Free Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) by R.J. Jagger Page A

he’d been shot or not. The gun fired again. Something directly above him made a painful sound and landed with a horrific weight on his legs, pinning him down.
    He scrambled to wedge out.
    His hand pushed against something sharp and jagged.
    He immediately knew what it was and jerked back before jaws clamped down.
    Lightning flashed.
    For a fraction of a second the world lit as if the noon sun was out. It was long enough for Teffinger to see he was under a mountain lion. The animal’s face had been destroyed into a gooey mess by a bullet.
    Del Rey was two steps distance.
    Her arms were down.
    In her right hand hung a limp gun.
    What Teffinger tripped over was a small deer, just a baby, separated from the pack by the storm, now deader than dead with a ripped throat and a number of vicious bites torn out of its body.
    In that split second Teffinger realized just how lucky he was.
    The animal could have killed him a hundred times.
    He’d be dead beyond help if it weren’t for Del Rey.
    He got out from under the animal, muscled to his feet and took Del Rey in his arms.
    “I owe you one,” he said.
    “One?”
     

    26
    Day Four
    July 11
    Friday Night
     
    At exactly seven o’clock Friday evening, Jori-Lee wiped a D.C. sweat from her brow, pulled her cell phone from her purse as she sat on a bench near the Smithsonian, and punched in the numbers the mystery jogger passed to her yesterday evening.
    Her heat pounded.
    A woman answered, “Hello?”
    The voice belonged to the runner.
    “This is Jori-Lee Kent.”
    Silence.
    “Your little boss Nelson Robertson is supposed to be making this call, not you. Did you tell him?”
    “No.”
    “You didn’t?”
    “No.”
    “Well that was a big fucking mistake.”
    The line went dead.
     
    Jori-Lee redialed.
    No one answered.
    She paced next to the street, second-guessing the sanity of everything she’d done, everything she was for that matter. Outside the day’s shadows were getting longer but the air still had the city in a stranglehold of humidity and heat. A passing bus sprayed diesel fumes at her.
    She choked them out of her lungs and almost headed home.
    Instead she redialed.
    The connection went through.
     
    Before the woman could even answer Jori-Lee said, “Don’t hang up!”
    “You didn’t follow directions.”
    “I will,” she said. “First tell me what you want to talk to him about.”
    “It’s personal.”
    “In what way?”
    “You’re playing a dangerous game, lady.”
    Suddenly a strange pop came through the line, one that made Jori-Lee picture the phone falling to the floor. Then frantic sounds came through. The more Jori-Lee concentrated on them the more she pictured the woman being attacked.
    “Stop!”
    The word was laced with fear.
    Stop!
    Stop!
    Stop!
    Then the words got muffled, as if a hand went over her mouth.
    “Shut up bitch!”
    Smack!
    Smack!
    “Don’t fight me!”
    The words were gruff.
    They belonged to a man.
    Jori-Lee didn’t know the speaker.
    He was a stranger to her.
    The struggling stopped, just like that, with the force of something absolute, not a gunshot, maybe a knife. More sounds came but there were from motion rather than fighting.
    What was he doing?
    Was he making sure she was dead?
    Was he turning her body face up?
    A moment passed.
    Jori-Lee concentrated.
    The sounds were faint, barely perceptible.
    She couldn’t figure out what any of them belonged to.
     
    Then a very disturbing noise came through, as if someone or something was physically touching the phone.
    “Who’s there?”
    The words pounded into her blood with the force of a drug.
     

     
    27
    Day Five
    July 12
    Saturday Morning
     
    Teffinger woke Saturday morning when the first strokes of dawn bent around the edges of the window coverings and washed the room in a soft watercolor glow. Next to him, half covered and half not, was the incredible being of Del Rey, motionless and breathing deeply. Seeing her made Teffinger feel sorry for every man in the