Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (25 page)

They’d think of more but that was enough for now.

After working the phone outside for fifteen minutes, primarily coordinating with Katie Baxter, Teffinger found himself wandering back in the gas station and looking for the restroom. It turned out that it was actually outside and he had to interrupt the FBI’s interview of the kid to get the key, which was attached to a horseshoe.

“This thing could break your toe,” he noted.

The kid chuckled. “That actually happened once, before we took it off the horse.”

Teffinger grunted.

“Bad.”

HE WANDERED AROUND THE SIDE
of the building to the restroom, went inside, and then found Sydney waiting for the key when he came out. He got in the car, started the engine to get the heater going, and waited for her. When she finally came over she had the FBI profiler, Dr. Leigh Sandt, with her.

“Can I join you two?” Dr. Sandt questioned.

Teffinger looked at Sydney, who didn’t seem to mind, but warned her, “All we’re going to do is head down the road in the direction that the biker woman came from. I don’t really expect to find anything.”

Dr. Sandt nodded.

“Sounds reasonable to me.”

They all ended up in the front seat, with Sydney in the middle, so that everyone could watch for whatever it was that might be out there to be seen, heading north down a country road with the bright lights on. Teffinger was curious as to Dr. Sandt’s take on all of this.

“Give me your theory,” he said.

Dr. Sandt started talking immediately, indicating that she’d already been working on it. “I don’t believe the biker woman is our guy’s girlfriend. Nor do I think that our guy is a biker himself. My best guess is that this lady came across Megan Bennett’s purse somehow. Maybe she found it by the side of the road or in a dumpster. Or maybe she came across Megan Bennett’s body and it was there.”

“Mmm,” Teffinger said.

He couldn’t help but note that Sydney’s leg touched his, not pressed against it but touching, and she hadn’t made any effort to pull it away. He decided not to read too much into it since they were, he had to admit, in cramped quarters. Either way, the touch felt nice and he didn’t do anything to pull away.

They drove on, over rolling black asphalt, and saw nothing of interest come out of the darkness. No dead bodies. No cars parked out in the middle of nowhere. No motorcycle gangs. No six-foot-four killers.

Nevertheless, Teffinger felt intense, almost as if his life force had suddenly doubled.

“He’s out here somewhere,” he said. “I can smell him.”

Sydney turned her head to Dr. Sandt and said, “The caffeine just kicked in. Start ignoring him from this point on.”

For the briefest of seconds, he thought he saw a red reflection up ahead, way up ahead, almost the kind of thing you’d expect if the headlights had landed on the rear taillight of a car that had its lights off.

He sped up.

Curious.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Day Seven - April 22

Sunday Morning

_____________

GANJON WOKE WITH A JOLT
, more scared than he had ever been in his life. It was the middle of the night. He could tell instantly that the biker bitch was gone. The little shit had played him and he let her do it.

Damn it!

How could he be so stupid?

He called out.

No response.

He bounded out the front door to the barn, to see if the motorcycles were still there. His legs wobbled and he had to fight to keep himself upright. He remembered drinking the beer, way too many beers, which still had a solid hold on him. But he could feel down deep inside that this was something way beyond beer. The little bitch had slipped him something. What it was, he had no idea. He’d never felt like this before in his life, not even close.

When he got to the barn his worst fear came true.

One of the bikes was gone.

Shit!

He never even heard her leave.

How long had she been gone?

Did she go to the police?

Were they already on their way?

Out.

Out.

Get out.

He had to get out of there.

Right this second.

He reached in his pocket and found the keys to the Camry, right where he left them. Thank God for that. He ran down the drive towards it. He remembered Megan Bennett and didn’t know if she was still there, tied to the bed, or whether the biker bitch had let her go. No time for her right now.

He kept running for the Camry through the dark terrain.

He shouldn’t have left the keys in the bikes.

He should have put them in his dumb-ass pocket.

He smacked the side of his head with his right hand, trying to wake his brain. He felt the impact, so intense that colored lights flashed, but the fog inside kept its hold.

When he got to where the Camry should be, it wasn’t there.

He ran one way, then another. Then he remembered that he used it to dump the bikers’ bodies and had parked it back up by the house when he was done. He ran back, disoriented, then it suddenly popped up directly in front of him, a black blob in an even blacker night, just outside the farmhouse door. He got in, fumbled forever to get the key in the ignition, and then cranked over the engine, just to be sure the biker bitch hadn’t done something to screw it up. It started immediately. Before he knew it he was back outside and running through the front door.

MEGAN BENNETT WAS EXACTLY
where he left her on the bed. She must have known something was wrong because she was wide-awake and had a panicked look on her face.

He had to take her with him—that was clear.

She was his insurance.

“Just give me a reason to kill you,” he warned as he fought to get the handcuffs and chains off.

“I’ll be good,” she said.

“Damn right you will!”

He left her leg shackles on, dragged her out to the Camry, opened the truck, shoved the helmet and air blower over to the side, dropped her in and slammed the lid. Then he tested it to be sure it wouldn’t open.

She went peacefully.

She knew better than to screw with him right now.

Okay.

Now what?

