Lisa Jackson - Malice

He told himself that he was imagining things, that the exhumation had weirded him out, but he walked toward the area where he’d thought he’d seen the branches move. As he approached he was certain he caught a glimpse of eyes peering at him! Green eyes, so like Jennifer’s, studying him through the thick mist.

His pulse skyrocketed.

“No way,” he said between clenched teeth. But despite his denial, he had to check it out. Picking up speed, he broke into a jog, his gaze fastened on the area where he’d first caught sight of the voyeur. As he spurred himself forward, his knee and thigh protested, but he gutted it out. Upon reaching the fence, he vaulted over, landing with most of his weight on his good leg.

No one was in the scrub brush of the vacant lot. No green eyes were staring at him. But he’d been certain someone had been here, watching…waiting, anticipating that he’d be at the exhumation; someone who knew where Olivia was.

Hell.

He pressed forward to a small copse of trees that stood still and quiet in the swirling fog. But he had seen her here, before she slipped through the sycamores and scrub brush.

A ghost in the mist.

“Where are you, you bitch?” Methodically, he searched the area, a strip of trees, grass, and brush between the cemetery and the subdivision abutting it.

He strained to listen. No twig snapped, no footstep over the sound of his own heartbeat and breathing. He heard only the sounds of muted traffic and voices from the men working on the exhumation.

Frustrated, he peered over the fence that edged the tree line and again saw nothing. No one.

No one was here, he told himself. Just you and your paranoia. A mirage you conjured in your tired and willing brain.

He took one last sweeping look, but found nothing.

“Hell.” He climbed over the fence again, paid no attention to the pain in his leg, and decided he was going to take the law into his own hands. He knew that Hayes and the LAPD were doing their best to locate Olivia, but they were playing by the rules, doing everything by the book, and he didn’t give a damn about what protocol should be used, or whether he was compromising the damned case.

Olivia was missing.

Maybe already dead.

Bentz wasn’t going to mess around any longer.

He’d do whatever it took to find his wife.

“Screw this.” Montoya hung up the phone. He wasn’t one to sit on the sidelines when the action was elsewhere. Bentz was in trouble, seeing ghosts, for God’s sake. Now Olivia was missing. Bentz was going even further around the bend, and there wasn’t a whole helluva lot he could do from here in New Orleans.

So California, here I come.

He had the next two days off anyway, and there was some leave he could use if he needed it. He didn’t even wait for the end of his shift, just told Jaskiel that he wanted to take a few hours comp time, and walked out the door.

On the way home he called Abby at work and gave her the same word. Fortunately she was cool with it.

“Do what ya have to do,” she told him. “But be careful, would you? Come back in one piece. I’m not great at playing Nancy Nurse.”

“You got it.” He hung up smiling. At the house he packed a quick bag, then jumped into his Mustang again and headed to the airport.

Hayes returned to the office to find Bledsoe on a rampage, trying to build a case to nail Bentz for any and all crimes committed in L.A. and the surrounding area for the last week.

“I’m tellin’ ya,” Bledsoe reiterated when Hayes ran into him in the men’s room. “If Bentz hadn’t shown up, five people that we know of would be alive today.” He zipped up, then made a pass at the sink. “Ask the family members of McIntyre, Newell, Esperanzo, and the Springer twins what they think.”

“They’re not cops.”

“Oh, and add Donovan Caldwell, Alan Gray, and even Bonita Unsel to the mix. I’ve talked to them all; they think Bentz is our doer.”

Hayes shook his head. “Again, not cops.”

“Unsel was.”

“With a major grudge. She and Bentz had a thing.”

“Big deal. Bentz was quite a swordsman in his day. Cut a pretty wide swath through the department.” Then with a smarmy grin Bledsoe added, “Even your girlfriend hooked up with him a few times.”

Hayes had expected the zinger; it was just Bledsoe’s style. “You talked to Alan Gray?” Hayes asked.

Bledsoe nodded. “He’s back in town. Well, back in Marina del Rey, where he’s got his yacht moored. Hates Bentz.”

“Then maybe he’s setting him up,” Hayes suggested.

“Gray has too much money and power to be bothered with a pissant nobody like Bentz.”

“Didn’t he steal Jennifer from Gray?”

“You think he cares?” Bledsoe scowled. “Alan Gray has enough girls to make Hugh Hefner jealous.”

“Don’t tell Hef,” Hayes said. “And Gray’s a competitive guy. My guess is he doesn’t like to lose. Nobody does.”

“But to wait so long? What is it…like twelve or thirteen years?”

“Longer,” Hayes said. “Jennifer was with Gray before she and Bentz were married. More like twenty-five or thirty.”

“Alan Gray has better things to do than harbor a thirty-year-old grudge. Christ, Hayes, get real.”

Hayes couldn’t help the irritation that crawled into his voice. “You and I both know that Bentz is innocent. You’re just pissed at him.” Hayes took a position in front of another urinal. “Let it go, Bledsoe. You’re a better cop than that.”

“And you’re not looking at this clearly. You’ve got blinders on, man. We’re searching the wrong direction; we should be looking at Bentz with a freakin’ electron microscope.” Bledsoe pushed open the door and stepped into the hallway as a toilet flushed.

Trinidad, newspaper tucked under his arm, emerged from the stall and glanced at the doorway. “Bledsoe’s a prick,” he said, moving to the sink to wash his hands.

“Old news, Russ.”

“But he’s a good cop. His instincts are usually right on.”

“He’s tryin’ to make a case against Bentz.”

“No, he’s not.” Trinidad reached for a towel. “He’s sayin’ look at the man more closely.” He wiped his fingers and wadded the towel, tossing it into the wastebasket with the skill of a high-school jock. “Wouldn’t hurt.” He paused. “Bentz thought he was saving my life and killed a kid. An honest mistake, but it doesn’t make me think Bentz is a saint. He’s made his share of mistakes just like the rest of us. Personally, I think some sick son of a bitch is setting him up. That’s who we should be trying to find.”

Hayes finished peeing and shook off as Trinidad left the room. Maybe Bledsoe and Trinidad were right. There was a chance that, in his efforts to defend Bentz, Hayes hadn’t really looked at him, seen his flaws, put together a complete history of the man. He believed that someone was setting him up, he believed that it had to do with his ex-wife, and therefore it was personal.

Someone had a razor-sharp ax to grind.

It was just a matter of finding out who.

Bentz squeezed the steering wheel, trying to reaffirm the line between reality and delusion.

Had he seen Jennifer?

Was that crazy woman who dived into the ocean really still alive and taunting him, or had her vision been a figment of his tired but overactive imagination? He didn’t have an answer as he drove directly to Encino. All he knew for certain was that his last hope, that of locating Olivia through her cell phone’s G.P.S., had been destroyed.

Crushed.

He’d staked so much on the possibility of being able to locate her through her cell phone.

But he’d been wrong.

Again.

So here he was back in Encino, chasing another ancillary lead. He was tired to his bones, lack of sleep and worry eating at his guts, but he couldn’t stop. Not until he found Olivia.