Dark Hunger (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) (15 page)

THEY DIDN’T LOOK HAPPY and Rave sensed trouble. “We need to talk,” White said.

He was the lead guitarist.

The smartest of the bunch.

The most aggressive, too.

A hippie-type complete with red bandanna and hair halfway down his back.

“We just found out from Tim Pepper about this Vegas deal,” he said. “He said the contract would be going to you and that we’d be hired musicians. I thought we were a band.”

“We are a band.”

“Then how come we’re not on the contract?”

Rave shrugged.

“Tim says you’ll be making good money,” she said.

“Not as good as you, apparently.”

“I don’t know how it will all break down,” she said. “We’re on our way—all of us. We’re all going to make a lot of money, we’re going to be on stage doing what we want. I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“The problem is that you can dump us anytime you want,” White said. “Quite frankly, that doesn’t sit well. We either need to do this as a group, meaning all of us in it together, or not at all.”

Rave frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that we’re either on the contract or we’re out of the whole thing, starting right this minute.”

“What do you mean—right this minute?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“What about the gig tonight?” Rave questioned.

“Screw the gig.”

“What are you saying? That you’re not going to show up?”

“That’s right.”

“But we made a commitment,” she said.

“Screw the commitment,” White said. “This is nut-cutting time. The future starts now, one way or the other. It’s your decision.”

She stared out the window.

Not needing this right now.

“I need to talk to Tim,” she said.

They stood up.

“You do that,” White said. “You have one hour.”

WHEN THEY LEFT, Rave stepped into the backyard and called Tim Pepper. His decision was immediate. “We can’t have people around who threaten to leave you high and dry on the spur of the moment. It’s immature and unstable. It’s better that we found this out now instead of down the road.”

“So they’re out?”

“Damn right they’re out,” Pepper said. “We gave them an incredible opportunity and all they did was get greedy. Quite frankly, I’m not sure they had the stage presence we were looking for anyway.”

“So what about tonight?”

“I’ll put something together,” Pepper said. “Are you available for a rehearsal this afternoon?”

Yes, she was.

If necessary.

“I’ll call White and give him the news,” Pepper said. “If they show up to harass you, call the police.”

Chapter Fifty-One

Day Five—April 16

Saturday Morning

______________

TEFFINGER SWUNG BY JENA VELLONE’S BILLBOARD—the one with the spray paint. HELP ME. A fixed vertical ladder went up about thirty feet and ended at a narrow walkway that ran along the base of the display. The bottom of the ladder was ten feet off the ground, no doubt to keep kids from getting up and killing themselves. Teffinger pulled the 4Runner underneath, stepped onto the bumper and then muscled up to the ladder.

Yuck.

Every particle of rust in the universe was there.

Plus half the world’s pigeon droppings.

Teffinger tried to keep his clothes from brushing against it but didn’t have much luck. When he got to the top and poked his head above the walkway, he noticed that it didn’t have a guardrail.

Of course.

Because that would have made his life too easy.

Then he saw what he hoped to see, namely a can of spray paint sitting on the walkway, about ten steps over. He got up, put his back against the face of the billboard, and then edged sideways one careful step at a time until he was directly by the can.

It was red paint.

Good.

This wasn’t for nothing.

It was no doubt the one used to spray HELP ME.

The best maneuver at this point would be to pick it up by the bottom edge and then carry it down. But he pictured himself doing a half gainer to the ground as soon as his back came off the billboard. So he kicked the can off the edge and then concentrated on not killing himself as he made his way back to the ladder.

GENEVA CALLED as Teffinger was driving to headquarters.

“I rounded up all my hate mail,” she said. “There was a lot more than I thought.” She chuckled and added, “That means I’m doing something right.”

“Good,” Teffinger said.

Then he came up with a plan.

