Lisa Jackson - Malice

Bentz sprang from under the steps. Holding up his badge, he blocking the kid’s path. “Fernando Valdez? Freeze. Police!”

“Shit!” Fernando started to turn, but Bentz was ready and grabbed him by the forearm. Hard enough to make Fernando cry out. “Ouch! Hey! Let go of me!”

“I wouldn’t resist, if I were you,” Bentz warned him, his leg acting up. Not now! His knee couldn’t give out now. “You’ve got no priors, a clean record. You might even have a future if you cooperate now and give up your girlfriend.”

“What? You’re crazy! Let go of me!” Fernando yanked hard on his arm, but Bentz held on tight.

“Look, you’re going to tell me who, what, when, and where, everything you know about this freaky scam involving the Impala and the woman who is pretending to be my ex-wife. Who’s behind it. Where the hell the girl who’s pretending to be Jennifer is and most importantly where my wife is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

“Give it up, Valdez, it’s over.”

Recognition finally registered in the kid’s eyes.

“I mean it.”

“You?” he said, his lips curling in revulsion as he finally put two and two together, putting Bentz’s face to his name. “I should trust you? The pig who killed my brother?”

“You’d better, or I’ll haul your ass into jail so fast your head’ll spin.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Fine. We’ll do this at the station.” Bentz started marching him to the parking lot, figuring he could get some assistance from the guard in the booth there.

As they moved away from Sydney Hall the kid tried to worm away, pulling with such force that Bentz had to will his leg not to buckle as he yanked back.

“Look, don’t think you’re going to get out of this,” Bentz growled. “I’m not messing around.”

“Leave me alone, you prick!”

“Can’t do it.”

“What the hell do you want from me?” The boy’s face was set. Hard. Dusk shadowed the sharp angles of his jaw.

“I already told you, just the truth.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, right.” With his free hand, Bentz pulled out his cell phone and pressed the speed dial button for Hayes. It rang. Once. Twice. “Come on, come on!” Three times. “Hell.”

For once the detective picked up. “Hayes.”

“It’s Bentz. I’ve got Fernando Valdez.” They were still marching toward the gym. A few passing students eyed them curiously, but no one stopped to ask what was up.

“What?” Hayes asked. “You found him?”

“At Whitaker College.” He glanced at Fernando. “Seems he didn’t want to miss his seven o’clock.”

Fernando gave a tug and Bentz reciprocated, his fingers digging deep into muscles and tendons.

“Shit, man!” the kid whispered, but he quit trying to break free.

“I’m already on my way,” Hayes said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.”

“Just get here,” Bentz said. “I’m armed, but I don’t want to have to hurt him.”

Bentz felt the younger man tense, heard him swear under his breath in Spanish. The kid was finally scared, too.

“Meet us at the west parking lot,” Bentz said. “Near the guard booth.”

“Got it.”

Bentz ended the call. As he tucked his phone back onto his belt, the kid tried once more to break away, and Bentz felt the strain on his sore leg. He growled, wincing. Strain caused beads of sweat to form on his brow.

“I didn’t break any laws,” Valdez insisted. The curl of his lip suggested he was glad to cause Bentz some pain.

“I can’t help you until you help me,” Bentz said. “If you’ve got a brain in your head, you’ll start talking about the girl you loaned your car to. The one you set up to pretend to be my wife.”

“You’re crazy. Loco. I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about!” Fernando insisted, but there was a hint of fear in his dark eyes, a second of hesitation, as if he, too, felt the night and justice closing in.

“It’ll go a whole lot easier if you give it up before you’re arrested.”

“Arrested? Are you out of your mind?”

“You tell me.” They reached the edge of the parking lot. From here he couldn’t see the campus security guard who had been patrolling the area on foot earlier. Where are they when you need them? Bentz wondered, scanning the parking lot as he warned Fernando, “You’ve got about three minutes to talk before Detective Hayes shows up,” Bentz said, wishing he could squeeze the words out of this kid. The truth…the answers…the location where he’d find Olivia. “If I were you, I’d want to go on record as being cooperative. Right now the LAPD wants you behind bars.”

“Let them arrest me,” Fernando said. “I got nothin’ to hide.” He glowered at Bentz with a dark gaze of pure hatred. “But you…look at you, sweating like the pig that you are. I hope whatever you’re going through, it stings like a bitch.”

Bentz didn’t release his hold on Valdez to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The Jennifer imposter had escaped him, but he was not going to let this one go. “Cut the theatrics, kid. You don’t have a chance of seeing sunlight from outside a prison wall if you don’t start talking. Tell me where your girlfriend is, and where are you holding my wife. You’ve been working with her from the start, right? Are you the runner? Do you take care of the dirty work?”

“Again, you’re talking crazy!”

“If I’m crazy, why are you the one going down for kidnapping?” Bentz said, thinking of Olivia trapped somewhere in a prison. His grip on the boy tightened. “Kidnapping…and just maybe a few counts of murder.”

The Blue Burro was hopping, the dinner crowd spilling into the bar where colorful piñatas and fake parrots hung from open beams painted in bold primary colors. Dressed in dark slacks and white shirts with bandannas at their necks, the waitstaff bustled through the connecting rooms, skirting around each other and patrons. They carried trays laden with food or opened up portable serving tables to prepare homemade guacamole. Every so often they stopped serving to assemble, plunk a huge Mexican hat on a customer’s head, and sing a special Mexican birthday song.

The place was festive and fun and brimming with customers.

Montoya suspected the police had been here searching for Fernando, so he decided to tread carefully, try to blend in. He pocketed his wedding band and took a seat at the bar, grabbing one of the few open stools next to the doors swinging into the kitchen. He ordered a scotch from a bartender who looked as if she could barely be twenty-one herself.

Lively Mexican music could barely be heard over the hum of conversation and clink of glasses, but Montoya listened intently, trying to hear something that might help him learn more about Fernando Valdez, his sister, the silver Impala, or the woman who had last driven it. Slowly, he sipped his drink, his gaze wandering to the mirror mounted over the bar so that he could unobtrusively watch the action behind him.

For a while inane chatter floated past him. But as he was close to finishing his drink, he heard Fernando’s name come up in bits of conversation floating through the swinging doors from the kitchen.

Something about him not calling in and a waitress complaining about being forced to stay through the crush of dinner to cover his shift. Though she liked the money, she was really inconvenienced and pissed as hell that he, of all people, would make her work a double, which was a real pain in the ass with the baby and all. She’d had to call her mother to bail her out and babysit the kid. Or something close. It was hard to tell, and Montoya only heard parts of the conversation: her side because her voice was so shrill.