Malice (38 page)

“It’s all ancient history,” Olivia pointed out.

“Don’t you even want to know how I did it? How I took care of her?”

“Jennifer.”

“Of course, Jennifer! We’re not talking about the friggin’ queen, are we? It was so easy,” she bragged. “I doctored her pills, and her vodka. Waited. Then followed her as she drove and made certain she had an accident.” She paused, savoring the memory. “It was an impersonal attack, I know. The coward’s way out with the car, chasing her down, freaking her out. But it worked.”

“You really killed her.” Olivia wanted to hear the complete confession.

“Uh-uh-uh. She killed herself. Remember? And as for the suicide note, I didn’t even know about it. It was something she’d written a while before. Not very stable, our Jennifer. But Bentz…he just couldn’t get enough of her. Divorce wasn’t enough for him. He had to start up with her again. Some men just never learn.” She chuckled coldly. “But he will. Tonight.”

Sick inside, fear congealing her blood, Olivia could barely speak, but she forced the question over her lips. “What the hell did he do to you?”

“You really don’t know?” She paused, thought for a second. “He left me. Not once, but twice, for the same bitch that kept breaking his heart.” She looked toward the wall, but seemed to focus on the middle distance, to a place only she could see. “I loved him, I took him back, I trusted him, believed in him…” Her voice faced and tears welled in her eyes. “And he left me. Alone. And after Jennifer died, the son of a bitch poured himself into a bottle. Would he let me help him? Hell, no!” She sniffed loudly, straightened her shoulders. “That coward left L.A., went to New Orleans, and found you.” She was shaking her head. “He never looked back. And you, the wife who should know all his secrets, you don’t even know who I am, do you?”

That was the truth. Olivia couldn’t place her.

The spurned lover said ruefully, “Maybe it’s best this way. You don’t need to know,” she said. “But Bentz. He will. He’ll get it and he’ll live with it for the rest of his life.”

Olivia stared at the camera and felt a wave of nausea. Oh, God, she was going to be sick. From the pregnancy? From fear? “What are you planning to do?” she asked in a voice that she didn’t recognize as her own.

“What does it look like? I’m going to film. Well, it’s not really film, all digital, but I’m going to make a movie of you.”

Olivia flashed to all the prisoners of wars she’d seen with the enemy, forced to say things they didn’t mean, beliefs they’d never held, at the point of a gun or risk of being beheaded. She started to shake inside and had to talk herself down. Think rationally. Nothing had happened yet.

“It’s for posterity.” Satisfied that the camera and tripod were secure, the woman checked the viewfinder, and squinting, angled the lens to her satisfaction. “There we go, now we can begin.” She flipped a switch and turned the camera on, then she stood in front of the cage, just out of Olivia’s reach, but in front of the camera’s eye.

“Hi, RJ,” she said, without any of the breathy tone she’d used in her phone calls. “I hope you find this, along with the boat and your wife.”

What? Oh God, no!

“You should,” she continued. “The camera’s not only waterproof, it’s meant to film underwater. As you can see, I captured Olivia…She’s been my guest here on the
Merry Anne
for over a day now and I was hoping she and I could hang out a little longer, but…gee, I think I’d better not waste any more time and the truth of the matter is, she bores me.” She looked at Olivia. “Say ‘hi’ to Ricky, Livvie. Wave. Show him that you’re fine. So far.”

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.

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.

B
entz 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.

Oh…

Hell…

Another memory surfaced. Of running after her along the beach at Santa Monica just after sunset, the western sky ablaze, the tide lapping at their ankles, as the Ferris wheel spun on the pier jutting over the ocean…

Fool. Stop it! Forget her. Nail this woman and put Jennifer out of your mind forever. It’s Olivia you love, Olivia who is your life.

He saw Jennifer turn, cutting into a parking structure.

Gritting his teeth, breathing hard, his leg throbbing, he ran, faster and faster.

Within seconds he reached the entrance to the parking garage, its florescent bulbs sputtering weak light. No one on this level. He stopped, listened.

Over the sound of his own pumping heart, he heard the sound of feet madly slapping concrete, running up stairs. Spying the staircase, he followed, his knee screaming, as he pounded upward, looking into the spiraling stairs above and catching sight of her dark hair. As if she felt his stare, she glanced down at him, managed a wicked smile over the rail, then turned toward the interior lot.

Damn!