He coaxed Sydney into calling TV 8 to get the locations of every single one of Jena Vellone’s billboards throughout the city. Then he picked up Geneva, let her ride shotgun, and had her read her hate mail to him as they drove from one billboard to the next. After she read each one, he told her to put it in either pile A, B or C, with A being the highest priority for follow-up.

On south Broadway he found another billboard with HELP ME in spray paint—blue this time, but the same handwriting.

“Bingo,” he said.

“I can’t believe it,” Geneva said.

“This guy wants to be sure we see it,” Teffinger said. “I’ll bet we find five more before the day’s over.”

“And I thought you were just hallucinating.”

“Not all the time,” he said.

He pulled the 4Runner under the ladder, just like before.

They got out and Teffinger frowned.

“What?” Geneva asked.

“I’m not real fond of heights.”

The expression on his face must have seriously highlighted his words because Geneva studied him and said, “I’ll go.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Teffinger almost said, Fine, but instead said, “You’re wearing a dress.”

Which was true.

A white sundress.

Thigh high.

“I know that,” she said.

“Well, that’s going to be revealing.”

“I’m wearing panties,” she said. “It’s not like I’m naked under there.”

THAT MIGHT BE TRUE, but Teffinger couldn’t let her do it. So he muscled onto the ladder and then climbed up to the walkway.

Unbelievable.

There it was.

The can.

Sitting there nonchalantly ten steps over.

Teffinger put his back against the surface of the display area and edged sideways, inch by inch.

“You should see your face,” Geneva shouted from below.

“Glad I amuse you,” he said.

“Be careful,” she said. “A turtle just passed you.”

“Just for that, you get the next one,” he said. “I don’t care if you are wearing a dress.”

IT TURNED OUT that there actually was a next one, on a Santa Fe billboard near Evans; same handwriting and same words—HELP ME—but purple paint this time. Teffinger didn’t let Geneva go up even though she said she would.

So he exhaled.

And headed up once again.

To retrieve yet a third can.

Then Geneva said, “I’m starved. I’ll buy you lunch for being such a gentleman.”

“Okay to the lunch,” he said. “But stop calling me names.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

Day Five—April 16

Saturday Afternoon

______________

THE LICENSE PLATE OF THE VAMPIRE’S VEHICLE was registered to Hertz. Tripp called the company from a payphone and said he was Detective Alan Green with Denver homicide. The rental had been found next to a homicide victim, who he assumed was the person who rented the car. He wanted to know the name of the man who rented the vehicle, to verify the connection.

They told him.

“Forrest Jones, 29832 Shaker Heights Boulevard, Shaker Heights, Ohio,” the man said. “You want a phone number?”

“Shoot,” Tripp said.

The man shot.

Tripp wrote it down.

“Thanks,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Do you want us to fax you the paperwork?”

“Hold off on that,” Tripp said. “We’ll need to get the originals anyway.”

“Is the car okay?”

“We have some blood in the interior that we’ll need to cut out and preserve for evidence,” Tripp said.

“Ouch.”

“Sorry about that.”

AFTER HE HUNG UP, Tripp called Jake VanDeventer in Johannesburg. “The vampire’s name is Forrest Jones,” he said. “He’s from Shaker Heights, Ohio.”

“Where’s that?”

“I think it’s near Cleveland.”

“Excellent work,” VanDeventer said.

“You want me to head out there?” Tripp asked. He didn’t have to explain why. They both knew it was to get into the man’s computers and files and phone records and whatever else he could find, to get the names of other vampires.

He expected the man to say yes.

And swallowed when the man paused.

“No,” VanDeventer said. “I’ll go. You stick with Rave Lafelle.”

“So you’re done at the mine?”

“As done as I’ll ever be,” VanDeventer said.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“We lost three men,” VanDeventer said.

“That’s not good.”

“No, but it could have been worse.”

“You know, it would probably be better if I went to Ohio and you came to Denver,” Tripp said. “Things are hot for me here. A changing of the guard would probably be good.”

A pause.

VanDeventer was chewing on it.

