Cold Blooded (49 page)

"That would be nice ... " Olivia said then saw one of the women who had entered the store, a short, slim woman in a navy jacket, pocket a glass paperweight. "Uh ... I've got to run, Mom."

"Before you go--"

The shoplifter looked over her shoulder as she reached for another item, a crystal reindeer ornament, then, spying Olivia watching her, casually looked over the item and replaced it. Olivia was only half-listening to her mother.

"The real reason I called is that I remembered a name associated with the adoption of my son." "What?" Olivia asked. Now her attention was dragged from the shoplifter.

"It was Thomas."

"Thomas?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it. My son was adopted by a couple named Thomas."

"Thomas who?"

"I think it was their last name ... but maybe I'm mistaken ... "

Bemadette faltered. "I overheard your grandmother talking once and she said something about the Thomases, I think. I hope this helps."

"It does, Mom, thanks," Olivia said, her heart racing as the shoplifter edged toward the door. "Just a minute," she called to the woman and dropped the receiver. "I think you may have taken some merchandise--"

The woman was out of the door in a heartbeat. Olivia gave chase, but as soon as she stepped out of the store, she lost the thief in the crowd.

It was dark and raining and in her navy jacket she blended into the jostling crowd. Christmas lights illuminated Jackson Square but Olivia didn't feel the spirit. "Great," O C\.

livia muttered, unable to leave the shop alone. Tawilda wasn't due back from her dinner for another fifteen minutes.

Olivia started into the store but caught her reflection in the window panes. Her hair was windblown and her face was pale. Taking a step toward the doorway, for the first time in a week, she sensed him ... saw a quicksilver image behind her own.

No.

The people on the street walking by shrank, the noise of the street seemed to fade and her head began to ache. He was there, staring back at her--blue eyes and dark hair, angular features, not unlike her own, but not Father James no ... and ... then he turned his vision to another spot ... as if someone had called his name. He focused on his quarry and Olivia saw the woman's face. The dull ache behind Olivia's eyes banged painfully. A young girl with long auburn hair and an attitude of confidence ... a face Olivia had seen before, not in person, but framed as it was tonight, in a bifold picture sitting squarely in the middle of Detective Rick Bentz's desk.

Chapter Thirty-six.

Where the hell was Brian? He was supposed to have met her fifteen minutes ago. Kristi stood on the porch of the library looking through the sheeting rain. It shimmered against the streets, and poured from the sky. Though barely five in the afternoon the day was gloomy and dark.

And she only had seventeen minutes before she had to hook up with her dad in front of the dorm. She'd made the date with Brian five minutes before her dad had shown up.

On the phone Brian had sounded weird, like he was high, or scared, or pissed. And who could blame him? Come on.

To have your girlfriend's dad, the cop, show up and start an interrogation. Her cheeks burned at the thought of it.

Sometimes she hated her dad.

He's not really your dad, is he?

Maybe that was the problem. Anyway around it, Bentz had only messed things up with Brian even more than they were to begin with.

Ever since she'd gotten back from Thanksgiving, things had been strained with Brian. He'd been moody and uptight.

Something was eating at him. He blamed the stress of the end of the term, that Zaroster had been giving him a hard time, but Kristi sensed there was more going on.

They'd made out a couple of times, but she'd always broken it off because it hadn't felt right. There was something missing, something she couldn't define. She thought of Jay.

He loved her. Brian didn't. She knew it and it almost seemed as if she was ... well, it seemed archaic, but it was almost as if he was using her, that she was just another conquest.

That was backward thinking. She could turn it around, consider it the other way, that he was just another notch in her garter belt. Oh, yeah, right. Face it, Bentz, that's not the way you're made. She glanced up the street and saw his car slowly approaching. He hadn't stood her up!

He was just late again. Waving, she pulled her hood over her hair and blinked against the rain as she jogged down the puddlestrewn path to the spot where he'd slowed.

"in!" She climbed into the passenger seat, yanked the door shut and leaned over to kiss him, but he didn't respond, just stared straight ahead and pressed on the accelerator.

Only then did she notice that there was someone in the back seat, a guy in a ski mask. Her breath stopped short. Oh, shit.

