Lisa Jackson - Malice

Like so many things in my life, my strength and appearance took patience, timing, and determination. I didn’t give up cigarettes for nothing.

Sometimes, unfortunately, it’s necessary to take chances, to react to the moment. It’s nerve-racking, I admit as I stuff my hair into a baseball cap. So after those risky moments, I just have to gain my equilibrium again, retain my focus, remember my ultimate goal.

I pull on my running pants and zip up my jacket, then sneak off the craft. No one’s around at this hour, so I slip into the car unnoticed.

In the backseat, Sherry is all ready to go. Her clothes, badge, and purse sit beside her. “It’s very quiet back there,” I tell her.

Checking the rearview mirror, breathing slowly, I drive to a dead-end street about a mile from the restaurant where I met Sherry earlier. She and I go way back and it was a shame she had to be sacrificed, but the truth of the matter is that she always bothered me, a cop without any grit.

I park in a back alley and wipe off the areas where I might have left prints when I drove her away from the restaurant. I drop the latex gloves onto the backseat, douse it all generously with gasoline, and strike a match.

Hisssss!

The little flame glows bright for a second and I toss it through the open window onto the gloves. Combustion! The backseat ignites, burning quickly, setting the entire vehicle aflame.

Perfect, I think, starting to run when I see him. A guy on a motorcycle, cutting down the street behind me.

Oh, hell. My pulse skyrockets. Sweat beads on my forehead and hands. What if he saw me at the car? What if he can describe me? What if…

Calm down! He didn’t see you. He might find the burning car, but that’s what you want, remember? Just keep running.

Spurred by my own pep talk, I head out, cutting down back alleys, jogging at my regular pace, fast enough, considering everything I’ve been through.

I’m almost at the restaurant when I hear the sirens screaming. Fire trucks. Police cars. Probably a rescue vehicle. “Have at it,” I say as I spy my own car parked in an alley several blocks from the restaurant, as it has been for hours, patiently waiting.

I drive home without a hitch. After stripping off my running clothes and tossing them into the washer, I take a long warm shower, giving myself a little time to think about Bentz and how he’s suffering now. He’s sick with worry about his precious little wife. He’s all messed up about his dead one.

“Having fun yet, RJ?” I laugh while the steam rolls through the bathroom. As I shampoo my hair, then wash my body, my mind seizes on my next move, tomorrow’s plan. Bentz is in for a few more heart attacks before I’m done. Olivia is going to die…oh, yes, I think, running the loofah over my back and down my arms, inhaling the scented soap. But before she bites it, I want Bentz to twist in the wind until he nearly breaks.

I scrub my feet, then let the warm water cascade over me, washing away all traces of dirt, grime, and sweat. Finally, I step out of the shower and towel off, thinking of Olivia rotting in the bowels of the boat, scared to death, probably screaming her lungs out to no avail.

Didn’t I tell her not to waste her time? After grabbing my robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door, I throw it on and cinch the waist.

Now, time for the news. I walk to the living area with a quick pause at the refrigerator where I find a chilled pitcher of martinis waiting for me. I drop two olives in my stemmed glass, pour the cool concoction over them, and settle in the living area where I click on the television. There should be a lead in with “breaking news” about a car fire at Marina del Rey. I cross my legs and wait and see a familiar face on the screen.

Donovan Caldwell, that whiner, is being interviewed about the most recent double homicide-the Springer twins. He and the reporter are seated in a studio, backdropped by a huge screen upon which pictures of the two sets of twins are displayed. Four girls, their eyes wide as puppies’.

An obvious tug at the viewers’ heartstrings.

The reporter, a young woman with dark hair, huge eyes, and a concerned expression asks, “Do you think the killer who murdered your sisters is also responsible for the latest double homicide?”

“That’s exactly my contention,” he says fervently, an irate brother jabbing the air passionately. He’s a small, fit man in an Izod golf shirt and khaki pants. A perfect little goatee covers his chin and a faux-hawk of dirty blond hair keeps him “hip.” But he’s not out to impress anyone with his looks. No, he’s upset and flushed, all bristly anger. “I’m saying that if the LAPD had done its job right the first time and arrested the killer who murdered my sisters, two other lives wouldn’t have been lost.”

The camera zooms in on the victims, pretty girls with smiles so full of life.

“Oh, wah, wah, waah.” I take another cool, calming sip and search for another channel with my remote. Of course I realize that the dead twins are news, but they’re old news. Especially those Caldwell girls. They’ve been dead for over a decade…ancient history. And the little prick on the screen bugs the hell out of me. The nerve-grabbing my headlines. And that crack about the police department. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

I stare at the television and take a swallow.

Let’s get to the good stuff.

Where in the hell is the reporter who should be covering the car fire on the streets of Marina del Rey?

That’s the only story worth my time.

“We need to find Fernando,” Bentz said as Hayes drove back to the Center to drop off Martinez before taking Bentz to pick up his rental car. “I put in a call to him, but he didn’t pick up.”

“I thought I told you to back off.” Hayes was irritated. “This is my case.”

“And my wife.” Bentz was equally upset, worried sick.

“I know.” Hayes sighed, loosening the tie at his neck. “We’ll put a tail on Yolanda as well as watch the house for Fernando.”

“I’ll check with his job and school,” Martinez said. “We’ll try to track what he did today,” she was saying when Hayes’s phone rang again and he took the call.

In the backseat, Bentz was quietly going out of his mind, trying to piece together the disjointed case. Though it had started out with him being lured to Los Angeles in search of his first wife, it now involved Olivia, he was certain of it. And now finding her was his number one priority. But with no leads to go on he figured the best way he could find her was through working this case, tracking down the person who obviously had a vendetta against him.

If he could pull his emotions out of it and study what was happening with a cool, cop’s eye rather than his own passionate ardor, he could see that he was at the center of the case in the eye of a murderous hurricane. The person behind it all, the mastermind of the operation, was targeting Bentz.

From the ongoing investigations, the LAPD could find no reason for either Lorraine Newell or Shana McIntyre to be murdered individually; the link was Bentz. Though it was too early for the police to connect Fortuna Esperanzo, Bentz knew the deal. She wasn’t left in the ocean in clothes identical to those that “Jennifer” had been wearing because she’d decided to go swimming. No, she’d been murdered, and the killer wanted to make certain that Bentz knew Fortuna had been a target, linked to this mess with Jennifer.

However if the woman who looked so much like his ex-wife were behind it all, then why hadn’t it all come to a head earlier today, before she’d leapt into the ocean? Why risk her life? And how could she have been at the airport at the same time Fortuna had been dumped into the ocean?