Dark Hunger (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) (9 page)

A man about forty-five.

Bald.

Designer sunglasses.

Immaculately dressed.

Flamboyantly gay, even at a distance and in a crowd.

Tim Pepper.

Her manager.

He waved, clearly getting a kick out of the surprise on her face. Then he leaned to the person next to him, a nice woman about forty, and said something in her ear.

THREE SONGS LATER, during the break, Rave went over and joined them. Pepper already had a screwdriver waiting for her.

“Thanks,” she said, draining half the glass in one gulp.

She looked at the woman, then back at Pepper and said, “Who’s your lady-friend?”

“Amanda Pierce,” he said.

The woman held her hand out to shake.

But she looked friendly, so Rave gave her a hug instead.

“She’s with Storm,” Pepper said. Then he just looked at her, letting the implications hang.

“Storm as in Las Vegas?”

Pepper nodded.

Then he said, “Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that you’re on audition tonight.”

“What—”

She smacked him on the arm.

“You should have told me.”

She would have dressed better.

She would have sung better.

She would have drunk less.

“Was on audition,” the woman said. “When I came here, the big question was whether you were as good as your portfolio and whether we should book you for a month. Now I’m thinking that your first stint needs to be six months, minimum. Be warned that we’ll want exclusion options for Vegas bookings for an extended period, so our competition can’t grab you after we turn you into a household name.”

A household name?

Rave must have had a deer-in-headlights expression because Pepper laughed.

Then he hugged her.

“Welcome to the big time, darling.”

Rave looked at the woman—Amanda Pierce—who nodded and said, “The next step is for you to come to Vegas and meet some people,” she said.

“When?”

“No rush, in the next couple of weeks.”

Cool.

Way cool.

Pepper said, “We’re going to need to make your sound bigger. I’m thinking something like adding a keyboard player and a couple of female background singers.”

“Got to have plenty of sex on stage,” the woman added.

WHEN THE CLUB CLOSED, Rave followed Parker back to her place. He parked down the street and then ran through the backyard shadows until he got to her house. He entered the back door to be sure everything was okay.

It was.

He pulled the curtain aside a few inches and motioned for her to come in.

She did.

Then what she hoped would happen did happen. Parker put his arms around her waist, pulled her stomach to his with incredible strength, and locked her into position.

He kissed her.

With a passion that she’d never experienced before.

A passion that made her tremble.

And want to give him every fiber of her being.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Day Four—April 15

Friday Morning

______________

TEFFINGER GOT UP BEFORE DAWN Friday morning, jogged three miles, and then encountered something strange when he got back—the sweet aroma of coffee. He followed the scent to the kitchen and found London, dressed only in a T-shirt, pouring pancake batter into a hot frying pan.

“I’m guessing you like pancakes since you got them,” she said.

She wore no makeup.

And had her hair pulled into a ponytail.

So unpretentious.

So real.

“Sorry about last night,” he said, referring to the fact that he didn’t make a move on her under the stars, or back at the house afterwards, or even in the bed when she talked him into letting her give him a backrub.

“It’s okay,” she said.

Teffinger walked over and kissed her on the back of the neck.

She didn’t turn around but said, “You’re such a tease.”

“Trust me,” he said. “I’m not trying to be. I’m in a total reactive mode. I’m reacting to Jena Vellone disappearing, I’m reacting to finding you, I’m reacting to the fact that I have a picture of a skinhead who pounded a wooden stake into a woman’s heart and I still can’t catch him—”

“Finding me?” she asked.

“Right.”

“Does that mean you’ve been looking for me?”

Teffinger wrapped his arms around her from behind, clasped his hands on her stomach and pulled her in tight. Then he nibbled on the back of her neck.

“Ordinarily this is where I would come up with some smart-ass answer,” he said. “But the truth is yes, I have been looking for you.”

“You mean, looking for someone—”

Teffinger headed for the shower and said over his shoulder, “I want you to move to Denver. I won’t be able to handle a bunch of miles between us. I’m not that kind of guy.”

“I just met you yesterday,” she said. “You expect me to pack up my whole life and move just because you think it would be a neat idea?”

Teffinger chuckled and said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Then he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

He stripped.

Then got the shower temperature adjusted.

And stepped inside.

Two minutes later the lights mysteriously went off.

And London stepped under the spray with him.

“Okay, why not?” she said.

“Why not, what?”

She smacked him on the arm and said, “Don’t be a smart-ass.”

“When I said Denver, I meant my place,” Teffinger said. “Just so we’re on the same page.”

“Okay, your place.” Then she got serious and said, “Are you sure?”

He didn’t hesitate.

“Positive.”

“Positive positive? Or—oh my God I hope she doesn’t snore—positive?”

“Positive positive,” he said.

She put her arms around his neck and pushed her breasts onto his chest. “Now that that’s settled, show me if I made a mistake or not.”

Teffinger got her heated up in the shower.

Then led her to the bed.

Soaking wet.

Where he took his time with her.

And she with him.

TEFFINGER GOT TO WORK BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE and had one thing and one thing only on his mind—finding Jena Vellone. The problem was, he didn’t have a single lead.

Nothing.

He called everyone who knew Jena, to see if she’d complained to them about strangers or bumps in the night or anything else that would possibly explain what had happened.

No one knew squat.

But forgave him for waking them up.

When Sydney showed up at 7:30, Teffinger said, “I’m starting to get the feeling that it was just a random, spur-of-the-moment thing, in which case whoever targeted her probably did it at the club that night. Maybe someone hit on her when I was talking to London, and Jena never mentioned it to me.”

Sydney took a slurp of coffee and asked, “So how are you getting along with this London woman?”

“She’s going to move in,” Teffinger said.

Sydney scrunched her face.

