Malice (18 page)

And yet she seemed intent on escape.

He felt it.

Faster and faster he hurried, his cane hitting the planks of the boardwalk in a staccato beat, his leg throbbing.

He had no time for the pain.

Hurry, hurry, hurry,
his brain screamed,
catch her.

And what would he do when he tapped her on the shoulder and she wasn’t his ex-wife?

For Christ’s sake, don’t worry about that. Be more concerned if she is. What then, Bentz? What if she’s the damned look-alike or worse yet, Jennifer herself in the damned flesh? No ghost. Your ex-wife!

She, too, was hurrying, running barefoot toward the end of the pier, her legs flashing beneath her red hemline.

His leg was screaming in pain, thigh muscles on fire, hip aching, but he went into a dead run as he saw her, plunging into wisps of hanging fog.

Where was she going? She was running straight into the darkness, headed for the black night at the end of the pier.

Bentz’s lungs burned, his leg aching as she finally paused and braced the rail. At last! Now, finally he would have a chance to confront her.

But a moment later her hands reached out to the railing, bracing against it.

What the hell?

Without hesitation, she climbed onto the top bar, then over.

Oh, for God’s sake, she wouldn’t jump. Or would she? This was Jennifer. Daring crazy Jennifer.

“No!” he yelled.

For a heartbeat she balanced on the tiny edge, teetering. In that instant she glanced back, and Bentz drank in her beautiful face, her gaze locking with his. A split second later, she looked at the black water swirling around the pilings, gauging the distance, the depth.
Oh, God, she was really going to jump!

“Stop! Jennifer!” he yelled.

One minute she was standing there, caught in a swirl of fog.

Then, before his eyes, she disappeared.

As if she’d actually leapt over the edge.

“No! Jen!” He rushed forward, running with dread prodding him on. “Oh, God!”

What the hell had happened? His eyes searched the gloom.

Did he hear a splash over the lapping tide?

Yes?

No?

God, where was she?

Confused, convinced he’d find her hanging from the railing, he grit his teeth and hurried to the rail to the very spot where she’d climbed over. Below the shifting water was dark as ink, no swimmer or body visible.

No Jennifer.

He yelled. Called her name.

He had nothing but a penlight. Still, he had to look. Moving gingerly, Bentz climbed over the rail and planted his feet on the thin ledge. The fingers of his left hand gripped the rail as he shined the small beam downward, but it did little to pierce the damned fog or illuminate much of the black water.

“Jennifer! Jesus, God! Jennifer!” he screamed at the dark swirling tide.

“Hey you!” some guy shouted frantically.

But Bentz didn’t look up, his eyes on the black churning waters below. Was she there? Hiding? Caught under water?

Or had it all been a vision of his willing mind? Had there even been a woman on the pier at all?

He didn’t know, but he couldn’t let her drown, whoever she was.

“Son of a bitch!”

He let go. The sea air rushing up at him, swift and furious.

He hit the water hard, the jolt of landing rattling his aching body. The cold began to seep through his skin as he sank fast, downward into the stark black depths.

Down, down, down. Into the night-black sea. Salt water closed around him as he kicked off his shoes and jacket, his eyes open and burning as he tried to penetrate the infinite darkness of the vast Pacific.

Nothing!

He searched the inky water, holding his breath, knowing she had to be here, somewhere. Close.
Where are you? For the love of God, Jennifer!

His lungs were near bursting as he kicked, propelling himself upward, letting out a stream of air as he broke the surface. He gulped in air and cursed as he hunted for her.

Where the hell had she gone?

Where, damn it?

He shook his hair from his eyes, willing her to appear.

Come on. Come on!

Give it up, Bentz,
his mind taunted.
She doesn’t exist. You know it. You’re chasing a damned figment of your imagination.

Fear, cold as the ocean, slid through him. He was cracking up. That was it. Oh, sweet Jesus…

Don’t give up! You saw her!

Treading water, he scoured the surroundings with his gaze—under the pier, along the pilings, near the shore, and beneath the shifty surface of the murky depths.

There was no sign of a woman in a red dress.

Or anyone at all. He spun around in the water, his bad leg dragging, his lungs tight as he eyed the undulating sea to no avail. Where was she? Where had she gone?

As people shouted above, he let the tide push him under the pier and through the supports. He swam, head above water, looking for any sign of her, any clue to where she’d been. He scanned the entire area. The beach was empty here. No one clung to the pier overhead, and he didn’t see anything bobbing in the water.

“Jennifer!” he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, his voice echoing crazily over the water and rush of the tide. He held fast to a barnacle-laden piling, searching again and again, breathing hard, willing her to appear.
Come on, come on! Where are you?

