Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle

by Lisa Jackson

  Kicking and slapping, she aimed for his testicles, but he pulled her under again. Again she gulped water. She bobbed up. Gasped. Coughing, sputtering, choking. He grabbed her hair with his free hand. “Now Dr. Sam, repent,”

  “Wh—what?”

  “Repent for your sins.”

  He dunked her again, holding her down in the sluggish water, robbing her of air until she couldn’t breathe, saw images in the darkness, murky shapes moving near his legs.

  With a hard pull, he yanked her up and she could barely move. “Go ahead play dead. See what good it does you,” he said, and dragged her closer to the shore. Her toes touched now, and she tried to run, but he held her fast and fumbled beneath the water, reaching into his pocket, withdrawing his wicked weapon. In the darkness she saw the beads—his rosary.

  She struggled, but it was no use. He was so much stronger. So much bigger. Knew the swamp. If only she had a weapon, a stick, a rock, anything! In the distance she saw headlights, growing nearer, flashing through the trees.

  “Say your prayers, Dr. Sam,” Kent ordered as he slipped the noose over her head. The beads were cold as death. Sharp. Hard. Brittle. He twisted the garrote, and she gasped. Pain seared through her neck. He leaned forward. “Repent and kiss me, you miserable bitch,” he ordered, and she lunged forward, teeth bared, and bit hard into his cheek.

  He yowled, let go for just a second and she swam under the dock, tore the wicked rosary from her neck and came up on the other side. She heard him splashing behind her, but she swam to the boat, grabbed the spotlight and moved it frantically toward the headlights cutting through the darkness. She heard a car’s engine, the grind of tires spinning on gravel.

  Her feet touched and she started for the shore, hoping that whoever was coming could reach her in time. “Here!” she screamed. “Help!” But Kent was behind her and lunged forward just as the car ground to a stop.

  Doors opened. Two men and a dog flew out of the car.

  “Police, Seger! Give it up!” a voice boomed.

  Kent’s hand clamped over her shoulder. She dived into the shallow water.

  Crack!

  A rifle report echoed through the bayou.

  Kent squealed and fell back into the water. Splashing. Flailing. His blood flowing into the dark ripples. “God damn it,” he cried, but his voice was fading, gurgling.

  Gasping and shaking, Sam lunged toward the shore, frantically slogging through the water lilies and vines, sobbing and shaking, certain he would reappear and drag her under again.

  “Samantha!” Ty’s voice rang across the swamp, through the trees.

  Sam nearly crumbled into a thousand pieces.

  “Here!” she tried to scream, but her words were only a whisper. She pushed herself forward, feeling as if she was running in slow motion.

  She saw him silhouetted by the headlights, racing toward her, the dog at his heels. She started sobbing wildly and couldn’t stop when he wrapped his arms around her and held her body to his. “Sam…Sam…oh, God, are you all right?”

  “Yes…no…yes…” She was holding him, trying to regain some kind of composure and falling into a million pieces.

  “Over here,” Ty yelled, turning his head toward the sniper. “Bring a blanket.” He turned back to her. “Jesus, Samantha, I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…what the hell have you got?”

  Only then did she realize she was still holding the damned rosary. As if it were truly evil, she let it slide through her fingers to drop onto the soggy ground. She was trembling and shivering and on the verge of passing out. Through her fog, she felt someone throw a blanket over her nakedness and realized it was Detective Bentz.

  “I’ll need some kind of statement,” he said, averting his eyes as she wrapped the thin blanket around her.

  “Later,” Ty said.

  In the distance she saw other headlights.

  “The cavalry,” Bentz explained, as an owl hooted from a nearby branch. “I figured we could use some backup.” He looked at the swamp and reached into the pocket of his jacket, retrieving an unopened pack of cigarettes. “I suppose I should go retrieve the son of a bitch,” he said. “Right after I have a smoke. If I’m lucky, maybe the gators will do my work for me.” Then he lit up and, gun still in hand, slowly walked onto the dock, searching the dark water while the tip of his cigarette glowed red in the misty darkness.

