Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (5 page)

“Let’s see, maybe I have . . .”

LATER THAT NIGHT, AFTER DARK,
he slipped his car into an open space on 10th Street, between Corona and Downing, a block-and-a-half west of Megan Bennett’s house. He killed the engine, slipped out, and quietly closed the door. He left it unlocked, like always, in case he needed to get back in quickly. Then he walked in the direction away from her house, a baseball cap pulled down over his face.

The neighborhood was at least fifty years old, crammed with small two-story houses.

Some were run-down and looked like crack houses.

Others were meticulously maintained; probably by older people who never managed to break out. All had postage-stamp front yards. The streets were jam packed with cars, mostly junkers, but something halfway nice every once in a while.

Megan Bennett and her two roommates rented a detached house on Lafayette Street, two blocks west of Cheesman Park. Ordinarily roommates would be a problem, but in this case he had no intentions of spending the quality time with Megan at her house. He had another place already set up for that, a perfect place. As far as snatching her went, he could do that just about anywhere. Hell, as friendly as she’d been today, he could probably just arrange for her to meet him there. The thought played with him but only for a second.

With the sun gone now for more than three hours, a sharp chill gripped the Rocky Mountain air. He wore his shadow clothes; a dark blue sweatshirt, jeans and gray running shoes. He wasn’t going to take her tonight. He just wanted to be around her and maybe firm up a few details in his mind. The need wasn’t there quite yet, although he could feel it building, like a balloon slowly filling with air.

Pop, pretty soon.

HE’D COME A LONG WAY
since his first kill. That was at age eight, out sledding with Chris Schneider on a hard-packed slope with about two inches of fresh powder, on a cold, slate-gray, winter day. They made about ten runs on those old wooden, two-runner sleds. He was at the bottom of the hill, waiting. Chris was flying down, a big shit-eating grin on his face, lying on his belly, face forward. Just before Chris got to the bottom, something flashed in Ganjon’s brain, and he pushed his sled out so Chris would either have to bail off or T-bone it. The dumb shit didn’t bail—he had time but tried to swerve around instead. Wrong move. The front of Chris’ sled nosed under the front of the other one, and brought it up, straight into his forehead.

His skull shattered instantly with the pop of a cracking walnut.

He coasted to a stop, still on the sled.

Then the blood came, the reddest stuff you’d ever seen in your life.

Afterwards there was a lot of motion, desperate useless motion that did no one any good.

Most of that motion landed on Ganjon one way or another.

Everyone in town knew his name, even the big kids.

HE CIRCLED AROUND THE BLOCK
and back towards Megan Bennett’s house, enjoying the night. Tomorrow was supposed to be warm and sunny, a repeat of today.

It certainly was good to be alive.

Eventually he came to her street. Her house was completely dark. At eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night, that’s pretty much what he expected. All three of the women who lived there worked.

Then he suddenly saw something out of place, movement on the side of her house, underneath a window. He stopped, waited for a second, and then ducked between two cars where he could watch. The shapes weren’t much more than shadows but he could tell that there were two of them. Either they weren’t talking at all or were talking so low that he couldn’t hear. One of them worked at the window with some kind of a tool, a crowbar or a long screwdriver or something.

The little shits were breaking in, either to rape her or rob her.

Probably both.

Screw that!

Now they had the window open and were pushing it up ever so slowly. When it was all they way up, they stopped and looked around. Then, seeing no one, one of them cupped his hands together to give the other one a boost up.

He charged at a dead run, chemicals colliding in his brain and the fine-tuned gorilla muscles rippling under his clothes. As he came closer, he saw there were three of them, not two, and couldn’t care less. He screamed like an ancient warrior and realized that some kind of recessed gene had just kicked in.

Chapter Five

Day Two - April 17

Tuesday Evening

____________

TUESDAY EVENING, AFTER DARK,
Kelly drove down Colfax with one eye in the rearview mirror, trying to determine if some crazed maniac was following her. She zigzagged through a number of side streets until she felt safe and then parked the BMW just off Colfax on Lowell, feeling like anything but a lawyer.

She locked the doors and circled back on foot to a place called the Mountain View Apartments, wearing a hooded navy-blue sweatshirt over jeans.

A chilly wind blew through the dark and fingered its way into her clothes.

The apartment complex looked like a last-chance dive that hadn’t had a code inspection in twenty years. In the parking lot, she walked past a couple of dark figures sitting in an older Chevy with the engine off and the windows cracked. She only noticed them because of the glow of a cigarette. She could tell they were looking at her, sizing her up as she walked past, by the way the orange spot stopped moving. She half expected a door to open. Then she heard one of them laugh, a woman’s laugh. She caught the faintest scent of pot, which triggered a flash to the old high school days—riding around in the back of a car, crazy laughing, an unskilled hand reaching under her blouse . . .

The building had two stories, with exterior wooden stairs at each end and a walkway that ran the length of the second story, like an old hotel. Apartment H, Jeannie Dannenberg’s place, was on the second level at the far back, at the top of the stairs.

There was light inside behind the shade.

Good.

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked around, seeing no one. Even the car with the cigarette was blocked from view by something that looked like an old Ryder truck. A faint smell of urine hung in the air, and she pictured some drunk two or three nights ago pissing all over the ground right where she stood.

She headed up, ever so slowly, one step at a time, so quietly that she couldn’t even hear herself breathe. She stood outside Jeannie Dannenberg’s door for a moment but didn’t knock, then eased over to the window, found a one-inch slit at the edge of the shade and peeked in. Two women sat on an orange couch, watching a small TV topped with rabbit ears. S

Kelly hadn’t anticipated friends over, or a roommate.

