Lisa Jackson - Malice

Fifteen minutes later, Bentz was back in his motel and eating at his desk. Between bites of his sandwich, he sat at his laptop and made a list of the car descriptions and plate numbers he’d photographed in the shopping center and near the inn. He kicked himself for not paying attention to the Impala, but he was able to get the other cars’ plates from the pictures he’d taken.

He didn’t have a printer, so he sent an e-mail to himself that he could print later. Then he’d see if Hayes could run the plates and find out who owned the cars parked near the abandoned inn.

He finished the sandwich and wiped his fingers on a napkin before running a search of medical facilities in the area, just in case the silver Impala was somehow connected to his sighting of Jennifer. His search, which included the greater L.A. area, came up with hundreds of names.

There had to be a way of narrowing it.

He finished his soda, rattled the ice in the cup, and thought about the cars in the parking lot, a fixation, he decided, but something to work with.

He doubted the driver of the Impala was from San Juan Capistrano, so he centered his search in L.A. Culver City was an obvious choice, but too obvious. Again, the list was long.

Frowning, he leaned back in his desk chair and stared at the screen. What was it about that permit on the Chevy that bugged him?

Something unique. It had been faded and sun-bleached, the numbers nearly impossible to read, as if whomever had used the permit hadn’t updated it in a long while. Maybe a hospital worker who had retired, or moved to another job, or sold the car?

Tapping a pen on the desk, he closed his eyes, drawing up the image. There had been numbers and a date, and the name of the hospital, and something else…a logo or picture of…what? Some familiar symbol that scurried around in the dark, murky corners of his brain but wouldn’t come to the fore. Crap! He concentrated to no end. The symbol eluded him and he gave up. Sooner or later, he knew he’d remember something important about it.

He hoped.

He wadded up the trash from his meal, tossed it into a wastebasket. After cranking up the A/C a few notches cooler, he did some exercises on a towel stretched over the thin carpet. His leg already hurt, but he kept at it until his muscles ached and he was sweating. Finally he gave up on the repetitions and hit the shower.

With his tiny, complimentary bar of soap and a thimbleful of generic shampoo, he washed off the grime, dust, and sweat of the day. The spray was weak, but warm, and he let the water run over his hip and knee, both of which were beginning to throb and remind him that he was getting old, hadn’t yet recovered. He couldn’t go chasing ghosts upstairs and across courtyards and through dirty, dark corridors and expect not to pay the price.

He managed to dry himself with another impossibly thin towel, then flopped onto the bed and used the remote to turn on the TV.

He found a station with “breaking news.”

Video of a crime scene. The camera panned an overpass of the freeway, police officers worked a roped-off area, a warehouse behind a reporter in a blue jacket. Holding a microphone and staring soberly into the camera, she said, “Today, here in a storage unit beneath the 110 freeway, officers discovered a grisly scene. The bodies of two girls, whom sources have revealed are sisters-twins-were discovered, victims of a tragic double murder.”

“What?” Bentz froze, his hand still holding the remote, his gaze riveted to the tiny screen.

“The names of the victims have been withheld pending notification of next of kin. A source close to the investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told us that the girls had been reported missing early this morning, the day of their twenty-first birthdays.” The reporter paused meaningfully, then added, “Unfortunately, they never made it to their party, the one they had planned to celebrate with family and close friends.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Bentz sat bolt upright and stared at the TV. Déjà vu cast a stranglehold on his throat. Twins? On their twenty-first birthday? The footage changed to a different camera angle and Bentz watched as Detective Andrew Bledsoe, a few pounds heavier than Bentz remembered, flecks of gray showing in his black hair, talked to the reporter. Bledsoe, appearing serious and troubled, offered her nothing concrete, but Bentz knew the truth.

He fell back on his cheap pillow and felt sick inside.

The cops weren’t saying much, but Bentz could read between the lines.

The Los Angeles Police Department feared that the Twenty-one killer, the madman who had taken lives in the past and gotten away with it, was back.

And back with a vengeance.

“I’m sorry!” Bentz said, his voice echoing as it reached her from the other side of the tunnel, “This is something I have to do.”

“No! Don’t go! Rick, don’t leave me! Don’t leave us!” Olivia ran after him through the darkness, her legs pumping but feeling wooden, her feet tripping on the rails and gravel of the track. She pushed forward, her heart pumping. He wasn’t that far ahead of her, but he was backing up, still facing her, but running away.

“Rick!” she screamed. “Stop!”

“I can’t.”

“But the baby. Rick, we’re going to have a baby!”

Another noise, loud and fierce. The thunder of a heavy engine, the clack of wheels against rails.

Bentz turned away as if he hadn’t heard her and continued moving through the cavernous tunnel, leaving Olivia gasping, racing, trying to outrun the huge engine with its ominous light bearing down on her.

No!

A whistle blasted, shrieking so loudly she thought her eardrums would shatter.

No! Oh, God, no!

“Rick! Help!” she cried as the end of the tunnel seemed to shrink, becoming smaller and farther away.

Her heart drummed and her legs were heavy, so heavy.

“Bentz!” she tried to scream, but her throat was strangled, her voice a whisper.

He turned back toward her for a second and she saw his badge, catching in the bright sunlight. “I can’t,” he said as the day turned to night and suddenly he wasn’t alone. A woman was with him, a beautiful woman with long dark hair and crimson lips. She took his hand, linked her fingers through his, and smiled with malice and glee as she pulled him away.

“No! Wait! Rick-”

The train thundered ever closer, the tracks quaking. She stumbled, barely able to right herself.

A horrific whistle shrieked while brakes squealed. The sound of metal screeching against metal was deafening, the smell of burning diesel acrid in her nostrils.

Steam swirled all around her.

Help me! Help my baby!

But her prayer fell on deaf ears as steam and shrill noise reverberated through the tunnel.

“No!” she yelled, startling herself awake.

Her heart was pounding, her body drenched in sweat, the sheets of her bed twisted. Dear God. It was a dream. Only a flippin’ dream. Taking in deep breaths, she glanced at the clock. Three-fifteen. Still a few hours before she had to get up and dressed for a day at the shop.

She sat upright, pushed her hair from her eyes, and realized her fingers were trembling, the residual effect from the nightmare.

From his dog bed on the floor, Hairy S lifted his scruffy head. His ears pricked forward and his little tail beat against his bed hopefully. “Oh, sure,” she said. “Come on, jump up!”

He didn’t need a second more of encouragement. The dog hopped from his bed, made a running leap, and landed near Olivia’s pillows. After washing her face enthusiastically, he burrowed under the covers and she stretched out again. With one hand she scratched Hairy behind his ears. His warm body curled close to hers.