Lisa Jackson - Malice

This was personal.

Whoever was behind the hoax knew just how to get to him and had spent a long while pulling the scheme together. He doubted the mastermind was anyone he’d arrested and sent to prison. If one of the thugs he’d collared had a hard-on to get back at him, the jerk would have just done it. Taken a potshot at Bentz, knifed him in the street, blown up his car. Something deadly and finite.

This was different. Someone wanted to play psychological games with him. Someone he’d wronged personally.

Jennifer.

She was the one person he’d never forgiven and had let her know it. Even when they’d tried to get together a second time, Bentz had been guarded. Untrusting. Ready for the other shoe to drop. And drop it had.

Big time.

He passed a store selling sunglasses and beach paraphernalia, but barely paid attention as he reached the part of the pier that jutted out over the water, an arm that stretched into the Pacific and the thickening mist. Though there were streetlights offering illumination, the fog swirled and rose, creating an eerie luminous veil. One he couldn’t see beyond.

Only a handful of other pedestrians were around. One young couple, a guy in a stocking cap and baggy shorts was all over a blond girl whose hair was clipped to the top of her head. Entangled on the park bench, the two kids seemed oblivious to the rest of the world.

Young love, Bentz thought and flashed on Olivia and the way she made him feel whenever they were alone. As if he were the only man in the universe. Older love. He pulled out his phone to give her a call and noticed an old man smoking a cigar and resting against the rails. Sporting a trimmed goatee and shaved head, the man nearly drowned in a jacket that was several sizes too large for him. A slim runner in a baseball cap was leaning forward, his hands on his knees as he caught his breath from a workout. Farther west, closer to the end of the pier, shrouded in haze was a solitary woman.

Bentz stopped short.

In a red dress with long dark hair falling down her back, she faced away from him, staring out to sea.

Jennifer! She has a dress like that.

Bentz’s heart skipped a beat.

Had, he reminded himself. She had a dress like the one this woman was wearing, a knee-length shimmery thing with a nipped-in waist and no sleeves…Holy shit, it was identical to his ex-wife’s. He remembered Jennifer showing it to him after a day of shopping. “What do you think?” she’d asked, twirling in front of him, allowing the candlelight to play upon the soft folds of red silk.

“It’s nice.”

“Oh, come on RJ,” she’d cooed. “It’s way more than ‘nice.’”

“If you say so.”

She’d laughed then, throwing back her head. “Yeah, well, I do say so. I think it’s probably sexy. Or damned gorgeous.” With a lift of one dark eyebrow she’d backed her way down the hallway and into the bedroom and he, like a fish to a lure, had followed.

Now, his fingers curled over the handle of his cane.

Don’t go there, he told himself as he noticed the woman on the pier was barefoot. Jennifer always went barefoot at the beach. Oh, hell, don’t assume every shoeless slim woman with coffee-colored hair is Jennifer…no! He corrected himself. Don’t assume she’s the woman impersonating your ex-wife.

Nonetheless, drawn to the vision, he started walking west, toward the sea. His eyes were trained on her, searching for something that would expose her as a fraud, but she was too far away, the mist too dense. He walked faster. As if she sensed him following, she backed away from the rail and started walking quickly toward the end of the pier, where heavy fog rolled in, masking her image.

Bentz swallowed hard, tried to figure out what he would say to her. His pulse was pounding, thudding in his brain as he followed. This time, damn it, she wasn’t going to get away. There was no place to run.

And yet she seemed intent on escape.

He felt it.

Faster and faster he hurried, his cane hitting the planks of the boardwalk in a staccato beat, his leg throbbing.

He had no time for the pain.

Hurry, hurry, hurry, his brain screamed, catch her.

And what would he do when he tapped her on the shoulder and she wasn’t his ex-wife?

For Christ’s sake, don’t worry about that. Be more concerned if she is. What then, Bentz? What if she’s the damned look-alike or worse yet, Jennifer herself in the damned flesh? No ghost. Your ex-wife!

She, too, was hurrying, running barefoot toward the end of the pier, her legs flashing beneath her red hemline.

His leg was screaming in pain, thigh muscles on fire, hip aching, but he went into a dead run as he saw her, plunging into wisps of hanging fog.

Where was she going? She was running straight into the darkness, headed for the black night at the end of the pier.

Bentz’s lungs burned, his leg aching as she finally paused and braced the rail. At last! Now, finally he would have a chance to confront her.

But a moment later her hands reached out to the railing, bracing against it.

What the hell?

Without hesitation, she climbed onto the top bar, then over.

Oh, for God’s sake, she wouldn’t jump. Or would she? This was Jennifer. Daring crazy Jennifer.

“No!” he yelled.

For a heartbeat she balanced on the tiny edge, teetering. In that instant she glanced back, and Bentz drank in her beautiful face, her gaze locking with his. A split second later, she looked at the black water swirling around the pilings, gauging the distance, the depth. Oh, God, she was really going to jump!

“Stop! Jennifer!” he yelled.

One minute she was standing there, caught in a swirl of fog.

Then, before his eyes, she disappeared.

As if she’d actually leapt over the edge.

“No! Jen!” He rushed forward, running with dread prodding him on. “Oh, God!”

What the hell had happened? His eyes searched the gloom.

Did he hear a splash over the lapping tide?

Yes?

No?

God, where was she?

Confused, convinced he’d find her hanging from the railing, he grit his teeth and hurried to the rail to the very spot where she’d climbed over. Below the shifting water was dark as ink, no swimmer or body visible.

No Jennifer.

He yelled. Called her name.

He had nothing but a penlight. Still, he had to look. Moving gingerly, Bentz climbed over the rail and planted his feet on the thin ledge. The fingers of his left hand gripped the rail as he shined the small beam downward, but it did little to pierce the damned fog or illuminate much of the black water.

“Jennifer! Jesus, God! Jennifer!” he screamed at the dark swirling tide.

“Hey you!” some guy shouted frantically.

But Bentz didn’t look up, his eyes on the black churning waters below. Was she there? Hiding? Caught under water?

Or had it all been a vision of his willing mind? Had there even been a woman on the pier at all?

He didn’t know, but he couldn’t let her drown, whoever she was.

“Son of a bitch!”

He let go. The sea air rushing up at him, swift and furious.

He hit the water hard, the jolt of landing rattling his aching body. The cold began to seep through his skin as he sank fast, downward into the stark black depths.

Down, down, down. Into the night-black sea. Salt water closed around him as he kicked off his shoes and jacket, his eyes open and burning as he tried to penetrate the infinite darkness of the vast Pacific.

Nothing!

He searched the inky water, holding his breath, knowing she had to be here, somewhere. Close. Where are you? For the love of God, Jennifer!

His lungs were near bursting as he kicked, propelling himself upward, letting out a stream of air as he broke the surface. He gulped in air and cursed as he hunted for her.