Lisa Jackson - Malice

“Who are you?” Defiance in her tone. Even belligerence.

“I thought you might want breakfast.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Let’s see, I’ve got a sandwich. Peanut butter. Nontraditional for the morning meal, but it’s all I could scrape together.” As I reach in my bag I feel her rising in the cage.

“Let me out.” She’s on her feet, facing me through the bars, staring me straight in the eyes. She’s calmer than I’d expected or hoped.

I lift my chin. “I don’t think so.” What kind of idiot does she take me for?

“I won’t press charges.”

She’s serious. Desperate. Good. I like that attitude much better.

“Oh, yeah, right. I believe that,” I mock. She’s being stupid. “After all the hard work I went through to get you here, do you really think I’m just going to release you? Give me a break, you’re smarter than that.”

“Why are you doing this? Who are you? Not Sherry Petrocelli.”

“Ding!” I say, pushing an imaginary button. “Score one for the blonde in the cage.”

“What do you want from me?” she pressed. She was single-minded. Just like Bentz.

“Nothing,” I say honestly. “From you.”

“This is about my husband.”

“Bingo. Now you’re up to two right answers. Another one and you’ll be in the bonus round.”

“You think this is a joke? A game?” she asks, glaring at me as if I’m crazy, when she’s the one locked up.

“A joke? No.” I feel the boat sway a little, smell the scent of the beasts who were locked up before her. “A game? Possibly. Only I know the outcome and you, I’m afraid, don’t.”

“Fill me in.”

God, she’s ballsy! What the hell is she doing trying to get information from me? Asking questions when she should be submissive and fearful and begging for her life? I’m the one in charge. Doesn’t she get it? “You don’t need to know anything.”

“Do you know my husband?”

“RJ? Oh, yeah.”

“So you’ve been pretending to be Jennifer?”

I can’t help but laugh. Then I make a low, flat sound. “Meeeep. Sorry, you just lost. No lightning round for you! And not even lovely parting gifts. You just get to stay here. Alone. That’s your prize.” She doesn’t even break a smile, the humorless bitch. “Look I don’t have a lot of time, so I thought I’d show you something, give you something to eat, and get going. Let’s see.” I make a big deal out of looking through my bag, then slide the wrapped sandwich and a can of Dr Pepper through the bars. I’m wearing gloves, just in case something goes wrong. You can’t be too careful. I leave her miserable breakfast in the cage, but she ignores it.

Fine. If she wants to starve herself, it’s no skin off my nose.

But I’m sure her tough facade is about to crack. She’ll have more interest in the family album, I’m certain.

I open the scrapbook carefully and turn to one of my favorite pages, the Christmas section. There’s a photograph with Jennifer sitting in an overstuffed chair, Rick at her side, his hand placed possessively on her shoulder. A lit Christmas tree fills one corner of the shot and Kristi, a toddler with a big smile and a cockeyed red bow in her hair is balanced on Jennifer’s lap. “I know it’s not the holiday season, but I thought I’d share this with you.”

I lay the open album on the floor, just out of reach, on my side of the cage. She glances down disdainfully, but her hard shell cracks a little. Fear and outrage begin to show as she looks at the photos in the open album.

“What is this?” she asks in the barest of whispers. The album got to her. Finally. “Where did you get it?”

“Just something to think about,” I say.

“Why?”

“So you can see for yourself that the man you married was obsessed with his first wife. I think everyone should have a little clarity; a little understanding before they die.” I smile again. “It’s only a matter of time, you know.”

And then, while she’s still stunned, I reach into my athletic bag again and retrieve my digital camera. Aiming and shooting quickly, I catch her horrified expression.

The picture is perfect.

“Your husband? He’s going to love this shot,” I assure her, as I look at the picture I’ve captured. “Just love it.” Then, feeling victorious, I pack up my things and hurry up the stairs.

Let her think about her bleak future.

The woman was mad, Olivia thought. Cold, calculating, and mad as a hatter.

And obsessed with Bentz.

As Olivia stood imprisoned in the cage, gently rocking with the boat, fear slithered through her like a nest of tiny worms. She stared at the photo album left only a few feet from her cell. Opened to the page with the twenty-odd-year-old Christmas picture, the leather-bound volume was thick. Its plastic-coated pages had been filled with snapshots and clippings and cards, the work of an obsessed, sick mind.

Why?

Who was she?

Why was she so intent on Bentz?

Not that it mattered; the important thing was that Olivia had to escape. And soon. How, she didn’t know, but she had to find a way because she was certain that she was scheduled to die.

She just didn’t know when.

She noticed something else on the pages. Red smudges like…drops of blood? Crimson drips staining the photographs and smeared over the plastic. Oh, God. Whose blood? This maniac who held her? Or someone else’s?

Jennifer’s.

This woman is consumed with her.

No way! Jennifer was long dead.

Olivia was suddenly and violently nauseous. In an instant, she knew she was going to throw up. She scrambled across her cell and barely made it to the bucket before she retched though there was little in her stomach but acid and bile.

Again!

Her insides protested and she felt weak.

It couldn’t be morning sickness. Not like this.

No, she was certain, this had nothing to do with her pregnancy. She was reacting to the horror that had become her life.

Bentz felt as if he hadn’t slept a wink. He’d spent most of the night trying to find a clue as to what had happened to Olivia. Where she was. If she were still alive.

He’d pulled up Olivia’s cell phone records online and seen that the last call she’d taken was right after he’d spoken with her after she’d landed at the airport. No doubt the brief call was from Sherry Petrocelli’s number. He’d dialed that number just in case he was wrong, but a taped recording threw him into Petrocelli’s voice mail.

According to phone records, after the call from Petrocelli, Olivia hadn’t spoken to anyone; there were only short, one-minute calls from a couple of numbers: his and Hayes’s. “Shit,” he’d said, frustrated as hell. He’d called Hayes, given him the info, then reminded the detective that there was a G.P.S. locator in his wife’s phone.

Bentz had gotten nowhere with the cell phone company on that one; Hayes would have to use his police department influence to pry out any information he could from them.

After digging through the cell phone info, Bentz had been up most of the night on the computer, searching for anything he could find on Yolanda Salazar and Fernando Valdez. He studied the DMV photo of Fernando that Montoya had sent, wondering what the kid was up to. Most of the information Yolanda and Sebastian Salazar had given them the night before had checked out, including the name of the restaurant where her brother worked. Sebastian had told Hayes that Fernando worked the afternoon shift at the Blue Burro, and Bentz intended to pay the guy a visit later in the day. Bentz was tired of playing by the rules; he just wanted answers and he wanted them fast.