  “How—how did you find me?” Sam asked, her mind still foggy.

  “Navarrone knew that Kent had a place here—the only thing his mother had given him when she cut him off. Basically we got lucky.”

  “Lucky? I was hoping you would say it was all because of brilliant police work.”

  “There was a little of that, but luck played a major part.”

  “That’s so reassuring,” she said, shaking her head and holding the blanket tight around her shivering body.

  “It’s meant to be.”

  “God help us.” She felt the streaks of mud on her skin and saw, in the headlights, drips of red. Blood. Not hers but Kent’s. Diluted with swamp water, but still running down her legs. Shuddering, she wiped the vile fluid from her skin. “Can we get out of here?” she asked.

  “You bet.” Ty whistled to the dog and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go home.”

  Epilogue

  “So it’s ‘case closed,’” Montoya said as he walked into Bentz’s office and sat on the corner of his desk. Ever cool, Montoya was in his signature leather coat, some dark slacks and a white T-shirt. He’d traded in the goatee for a moustache and instead of one earring, he sported two.

  Through the open window, the sounds of the night seeped into the building—a solitary riff from a saxophonist, the hum of traffic, the buzz of laughter. It was night in the city of New Orleans.

  “The case is closed except for the fact that we never found Kent Seger’s body.”

  “You figure he got out alive?”

  “With all those gators? Nope.” Bentz leaned back in his desk chair and found a piece of gum in his desk. “I think he got what he deserved.”

  “You give up smokin’ again?”

  “For the time being.”

  “Probably a mistake.”

  “Probably.”

  “So what’s happening with Dr. Sam?”

  “All good things,” Bentz said with a grin. He’d talked to Dr. Sam and was surprised at how well she’d survived her ordeal. She was one tough cookie and now she was calling the shots. “The way I hear it she’s got a new assistant and refused to expand the program to seven days a week. George Hannah’s going along with it, because he’s afraid to lose her. And he would. There are other bigger stations who would hire her in an instant. One as far away as Chicago.”

  “So why’s she stayin’?”

  “One reason is Ty Wheeler.” Reaching behind him, he flipped on the fan and the hot air blew from one end of the tiny office to the other.

  “Thought you didn’t like him?”

  “I don’t. Anyone who gives up being a cop to write books is a candy-ass.”

  “Or smart. You let him and that dog ride with you,” Montoya reminded him.

  “The dog, I like.”

  “So Kent Seger was just one messed-up mother.” “Yeah, I’ve seen some hospital records. Depression, drug use, violence.”

  “And what about Ryan Zimmerman?” Montoya asked. Bentz frowned. “He’ll probably try to patch things up with his wife if he ever gets out of the hospital. The story is that he ran into Kent one night in the bars—he’d just lost his job and been kicked out of the house. Kent was an old friend, or so he thought and Kent was connected, had a virtual candy store of drugs. They hooked up and once Ryan was out of it, Kent took him hostage. Held him prisoner.

  Tortured him in that lair of his.” “The one Navarrone discovered.”

  “Yeah. Where we found the trophies.” Bentz chewed hard on his gum. Seeing the jewelry had gotten to him—everything from earring studs to ankle
bracelets and a locket with Kent and Annie’s picture inside—probably taken off his sister on the night she’d died, though no one had mentioned it. The way Bentz figured it, Kent had swapped Ryan’s picture for his own. The world was no worse without Kent Seger.

  “So Zimmerman’s sworn off drugs, for good, or so he claims. You can’t trust junkies,” Bentz said. “The combination of drugs Kent gave him the night Melanie was killed messed him up bad enough that Kent had no problem setting him up. Kent made the call to the station the night Melanie was killed, then pushed Zimmerman into the street. He just happened to get hit by the car. That wasn’t necessarily planned. If the hospital hadn’t pumped his stomach, he would have died.”

  “As would have Samantha Leeds.”