“Jennifer!” he shouted again, spitting salt water. The smell of brine stung his nostrils as waves slapped over him, his wet clothes moving with the tide. He didn’t see anything or hear a response other than voices high overhead, feet pounding on the boardwalk. Still he tried to find her, or any evidence that she’d been here. He kept searching, releasing the piling and treading water as he squinted through the fog, straining to see any sign of movement along the long stretch of darkness beneath the pier.

Nothing but darkness…the play of shifting shadows beneath the pier, but further out, beyond the overhang, streetlights cast an ethereal glow. The thin light was caught in the shifting fog while the neon glow of the amusement park rose like a blazing specter in the mist.

All unworldly.

All surreal.

Jennifer, or whoever she really was, had disappeared. He searched around each support post, eyeing the shadows and feeling as if cold death were lurking nearby. He held fast to one of the supports and called her name again and again, but it came back to him, his own voice, echoing hollowly over the rumble of the sea.

Shivering, he felt a fish glide past as he released the piling and swam toward the shore.

His heart thudded at the prospect of finding her, dead from the leap into the water, dead because she’d been running from him.

After luring you onto the pier…this is all part of her plan. Don’t go into the blame game; not yet.

And she’s not here. You’re alone.

The voices overhead were louder now, more of them, though, from down here they seemed disembodied, muted by fog and tide.

She’s not here. She was never here. You imagined her again. The red dress…it’s symbolic.
Jennifer casting herself into the vast darkness of the water punctuated by the skeletal pier…

Dear God, what had happened to her?

Now the shouts on the boardwalk overhead were audible.

“I saw him, I tell you. Some guy jumped into the water.”

“You saw him? In this fog?”

“Yes! Damn it, some lunatic did a swan dive off the railing.”

“So now it’s a dive. Barney, you’ve been drinkin’ bad tequila again.”

“For the love of Christ, I’m tellin’ ya, a guy in a suit jumped off the goddamned pier!”

“There’s nothin’ down there.”

“How can ya tell? It’s so hard to see with the fog,” Barney insisted. “I called 9-1-1. The police should be here any minute.”

Good, Bentz thought. He could use a little help. He swam from under the pier, toward the shore, rolling with incoming waves. He was relieved to see the flickering lights of emergency vehicles on the ridge above the beach. As he clambered through the shallow surf a flashlight beam caught him from above.

“There he is!”

“I told ya!” Barney again, and other voices joined in as a crowd gathered overhead on the pier. Over it all, the sound of a siren screamed through the night, getting closer. Bentz dragged himself out of the water and up the beach. Cold to the bone, he slogged his way up the wet sand and turned back toward the water.

The lights of the city were blazing, the Ferris wheel casting an eerie reflection on the shimmering waters. He wondered about Jennifer in that cold dark bay. Was she hiding in the shadows, laughing at him, pleased that she’d goaded him into leaping from the railing? Or was she caught beneath the surface, entangled in seaweed, staring sightlessly upward as the red shroud of her dress billowed against her deathly white skin?

For the love of God, get a grip!
He swiped a shaking hand over his face as several people ran up to greet him.

The couple he’d seen on the pier was the first to arrive.

“Hey, dude, are you okay?” The guy was in his twenties, his stocking cap pulled low over curls that sprang from the edges. He seemed genuinely concerned and called over his shoulder, “Hey, anyone got a blanket or something?”

“I’m fine.”
Just cold, tired, and afraid I’m going out of my friggin’ mind!
Bentz coughed. He couldn’t stop shaking. “There was a woman on the pier—she jumped into the water and I went in after her.”

The blond girlfriend shook her head. “I didn’t see a woman.”

“She was there at the end of the dock.”

“Is that why you were running?” Girlfriend asked. “I saw you throw away your cane.”

Bentz nodded as the sirens screamed closer.

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know, but we need a search.”

Bentz’s teeth began to chatter and he was shivering. The police cruiser, lights flashing, screeched to a halt at the end of the beach and two officers climbed out.

“He’s going into shock,” the older man who’d been smoking his cigar said.

Bentz shook his head and held up a hand to stop further nonsense. “No. Really. Just cold. I’m serious about a woman leaping off the pier, damn it! I saw her. She jumped in.”

“Let’s go!” Several guys took off running to the waterline, though Bentz had little hope they would find anyone. Jennifer, or whoever she was, had disappeared.

Again.

The old guy ripped off his too-large jacket that smelled of burned tobacco. “Here. You need this.”