“Are you nuts? You just met her—”

“She’s nice,” he said.

She shook her head in disbelief.

“None of the rest of the universe moves as fast as you do, Teffinger,” she said. “Did you ever stop and think that maybe there’s a reason for that?”

He shrugged.

“Their loss.”

“What are you going to do in a month when you two have a fight?” she questioned. “What are you going to say? Oops, I made a mistake, go ahead and move back out now.”

“Here’s the thing,” Teffinger said. “There aren’t any guarantees no matter how you do it. Right now, I want to see her every day, every minute, every chance I get. You only get so much life. You got to live it.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Teffinger, you fall in love way too easily and it always comes back to bite you in the ass,” she said. “What I don’t understand is why you can’t figure that out and just slow down for once in your life.”

He shrugged.

“Just because I don’t know what I’m doing doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” he said.

She laughed.

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Yeah, well, just because it doesn’t make sense doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing.”

THEY HEADED DOWN TO THE OLD ORLEANS, expecting the place to be locked, especially since Teffinger used up all his good luck for the morning by getting the Stone’s “The Last Time” on the ride over. Surprisingly, however, the back door was open and someone was inside, waiting for the morning beer trucks.

They asked if the club had any surveillance cameras.

Thirty minutes later they were back at headquarters.

Sliding the first tape from Tuesday night into a VCR player.

As soon as it kicked up on the monitor, Teffinger hit pause and said, “I’ll be right back,” and headed towards the door.

He returned with two cups of coffee.

And handed one to Sydney.

Then he noticed that hers didn’t have cream.

So he switched.

Then punched play.

Chapter Thirty

Day Four—April 15

Friday Morning

______________

TRIPP CRAWLED OUT OF THE SEEDY hotel bed mid-morning, took a long piss and then studied his face in the bathroom mirror as the shower warmed up. The swelling—compliments of Lauren Long’s bodyguards—had almost completely subsided and the color was closer to normal.

Good.

At least he wouldn’t be walking around today looking like Frankenstein.

Last night had been interesting.

Dressed in all things black, at two in the morning, he hugged the deepest shadows of a Ponderosa Pine in Rave Lafelle’s backyard, waiting for the vampire to return. Then something unexpected happened. Someone came out of the neighbor’s yard, jogged past Tripp—not more than ten feet away—and used a key to enter the vampire’s back door. Ten seconds later headlights came down the street and pulled into the driveway. Shortly after that, the vampire went into the house.

Tripp crept on cat feet to a back window.

And saw nothing.

Then moved to a side window.

And saw two shapes making love on the couch in the dark.

Heated love.

Ordinarily, he would have busted in. But if he got hit in the face again, in the same place, the pain might disable him.

They might get the upper edge.

Plus, he had to assume they had guns.

In fact, the whole sex-on-the-couch thing could be a setup to get him to come in thinking he had the upper edge. Then they’d both turn, with guns in hand, and fill him full of holes.

Something he wasn’t found of.

So he decided to not go in.

Instead, he watched.

The vampire had a doable body.

Ample tits.

A nice ass.

A flat stomach.

The man was built like a lifeguard, totally ripped, so strong in fact that Tripp wasn’t sure that he’d be able to take him in a fair fight, even though Tripp was a good two or three inches taller.

He watched for as long as he dared.

Then crept back into the shadows.

And headed down the street to check out a hunch.

Sure enough, a silver Volvo was parked about six houses down.

Exhausted, he went back to the motel and jerked off.

That was last night.

Now it was morning.

BREAKFAST WAS A BAGEL and three cups of coffee at Einstein Bros. Then he drove around the fringes of the city, in the old warehouse districts on the north side of LoDo, and looked for an abandoned building. Some of them had been converted into lofts but there were still a number of vacant structures hanging FOR SALE signs.

One in particular looked interesting.

A six-story brick building with plywood behind the glass.

He parked in the alley behind it, muscled up to the bottom of a rusty fire escape, and walked up. The door at every landing was locked.

Good.

Street people hadn’t infiltrated it.

From the top of the fire escape, Tripp muscled his way onto the roof, and found the access door unlocked. He entered the building and checked every floor.

It was definitely abandoned.

And would do nicely.

Chapter Thirty-One

Day Four—April 15

Friday Morning

______________

FOLLOWING A GIG, Rave usually slept until at least noon the next day. But Friday she woke mid-morning with a disturbing mix of Vegas, Parker and vampire slayers bouncing in her head. Parker was already up and reading the paper when she walked into the kitchen. The coffee pot was half full.

“Good news,” he said. “We have a reinforcement coming in.”

“We do?”

He nodded.

“Forrest. You’re going to like him.”

She poured coffee in a cup, took a heaven-sent slurp and said, “When?”

Parker looked at his watch.

“A little over two hours,” he said.

“Is he flying in?”

Parker nodded.

“Are you going to pick him up?”

“We’re going to pick him up,” he said. “I have something I want to tell you on the way.”

“Tell me now.”

He grinned and went back to reading the paper.

“What, you’re not going to tell me?” she asked.

He kept reading the paper and said, “Apparently not.”

She set the coffee down, stood in front of him, straddled his lap and brought her mouth down to his, an inch away. “Now are you going to tell me?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Then she kissed him.

“How about now?”

“Nope.”

“You’re so mean,” she said.

He kissed her and said, “That was in the fine print when you signed up.”

She stood and said, “Who said I signed up?”

THEY WERE HALFWAY TO DIA, driving east on I-70 under a strong Colorado sun, when Parker finally told her what he had to tell her.

“I mentioned before about the woman we have in Montreal who does our genealogy research,” he said.

True.

Rave remembered.

“She called me this morning,” Parker said. “She came across a rather remarkable discovery.”