Tripp held his breath.

“No, just stay there,” the man said.

“Okay.”

He exhaled.

“By the way,” VanDeventer said. “I made a sizeable deposit into your Cayman account this morning for the good work you did on our Indiana Jones friend.”

“How sizable?”

VanDeventer chuckled.

“Sizeable enough to show my appreciation,” he said. “As soon as I’m done in Ohio, I’ll be out to join you.”

“Good.”

“Probably sometime tomorrow,” VanDeventer added.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Day Five—April 16

Saturday Afternoon

______________

LONDON AND PARKER’S PRESENCE at Rave’s house didn’t bring the same peace of mind as before. They didn’t have a new plan. Parker was unfocused and on edge. London was preoccupied. The whole world was off-key. And now Rave’s band had walked.

Not good.

Billie Holiday’s voice wove through the house.

Nice.

But not as magical as it should be.

“Maybe I’m not really a bloodline descendent,” Rave said. “You said that the woman in Montreal was working on my file, which is why it was on the desk.”

Parker nodded.

Correct.

“Well if she was working on it, that means she wasn’t done,” Rave said. “I mean, in the end either I’m connected to someone or I’m not. Until there’s proof of a connection, there’s always the possibility that the connection isn’t there, right?”

“Unfortunately, your genealogy is clear,” Parker said.

“But—”

“I admit that sometimes the traces aren’t a hundred percent certain,” he said. “The research is primarily based on old documents, both public and private. Sometimes those documents are subject to interpretation or trustworthiness. In your case, however, the connection is undisputable. Let me show you something.”

HE BOOTED UP A LAPTOP, got on the net, logged onto an encrypted website and entered a series of passwords on different screens.

“This is more secure than having the information in a computer at a house or office that the slayers can find and take,” he explained. “Only a few people know the passwords and they’re not written down anywhere. Okay, here. Look at this.”

“What is it?”

“This is Cameron Leigh’s genealogy.”

Rave expected to see a simple diagram, something in the nature of a family tree with names stuck on branches. Instead, she saw something more in the nature of a lengthy thesis, very detailed, analyzing a large number of old documents.

“This isn’t what I expected,” she said.

“It’s a historical investigation,” Parker said. “Very complex.”

“I see that.”

“Sometimes there are breaks in the chain,” Parker added. “When that happens, you have to fill them in with the best inferences and speculations that you can, using the information that’s available. In that case, there’s a certain amount of subjectivity, deduction and extrapolation that gets laid in.”

“So nothing’s a hundred percent certain,” Rave said.

“That’s not correct,” he said. “Some cases are a hundred percent certain. Cameron Leigh is a classic example. If you were to read this word for word, you’d see that each and every link in the bloodline is well established. Yours is the same way.”

“Can I see mine?” Rave asked.

“It never got formally written up, but you’re looking at it, to a point,” Parker said. “Your genealogy is the same as Cameron Leigh’s, to the great-great grandfather.”

She frowned.

“Maybe this is wrong,” Rave said. “Maybe we should double-check everything and see if there’s a break in the chain. If there is, then maybe we can get the slayers off my back.”

Parker looked sympathetic.

“What?” she questioned.

“First, there is no break in the chain,” he said. “Second, the slayers wouldn’t believe a word of what we said at this point, even if we had a way to communicate with them, which we don’t. And third, they wouldn’t care even if they did believe it. The skinhead died in your house. And you participated in the plan last night to lure them into a trap. At this point, you’re on their radar screen and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

She exhaled.

He was right.

“You really know how to cheer a girl up,” she said.

He hugged her.

“We’ll get through this,” he said. “I promise.”

TIM PEPPER CALLED TEN MINUTES LATER. “Good news. There’s a brand new group that just got formed in Denver called Friday’s Child. Have you ever heard of them?”

No.

She hadn’t.

“They’re supposed to be pretty good,” Pepper said. “They’re going to back you up tonight. Can you come to the club at three for a rehearsal?”

