Lisa Jackson - Malice

“Where? Where is this marina?” he asked and Hayes gave him the info, which Bentz repeated to Montoya then entered into the G.P.S. “You’re sure it’s Corrine?”

“Fucking Corrine was behind it all. I think…oh, hell I think I fed her information. You know how that is, cop to cop. I never thought she’d…” Hayes’s cool facade cracked. “She’s killed people, people she considered her friends.”

Bentz felt his jaw harden. “Sounds that way.”

“Shit.” In the silence, Hayes seemed to be working to pull himself together. “I’ve called the Coast Guard. They’re on the lookout for her, but she knows how to run that boat. She could be on her way to Mexico by now.”

“And Olivia might be dead.”

Hayes waited a beat and said, “Yeah.” His voice was filled with regret. “Christ, I’m sorry, Bentz.”

“We’ll meet you at the marina,” Bentz said stiffly.

“I’m on my way. Already called backup. Got a boat waiting at the marina.”

As Bentz hung up, his partner was already hitting the gas, following the navigator’s voice on the G.P.S. to head west, toward the Pacific, though Bentz knew the route.

Toward Olivia.

Olivia felt a shift.

The boat’s engine changed speed.

Her heart leapt to her throat. This was it!

The engines died, and the big vessel slowed to a stop. For a few seconds within the hold, it was deadly quiet, the gentle movement slow and eerie. Then she heard the creaking sound of the boat rolling softly with the vast, silent ocean.

How far out to sea were they?

How far from anyone?

She bit her lip and listened. No one knew where she was. No one would ever find her. In the cavernous vessel, Olivia felt more alone than she ever had in her life.

Her cramps had eased, though the twisting ache still hit her every few minutes. Pushing herself up from the floor of the cage, she knew she had to fight.

Somehow…

Don’t give up. Do not!

Fighting her fears, Olivia tried to pull herself together. She tried not to think about the fact that she was still bleeding, slowly yes, but bleeding nonetheless. No doubt miscarrying the baby she wanted so desperately.

She forced herself upright as she heard the heart-stopping noise of a running chain, metal being spun out. Oh Lord! The killer was dropping anchor.

For a second, Olivia couldn’t move.

This, wherever it was off the shore of California, was where the killer had planned for her to die. A slow and torturous death.

Think, Olivia, think! You’re not dead yet!

She reasoned that the boat couldn’t be too far out to sea if the killer expected the boat to be found, her body located, the camera intact.

Her captor was, if nothing else, precise, her plans comprised of minute details, her timeline plotted to the last second. A control freak to the nth degree, she’d chosen this particular spot carefully, had anticipated and savored this moment for years, fantasized exactly how Olivia’s death was to be executed.

“Like hell,” Olivia said. She wasn’t going down without one helluva fight. What was it Grannie Gin had always said when Olivia was growing up?

Where there’s life, there’s hope.

And Olivia wasn’t dead.

Yet.

There had to be a way to outsmart this twisted maniac…maybe fake that her spirit had been crushed, pretend that the killer had “won,” breaking her psychologically, so that her captor would become overconfident, perhaps slip up.

Really? You think for a second a diabolical woman who has been planning this moment for twelve years will make that kind of error?

No way, you have to make sure it happens. You, Olivia. You can’t count on anyone but yourself.

Olivia had to beat the maniac psychologically.

And quickly. Dear God, time was running out. All too soon the boat would start sinking. Wasn’t that her plan? Mother Mary, Olivia couldn’t think of a worse death than trying to save herself, feeling the cold water rush in, push her off her feet, force her to tread water in the cage knowing there was no way out while she was gasping for an ever-dwindling supply of air.

Her heart was pumping crazily and her skin was sheathed in a cold, clammy sweat as she frantically searched the hold for any means of escape.

Stop it! Calm down. Do not panic! That’s what she wants you to do, what she’s counting on. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and think rationally.

Above, the woman was moving around, setting her plan into motion. Olivia had to work fast!

Drawing in a shaky breath, forcing back the terror eating at her, Olivia tried to get hold of herself. She knew the killer wanted her to appear miserable into the camera, for Bentz to be able to watch his wife’s desperate, horrifying confrontation with death over and over again. This woman’s goal seemed to be to haunt Bentz for the rest of his life: first by raising Jennifer from the dead, then by slowly and excruciatingly killing Olivia.

That was her whole game.

Control.

Terror.

To thwart the killer, Olivia would somehow have to deny her the ultimate fantasy, her coup de grâce over Bentz.

The answer was simple: She had to stop the filming.

But how?

If she could reach the oars to knock down the camera and attack her jailer…but that was impossible. Olivia had already tried to stretch through the bars and grab them, only to fail miserably. The same was true of her attempt to reach the fishing poles. Or the tripod.

Out of the question.

She could only use the tools she had handy. A bucket, a water jug, and a photo album.

She tried with the water jug, hurling the contents at the camera through the bars.

Water splashed wildly, drenching her hands and wrists.

The camera with its incessant red light didn’t so much as shudder. “Great.” Hurriedly, she tried pushing the plastic jug through the cage, but even pressing the sides together to make it thin enough to get through the bars proved impossible.

She tried to swing it from her hand, stretching her arm through the iron rails so that she could beat the tar out of the camera.

No luck.

“Damn it.”

Determined, she eyed her surroundings one last time and her gaze landed on the album. Faux leather-bound and stuffed with pictures and articles bound in plastic, it was too thick to pull into her cage.

But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be torn apart, the individual pages used somehow. Heart pounding wildly, her mind spinning with her desperate, newly hatched plan, Olivia reached for the album. Her fingers brushed against the pages and she pressed her shoulder into the bars, straining, barely touching. Gritting her teeth, she stretched as far as possible and the pad of one finger touched the album. She pressed down, dragged it forward but her finger, sweaty from her exertion slipped. Another pain ripped through her and she winced.

“Damn.” Determined, she kept at her task, forcing one hand as far outside the cage as possible, touching the faux leather, inching it closer only to lose it. As she strained, perspiring, she heard the sound of footsteps ringing overhead as her tormentor walked on the deck above. Moving things. Getting ready. To ensure that she and the baby drowned.

No! Olivia wouldn’t allow herself to concentrate on anything but her escape. Nor could she give into the cramps that were wracking her body, reminding her of the fragile life within.

“Be tough,” she said and didn’t know if she were talking to herself or her unborn child. Finally the album was close to the cage. Using both hands, she worked to tear the pages out of their bindings, unfastening the hooks that held the album together.

Her hastily conceived plan had to work!

It had to.

For her.