Lisa Jackson - Malice

Where the hell had she gone?

Where, damn it?

He shook his hair from his eyes, willing her to appear.

Come on. Come on!

Give it up, Bentz, his mind taunted. She doesn’t exist. You know it. You’re chasing a damned figment of your imagination.

Fear, cold as the ocean, slid through him. He was cracking up. That was it. Oh, sweet Jesus…

Don’t give up! You saw her!

Treading water, he scoured the surroundings with his gaze-under the pier, along the pilings, near the shore, and beneath the shifty surface of the murky depths.

There was no sign of a woman in a red dress.

Or anyone at all. He spun around in the water, his bad leg dragging, his lungs tight as he eyed the undulating sea to no avail. Where was she? Where had she gone?

As people shouted above, he let the tide push him under the pier and through the supports. He swam, head above water, looking for any sign of her, any clue to where she’d been. He scanned the entire area. The beach was empty here. No one clung to the pier overhead, and he didn’t see anything bobbing in the water.

“Jennifer!” he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, his voice echoing crazily over the water and rush of the tide. He held fast to a barnacle-laden piling, searching again and again, breathing hard, willing her to appear. Come on, come on! Where are you?

“Jennifer!” he shouted again, spitting salt water. The smell of brine stung his nostrils as waves slapped over him, his wet clothes moving with the tide. He didn’t see anything or hear a response other than voices high overhead, feet pounding on the boardwalk. Still he tried to find her, or any evidence that she’d been here. He kept searching, releasing the piling and treading water as he squinted through the fog, straining to see any sign of movement along the long stretch of darkness beneath the pier.

Nothing but darkness…the play of shifting shadows beneath the pier, but further out, beyond the overhang, streetlights cast an ethereal glow. The thin light was caught in the shifting fog while the neon glow of the amusement park rose like a blazing specter in the mist.

All unworldly.

All surreal.

Jennifer, or whoever she really was, had disappeared. He searched around each support post, eyeing the shadows and feeling as if cold death were lurking nearby. He held fast to one of the supports and called her name again and again, but it came back to him, his own voice, echoing hollowly over the rumble of the sea.

Shivering, he felt a fish glide past as he released the piling and swam toward the shore.

His heart thudded at the prospect of finding her, dead from the leap into the water, dead because she’d been running from him.

After luring you onto the pier…this is all part of her plan. Don’t go into the blame game; not yet.

And she’s not here. You’re alone.

The voices overhead were louder now, more of them, though, from down here they seemed disembodied, muted by fog and tide.

She’s not here. She was never here. You imagined her again. The red dress…it’s symbolic. Jennifer casting herself into the vast darkness of the water punctuated by the skeletal pier…

Dear God, what had happened to her?

Now the shouts on the boardwalk overhead were audible.

“I saw him, I tell you. Some guy jumped into the water.”

“You saw him? In this fog?”

“Yes! Damn it, some lunatic did a swan dive off the railing.”

“So now it’s a dive. Barney, you’ve been drinkin’ bad tequila again.”

“For the love of Christ, I’m tellin’ ya, a guy in a suit jumped off the goddamned pier!”

“There’s nothin’ down there.”

“How can ya tell? It’s so hard to see with the fog,” Barney insisted. “I called 9-1-1. The police should be here any minute.”

Good, Bentz thought. He could use a little help. He swam from under the pier, toward the shore, rolling with incoming waves. He was relieved to see the flickering lights of emergency vehicles on the ridge above the beach. As he clambered through the shallow surf a flashlight beam caught him from above.

“There he is!”

“I told ya!” Barney again, and other voices joined in as a crowd gathered overhead on the pier. Over it all, the sound of a siren screamed through the night, getting closer. Bentz dragged himself out of the water and up the beach. Cold to the bone, he slogged his way up the wet sand and turned back toward the water.

The lights of the city were blazing, the Ferris wheel casting an eerie reflection on the shimmering waters. He wondered about Jennifer in that cold dark bay. Was she hiding in the shadows, laughing at him, pleased that she’d goaded him into leaping from the railing? Or was she caught beneath the surface, entangled in seaweed, staring sightlessly upward as the red shroud of her dress billowed against her deathly white skin?

For the love of God, get a grip! He swiped a shaking hand over his face as several people ran up to greet him.

The couple he’d seen on the pier was the first to arrive.

“Hey, dude, are you okay?” The guy was in his twenties, his stocking cap pulled low over curls that sprang from the edges. He seemed genuinely concerned and called over his shoulder, “Hey, anyone got a blanket or something?”

“I’m fine.” Just cold, tired, and afraid I’m going out of my friggin’ mind! Bentz coughed. He couldn’t stop shaking. “There was a woman on the pier-she jumped into the water and I went in after her.”

The blond girlfriend shook her head. “I didn’t see a woman.”

“She was there at the end of the dock.”

“Is that why you were running?” Girlfriend asked. “I saw you throw away your cane.”

Bentz nodded as the sirens screamed closer.

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know, but we need a search.”

Bentz’s teeth began to chatter and he was shivering. The police cruiser, lights flashing, screeched to a halt at the end of the beach and two officers climbed out.

“He’s going into shock,” the older man who’d been smoking his cigar said.

Bentz shook his head and held up a hand to stop further nonsense. “No. Really. Just cold. I’m serious about a woman leaping off the pier, damn it! I saw her. She jumped in.”

“Let’s go!” Several guys took off running to the waterline, though Bentz had little hope they would find anyone. Jennifer, or whoever she was, had disappeared.

Again.

The old guy ripped off his too-large jacket that smelled of burned tobacco. “Here. You need this.”

Grateful, Bentz thrust his arms into the warm sleeves of the jacket, never taking his eyes off the shoreline, where the men were beginning their search.

“Sir?” called a low voice.

Bentz turned to see two officers from the police cruiser striding across the expanse of sand as a fire truck and rescue vehicle arrived.

“We have some paramedics here to assist you,” one of the uniforms said.

“It’s all right. I’m a cop.” Bentz dug into his pocket and found, thankfully, his waterlogged wallet and badge. He handed it to the officer. “I don’t need the ambulance. I’m okay, really, but you might want to get your search and rescue team in. I saw a woman jump from the pier.”

The cop nodded, his eyes assessing Bentz. “But, sir, you need to get checked out.”

“All I need is a smoke and someone to call Detective Jonas Hayes. LAPD Homicide.”

“Someone dead?”

Bentz shook his head. “Hayes is a friend of mine.” He forced a smile as the young kid came up with a Camel and a light, the first cigarette Bentz had smoked in a long, long while. He drew hard on the cigarette, felt the warm smoke curl in his lungs. Exhaled. “I used to work for the LAPD.”