cars now, talking trying to figure out what was going on and how long the jam would last.

Jekker stepped out.

The truck driver immediately walked over and complained about the delay.

Then the word of what happened started to spread. A boulder the size of a bus dislodged from the canyon wall, probably because of the rain last night. It landed on the front end of a car, squashing the engine compartment and most of the interior. There were two adults and four children inside. Three of the kids were still alive. Rescue teams were frantically trying to extract them.

Suddenly a deep rumble bounced through the canyon and a news helicopter passed overhead.

71

Day Nine—June 19

Tuesday Afternoon

HANNAH TRENT DISAPPEARED on a food hunt, leaving London and Venta to hold up the fort. Five minutes later an Asian man emerged from the elevator bank and walked across the lobby of the Republic Plaza Building swinging an expensive leather briefcase. He had short black hair, a wide mouth and a very distinctive look.

“I know that guy!” Venta said. “Come on!”

They followed, thirty steps behind.

“From where?” London asked.

“Bangkok.”

“You mean the dungeon?”

“I don’t remember where exactly,” she said. “Maybe the dungeon, but not because of a session with me. That I would remember.”

The man led them to P-2 where he got into a white Porsche 911 coupe and drove off. They didn’t need to write down his license plate number. There was no forgetting HUNTR. Back in the lobby they found Hannah holding a white bag.

Venta took it, looked inside and told London, “Salads.”

They ate outside by the fountain under a perfect Colorado sky while Denver bustled around them. Every man that walked by stared at Venta.

Then Hannah.

As for London, she may as well have been invisible.

She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and shook it loose, then raked it out with her fingers.

There.

Better.