Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) by R.J. Jagger

nowhere.
    The air was absolutely still without even the faintest hint of a breeze.
    He couldn’t remember a quieter place.
    The tall bulky doors of the barn were closed. He muscled one open and stepped inside. The odor of rotten hay and wood impregnated the air. It was cemetery quiet and almost impossible to see. A few streaks of sunlight intruded from the roof, illuminating an airborne dust that glimmered against the dark background.
    He picked his way into the structure one step at a time.
    The black silhouette of a tractor squatted at the far end of the building, and even in the dark, to his untrained eyes, he could tell it was ancient. Empty horse stalls occupied the wall to the right. A makeshift wooden ladder lay on the ground, broken and decayed.
    He smiled and found a place to sit down. There was work to do, but it could wait a few moments. He closed his eyes, unzipped his pants and allowed the fantasy of Megan Bennett to float up to the top.
    Soon baby.
    Very, very soon.

     
    Chapter Nine
    Day Three - April 18
    Wednesday Night
    ____________
     
    KELLY LEANED AGAINST THE BRASS RAILING on her loft terrace, six floors above LoDo, and turned her face into the cool of the night. It felt good. The voice of Billy Holliday came from a CD player in the living room and wandered through the air like smoke, out the open sliding doors and into the night, painful and lamenting, with tales of broken hearts and love gone wrong. Down below at street level people flowed in and out of sports bars and restaurants, laughing, and sometimes talking so clear and loud that she could actually make out strings of words. Usually they made her feel happy, which is one of the reasons she stretched to buy the place. But tonight the motion and activity seemed just that, so much motion and activity.
    D’endra Vaughn’s death wouldn’t leave her alone.
    She had no watch on her wrist right now but guessed it was almost nine-thirty. She had a deposition scheduled for eight in the morning and ordinarily would be heading to bed. Tomorrow, she’d get a whole day sitting in the same room as opposing counsel Mitch Phillips, a whiny little lawyer-man who liked to paper the file with correspondence so full of lies and half-truths that she seriously wondered about his mental health. She was defending, so it’d be relatively easy, apart from having to breathe the same air as that jerk. She could get to bed as late as eleven, if she wanted, and still be more than rested enough.
    What to do?
    Lightning crackled in the distance.
    Rain was coming.
    The air smelled of it.
    She wandered back inside. The place made her feel comfortable, it always did, with minimal furniture, all contemporary, expensive and earth toned, accented by splashes of color from an occasional throw pillow, a hot pink lamp, a bright yellow coffee maker.
    She was safe.
    Why leave?
    She found the phone on the counter of the kitchen island, hesitated, put it back down, picked it back up, dialed Jeannie Dannenberg, got an answer and found herself asking if they could meet.
    Dannenberg sounded high.
    “Sure, but not here. Rachel’s in the bedroom with a guy, smoking and shit.”
     
    THEY ARRANGED TO MEET AT THE RAINBOW BAR, a two-block walk up the street for Dannenberg, who didn’t own a car. Kelly took Colfax Avenue all the way, got there in fifteen minutes, found four vehicles in the parking lot, all junkers, and parked the BMW in the last slot in the back, five empty spaces down. She’d rather walk a few extra steps than get door-dings hammered out.
    The place was one of those Mom-and-Pop neighborhood dives. She’d driven by a million of them but never been in more than one or two. They’d both been the same—cheap beer and drunken mumblings about how crummy life was.
    When she walked inside, Jeannie Dannenberg was already there, sitting at the bar with a half-empty bottle of Bud Light in front of her, smoking a cigarette and talking to the bartender who was leaning on the counter