Lisa Jackson - Malice

Had it all been the power of suggestion?

No way!

His wildly pounding heart, accelerated pulse, and goose bumps on the back of his neck confirmed that the vision was very real. He dragged in deep breaths of the dry air and tried to think rationally, rein in his thoughts. Find sanity again.

Good God, he’d always been so rational…and now…now…Shit, what now? He shoved his hands through his hair, told himself to calm down. But as he did, he glanced up at the second story of the old inn. One of the balconies was different from the rest; its door hadn’t been barricaded.

Why?

A shadow moved within.

His eyes narrowed.

Was it a play of light, or a dark figure lurking in the shadows, hiding behind the tattered, gauzy curtains?

“Oh, hell,” he whispered. He took off again, forced his feet into a dead run. His bad leg was on fire, his breathing ragged as he leapt over the step and across the porch to the doorway of room twenty-one.

The door was ajar.

His heart nearly stopped.

He reached for his sidearm, but wasn’t wearing his shoulder holster. His pistol was locked in the glove box of the rental car.

He didn’t have time to run back for it. Take it easy. Slow down. Think this through. It could be a trap! Carefully, he pushed on the door.

Sweating crazily, he swung the beam of his flashlight over the rubble within. It was similar to the other room, squalid and neglected.

And smelling of gardenias.

What the hell ?

Thud!

The sound of something falling in the room above reverberated through the living area.

He shot forward. Reminding himself that he might be walking into a trap, and that he should have brought his sidearm, he started up the stairs. He didn’t bother to test for rotten wood or broken railings, just hurried upward.

The smell of her perfume was stronger here. His throat tightened. On the landing he paused, feeling exposed, an open target. Back to the wall, heart pumping wildly, he shined the beam of his small light over the empty bedroom, then inched toward the closed door of the closet. He braced himself. Then flung the door open.

Empty.

What had he expected?

Sweating, swallowing back an unsettling fear, he zeroed in on the bath. One, two, three! He kicked the door open.

With a shriek and flap of frantic wings, an owl flew from his roost on an old towel bar and soared out the broken window.

Bentz’s knees nearly gave out. Jittery, he backed out of the room where feathers, dung, and pellets, the regurgitated undigested pieces of animals the owl coughed up, littered the floor.

Then he thought of the back stairs.

Damn!

Nerves tight, he backtracked to the upper hallway and heard the sounds of fast breathing and quick steps down on the first level.

Flinging himself over the rail, he half-stumbled down the stairs and cast his narrow light beam down the murky corridor.

Empty.

No one.

Dead or alive.

His leg on fire, he hitched his way to the nearest exit and found himself in what had been the lobby of the old inn, the main entrance to the small mission.

The air was stale and unused.

Except for the slight scent of Jennifer’s perfume.

For the love of God, what was this?

He knew before he tried the front doors that they would be locked. He also knew that he could wander around this old structure, search the chapel and wine cellars, the individual rooms and reception hall and he wouldn’t find her.

She was gone.

And he knew nothing more than he had when he’d left L.A. earlier today.

Perfect! I think with a smile. I peer through binoculars from a hiding spot in the upper story of an abandoned warehouse that reeks of must and oil. But the smells don’t bother me. Not today. I focus on Bentz, who is still limping his way around the inn checking doors and flashing his light into the dark corners.

Go ahead, Bentz.

You’ll find nothing.

It’s getting darker, the shadows lengthening, but I can still see him studying the crumbling exterior of the mission. From here I’m safe to imagine him puzzling out the mystery of his first wife.

Good!

“Keep looking,” I say in the barest of whispers, adrenaline pumping through my body. “But, uh-oh, be careful…who knows what you’ll find.”

I can feel my lips twist in satisfaction because I read him so perfectly. I know now that I can manipulate him however I want. And it feels good.

About time!

“Good boy, RJ,” I coo softly, as if to a collie who’s mastered a difficult trick. “Good, good boy.”

God, how I love to see him squirm!

He’s already walking away from the inn, so I step away from the window just in case an ancient, watery streetlight might reflect in my field glasses.

I can’t afford to be careless.

Rick Bentz might be a lot of things, but a fool he is not.

I know that.

He’s just a dogged, single-minded bastard of the lowest order. He deserves this and I can’t wait to see him twist in the wind. Oh, yeah. How perfect will it be for him to know the sheer terror, the mind-numbing fear that overcomes you when you’re haunted? He will get to experience the confusion and horror of thinking he’s losing his sanity.

And there are ways to ratchet up his torment. Oh, yes.

It’s time to add a little pressure on the home front.

Olivia…she is the key, I think, the coup de grâce. There is no better way to get to Bentz than through his damned wife.

I see him slip through the opening in the fence and head down the street to the parking lot. His shoulders are still broad, but his once purposeful gait is now uneven.

A coldness settles in my heart.

Do you feel me, you sick son of a bitch?

Do you have any idea what you did to me, the pain you put me through?

No?

Well, you will, Bentz, you damned well will.

In fact, and I promise you this, the pain and suffering and guilt will be so intense, so excruciating that you’ll wish to heaven and hell that you were dead.

Bentz found his car and made note of a few changes in the parking lot. One of the twin pickups had left and there was now an old Datsun with expired plates idling in front of the bookstore. A teenage girl was behind the wheel, gabbing on her cell phone. WASH ME was still in prime position in front of the tavern, but the silver Chevy with the stickers was no longer parked near the dirty van.

He wondered if one of the cars could belong to “Jennifer” or whoever she was. If so, she certainly was no ghost. As far as he knew the State of California only issued licenses to living people and, if folklore were to be believed, ghosts really didn’t need wheels.

On a whim, he walked into the tavern, glanced at the waitstaff and few patrons huddled over a long bar or staring at a big screen in the corner. Satisfied that whoever he’d been chasing hadn’t taken refuge in the establishment, Bentz ordered a zero-alcohol, made small talk with the waitress, and asked if she knew who owned the Chevy. She gave him a blank stare that was almost identical to the expression of the bartender when Bentz posed the same question to him. If they knew anything, they weren’t going to give it up, but his gut told him they didn’t have any idea of the answer and didn’t really care.

Ignoring the beer and leaving some bills on his table, he left the tavern and headed to the bookstore, where a shopkeeper nearing eighty was waiting to close. Now the girl who had been in the Datsun had moved inside and was still talking on her cell as she cruised the aisles, concentrating on a wall of books in an area labeled “Vampires and Ghosts.” Without a break in her conversation, she picked up various books, thumbed through them, then replaced them on the shelf.