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

world who wasn’t him.
    It wasn’t just the woman’s body.
    She was more than just one of the interests he’d let parade in and out of his life.
    He could see her popping out little Nickies.
    He could see them together when they were older and slower and no longer playing at the edge.
    He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.
    The events of last night briefly flashed in his brain. The jaws snapped again at his face. The gunfire rang again in his ears.
    He squeezed it out.
    It was interesting but not productive.
    Today he needed to be productive.
     
    The boxer Danny Rainer killed Portia, possibly for kicks and possibly as nothing more than a chance encounter gone bad. The evidence wasn’t there, not yet, but evidence is always just a matter of time. As much as Teffinger wanted to take the boxer’s smirky face down right now this minute, his more immediate problem was the lawyer, Jack Colder.
    The lawyer was the one who hired Portia in the first place.
    He was also the one who would hire—or, more likely, had already hired—Portia’s replacement.
    He was the one who would see that the job got completed.
    He was the one still in motion.
    Plus, going back, he was the one who killed or hired someone to kill Seth Lightfield, the man who filled his place in bed. Taking the lawyer down would close a cold case; and there were few things in life as sweet as closing a cold case.
     
    Teffinger showered, towel-dried his hair until the drip was gone and headed for the kitchen, wearing jeans but no shirt or shoes.
    Del Rey had her back to him, making coffee.
    She wore a black muscle shirt and white panties that said Love Pink on the back.
    He cupped her stomach from behind and nibbled her neck.
    “Did I say thanks for saving my life?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Well, if I didn’t, I will.”
    She turned and pressed her stomach to his.
    Her face was serious.
    Something was on her mind.
    “You’re thinking,” Teffinger said.
    She nodded.
    “I had a weird thought. I keep telling myself that it’s too crazy to be true but I can’t shake it.”
    “Go on.”
    “Okay, well, Susan Smith knew that Portia was in town and after someone named Susan Smith, because you told her,” she said.
    “Technically Sydney told her.”
    “Right, but the fact is that she knew.”
    “True, she knew.”
    “So, what if she knew something else, namely that she was in fact the Susan Smith who was the target. What if she got already knew Danny Rainer and had some type of history with him. What if she got Rainer to lay in wait for Portia and take her out when she showed up?”
    Teffinger shook his head.
    “Even assuming all that,” he said, “killing Portia would only buy her time. Someone hired Portia. She was nothing more than a human knife. Getting rid of her wouldn’t solve the problem at source. The only way to really get rid of the problem would be to kill the person who hired Portia. Right?”
    “Correct.”
    Teffinger frowned.
    “When someone says Right, and it is right, the answer is supposed to be Right, not Correct.”
    “They’re the same thing.”
    “Yeah, I know, but it still needs to be right. Otherwise you upset the balance of the universe. Right?”
    She ran a finger down his chest.
    “Teffinger, stay focused,” she said. “I agree that killing Portia would only buy her time. So, what would be her next move? It would be exactly what you said it would be—kill the source.”
    “Meaning the lawyer, Jack Colder.”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “No,” she said. “What she told you about Colder being a jilted lover probably has a lot of truth to it, otherwise she wouldn’t have dragged it out. But if her goal is to kill the source and Colder really was the source, she wouldn’t tell you about him because then you’d be in his shadows. If you ask me, Colder is a misdirect.”
    “A misdirect?”
    “Right, the source is someone else. While you’re focused on Colder, that’s where she’s going to