Lisa Jackson - Malice

To make matters worse, he saw Dawn Rankin walking through the squad room. She caught his gaze and her lips tightened a bit before she forced a smile and approached. “Back again?” she asked. “You just can’t seem to stay away, can you?”

“It’s business,” Hayes cut in, saving him. Dawn, as always, ran hot and cold. One minute Bentz thought she was long over him, had buried the hatchet; the next she was hissing with a forked tongue. He felt lucky that their relationship had been short.

“Let me know if I can help,” Dawn said with just a touch of sarcasm before she left.

“Piece of work,” Bledsoe said. “Maybe you were lucky to have hooked up with Jennifer Nichols after all.”

Bentz didn’t buy the other detective’s stab at camaraderie. Bledsoe, he knew, would just as soon kick him to the curb as help him. Fortunately Bledsoe’s cell phone rang and he drifted off, cradling a cup of coffee.

“So this is what we know,” Hayes said once he, Martinez, and Bentz had a little privacy. “The body in the grave was Jennifer’s. The prints on the Chevy are many and varied, but other than yours, Bentz, they don’t match anyone in the system. We’re still trying. There was no other evidence in the car and our search-and-rescue team did not recover the body of the fake Jennifer in the Pacific Ocean.”

“That’s because she’s alive. I saw her again.”

“What?”

“This morning,” Bentz said. “At the cemetery.”

“And you didn’t think it was important enough to tell anyone?” Martinez said.

“I wasn’t sure, okay?”

Hayes waved the dissension away. “So now we’ve got this photo and the envelope it came in. Since our perp has been careful so far, I’d be willing to wager these materials will be clean, but we’ll check for prints or DNA. And then there’s this.” He held up the security tape. “Let’s have a look, compare it to the pictures we got from the webcam at the Santa Monica Pier. And you,” he said to Bentz, “file a report with Missing Persons. Make it official. I’m sure the FBI is going to want to talk to you, too.”

Hayes as ever was dotting all his Is and crossing his Ts. Running the case by the book. All of which wasted time. As he had from the beginning of this madness, Bentz felt the grains of sand running in a river through the hourglass. The more time that went by, the more likely he would never find Olivia and that thought brought him to his knees. “What about Yolanda Salazar and her brother?”

“Still trying to locate him. He didn’t show up for work today, skipped his early class.”

“On the run.”

“Looks like.”

Damn! He’d thought Fernando was the key. The kid was the one person who would know the identity of the Jennifer imposter. He was probably working with her, an accomplice. They had to flush him out.

“He has to surface some time,” Bentz said. “Let’s go.”

Martinez hopped off the desk.

Hayes rolled his chair back and said, “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Martinez was already walking down the hallway, but she paused to throw a glance over her shoulder at Hayes. “Oh sure. And maybe my boyfriend, Armando, will get down on one knee with a three-carat diamond ring and propose tonight.” She snorted a laugh. “Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.”

The boat had never been set on fire. Not before or after her captor’s visit.

Olivia did not know why she had been spared a fiery death, but now that the day had worn on and she was still alive she felt calmer. Slightly. She knew the maniac who had duped and abducted her would eventually kill her, but not before she got what she wanted.

Which was…what?

Olivia had no idea, but she would be damned if she’d give the woman the satisfaction of killing her.

Reluctantly, Olivia had eaten the sandwich, which she’d half expected to be tainted. But no, she’d survived. And she’d drunk the can of soda as well as used the bucket to relieve herself. It was gross, but worked.

And all the while, she considered her fate.

One way or another, she had to escape. She couldn’t hope for Bentz or the police or someone else to come and rescue her. Nope, she thought, staring at the oar on the wall; she had to do it herself.

She looked around the hold, searching for anything that could help set her free, but there was nothing. Her eyes were drawn back to the oar. If she could somehow get hold of the long-handled blade, she could smack her jailer and knock her down and grab her damned keys. If the woman ever got close enough.

Oh, Olivia would like nothing better than to turn the tables on the bitch and lock her inside this stinky cage, then walk around with a damned stun gun and a gas can.

Again she studied the oar. Wooden, with narrow red, white, and blue bands painted near the blade, it looked heavy enough to knock a five-foot-six woman to kingdom come. And that was exactly what Olivia planned.

If she could just figure a way to reach it.

She felt the rock of the boat on its moorings and knew they were in some marina. She’d been told no one could hear her if she made a ruckus, but that was a lie. She heard seagulls crying and people shouting, engines catching and rumbling, but all the sounds were muted and it was probably because she was alone, aware of every little scrape of a rodent’s claws, or anticipating the sound of footsteps on the ladder.

She had cried out earlier, after the psychopath woman had left and she was certain she was going to be burned to death. She had removed her shoes and banged on the bars of her prison, creating a dull clang. But no one had heard her. No one had boarded the boat, the Merry-Anne if the faded name scrawled on the life jackets could be believed.

Now, her throat raw from screaming, she sat in a corner of the cell, watching the sunlight fade and the hold become dark again. It was unnerving. Creepy. And she refused to let her imagination run away with her.

Instead, she tried to figure a way out of her dire situation. There had to be a logical solution to the problem of how to save herself as well as her unborn child.

As a psychologist, she had studied the human mind. She had learned various therapeutic approaches for people who were losing a grip on reality. That was what she needed: a plan.

Right. She would have laughed aloud if she had the energy. Psychologists did not treat unwilling patients; at least, not with any degree of success.

She pulled her knees up and hugged them to her chest. How do you deal rationally with someone who has lost touch with reality? Someone lacking in sound moral judgment? Someone inherently evil?

“God help me,” she whispered as night fell and, once again, she was alone in the thick, stygian darkness.

“I’m sorry about your wife,” Corrine O’Donnell said as she finished with the Missing Persons report. Bentz had already spent several hours with the FBI and had ended up here, in Missing Persons. The paperwork was necessary, but he was crawling out of his skin, watching the minutes tick by.

“Yeah.” “Sorry” didn’t begin to describe the fear that slithered through him, the cold, stark terror of knowing that Olivia was in the hands of a madwoman.

“Try not to worry. We’ll find her.” She offered a smile and he remembered fleetingly that he’d cared for her, more as a friend than a lover, but they’d shared a lot in their on-again, off-again affair.

“You happy with Hayes?” he asked.

“Well…I’d like to say ecstatic, but, you know, at this age, we’re both carrying a lot of baggage, both careful because we’ve been hurt. Maybe too careful.” Then, as if she realized she’d fallen too easily into the trap of shared confidences, she said, “Just sign, here.” She pointed to a spot on the form, where Bentz scribbled his signature.