Lisa Jackson - Malice

Her death recorded for posterity.

To be used to torture Rick Bentz for the rest of his life.

She knew it.

The maniac knew it.

And soon, unless some miracle occurred, it would be over.

Then Bentz would know it, too.

Bentz drove back to the So-Cal wired on caffeine, adrenaline, and just plain lack of sleep. And overriding all that sick energy was fear for Olivia. He was scared to death. The minutes were ticking by and he knew nothing more than he had earlier tonight.

Fernando Valdez had stonewalled them.

Bentz had stood on the other side of the glass ready to tear his hair out as the kid was interrogated for three hours. Hayes and Martinez went after him with questions peppered with some indication of the trouble he might be in, but Fernando responded by slouching in the chair, folding his arms, closing up.

“Who was this woman you loaned your sister’s car to? The silver Impala?” Martinez asked.

“Just…someone I know. A girl at school.”

“You got a name?”

“Jada. I don’t know her last name.”

That sent Bentz flying into the squad room, asking Bledsoe-who, unfortunately, was the only detective available-to run a search on a female, first name Jada, with a criminal record. Back in the interrogation room, Martinez was playing the good cop.

“Nice of you to help her out when she’s low on cash and everything,” she said. “Sounds like you’re a good friend. But did you know that Jada has been linked to several murders?”

Unbroken, sullenly Fernando shook his head.

“Did you help her kill some of those people?” Martinez asked. Her dark eyes softened. “Maybe you didn’t realize it. Maybe you just gave her a ride somewhere, not knowing what she was doing.” She shrugged. “As far as you know, you’re just helping out a friend.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t kill anyone.”

Finally a response.

“Come on, Fernando,” Hayes nudged. “We’ve got your fingerprints now.” The kid had tightened up earlier when Hayes printed him. “I’m sure they’ll match up with prints found in the Impala. Maybe even with prints found at some of the crime scenes.”

“No! I swear.” Fernando turned his body away from them, refolding his arms across his chest. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No one is saying you did, Fernando,” Martinez said in a soothing voice. “Your sister, your professors…everyone says you’re a good kid. That’s why I was thinking you might help us. We need help finding someone. A woman named Olivia Bentz. Blond hair, dark eyes. Did you ever meet her, Fernando?”

Bentz had watched through the one-way mirror and felt his life unraveling while the kid shook his head no.

“Olivia Bentz is missing,” Hayes said, “and we have reason to believe your friend Jada is involved in her kidnapping. What can you tell us about that?”

“Nothing!” Valdez insisted.

Frustrated, Bentz had wanted to smash his fist through the glass and curl his fingers around the kid’s throat to shake the truth from him. Since Fernando hadn’t lawyered up, the detectives continued questioning him, and Bentz stayed for every second of the tedious process.

Bledsoe checked on the name Jada, but hadn’t found any females with that name who had been booked in the past eighteen months. Another dead end. Bledsoe would get Jada’s photo ID and records from the college in the morning, but he couldn’t work on that until the college’s administrative offices opened.

Finally Bentz left the surly youth to Hayes and the FBI, who would probably release him, then have someone follow him. There was nothing more he could do at the Center.

As he drove he thought about the photos the LAPD lab had been working on. The pictures of the runner from the Santa Monica web cam looked enough like the same jogger who had been caught on the security cameras of the motel. Something about the runner seemed familiar to Bentz, as if he should be able to visualize her face.

A woman? Yeah, they were all pretty sure about that. The police were checking traffic cameras and parking tickets issued in the area around the motel at the time of the letter’s delivery, along with the pier where Jennifer had jumped into Santa Monica Bay and the security cameras near the place where Sherry Petrocelli’s car had been torched, but Bentz didn’t hold out much hope. This person who had killed so easily seemed to know how to avoid detection.

A master criminal?

A cop?

He drove by instinct, his hands on the wheel, beams of headlights washing over him as his mind spun.

It’s someone with a personal grudge.

Someone who’s enjoying this.

Jada, the girl who looks so much like Jennifer, she has the answers. And Fernando won’t give her up.

And right now Olivia was locked behind bars, a prisoner, because no one could find a shred of a clue that led to her captor. Bentz felt his life unraveling, everything that he believed in falling away, the woman who had turned his life around, made him a better man, now suffering because of his actions.

He saw his exit and rolled off the freeway, picking his way through traffic. He wondered if he’d find another disturbing, dark photo of his wife waiting for him back at his dive of a motel.

“Just keep her alive,” he said to the car’s interior. The dash lights glowed on his face as he glanced in the rearview mirror and caught his reflection. The man staring back at him looked older than he remembered. Haunted. By the ghost of a dead woman.

He pulled into his parking spot, yanked the keys from the engine, and looked in the mirror again.

This time, he saw past his own face to a person behind his car, standing on the far side of the parking lot.

Jennifer!

No way. She wouldn’t appear now. He swung around to look.

She was gone.

Shaking inside, he slid out of the car and stood next to it, hearing the ticking of the rental’s engine as it cooled and the night closed in.

Where had she been?

Under the streetlamp?

Near the ficus tree?

He started walking faster and faster across the dusty, uneven lot, beneath the flickering, humming neon lights of the So-Cal’s advertising board offering free wi-fi and cable TV.

Was that a movement on the other side of the planter?

Someone running?

It might not be her.

But he was jogging now, his eyes trained on the image ahead, a fleeing woman with dark hair.

Déjà vu.

The eerie sensation tugged at his mind. He remembered following her down the steep trail over the sea, how she’d turned and blown him a kiss before leaping from the cliff to the ocean below. He recalled chasing her shadow through the decrepit mission in San Juan Capistrano. Following her earlier today in the woods beyond the cemetery.

What do you want, you bitch? I know you’re not Jennifer. You’re a fraud.

He broke into a sprint, barely aware of the traffic lights glowing red and green, or the cars whipping by. Keeping her in his sights, he crossed traffic against the light, heard a horn honk in protest, and someone shout. But he ignored the driver and picked up his pace. He felt the pain in his leg. Gutted it out. He was gaining on her now, but she was still a block ahead, running full out.

What the hell?

An old memory surfaced and a feeling of déjà vu settled over him. Another time. Another place.

He remembered chasing Jennifer, through the sun-dappled park at Point Fermin. How he’d caught her, breathless at a pergola, where he’d kissed her madly, both of them sweating, her breasts, beneath a thin blouse, pressed up against him. He’d hoisted her hands over her head, pushed her back against the rough trunk of a tree, and proceeded to strip her and make love to her in the shadows.