He ran back inside, threw all his clothes into the suitcase, then the rope and toothbrushes and other crap on top of that, muscled it shut, grabbed some other stuff, and threw everything into the back seat of the Camry. There wasn’t time to do much more than that.

He cranked over the engine, decided to keep the lights off, headed out to the road and made a left hand turn. He was all over the place, swerving from side to side, fighting to control the wheel.

HE SLAMMED ON THE BRAKES
and skidded to a stop in the gravel.

Shit!

There was no way he could drive where anyone would see him. The first cop he ran into would pull him over.

He couldn’t stay here either.

He continued down the road, slower this time, insanely disoriented, fighting to stay in his lane. He hadn’t gone more than three-fourths of a mile when something looked familiar. It was the turnoff to the house of the guy who had rented him the place, the old man, whatever the hell his name was, the farmer with the cancer nose.

Then he remembered that the old fart lived alone. His house was way back, by the river. You couldn’t even see it from the road.

He turned off and drove in that direction.

He hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards when a car flew up the road from out of nowhere and then disappeared just as fast in the other direction.

A cop, he thought.

Shit.

Chapter Thirty

Day Seven - April 22

Sunday Morning

____________

THE CHOPPER RUMBLED IN
with the first light of day, sounding like a thousand crazed drummers falling out of the sky. It ripped Teffinger out of a sleep so deep and wide that he might as well have been dead. He jerked upright, startled beyond belief, and opened his eyes. The aircraft couldn’t have been more than fifty feet away, touching down. He was in the backseat of a car and remembered climbing in there at some point during the night just to shut his eyes for a few minutes.

He tried to get his bearings.

Outside things had seriously escalated.

They had set up something in the nature of an outdoor command center in a field across the street from the Sinclair. There must have been fifteen or twenty cars parked around the area. Folding card-tables had been brought in from somewhere and maps were spread out on them, held down by rocks. Lots of people were milling around talking into cell phones. Off in the distance, down the road, several cars were being kept at bay; at least three of them were TV news vans.

He wiped as much of the sleep out of his eyes as he could, stepped out of the car and headed straight to the Sinclair’s restroom, which had for all intents and purposes been taken over by adverse possession. Luckily the door was propped open with a rock and no one was inside. After taking care of first things first, he scrubbed his face two or three times with soap and the hottest water he could stand, then stuck his head under the faucet and let the water run over his hair until it was thoroughly soaked. Some thoughtful soul had left a tube of toothpaste, which Teffinger assumed to be for community use. He squeezed an inch out on his index finger and brushed his teeth.

Then he dried his face, and his hair just enough so that it wasn’t dripping, and stepped back outside, feeling a thousand percent better.

INSIDE THE STATION SEVERAL POTS
of fresh coffee brewed, a far cry from the humble offerings of last night. Someone had written Help Yourself on a piece of cardboard and propped it up on the counter.

Teffinger grabbed the biggest cup available, filled up and then walked over to the man behind the cash register, an elderly fellow sporting a wild Albert Einstein look.

Teffinger extended his hand.

“Nick Teffinger,” he said.

The guy shook it.

“Ted Livingston.”

“You the owner?”

“That’s me.”

“I just wanted to thank you for the coffee. That’s a nice gesture.”

The guy smiled. “Not a problem, glad to help.”

Teffinger took a sip and then remembered more about last night. “The kid that was working last night, Jason . . .”

“Right.”

“He seems like a nice kid.”

“Best worker I ever had.”

Teffinger nodded.

“He was talking about wanting to go to college some day.”

“That’s his plan but between you and me, he’s stuck.”

Teffinger nodded.

“I’ve seen that happen.”

Suddenly Katie Baxter was standing beside him. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, a hoodie, with her weapon riding on her hip. “Hey, wet head, we’ve been looking for you. It’s time for a chopper ride. Agent Miller’s already inside waiting for us.”

Teffinger immediately shook his head.

“No way.”

“Come on, you’ll be safe.”

He felt the need to change the subject. “Where’s Heatherwood?”

“She went home to crash for a few hours. She’ll be back a little later.”

“Did you say crash?”

Baxter laughed, grabbed him hard on the arm and tugged him towards the door.

“Come on, you big baby.”

HE FOLLOWED, NOT SURE YET
whether he would actually get in or not. Then he remembered that this whole thing was for Megan Bennett, thought, “Screw it,” walked under the rotating blades and climbed in.

He sat next to Katie Baxter and across from Agent Miller, who smiled and extended his hand.

“Katie wasn’t sure she could get you to come,” he said.

Teffinger put on a surprised look.

“Really? Why not?”

Baxter hit him on the arm and told Miller, “Half the time I can’t even get him in an elevator. This guy has more phobias than some entire countries.”

Then they were up and off.

The plan was to sweep the area and look for Megan Bennett’s body. They were also on the lookout for a dark Camry; or any other car if it was stashed off the road somewhere or parked at some remote site.

For what seemed like a long time, Teffinger found himself staring out the window, saying nothing, ostensibly helping with the search but actually concentrating on the sounds and the movement of the aircraft. After some time passed, and they still hadn’t fallen out of the sky, he began to get a little more used to the idea of being up there and released his grip on the armrest.