Lisa Jackson - Malice

Then Hayes had segued to Jennifer the ghost, and Bentz had recalled how he’d seen her in his hospital room back in Louisiana. How he’d determined that the woman “haunting” him was actually a real flesh-and-blood imposter, one he’d stupidly driven along the coast. They’d stopped at Devil’s Caldron, the park overlooking the sea, where she’d made the tragic leap into the ocean that had killed her.

“Well, tomorrow morning we should have some answers about your ghost. Or at least, your ex-wife,” Hayes had said. The detective had cut through bureaucratic red tape and arranged for the exhumation of Jennifer’s body, scheduled for the next morning. A step in the right direction.

Bentz was questioned about Shana McIntyre and Lorraine Newell. Hayes brought up the Caldwell twins, asked what he knew about the double homicide so similar to the Springer twins’ case. “We’ve been through this before,” Bentz had said, knowing that Olivia was waiting for him. He was tired, hungry and could offer them nothing more than the truth.

“Look, I can say all this a million ways,” he’d said, “but it won’t change what happened. I had nothing to do with Shana’s murder or Lorraine’s, and I don’t have a clue what happened to those twins. It sounds like the Twenty-one or a copycat. That they were killed after I returned to Los Angeles…I agree, there seems to be a connection. Am I a catalyst? I hope to hell not, but I don’t know. It would be quite a coincidence, and I don’t have a lot of faith in those.”

Bentz looked up as the door opened and Hayes stepped in. “Is she out there?” Bentz asked.

“Not yet,” Hayes said.

An icy dread chilled Bentz. “What do you mean? They should be here by now. Would you give me my damned cell phone back?”

“Procedure, man.” Hayes held up his hands defensively. “You’ll get it back just as soon as we’re done here. Martinez is tracking down Petrocelli right now.” Across the table, his tie loosened, Hayes looked as bone weary as Bentz felt. “I just need to get a few more things on the record.”

Bentz raked one hand through his hair. “And that would be?”

“At Devil’s Caldron today, did the victim know you were armed?”

“She saw my gun. Made some comment about it earlier in the car.”

“So you were chasing her with a gun.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t take it out of my holster. She knew I wouldn’t fire at her.”

“How would she know that?”

Good question. “Because she knows me. She knows things about me only Jennifer knew.” His guts ground as he admitted, “It seems like every time I learned something I didn’t know about Jennifer from one of her friends, that friend ended up dead. Almost…I know this sounds crazy, but it’s almost as if they were expendable and had served their purpose.” He looked at Hayes and shook his head. “It’s pretty damned freaky. Like she was one step ahead of me. She seemed to figure out my next move before I even made it. Damn it, Hayes, she knew I’d be at the airport.” And as he said the words, a new horror crawled through him. “Oh, God,” he whispered, “Olivia.”

“What?”

His mind was racing ahead, fueled by adrenaline and stark, gut-churning terror. If “Jennifer” knew his whereabouts, would she have been tracking Olivia’s, too? “My wife. I told you about the menacing calls she’s been getting. What if this psycho’s after her, too?”

“But Jennifer or whoever she is, is dead now, right? You witnessed her jump into the sea.”

“I know.” But he couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that clung to him.

“We’ve been over this,” Hayes reminded him. “Petrocelli met her at the airport.”

“Then where the hell are they?” He couldn’t help the terror pulsing through his veins, pounding in his ears. He glanced at his watch. “They should be here by now.”

“Maybe Olivia decided to check into a hotel? Get settled in somewhere instead of waiting around here.”

“No way.” Olivia had been as desperate to see him as he was to see her. He’d heard it in her voice.

Hayes sat back in the chair and slung his loose tie over one shoulder. “Look, you saw this Jennifer jump off the cliffs into Devil’s Caldron, right? So your wife is safe.”

Bentz wasn’t certain. Nothing made sense anymore. Everything he believed in had gone sideways or turned upside down. He rubbed a hand over the stubble covering his jaw and tried to think clearly. Logically. Find the nugget of truth woven into so many lies. “Let’s just get this interview over.”

“We’re done here.” Hayes rose, straightening his tie. “But I’ll need you to ID the woman we found at Devil’s Caldron. The morgue isn’t far.” He opened the door and nodded toward the squad room. “Martinez will help you get your vouchered possessions, and then we can go.”

While Hayes went over to his desk, Riva Martinez led Bentz down the hall to the property desk.

“Hey, my wife didn’t show up yet, did she?” Bentz asked her, trying to keep a cordial tone. “Olivia Bentz?”

“Not yet. I called Petrocelli’s cell, but she didn’t pick up.” Riva Martinez smiled at the property clerk, then started filling out the paperwork. As she handed him his gun, the look she sent Bentz could have cut through granite.

Bentz slung the holster over one shoulder, wondering what he ever did to piss off Riva Martinez. Maybe it was just the fact that her caseload had doubled since he’d returned to L.A.

“They should be here by now,” he said, concern mounting. “It’s not that far.”

With a shrug, she handed him the bin containing his cell phone, wallet, house keys. “Probably traffic. Last week there was an accident on the 405, made me forty minutes late for my shift.”

She nodded toward the paperwork. “Sign here to verify that you got everything back.” After he signed, she gave him a copy of the receipt, then turned and walked briskly down the corridor.

Bentz watched her leave, the bad feeling in his gut worsening as she disappeared behind a tall rubber tree. Something was wrong.

As he headed back to the squad room, Bentz powered up his phone. No messages from Olivia. “Damn it.” He dialed her. Got nowhere. “Come on, come on,” he whispered as uniformed cops and detectives passed by. His call went to Olivia’s voice mail box and he asked her to call him ASAP, then hung up.

This wasn’t like her.

Relax. She’s with a cop. Who knows what’s holding them up? Maybe a problem with her luggage, or they stopped to get something to eat. Maybe her cell phone battery is dead… But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. He speed-dialed Montoya, who picked up before the second ring.

“Montoya.”

“Got your call,” Bentz said.

“Yeah, I just talked to Hayes. I sent him information on the owner of the Chevy, Yolanda Salazar. A relative sold it to her for cash. She never changed the title, which isn’t a big deal, but the kicker is this: Her name is Yolanda Valdez Salazar. She’s the older sister of Mario.”

“What? Are you kidding me? Mario Valdez’s sister,” Bentz repeated, stunned. But he knew from the tone of Montoya’s voice this was no joke. In a second he was back in the dark alley, a person aiming a gun at Trinidad…

A silver glint of moonlight on the black gun barrel.

Panic tearing through his heart.

“Police. Drop it!” he yelled in warning.

But in the next instant, the gun didn’t fall away.

He’s going to shoot! He’s going to shoot Trinidad!

As the realization throbbed in his brain, Bentz pulled the trigger.

And the gunman went down…

Now, a dozen years later, that fatal moment was still emblazoned in Bentz’s memory. The rush of relief that he’d saved his partner’s life had quickly given way to horror when he saw that the gunman was just a kid, a boy with a toy pistol. It was a nightmare Bentz would never be able to put completely behind him. “Sweet Jesus,” Bentz said, half to Montoya, half to himself.