Lisa Jackson: Malice

But Olivia didn’t sleep a wink.

The sound of his voice yelling Jennifer’s name echoed through her mind. She slid from beneath the covers and walked downstairs. She wrapped a fuzzy blanket around her, stretched out on the couch, and let the dog curl into her lap as she stared out the window at the rising moon.

Olivia didn’t know what was going on with her husband, but realized that somehow, some way, Rick’s first wife was causing a rift between them.

It was ridiculous. She’d met Bentz long after Jennifer had died and though she suspected he carried some guilt for his young wife’s death, for living when she lost her life, he seemed to have handled it well.

Until he’d spent two weeks in a coma.

Something had happened in those lost days when he’d been unconscious. Rick Bentz had changed. Which wasn’t unusual, considering the circumstances. He’d nearly died.

No one could escape such a trauma without some emotional scarring. Withdrawal and introspection were normal. The man had faced death, for God’s sake, so Olivia had granted him ample time to heal, not just physically, but emotionally as well.

But what the hell did Jennifer Nichols Bentz have to do with it?

She must’ve dozed because she was surprised to notice dawn seeping over the horizon. Deep shades of magenta and lilac streaked the eastern sky and she couldn’t stand lying on the couch another second. Her head ached and she decided to start the coffee. Decaf, she reminded herself as she walked into the bathroom and pulled out the small wastebasket beneath the sink.

Lying on the top of a pile of wadded tissues was the remains of her most recent pregnancy test, the package unmistakable, the test stick with its pink line still giving a positive reading, indicating that yes, indeed, Olivia Bentz was pregnant.

“Help me.” Jennifer’s voice was as clear as it had been the last time he’d seen her alive. “Rick…help me.” She was lying in the car, her face bloodied, her body broken, unmoving. And yet he’d heard her voice.

“You’ll be okay,” he said, trying to move closer to her, but his legs were leaden, weighted as if in quicksand. The harder he tried to reach her, the more distant she was, her face disintegrating before him.

Suddenly, her eyes opened.

“It’s your fault,” she said as the flesh peeled away, revealing only a skull with damning eyes. “Your fault.”

“No!”

Bentz’s eyes flew open and he found himself in bed. Alone. His heart was thundering, pounding in his brain, but over it all he heard the rumbling of a truck at the edge of the drive, then the clatter of garbage cans being lifted.

What the hell time was it?

Sunlight burned through the windows and he glanced at the clock. After nine. He’d finally slept. Fitfully, but for a long while. He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw and tried to dispel the nightmare of Jennifer.

Olivia had already left for the day.

Because she still has a life.

He curled a fist, angry at the world, then slowly straightened his fingers.

Oh hell, Bentz, get over your sorry self. This poor-pitiful-me act is wearing thin.

He gave himself a swift mental kick, used the john, then hobbled downstairs where coffee was still warming in a glass pot. She hadn’t left a note, but he knew she was meeting with a friend, a woman who worked with her in the shop. She and Manda had a standing date for café au lait, beignets, and gossip at the Café Du Monde on Decatur. They read the paper and people-watched as they sipped their steaming brews from outdoor tables.

Bentz poured himself a cup of coffee, let the dog outside and, while Hairy S sniffed around the edges of the veranda, he stared into the woods where only a few days earlier he’d been certain he’d seen Jennifer.

Or someone who looked so much like her it stole the breath from his lungs.

Of course she hadn’t been out there; he’d checked the spot where she’d stood between the two bleached cypress trees. There had been no footprints on the ground, no bit of trace evidence left to indicate anyone had recently been in the spot where he would’ve sworn on his daughter’s life he’d seen his first damned wife. Ex -wife. They hadn’t been married at the time of her death.

If she’d really been killed in that freak accident.

Bentz had always thought the “accident” had been Jennifer’s way of escape. A suicide, though it was a damned messy way to take care of things.

He figured she’d felt so guilty not so much about cheating on him-more than once-but because she’d been caught in bed with another man. Bentz’s own half brother. Even now, years later, he still felt the rage that had ripped through him as much from the sting of her infidelity as the fact that he’d been stupid enough to trust her again.

So she’d taken herself out, left him to raise their daughter alone. She’d even written a suicide note, explaining her actions, her guilt.

At the time Bentz had been certain that the woman behind the wheel of the battered van had been Jennifer, and he’d buried her as such. There had been no DNA tests, no blood taken. Just his word that his wife was the driver.

Now, as he stared at that area at the edge of the swampland where he’d witnessed his latest “Jennifer sighting,” he felt a little tickle upon the back of his neck, as if someone were silently observing him. He turned quickly, teetering slightly, his eyes trained on the windows of his home.

Nothing.

No one was watching him from inside the house.

Or standing behind a magnolia tree outside peering at him.

He let out his breath slowly.

Ignored the sense of panic that gripped him.

For the love of God, Bentz, pull yourself together!

Was he going completely around the bend?

He knew he’d seen Jennifer, not just a few weeks earlier in this very spot and at the hospital, but other times as well. Once when he was sitting in the front seat of Olivia’s truck, waiting while she was taking in the dry cleaning, he’d been certain he had caught a glimpse of her. There was Jennifer, handbag clutched to her chest, hair scraped back in a ponytail, hurriedly crossing the street and disappearing into an alley. He’d gotten out of the truck, hobbled to the entrance of the alley, but had only spied a white cat slinking through a rotted fence while trash cans stood overflowing behind an old garage.

Another time he’d been sure he’d seen her strolling through a park, walking slowly around a fountain as sunlight caught in her hair, firing up the dark strands to a rich auburn. She had turned and looked over her shoulder and a slow, steady smile had stretched across her lips.

Her eyes had twinkled with a catch-me-if-you-can dare. He’d stopped his Jeep, double-parked and, using his cane, followed after her past the fountain only to find that she’d once again vanished.

Then there had been the incident in the woods near his house.

She’d seemed so real.

He was cracking up. That was it. Or hallucinating from the drugs he’d been prescribed. Trouble was, he’d kicked those damned painkillers a month ago.

Long before he’d seen Jennifer standing just off the edge of his veranda.

Or her ghost.

No way.

He didn’t believe in ghosts or anything the least bit supernatural or paranormal. He’d even had trouble swallowing his wife’s visions at the time a serial killer known as The Chosen One had terrorized New Orleans.

Yet he was certain that he’d seen her.

Really? Then she hadn’t aged much in the last twelve years, right? What’s up with that? Come on, Bentz, face it, you’re losing it.

“Hell’s bells,” he muttered under his breath, then took a long swallow before tossing the dregs of his cup into a flowerbed filled with flowers in shades of periwinkle and deep purple.