Grateful, Bentz thrust his arms into the warm sleeves of the jacket, never taking his eyes off the shoreline, where the men were beginning their search.

“Sir?” called a low voice.

Bentz turned to see two officers from the police cruiser striding across the expanse of sand as a fire truck and rescue vehicle arrived.

“We have some paramedics here to assist you,” one of the uniforms said.

“It’s all right. I’m a cop.” Bentz dug into his pocket and found, thankfully, his waterlogged wallet and badge. He handed it to the officer. “I don’t need the ambulance. I’m okay, really, but you might want to get your search and rescue team in. I saw a woman jump from the pier.”

The cop nodded, his eyes assessing Bentz. “But, sir, you need to get checked out.”

“All I need is a smoke and someone to call Detective Jonas Hayes. LAPD Homicide.”

“Someone dead?”

Bentz shook his head. “Hayes is a friend of mine.” He forced a smile as the young kid came up with a Camel and a light, the first cigarette Bentz had smoked in a long, long while. He drew hard on the cigarette, felt the warm smoke curl in his lungs. Exhaled. “I used to work for the LAPD.”

“H
ell, Bentz, I’ve got better things to do than babysit you.” Hayes was pissed and didn’t try for a second to hide his irritation. It had been Hayes’s idea to meet in the bar half a block away from the So-Cal Inn in Culver City.

Bentz stared sullenly over the bar into the huge mirror that reflected the entire length of the long, narrow establishment. The bar top was tile with pendant lights straight out of the sixties hanging over it. He asked, “How’s the Springer double homicide coming?”

“You know I can’t talk to you about it.” Hayes nursed a Manhattan while Bentz ignored his nonalcoholic beer. “But…we haven’t got any really good leads. Lots of bad ones.” He waved away the topic of the double homicide. “So you still think Jennifer is alive, haunting you? And she took a flying leap into Santa Monica Bay.”

“I don’t think it’s Jennifer, but I can’t be sure. Not unless there’s an exhumation. I’m going forward with it.”

“Whatever.” Hayes was still steamed, his forehead lined with wrinkles of worry, his lips pulled into a frown. “Your gun get wet?”

“Wasn’t wearing it. Locked in the glove box. But my cell phone’s deader than a doornail.” Bentz counted himself lucky that his pistol and the envelope with the photos and death certificate had been locked in the car, safe and dry. Even his cane had survived, but his jacket and good shoes were somewhere on the bottom of Santa Monica Bay. Now he was wearing his battered old Nikes.

He was also grateful that Jonas had smoothed things over with the cops. Although the search team had not found a body or evidence of a female swimmer, Jonas had been able to convince the Santa Monica Police that things were “cool.”

Even if he hadn’t believed it himself.

After a peripheral search of the area, the fire truck and ambulance had been sent off and the officers had taken Bentz’s statement without any citations being issued. Hayes had even given him the time to shower and change clothes at the motel before they’d met at this dive.

Now, though, Hayes was pissed. “Your obsession with your dead wife isn’t gonna be my problem, okay?”

“I get it.”

“And you can’t go callin’ me, pulling in favors if you’re gonna keep dragging the police into your own weird fantasies.” Bentz was about to protest, but Hayes held up a hand. “I know why you’re here, Bentz. Someone’s fuckin’ with you. But until some law has been broken in my jurisdiction—no, make that until some
homicide
has been committed in my jurisdiction, I don’t want to be involved.” He looked across the table, dark eyes deep with concern. “Sane people don’t go jumping off piers in the middle of the night. Or breaking into old inns and nosing around for ghosts. And they don’t chase after people getting onto a bus or driving down the freeway, regardless of how many crank calls they get in the middle of the night.

“As for looking up a dead ex-wife’s family and friends? Or calling old partners at the department who think you bagged out and left them holding the bag? That’s not investigation, Bentz. It’s masochism.”

Bentz couldn’t argue that point. Trinidad and Bledsoe had let him know what they thought of him when he’d called offering help.

Hayes, some of his anger spent, finished his Manhattan, draining the liquid slowly. He set his glass on the table and shook his head. “Take my advice, Bentz. Go back to New Orleans, to your wife. Remember her? The one who’s still alive? Do that and forget all this.”

If only I could,
Bentz thought.

“Thanks for the drink.” Hayes left and Bentz took a long draw on his zero-alcohol beer.

Leaving L.A. wasn’t an option.

At least, not yet.

The shower feels good. Hot water streaming down my body as I think about what happened on the pier. I knew Bentz would take the bait, and it was heartwarming to watch him as he struggled to catch up with “Jennifer.”