There was a collar around Brian's neck, some kind of weirdlooking choker. "What's going on?" she asked, reaching for the door as the man behind her drew his arm around to the front and pointed a gun at her chest.

' '!" she screamed, reaching for the handle of the door.

Her last thought was that her dad had been right. Oh, she'd been a fool.

"Don't--"

A jolt of electricity hissed through her body.

Bentz glanced at his watch as his cell phone rang. He and Montoya were double parked in front of Cramer Hall waiting for Kristi. So far she was ten minutes late. He snapped on his cell. "Detective Bentz." "It's Olivia. He's hunting again," she said, her words pouring out in a rush. "He's looking for Kristi, Bentz; I saw through his eyes." Rick went cold to the bottom of his heart.

"What the hell are you talking about?" No! It couldn't be. Not when he was here and Kristi was in her dorm. He started running. Fast. The cell phone was pressed to his ear and Montoya was on his heels. He pushed through a startled group of girls coming down the stairs.

"I'm saying he's after her, I think he's gotten her."

"No. He can't have." Bentz wouldn't believe it.

' ' a minute--" a woman behind the front desk called.

"I'm here at the dorm," he said into the phone.
"Find her!"
"I will."
"Bentz, there's something else. My mother called. She said the couple

who adopted my brother were named Thomas."
"Shit!"
"And I can identify him." she added. "I saw his face."
"Go to the station, have someone draw the composite and look at pictures

of Brian Thomas. He's the guy Kristi's been dating." He clicked off as they took the stairs two at a time, then flipped the phone at Montoya. ' ' for a backup.

Send someone over to Brian Thomas's apartment. Olivia just identified him." He reached for his weapon, found Kristi's room and pushed open the door.

"What're you doing here?" Kristi's roommate asked. She twisted in her
desk chair.
"Looking for my daughter. Where is she?" Panic squeezed his chest.

Lucretia rolled her eyes. "Did she know you were coming?
She left about half an hour ago." "To go where?" he demanded, his heart
drumming with dread.

"I don't know. I think she said something about the library. I think she might've had a date with Brian Thomas, the T.A. You might want to warn her about that.

She could get in big trouble, him being the T.A. for one of her classes ... "

He didn't hear the rest. He was already halfway down the hall.

"No, that's not him ... " Olivia insisted, shaking her head as she stared at a picture of Brian Thomas.

"It has to be." Bentz, seated on the other side of his desk, glared at her. The desk was strewn with files, the bulletin board covered with pictures of the crime scenes Olivia had seen in her mind's eye--the victims posed as saints--Cecilia, Mary Magdalen, Joan of Arc ... and the others. All brutal grisly scenes. And now Kristi was with the killer.

Olivia's knees went weak. She sank into a desk chair.

Bentz thumped a finger onto the grainy photo and leaned over the desk.

"Look again," he ordered. "This has got to be our guy!"

She studied the picture again. It was no use.

"I'm sorry, Rick. It's not him. I'm sure," she insisted, enduring Bentz's furious glare. She recognized the fear congealing in his expression, knew that he was dying inside, desperate to save his daughter. Olivia ached for him. For Kristi. Even now the girl could be dead ... or suffering some horrible torture. Olivia's blood was cold as ice water.

"I wish I could help, but--" "Then, try, damn it. Give me a name. You said your mother thought a couple named Thomas adopted the bastard, so this is the guy!" He pounded a fist on his desk and forgotten coffee jumped out of a cup on the desk.

"Shit!" He mopped up the spreading dark stain with his handkerchief.

"Get a grip, man," Montoya said, slipping through the doorway.

"Go to hell!" Bentz pointed a damning finger at his partner, then something snapped in his face. He crammed the handkerchief into his pocket.

"You go first."

"I'm already there."

Montoya snapped back, "That makes two of us."

"Damn." Sleeves rolled up, Bentz plowed his fingers through hair that hadn't seen a comb in hours. "Take her downstairs," he said, motioning toward Olivia. Their gazes touched and she saw more than fear, a deeper distrust in his eyes. "Work with the damned artist. Get me a sketch, a computer composite, anything, and get it fast!" He glance down at the photo of Kristi on his desk. His throat worked and his shoulders slumped, but only for a second. In the next breath he was angry all over again, the cords of his neck standing out, his lips fiat against his teeth. "One way or another, if we have to tear that school apart, we've got to find that son of a bitch!" He motioned to Montoya. ' ' pictures of every male over twenty who has stepped foot on All Saints in the last year or two." Bentz trapped Olivia in his determined stare. "Maybe you'll recognize one of them," he said coldly, as if he didn't trust her again. Just like before when she'd first entered this very office a few weeks earlier.