  Bentz scowled. “She nearly did anyway.” He glanced out the open window to the city lights and remembered how Kent Seger had gotten past her security, with the one key she didn’t duplicate when she changed the locks, a small key she’d rarely used, the one to the trap door under her stairs. All Kent had to do was slip under the verandah, make his way to the trap door and let himself into the house. Easy as pie. What a bastard. And his body had never been recovered from the swamp, as if the dark vile water had claimed one of its own.

  Montoya leaned against the file cabinet and crossed his booted feet in front of him. “So what happened to that brother of hers. Pete or Peter or whatever he went by? I thought he might have been involved.”

  “From all I know he’s as elusive as ever. Hasn’t surfaced. He worked for a cell phone company for a while, but quit his job. No one’s heard from him. Not Sam, not her father, not even the damned IRS.”

  “What’s up with that?”

  “Maybe he’s just a private person.”

  “Or a junkie.”

  “A lot of those out there.” Bentz glanced into the night. “My guess is that Samantha and her father won’t hear from him until the coroner comes knocking—if then.”

  “So that’s it,” Montoya said.

  “The case is closed.” “There’re a few loose ends,” Bentz allowed. “I still want to talk to some people who conveniently dropped out of sight when the bodies started piling up. Roommates, exes, pimps and the like, but I think they’re all clean, probably just had other issues with the law that they didn’t want to go into and decided it was time to disappear.” He thought of Marc Duvall, the pimp and Sweet Cindy AKA Sweet Sin, to name a couple persons of interest who had conveniently turned up missing. Sooner or later he’d track them down. Especially Duvall. “But yeah, for all intents and purposes it’s over.”

  “Good.” Reuben snapped to attention. “Then we’re done. Right? Maybe you should celebrate with one of those near-beers.”

  “We still have a couple of murders that haven’t been solved,” Bentz reminded him, and glanced at the computer screen where images of two dead women, one Jane Doe burned and left in front of the statue of Joan of Arc, the other, Cathy Adams, the stripper/student/prostitute who had been found with her head shaved in her apartment.

  So close in age to his own daughter. The only kid he’d ever raise. That thought bothered him, but, hell, it was working out. She was a great kid. A great kid.

  “We’ll figure the other murders out,” Montoya said, never doubting himself for a minute.

  “I hope so.” But Bentz wasn’t convinced. In his gut he knew another serial killer was stalking the streets of his city. Another sick bastard with strange rituals. A signature? God,he hoped not. Maybe the two cases on his desk weren’t related. And yet…he sensed they were.

  Damn it all to hell.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely celebrating tonight. Definitely.”

  “Probably a good idea,” Montoya agreed.

  “A damned good one. Hey—what time is it?” He looked at his watch, a knock off of a Rolex, then walked over to the file cabinet and switched on the radio just as the first few strains of “A Hard Day’s Night” faded away and Samantha Leeds’s sultry voice floated from the speakers.

  “Good evening New Orleans, this is Dr. Sam at WSLJ. You’re listening to Midnight Confessions, and tonight we’re going to be talking about luck…”

  Dear Reader,

  Okay, the truth of the matter is that I loved writing HOT BLOODED. I mean, I really loved it! Maybe it was the romance and the intrigue of the city of New Orleans, or maybe it was the characters who became a part of my life for so many months, or maybe I just can’t let go. Whatever the reason is I decided to write a companion book to the first story. And that was just the beginning.

  COLD BLOODED is the next thriller in what has become a series of books surrounding the characters of Detective Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya of the New Orleans Police Department. Once again, I adored writing it. Basically COLD BLOODED picks up where HOT BLOODED left off.

  Remember the murders that Bentz and Montoya hadn’t quite figured out at the end of HOT BLOODED? Well, they get their chance in COLD BLOODED, and boy, do they have their work cut out for them.

  Another signature killer is on the loose in New Orleans. Women from all walks of life are being stalked, then ritualistically killed. This time the killer is very clever, leaving behind few clues. For some reason the victims seem to trust or know the man who cruelly takes their lives.