Was she on the third floor?

The fourth?

Grabbing the rail, hauling himself upward, he pressed on, his heart thudding, his lungs tight, his skin damp with sweat.
Don’t give up. Don’t let her get away. This is your chance!

On the third floor, he turned into the shadowy lot, but saw no one, only a few abandoned cars, their paint jobs shimmering beneath the watery lights.

Back to the staircase, running upward, straining to hear anything over the pounding of his pulse. On the fourth floor he thought he saw a glimpse of her, on the far side of the structure, and definitely heard her racing footsteps. He flew toward the sound, rounded a pillar and saw her, still fifty feet away, clicking a keyless remote.

The lights on a dark blue SUV flashed.

No!

He couldn’t let her get away.

She pulled the door of the car opened, then turned back to Bentz and grinning provocatively, blew him a kiss.

“Jennifer!” he yelled.

In that second a man stepped out of the shadows, a gun leveled at her head.

Bentz nearly stumbled.

“Police. Freeze!” Reuben Montoya ordered, his face a grim mask, his hand steady as he held his pistol. “Jada Hollister, you’re under arrest.”

As long as the boat was moving, there was still time.

Olivia could find a way to escape…somehow.

Of course she’d been around this cage, searching for a means of escape over and over again with no luck. Now the camera was just out of reach and the only thing close enough for her to touch outside her cage was the damned photo album with its faded pictures and bloody smears. Apparently this psychotic woman got off on dripping her blood, or
someone’s
blood onto Bentz’s life.

At least the leather-bound album was near. Extending one arm through the bars, she managed to flip the pages. Her horror magnified as she viewed the history of Bentz’s life in photographs: Rick as a child with James, his half brother. Photos from high school showing Rick in boxing shorts and gloves, posing by a punching bag. His college graduation photo and one from the police academy. Then a shot of a younger version of the woman who held her hostage, a faded snapshot of her with Rick at a bar, drinks and cigarettes in hand, all smiles and very much together.

Just as she’d said.

This psycho and Rick had been lovers.

She was a woman scorned—twofold, as Rick apparently had dumped her twice:

For Jennifer.

She’d said as much, of course, but these pictures were confirmation. Biting her lip, Olivia sifted through pages of his life with Jennifer, and pictures of him with other women, presumably after he’d split from his wife. Again, this woman surfaced. And this time her smiles weren’t as wide; not as trusting.

How could someone be so obsessed?

Olivia felt sick to her stomach.

She flipped a few more pictures, seeing the family together again and then…and then there were snapshots of her. The wedding. Photos of Bentz and her at charity events.

Tears filled her eyes as she saw the love that they’d shared, caught in these pictures. The twinkle in her eye, the sexy grin on Rick’s jaw.

Oh, God, what had happened to them?

Her heart twisted when she thought of all she’d lost. And now it was too late. This sick killer’s rage hadn’t stopped with Jennifer’s death. If anything it had intensified, her obsession with Rick Bentz more focused, and Olivia had become her target. Now, just like Jennifer before her, she was going to die in some carefully plotted and executed horrific “accident.”

Olivia closed her eyes and felt a pang deep in her abdomen.

So sharp she sucked her breath in through her teeth. Oh, dear God. She collapsed forward against the cage and held tight onto the bars, her fists clenching, knuckles showing white as the pain ripped through her.

She felt the boat pick up speed, knifing through the water to its deadly destination, water rushing against the hull.

The pain began to subside. She lifted her head and took a long breath. She was going to be fine. She and the baby. Somehow she’d find a way to save them. She just had to work on it—
Oh, sweet Jesus!

Another razor-sharp pain ripped through her.

Like a knife twisting deep inside.

She gasped.

The baby?

A miscarriage?

No! No! No!

She pulled in a shaking breath, tried to think, to get hold of herself. She was overreacting.

She pulled in a shaking breath, tried to think. She was overreacting.

Nothing was wrong with the baby or her pregnancy.
The baby’s fine.

But the pain didn’t let up. She cast a glance at the open photo album and fought another hard, wrenching abdominal cramp.

The baby’s FINE!

She began to pant, to let out her breath in short little huffs as the cramping continued and she could barely think.

The baby’s fine, the baby’s fine, the baby’s fine!

She gritted her teeth against the pain and the horrid, deplorable thought that she could be losing the tiny life within her.

And then she felt the blood.