She could.

“Did you talk to White?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And he hung up on me.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

Day Five—April 16

Saturday Afternoon

______________

BACK AT HEADQUARTERS, Teffinger called his counterpart in Paris—Jean-Paul Quisanatte—to let him know about the second vampire-like murder. “That skinhead that I told you about before couldn’t have done it,” Teffinger said. “The victim had good arms. He wasn’t the kind to go down easy.”

“Could be my guy, then,” Jean-Paul said.

“How are you coming along on that?”

“Between you and me and the Rive Gauche, we aren’t,” Jean-Paul said.

Teffinger recognized the frustration.

“Look,” Teffinger said, “if your guy and my guy are one and the same, it would really be nice to have the airline manifests of people who flew from Paris to the U.S. in the relevant timeframe.”

Silence.

Then Jean-Paul said, “Are you giving me work to do?”

“No—”

“Too bad, because I was going to say thanks.”

“Well in that case, I guess I am.”

“I’ll get on it,” Jean-Paul said. “But the guy could have hopped on a train and flown out of London or Rome or wherever he wanted. So we’re basically looking for people who flew from anywhere in Europe to anywhere in the United States.”

“Understood.”

“We’ll start with Paris,” Jean-Paul said. “Have you ever been here?”

“To Paris?”

“Right.”

“No,” Teffinger said. “I’ve been to Iowa, though. I heard they’re pretty similar.”

Jean-Paul laughed.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said.

HE HEADED TO THE COFFEE and found two pots, one decaf and one regular. He held his hand out to see how bad it shook, decided that he had injected enough caffeine into his blood for one day, and reached for the decaf.

It turned out to be lukewarm.

Someone had turned the burner off.

He dumped it in the sink and filled up with regular.

Nice and hot.

The lab called and said, “Those three paint cans—no prints available.”

“Thanks,” Teffinger said.

The result didn’t surprise him.

The cans were oily with spray residue, counterproductive to printing.

THEN HE CALLED THE FBI PROFILER, Dr. Leigh Sandt, and told her about the Jena Vellone case, including the fact that someone sprayed HELP ME on three billboards. “I’m starting to wonder if some kind of game player took her,” Teffinger said. “I half expect to drive by one of them in a day or two and find HELP ME crossed out. Down below it will be, NEVER MIND. TOO LATE.”

“If that’s your theory, then stake them out,” Leigh said.

Teffinger had already thought about that.

“Even if we put aside the manpower problems,” he said, “I want this guy before the fact, not after.”

A pause.

“You never know,” Leigh said. “Maybe the next message will be HURRY.”

Teffinger hadn’t thought of that.

“Am I totally off base on this, or what?”

“It’s thin, I have to admit that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re totally off base,” Leigh said. “We both know there’s no shortage of sickos out there who like to play games. I’m wondering if there’s any significance to the different colors. Why didn’t he use the same color everywhere? I mean, put yourself in his shoes. There he is at the store. He pulls a can of red paint off the shelf and sticks it into a basket. Why not just grab two more at that point? Why scout around and get different colors. What were the other colors again?”

“Blue and purple,” Teffinger said.

“So red, blue and purple,” Leigh said.

“Right. That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Me either,” Leigh said. “Unless he wants to send you on a wild goose chase to the stores to see if you can find who bought those three particular colors. It could be his way of putting you on a treadmill.”

Teffinger grunted.

“If that’s the case, I’ll probably end up finding that he paid cash,” Teffinger said.

“Exactly,” Leigh said. “Another thought is—the colors might be the same as a flag or coat of arms or something. Or maybe the initials stand for something—RBP or BPR or whatever. You don’t know the order they got painted, I assume.”

Teffinger sipped coffee.

And said, “Correct.”

“There’s another possibility, too,” Leigh said.

“What’s that?”

