Lisa Jackson - Malice

The shoulders of his jacket and hems of his pant legs managed to get soaked despite his efforts.

Olivia was laughing, her eyes sparkling with wicked delight at being caught in the storm. “You’re soaked,” she said as they reached the doorway of the restaurant.

“That’s because I was being gallant and keeping you dry.”

“Which I appreciate. Thanks.” She winked at him. “I’ll return the favor sometime.”

“Yeah, right.” Beneath the cover of a striped awning, Bentz shook the rain from the umbrella, then held the door for her. Inside, tiny lights were strung from the open rafters, appearing like stars over head, and the walls were paneled with warm reddish wood complimenting areas of exposed brick.

A hostess led them to a far corner where they were seated at a window table. Outside the rain continued to pour down, gunmetal-gray clouds huddling over the city, water running wildly in the gutters. Inside, beneath lazy paddle fans a waiter brought water and menus, then lit the single candle before promising to return.

“So, about what’s happening,” Olivia prodded, once they were alone again. “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like it?”

“Because you’re a very smart woman.”

“Mmm.”

“And you’re some kind of kook psychic.”

“Whom you love,” she reminded him.

“Right.”

“Make that adore.”

“Now you’re pushing it.”

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“Waiting for the right moment,” he said, eyeing the menu and not bringing up Jennifer until after they ordered. Once the waiter had re treated again, Bentz laid it all out. He started with the moment he’d woken up in the hospital and felt the drop in temperature before witnessing his dead wife in the doorway. He told Olivia about the other sightings as well. Finally, he admitted to spying Jennifer again just off the veranda a few days earlier, then just recently receiving the marred death certificate and photographs.

With each of his confessed sightings, Olivia became more and more serious. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, her gaze seeking his. “How? Why?”

He handed her the copies he’d kept and watched her face turn ashen. “I wish I knew the answer to that.”

“Jennifer’s dead.” She glanced up at him for confirmation.

“Yes.”

“There was a suicide note, you made the ID on the body.”

“I know.”

“Then…?”

“An imposter, probably.”

“Or…your imagination.”

“Don’t think so.” He tapped the pictures with a finger. “These are real.”

“Or someone faked them.”

“That’s possible.”

“Rick, she’s not alive!” She cleared her throat and leaned back in her chair. “Did you…have you told Kristi?”

“She was there when I woke up and she thought it was hallucinations from the drugs or aftereffects from the coma. Said it was all a ‘bad trip.’ I didn’t want to upset her, so I haven’t mentioned it again. Neither has she.”

But then his daughter was caught up in writing her book and planning her wedding. Kristi didn’t want to think that her father had lost his marbles. Because, even though now he was certain he was being tormented by an outside force, he also suspected deep inside that some of his visions of Jennifer had been conjured in his mind.

Maybe outside influences had tripped a latch in his brain and, though he was loath to admit it, he didn’t know what was real and what was a figment of his imagination.

“She hasn’t seen these?” Olivia motioned to the photos.

“No.”

Slowly letting out her breath, Olivia stared at the marred death certificate, then the pictures once more. Her eyebrows pulled together to form little lines in her forehead and her full lips twisted in revulsion. “This is really sick.”

“Can’t argue that.”

“Do you have any idea who sent these?” She held the photos and certificate up, then shook her head and handed everything back to Bentz.

“No. But Montoya’s having the lab check out the originals. Fingerprints, DNA, photo-altering-anything else the department can find out including what kind of red pen was used to write the question mark.” He tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket just as the waiter delivered the first course.

“You think she’s alive?” Olivia asked.

“No.” He stirred his seafood stew and shook his head. “But I don’t think she’s a ghost, either.”

“Obviously. So…an imposter. Someone messing with you.” She nodded to herself, picking up her fork. “Who?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.”

Irritated, she stabbed bits of lettuce and shrimp onto her fork. “So you think there’s someone here in Louisiana pretending to be Jennifer, and she makes herself visible to only you. And you think she showed up at the hospital months ago, at the precise moment you woke up. Nonetheless, the pictures and death certificate were mailed from L.A.” Her eyes narrowed as she bit into her salad. “Is that about it?”

“Yeah. About.”

“So why go to all that trouble? Why not mail the package from here in New Orleans?”

“Jennifer died in Southern California.”

“If it was her in the van.”

“It was.”

“You say she hasn’t aged, right? But how close were you to her?”

Good point. “Not close enough.”

“Hmm. And the photos, they make her look young, but again, they could’ve been doctored. Or her face superimposed over another woman’s body.”

“The answer is in L.A.”

“Although you saw her in Louisiana?”

“These shots were taken around L.A.”

“Maybe.”

The whole Photoshop thing again. “Her body is buried in California,” he said and watched her reaction.

“Jesus, are you thinking of exhuming her?” Revulsion showed on her face. “Because you think you saw her? Because you received some pictures and a marked-up death certificate with a postmark from the town where you lived. Isn’t that a little extreme? I mean, would anyone even order it?”

“I don’t know, but I think so.”

“So you’re thinking of going to California,” she guessed, shaking her head.

“Yeah. While I’m off duty.”

“So soon.”

He nodded. “Montoya will watch my back here, look after you.”

“You think I need looking after?”

“No. But…”

“But just in case I feel abandoned, he’s around. Right?” she mocked. “In the off chance that I feel you’re on a wild goose chase, or following a ghost or…I don’t know, dealing with all those old feelings you haven’t quite laid to rest, I can count on your partner, not you. Is that what you’re saying?”

He felt the muscles in his back tighten.

“I don’t need to be babysat or coddled, okay? I’ve lived in that house most of my life. A lot of it alone. I don’t need ‘looking after.’ Sometimes I wonder if you’ve lost your mind!”

That makes two of us.

“Maybe you should just let the cops handle this.”

“I’m a cop.”

“No, not this time.” She shook her head, golden strands of her hair catching in the candlelight. “This time I think you’re the victim.”

“Listen, Livvie-”

“To what? Some excuse to go chasing after a woman who’s dead? Some trumped-up rationale? This is a situation for the police,” she said, pointing to the death certificate and photographs of Jennifer. “And as for ‘seeing’ Jennifer, maybe you should take that up with your doctor or, heaven forbid, a shrink. These photos…they have to be fakes!”

“Olivia-”

“I hear what you’re telling me, Bentz. Word for word. But it’s what you’re not telling me that is drumming through my head, pounding in my brain, and ripping a damned hole in my heart.”