“Fool,” I whisper. I scrub my hair, lather, and rinse it. Then once more I grin as I recall the tortured expression on his face.

Perfect!

I turn off the spray and wrap a towel around my body, all the while thinking of my next move. God, how I’d love to hurry things along. But I’ll be patient, I think, squeezing my hair with the cotton towel.

Naked, I lean over and dry my hair with the blow dryer, its high-pitched hum drowning out the music I’ve had blasting for hours. A mixed set of sounds from the eighties—Journey, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, The Pointer Sisters, Madonna, and Michael Jackson—have been playing, the volume cranked up and the window cracked open. The neighbors must have heard my tunes, as well as anyone passing by. Anyone would swear that I was home all night. My car, parked outside, would only convince them further. Smart of me to leave my vehicle. I walked to the bus stop, then rode the bus as far as I could before switching to a cab that took me to Santa Monica.

I returned the same way.

My plan had been on hold until Bentz finally decided to return to Santa Monica, as I’d suspected he would. I had to wait for the right moment and thankfully tonight it happened. I smile thinking about how well I executed my scheme.

I waited, knowing he would eventually show up at the pier. I made certain everything was in place. I watched as he went into the restaurant. While he ate dinner I had just enough time to put my plan into action.

Sure enough, after dinner Bentz decided to stroll down the boardwalk. Leaning on his cane, no doubt remembering Jennifer.

I dangled the bait. He snapped at it. He chased after Jennifer like a wolf after a lamb. Only things didn’t turn out his way, now, did they?

I stretch, wipe off the glass, and then check out my reflection in the damp mirror. My head moves in time to the beat of a Fleetwood Mac song, one of Jennifer’s favorites.

Bentz would appreciate the irony, I think.

What an idiot.

Trying to resurrect a dream.

Feeding on his own damned guilt.

Serves him right.

“Just you wait, Ricky-Boy,” I say into the mirror. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

Bentz slid closer to Olivia, pulling her close, feeling her naked body against him in their bed. “I love you,” he whispered, but she didn’t respond, didn’t open her eyes, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.

It was there again, that secret she kept, the one that forced her into silence.

But, with her eyes closed, she instinctively tilted her chin up and he couldn’t resist. Just being this close to her caused his blood to fire, his heart to pound. Desire made him hard. Hot and wanting, he kissed her with a passion that fired his blood and consumed him.

She responded. Moaned into his open mouth, her hands scraping away his clothes, her fingers running down his arms.

“I love you,” he said again and was met with silence once more. Though her body was trembling, her skin hot, her lips wet, she didn’t speak.

Beneath her passion he felt something more, something intense and longing but so distant. She was a million miles away.

He was losing her.

Somehow, despite their lovemaking, she was sliding way.

The smell of her filled his nostrils. He ran his tongue along her neck and lower still, tasting perfume and the salt of her body.

He kissed every inch of her, feeling her response, noticing her quiver. Inside he was burning, his cock already hard, so damned hard.

He told himself to take it slow, to pleasure her, but she was as frantic as he, her lips full and warm, her fingers insistent as she kneaded his muscles.

Skimming his thumbs over her ribs, he kissed the tips of her breasts, and then drank in a full view of her. She finally opened her eyes, the gold irises nearly invisible, her pupils black and round as they dilated.

He breathed across her abdomen, his head sliding down her body to the red lace of her panties—a tiny thong that barely covered any of her.

Her muscles had tightened. “You really can be a bastard,” she whispered and her voice was off…not quite right, even though she’d finally spoken. He caught the whiff of gardenias, the faintest scent in the air.

“Just for you,” he replied, his breath hot over her panties—that little bit of naughty lace. She writhed beneath him as he took the scrap of lace in his teeth and pulled it off.

“Really?” And her skin turned cold. “Seriously. Just for me?”

“Who else?” he asked, sliding up her body as her fingers dug deep into his head, adding a pinch of pain to the pleasure. God, he wanted her and she was quivering with her own desire, moving beneath him.

“Livvie,” he whispered and parted her legs with his knees.

In a breathless moment he thrust deep into her and lost himself, body and soul, in the magic of his wife. His blood was thundering in his ears and he breathed in short, fast gasps. Faster and faster he moved, but she was no longer responding and the flesh he’d felt cooling was now stone cold.

When he looked down at her, she’d changed, her features having morphed into Jennifer. White skin, dark hair, the scrap of a red thong now a tattered bloody dress.

“I love you,” Jennifer said, but her mouth didn’t move. She smelled of brackish water and death. Her glassy eyes shifted to zero in on him.