  The press is going wild with the story and some of the people you met in HOT BLOODED reappear. There are a host of new characters as well, including Olivia Benchet, a woman whose dreams remarkably re-create the murders. The police write her off as a nut case, but Rick Bentz sees a connection. Not only does Olivia, a descendent of a voodoo priestess, have incredible insight into the murders, she also is the first woman in a long time who has interested Bentz. Pretty, smart, and outspoken, she’s obviously terrified of her visions.

  The story really heats up when Olivia turns to a local priest for comfort, and an old secret that has plagued Bentz for years resurfaces.

  Everything Rick Bentz believes in, everything he holds dear is suddenly at risk, thrust into horrifying, mind-numbing danger. Olivia Benchet and his own daughter, Kristi, become targets, and he has to face the toughest, most diabolical adversary of his career. It’s up to him to stop a COLD-BLOODED killer.

  Putting an end to the terror running through the narrow streets of the city becomes Bentz’s personal mission. Even if it means compromising his career.

  I hope you pick up a copy of COLD BLOODED and the other books in the series. They are, in sequence, HOT BLOODED, COLD BLOODED, SHIVER, ABSOLUTE FEAR, LOST SOULS, MALICE, and DEVIOUS, which is scheduled to be released in April of 2011! Each of the books brings Montoya and Bentz face to face with twisted killers bent on destruction. In SHIVER, Montoya meets Abby Chastain, the one woman who turns his world around. The mystery surrounding her and her mother’s death draw him into a world of smoke and mirrors.

  Each book has its own story and DEVIOUS, the most recent, is not only set in New Orleans, but has roots deep into the heart of the history and culture of the city where a young, beautiful novitiate who is about to take her vows at St. Marguerite’s Cathedral is brutally murdered. At the stroke of midnight, as Sister Camille takes her last dying breath, she prays for forgiveness, and knows the sins of her past will come back to haunt all those she holds dear.

  DEVIOUS is a story where nothing appears as it should, and once again Detectives Montoya and Bentz must solve the crime and understand the twisted, vile mind of a killer whose crimes seem all too familiar. To learn more, just turn the page to an excerpt from DEVIOUS!

  As I said, I hope you like HOT BLOODED and all the books in the Montoya/Bentz series. You can read excerpts and learn more about the books through my Web site at www.lisajackson.com or through facebook, where I have a fan page that keeps everyone up to date on upcoming books, contests, and events.

  Keep Reading!

  Lisa Jackson

  LISA JACKSON

  COLD BLOODED

  IN SEARCH OF A KILLER

  “I thought I expla
ined all this,” Olivia said. “I’ve been in to the police department before. No one took me seriously. Just like you.”

  “Try me,” Bentz suggested. “Just tell me what you saw.”

  ‘Well … where to begin? I’d have these nightmares, more fragmented than this last one, but intense. It wasn’t a vision of someone being violently murdered like last night … but rather short images, every other day or so, of a victim being left to starve to death. She … she was trapped somewhere like a crypt of some kind and she was screaming and crying. And I felt him. His presence.”

  “The killer?”

  “Yes. Whoever abducted her and left her to die would come and visit her, shine a flashlight into her terrified eyes, then leave. So I only got glimpses of where she was being held, only quick images of the surroundings. Anything else?” she asked.

  “Yeah, a couple of things. I’ll want a list of everyone you know. Family, friends, anyone you work with or see at school.”

  “You think my friends are involved.”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know who is, but if I take what you’re telling me at face value, then somehow you’re connected with the killer … right? There’s something between the two of you … I mean, I assume that’s the way it works.”

  She nodded. “Sometimes …” She let her voice fade away and didn’t go on.

  “Sometimes what?”

  “It sounds so crazy, but sometimes I get this feeling … it’s like crystals of ice over the back of my neck, and I feel that he’s close … closer than I ever imagined …”

  Books by Lisa Jackson

  SEE HOW SHE DIES

  FINAL SCREAM

  WISHES

  WHISPERS

  TWICE KISSED

  UNSPOKEN

  IF SHE ONLY KNEW

  HOT BLOODED

  COLD BLOODED

  THE NIGHT BEFORE

  THE MORNING AFTER