Lisa Jackson - Malice

Olivia didn’t move. Not only was she scared to death but she wouldn’t give this lunatic the satisfaction.

“Oops, seems like Livvie is in a bad mood. Maybe she’ll talk when I leave. You’ll have quite a bit of time alone while I sail out into open water.

“I could kill her as easily as I did the others. My good friends Shana and Lorraine and Fortuna. I did miss Tally, but you know, sometimes you just can’t win ’em all, and I do have Livvie, now, don’t I? They helped me, those friends of Jennifer’s. They helped me learn so much about you, RJ, about Jennifer and your life together. Poor Jennifer. She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Told her friends every detail, from what you did together over the weekend to where you first made love. And her friends, they remembered.”

Olivia was dying inside, feeling the betrayal, knowing this psycho set them up to be used, then murdered.

“So you killed them?” Olivia said as the boat rocked slowly, creaking a bit with the motion of the water.

“Of course!” She shot Olivia an irritated glance that suggested Olivia was a moron. Or worse. “For a shrink, you sure have trouble connecting the dots. I had no choice but to kill those women. They might have put two and two together and ruined everything. And this way, the police department had to look at your husband again as the doer.”

“So you murdered five people, three of Jennifer’s friends and those twin girls.”

“Please!” She turned then, her face florid. “I did not have anything to do with that. That idiotic Twenty-one killer, he killed those twins. A repeat of the killings all those years ago, the Caldwell girls. That sick son of a bitch picked one helluva time to resurface,” she said, visibly shaking. “I can’t believe you would even suggest I would be a part of that! He’s a serial killer; gets his rocks off by killing innocents.”

“Not like you,” Olivia said, trying to keep her voice cool and calm.

“This is all part of a plan. It’s all about Bentz understanding.”

“But you killed innocents as well.”

“Shana McIntyre? Innocent? Never. Jennifer’s friends, they had to die. It’s different.”

“Dead is dead.”

“This is revenge. The Twenty-one, he’s just a sicko. He deserves to die.”

“You’re as sick as he is.”

For that she caught a malicious glare. “You stupid, stupid bitch. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You just don’t get it, do you?” She took in a big calming breath, her hands clenching and un clenching into fists as if she might fly into a rage at any second.

Which would be fine. Olivia would rather take her chances in a one-on-one fight than be trapped in this god-awful, foul-smelling cage.

“This isn’t about the Twenty-one, you idiot! Not tonight. This is about you,” she said, then looked into the camera. “And you, RJ. This-” She swept her arm in a gesture that indicated the hold with its cage. “This is the final act. It ends tonight. All the charades, all the pretending, all the years of waiting. All the time of being alone.” Her voice quivered a bit: “It’s finally going to be over. And do you know how?” She gloated into the camera. “Well, let me tell you.” Her smile widened. “I’m going to sink this boat. Tonight.”

“What?” Olivia gasped. A new terror crushed the breath in her lungs. Oh, dear God, she couldn’t be serious. But she knew in her heart that this woman, this killer with her vendetta against Bentz, was just demented enough to pull it off. “No,” she whispered, her insides turning to water. “Please, please, no.”

“Oh, yeah, I think so. The Merry Anne is sailing for the last time. With you on it.” Turning to face the tripod again, she added to Bentz, “I’m going to make sure this boat sinks slowly, and the camera will be trained on your wife, so that you can watch as the hold slowly but surely fills, water inching upward. Olivia, she’ll be cold at first, shivering and knowing that there is no escape, but she’ll try to find a way out, be desperate to save herself. You’ll see her panic and scream and cry, see each detail of her torturous, pathetic struggle as she gasps and chokes for air, treads water, forcing her lips and nose above the rising water, as she takes her last, dying breath and accepts her fate. You’ll witness the terror in her eyes, Bentz, and know that her fate was in your hands.”

“No! Oh, please.” Olivia was frantic. She had to stop this woman. “You can’t do this,” she said without thinking. “I’m…I’m pregnant.” Surely this sicko wouldn’t knowingly take the life of an unborn child.

“Impossible.” But she was shaken. “Bentz is sterile.”

“I’m not kidding! I’m going to have a baby! Another innocent life. You don’t want to be responsible for something like that.” It took all of Olivia’s strength to steel herself and not reveal that she was crumbling inside. “You don’t want to be a serial killer, right? A lunatic like the Twenty-one killer. You said that yourself. You’re different!” She was trying to find any way to reason with the killer.

“A baby?” she said, almost to herself, disbelieving. “Bentz’s? No…but…”

“It’s true!” Maybe she was making headway, appealing to this woman’s warped sense of values. “Please, really, you don’t want to hurt an unborn child.”

Still blindsided, the woman narrowed her eyes on Olivia. “What a sick, pathetic lie. You are not pregnant!”

Olivia moved closer. “I am. I’m going to have a baby!”

Her captor waved wildly in the air to dismiss the thought, but her equilibrium was shaken, her voice tinged with a new anger. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if by some miracle you are with child, well, all the better. Bentz can watch you and the baby die, all in living color. Hear that, ‘RJ’? Her death, and this fictitious baby’s, will be on tape and you can relieve her agony and fear and desperation over and over again. This is just so perfect. Worth every minute of the damned wait.”

“No! Listen, I don’t know who you are or why you’re doing this, but please, don’t,” Olivia said, screaming inside, but trying to keep her voice level. She saw that pleading for her life only fed into this maniac’s ego; she had to try a different tack, a diversion. “Tell me what your problem is with Bentz. Maybe I can talk to him-”

“Talk to him? Haven’t you been listening to me?” The woman clapped her hands over her ears, as if she needed to hold on so her head would not burst. “Don’t you get it?”

Olivia sensed that her captor was at a meltdown point, but she re fused to cower. She kept her gaze trained on her would-be killer. “Don’t do this,” she said evenly. “Please. Don’t-”

“Enough!” Her round eyes blazed with renewed fury. “You can blabber and beg all you want, but I’m not falling for it. Got that? It’s over. You’re going to die, ‘Livvie,’ and you’re going to die tonight.”

Jaw set, seething, but in control again, she double-checked the camera, then hurried up the stairs.

This time, she left the lights on.

Now the camera caught Olivia’s every move.

Staying perfectly still she heard noises above and then the sound of a big engine roaring to life. The floor below her shifted as the boat began to move.

“Oh God,” she whispered, spurred into motion. She paced the perimeter of the cage, checking and rechecking each bar, knowing they were sturdy. Immoveable.

No way out.

Her blood congealed as she considered her fate: Doomed to die at the hands of this twisted, deranged maniac, her baby never having a chance at life.

Olivia’s throat grew thick with regret.

She would drown on camera.