As he if he couldn't stand gazing at her, he turned to Montoya.

"Take her to the artist!"

The phone shrilled and Bentz rotated a muscular shoulder, effectively ostracizing Olivia as he snatched up the receiver.

She got the message: he couldn't stand to be in the same room with her.

"Come on, let's check with the artist," Montoya said and she stood on wooden legs, managing to put some starch in her shoulders as she followed him downstairs.

Three hours later after the artist and computer had come up with a reasonable sketch, she walked into the bright New Orleans night.

Christmas lights glittered throughout the city, businesses were festooned with greenery, and even the police department was decorated for the holidays, but she couldn't conjure up a bit of Christmas spirit.

Not a solitary drop. She climbed into her truck, thought about going back inside and facing Bentz again, but knew she'd only get in the way.

She had no more information to give him.
Hopefully he could save his daughter and locate the monster.
The monster who could be your brother.
Damn it all.
Her cell phone beeped as she started the engine. She picked up and said,

"Hello?" as she checked traffic.
"Olivia?" Sarah said, her voice tremulous.
"Sarah!" Olivia felt a second's relief. "Where are you?
I've been calling and calling. I keep getting your machine."
"I didn't go back to Tucson."
"What?" Sarah sounded strange. Maybe tired? Or so Oh"via thought as she

strained to hear her friend's voice over the rumble of the engine, the buzz of traffic and the crackle of a bad connection. "You didn't go back? But it's been over a week."

"I know. I ... I thought I could work things out with Leo."
"Wait a minute." Olivia switched off the fan for the defrost, hoping she

could hear more clearly. "You said you were going through with the
divorce."
"I was ... I am ... I ... uh, I'm confused ... " That explained the

weird tone to her voice. "I hoped that you would meet me at St. Luke's

that we could talk to Father James."
Olivia bit her lip as she thought of the priest. "Father James might not
be available," she said, cringing at the thought of the slain altar boy.

"There was trouble at the church last week."
"I know, I heard about it, but ... but I've already spoken with Father
James. He wants you to be there."

"Does he?" Olivia was surprised. Since the night of Mickey Gains's death they hadn't seen each other, hadn't so much as spoken. And wouldn't James rather speak to Sarah alone--to counsel her one-on-one? Or was there a chance he wanted to see Olivia again?

"Please," Sarah said, sounding desperate.

That did it. Her friend needed her. "When do you want me to meet you?" she asked.

"Soon. As ... as soon as possible." Sarah's voice wavered, as if she were on the verge of tears.' ' James is going to the church now."

Oh* via glanced at the clock in the car. It was nearly nine and she was dead tired. But-Sarah needed her; Olivia assumed the strain in her friend's voice was because she felt foolish, that she'd hated to make the call and admit that she'd lied. "I can meet you in fifteen minutes."

"Thanks, Liwie."

"I'm on my way." Olivia hung up and put her car in gear. What the devil had gotten into Sarah? Olivia had known her friend hadn't wanted the divorce but when she'd left after Thanksgiving, Sarah had sounded so confident and sure of her decision. Maybe something else was going on.

Olivia had the eerie sensation that something deeper was bothering Sarah. Or was Olivia just getting paranoid? All the murders were making her overly suspicious. Nonetheless as she turned on the fan and the window cleared well enough that she could pull into traffic, Olivia, picked up her cell phone again and punched a button. The last caller was displayed.

Olivia recognized Sarah's cell number. So now you're second guessing your best friend--bad karma, Olivia.

She nosed her truck through traffic and tried to shake the bad feeling that clung to her as surely as if it had claws.

What was it? Why did she keep thinking something wasn't on the up and up. The trouble was Olivia had a bad feeling about everything these days. Her head still ached from the vision and she was worried sick about Kristi. She was just on edge. Jittery. That was it.