“The guy might have nothing whatsoever to do with the woman’s disappearance,” she said. “He might be nothing more than someone who has adored her from afar for years and views this as an opportunity to get noticed by her, after the fact. The way he sees it, if she shows up alive, he’ll send her an email that says, By the way, I’m the one who put HELP ME on the billboards. So glad you’re okay. In his mind, then she’ll say, That was so sweet. No one else went to such a bother. Why don’t you let me take you out to lunch to say thank you?”

Teffinger scratched his head.

“I just realized something,” he said.

“What?”

“Whenever I call you to get things clearer, you make them muddier.”

She chuckled.

“Or it might be something even more innocent,” she said. “It might be nothing more than some teenager who thinks the whole thing is funny. A woman disappears and then her billboard talks. Chuckle, chuckle.”

“Do you have time to check around and see if there are any other billboard cases floating around out there?”

“No—”

Ouch.

“—But I will.”

“I owe you one,” Teffinger said.

“One?”

“Okay, another one. I didn’t know you were keeping score.”

“I’m not,” Leigh said. “I ran out of fingers and toes.”

AS SOON AS TEFFINGER HUNG UP, he realized he forgot to tell Leigh about the second vampire murder. He almost dialed her back but decided to wait until the next time they talked.

Okay.

Now what?

He refilled his cup, walked down the hall and found Chief Tanker at his desk, with every crease in his 60-year-old face wrinkled.

“Problems?” Teffinger asked.

Tanker looked up. “Always,” he said.

“I’m chasing a wild theory on the Jena Vellone case and want to get some manpower to stake out some billboards,” Teffinger said. Then he explained.

Afterwards, the Chief said, “If it was anyone but you asking for this, the answer would be no.”

Teffinger stood up.

“Thanks,” he said. “I owe you one.”

“One? What kind of a math system are you using?”

Chapter Fifty-Five

Day Five—April 16

Saturday Afternoon

______________

TRIPP PARKED THE WRANGLER at the side of the hotel, stepped out and headed towards the back entrance with the key in hand. He hadn’t taken more than ten steps when two large men appeared from out of nowhere. One of the men got up close and stuck a gun in his side.

“Do something to make me use this,” the man said.

Tripp recognized him immediately.

Lauren Long’s bodyguard.

Tripp stopped walking and said, “What do you want?”

“You’re taking a ride.”

Tripp looked around to see if someone was around to call the cops if he shouted out. The parking lot was empty.

“Walk!” the man said.

Tripp did.

Ten seconds later he was in the back seat of a black Lincoln with deeply tinted windows, pulling out of the parking lot.

“Where we going?” he asked.

“Shut your mouth.”

They ended up at the far corner of a Target parking lot, parked with the engine off. Two minutes later a white Chevy sedan pulled up. The driver got out, opened the front door of the Lincoln and scooted in. He was about fifty, on the smaller side, but with a no-nonsense demeanor.

He turned and looked Tripp directly in the eyes.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

Tripp did.

But said, “No.”

“I’M LAUREN LONG’S FATHER,” the man said. “I’m going to ask you a question. It’s one simple question. Now, before I ask it, I want you to understand something. You’re either going to tell the truth or you’re going to lie. If you lie, there’s going to be a lot of pain in your life—the kind of pain that comes from pliers and matches and needles in your eyes. Do you understand the kind of pain that I’m trying to explain to you?”

Tripp looked for something in the man’s face to indicate that he was exaggerating.

And found nothing.

“Yes,” he said.

“You fully understand?”

“Yes.”

“You need to tell me the truth, but it’s your decision to make,” the man said. “If you lie, the pain will start and there won’t be anything in the world you can do after that to make it stop.”

Tripp felt the need to relieve himself.

The man looked at him and asked, “Now, are you ready for the question?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you following my daughter?”

Tripp almost denied it immediately.

He almost said, “I wasn’t following her.”

But he choked the words back.

Not because it was a lie.

But because it was an obvious lie.