His skin goose-pimpled and his blood ran cold as the sea. He tried to roll off her, but her hands came up and held him tight. Held him in place like a vise.

“It’s your fault, RJ,” she said with lips that didn’t move. “Yours!”

Bentz bucked, trying to break her hold as his eyes flew open.

He was in the bed at the motel.

Alone.

No Olivia. No Jennifer.

Just his guilt. His damned guilt.

Letting out a long breath, he realized he was saturated in cold sweat. The dream had been so real. So evocative and terrifying. He wanted to call Olivia but glanced at the clock. 12:47. Nearly 3
A.M
. in Louisiana. He would wait.

Climbing out of bed, he walked to the window and opened the blinds to look at the night-washed parking lot.

It was empty aside from the usual vehicles.

Quiet.

Still unnerved, he went into the bathroom and threw water over his face. Telling himself he’d been through a lot worse in his life than bad dreams, he popped a couple of ibuprofen for the pain in his leg before returning to bed. He clicked on the television and searched for any inane show to occupy his mind. But he didn’t believe for an instant that some late-night talk show host would dispel the dream.

He figured nothing would.

He’d just have to live with it.

The next morning, after a fitful night, Bentz found a place where he could replace his cell phone on his current plan. He was the first customer to enter the strip mall for the day and he looked like hell. But he ended up with a new phone.

Two doors down there was a casual-wear store, so he picked up a new pair of khakis and a cheap sports jacket.

He’d have to wait on shoes.

He returned to the motel, showered, shaved, called and left a message for Olivia, then spent the next few hours spinning his wheels, thinking, and reentering numbers into the new cell. He pieced together the events of the last few days and wondered how the woman—“Jennifer”—had known where he would be. As far as he could tell, his room wasn’t bugged. He didn’t find any listening devices tucked into hidden niches. Not that it mattered. To his recollection he hadn’t mentioned his plans while talking on the phone here. He did a second peripheral check of the rental car and couldn’t find any tracking device in the undercarriage or wheel wells.

But somehow, “Jennifer” had known where he was going, where he had been.

How?

And why was she doing this?

In the motel room with the television tuned to an all-news channel, the blinds open so that he didn’t feel completely cut off from the world, he sipped his tepid coffee, his mind turning back to the night before. What the hell had happened on the pier? She’d been there. He’d seen her, but Hayes had said that the cops had questioned the people on the pier, the old man who’d been smoking a cigar and the kids who had been so into each other. When Hayes had asked about the runner, he hadn’t been found and no one remembered him.

Bentz made a note of it, though most likely the missing jogger wasn’t any big deal.

Great.

Using his laptop computer he Googled images of the Santa Monica pier and found the webcam, a camera that photographed the entrance to the pier every four seconds. Maybe he could get photos of the pier from last night, as well as from traffic cams. Though he was no longer a cop in L.A., he still had a badge and some pull. He was certain he could talk his way into getting the information.

By eleven he’d talked to the security company that ran the camera on the pier and been promised that they would review the images from the night before. Afterward Bentz had made his way through a pot of coffee while searching the Internet for a hospital or clinic that might have issued the outdated parking pass he’d noticed on the gray Chevy. Then he used his new phone to leave messages with Fortuna Esperanzo and Tally White, two of Jennifer’s close friends who hadn’t bothered calling him back.

Tally was a schoolteacher and Fortuna still worked in an art gallery in Venice. Neither woman was a fan of his.

A motorcycle backfired on the street. Through the thin motel walls Benz heard Spike get off a round of quick, sharp barks before he was shushed by his owner. Bentz stretched, felt his spine pop, then stood and tested his leg.

Picking up his keys, Bentz wondered how long the old guy next door was staying. He grabbed his damp wallet and slipped his sidearm into its shoulder holster beneath the cover of his new jacket. Then, because his leg was still aching, he snagged his cane from its spot by the door.

Outside, he felt the heat of the day though it was barely noon. He eyed the dusty parking lot, recognizing four cars other than his own that seemed to be regulars. Besides his rental and the older guy in the driving cap’s Pontiac, there was a bronze Buick parked at the far end of the lot. A white MINI Cooper was often gone all day, but returned every night. The older navy blue Jeep Cherokee never budged. The rest of the vehicles came and went, but these four always returned. Just like the damned swallows of San Juan Capistrano, he thought, remembering the legend and his own trip to the mission town. He’d already made note of the license plates and talked to Montoya about them. Since the woman impersonating Jennifer seemed to know his whereabouts, he wondered if she’d been following him from here each day. He was going to make certain that these cars were legit.