Shit.

What to do?

She needed to talk to the Dannenberg woman alone.

They were nursing beers, staring at the screen, with their legs propped up on a coffee table. A half-empty bag of Lays sat on an old wooden end-table. The carpet was worn and the linoleum was scratched. A black microwave sat on the counter, a white fridge further to the left, the old kind with the freezer on top.

SUDDENLY SHE FELT A VIBRATION,
turned, and saw the shape of a man at the last second. He grabbed her arm above the elbow with a vice grip and spun her around. She smelled whisky and smoky clothes. His face hid behind long greasy hair. He jerked her over to the door, smacked it hard with an open palm and tightened his grip. From inside the apartment the blinds moved and then fell back limp. The door opened a crack, clanging at the end of a chain.

“Do you know her?”

The man snapped her over, so her face was by the door, then grabbed her hair and held her still.

A pause.

“No.”

“Well she’s looking in your window.”

“Well screw that.” A chain rattled and the door opened. “Bring the bitch in.”

The man pushed her inside and slammed the door behind him, warning her to give him a reason to knock her goddamn head off. The two women stood in front of her, both bigger than her, with lots of muscles.

“Looking for something that isn’t yours, baby?”

“No, I . . .”

“Shut up!”

The man slapped her across the face.

A flash of intense heat burned her skin.

“We’ve been waiting for your ass to show back up.”

Blood ran from her nose, into her mouth and down her chin.

“Put her on the floor,” one of the women said.

Suddenly her feet went out from under her and her back hit the carpet with a spine-jolting thump. Before she could twist away the man straddled her chest, grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head.

“Don’t say a goddamn word,” one of the women warned.

The man moved up farther, his crouch almost on her face, and sunk his weight down hard. She heard fumbling noises and realized one of the women was rifling through her purse.

“Her name’s Kelly Ravenfield,” one of the women said. “She’s a lawyer, look at this.”

“This is screwed,” the man said, burrowing his weight down and tightening his grip on her wrists.

She could hardly breathe, but managed to say, “D’endra Vaughn . . .”

A question, “What? What about D’endra?”

She couldn’t breathe, heard “Ease off her, Jack,” then felt the air rush back in her lungs. “What about D’endra, damn it . . . don’t you . . .”

“She’s dead.”

“Let her up, Jack.”

THE MAN STOOD UP, RELUCTANTLY,
continuing to loom over her. Sweet, sweet air rushed back into her lungs. She breathed deep, concentrating on it, not moving an inch, not giving anyone an excuse.

She muscled her way into a standing position and then, before she could stop herself, swung a fist at the man, going for his hooked nose but catching him on the side of the head instead.

“You goddamn . . .”

Wham!

He pinned her back on the floor, his hands gripping her wrists so tight that her fingers tingled. A pain like needles ran up her spine.

A panicked voice, “Don’t hurt her, Jack!”

Jumbled words came through the commotion, which she finally heard as, “Are you going to behave yourself? I said . . .”

“Screw you,” she said, but there was no fight in it. In a few moments her body relaxed and the man moved his weight off her chest, then finally let go of her wrists and stood up. She moved her arms down, turned her head away and lay there.

One of the women spoke.

“D’endra’s dead, is that what you said?”

“God, something’s broke . . .”

“Shit, you’re okay.” Then, “Here, get up.” She found herself pulled up and onto the couch. “Are you okay?” Cigarette smoke suddenly filled the air. “Jesus, Rachel, grab something, she’s bleeding all over the goddamn cushions.” Water ran; then the Rachel woman applied a cool cloth to her nose, wiping the blood off her lips and chin.

She grabbed it.

“Get off me.”

She looked down.

Her sweatshirt was spotted with blood, but the fight was all over, she knew that, and nothing else mattered for the moment.

“The bitch ruined my pants!” the man complained, wiping blood off his leg. One of the women pulled two twenties out of Kelly’s purse. “Here, she’s sorry.” Then, “I think we have it under control now.”

“You positive . . . ?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He wasn’t quite certain whether to leave.

“I’ll stop by later, be sure you’re all right . . .”

“Fine.”

Then he was gone.

“What happened to D’endra?” one of the women asked. Ravenfield recognized her as Jeannie Dannenberg, looking different now, but definitely her. She had a strong, toned body; thick black hair, almost down to her waist; liquid brown eyes; probably about twenty-two or twenty-three.

“I’ll talk to you in private,” she said.

“Screw private. You talk to me,” Jeannie said, “you talk to Rachel.”

She stared at her. “That’s not negotiable. My ass is already hanging out.”

Jeannie looked at Rachel, then back at her, and said, “What’s the difference? I’m going to tell her whatever I want anyway.”

A pain shot up her back. She worked at it by twisting from side to side. She thought,
The difference is, if I say something and she hears it from you, it’s hearsay, it never gets to a jury. If she hears it from me, it’s an admission, she gets to sit on the witness stand and play like a human tape recorder.
But that was too complicated. “Alone or nothing.”

“This is bullshit.”

She could tell that the woman still didn’t recognize her. “I’m getting tired, here. Do you want to know what happened to D’endra or not?”

Dannenberg looked at Rachel, who held up her hands as if in surrender.

“Whatever. The air in here stinks, anyway.” She grabbed her purse, headed to the door, then turned around and pointed at her. “You I don’t like.”