“I parked in a parking lot and started walking downtown,” Tripp said. “There was a woman in front of me. I liked her and wondered if there was some way I could meet her. So I hung around behind her a little bit and then finally figured she was out of my league. I headed back to my car and then these two gentlemen showed up. That’s all there is to it.”

He swallowed.

The man stared at him.

Processing it.

Searching Tripp’s face for lies.

“I’M GONG TO MAKE YOU A DEAL,” the man said. “You’re going to get your face out of Denver, right now, and never come back again. And I’m going to let you live. If you don’t leave, or if you ever—and I mean ever—come back, I’m going to take that as all the proof I need that you’re lying to me. Then we’re going to be knee deep in that pain we’ve been talking about. Do you understand?”

Tripp nodded.

“Say it!”

“I understand.”

The man looked at the driver and said, “Be sure he does.” Then he opened the door, stepped out, looked at Tripp and said, “If I ever think, for any reason, that you intend—or did at any point in time intend—to harm a single hair of my daughter’s head, things are going to go very badly for you. Have a nice day.”

The door slammed.

The driver cranked over the engine.

And pulled out.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Day Five—April 16

Saturday Afternoon

______________

THEY USED THE OLD ORLEANS STAGE for the three o’clock rehearsal. Friday’s Child started off too loud for Rave’s style, but they kept turning the knobs to the left until Tim Pepper smiled and said, “Yeah, right there.” They were loose and edgy, like a garage band. All four of them could sing; and not only that, they laid in killer backgrounds without even trying.

The sound was like nothing Rave had ever heard before.

They rehearsed for two hours.

Long enough to get enough material for tonight.

Short enough to not fry their vocal cords.

Afterwards, Rave told Pepper, “That’s the sound I’ve always had in my head.”

He agreed.

“I’m sitting here listening and it’s like I’m watching the birth of a whole new sound,” he said. “I still can’t believe it. I mean, it’s rough, but—I don’t know—maybe that’s why it’s so good.”

“We need to bring them to Vegas,” Rave said.

Pepper nodded.

“Let’s see how the gig goes tonight and how the crowd reacts,” he said. “If things go the way I think they will, we’ll talk to them afterwards.”

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Then she got serious and looked at Pepper.

“I really am going to make it, aren’t I?”

He hugged her.

“Three months from now, radios across the country will be burning up with your songs. The world better get ready, because here comes Rave Lafelle. Just don’t dump me when you get a call from the big boys.”

She squeezed his hand.

“Never in a million years,” she said. “In fact, write up something for me to sign.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Day Five—April 16

Saturday Evening

______________

IT WAS ALMOST FIVE O’CLOCK when Teffinger’s phone rang and the voice of Dr. Leigh Sandt came through. “I’m still looking for more billboard connections,” she said, “but I came across something I thought you’d want to know about right away.”

Teffinger stood up.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“This happened in May of last year. It turns out that there was a female radio DJ in Chicago by the name of Kennedy Pinehurst,” she said. “She had a morning talk show and her face was on a lot of windy city billboards. One day she vanished. They found her two weeks later in an old abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city. She was hanging upside down from her ankles, totally naked, with her wrists tethered to the floor, in sort of an upside down spread-eagle position. Her throat was slit, deep, with something sharp like a razorblade or carpet cutter. It turned out that she had been dead for about a week, meaning she was killed about one week after she disappeared.”

Teffinger pictured Jena Vellone in that position.

With blood oozing out of her neck, dripping down her face, and making a bigger and bigger puddle beneath her.

He caught his breath.

And forced himself to concentrate.

“Was there any writing on the billboards?”

“Negative,” Leigh said.

Teffinger didn’t care.

There were too many similarities to ignore.

“I assume they never caught the guy,” he said.

“You assume right.”

“Any suspects?”

“No,” she said. “I spoke briefly with the detective in charge, a man by the name of Thomas Stone. I told him that you’d probably give him a call. You got a pencil handy?”