Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle

by Lisa Jackson

  But he had indulged himself.

  Despite the danger, he’d taken the time to lie on her bed, to drink in her scent, to imagine what it would be like to feel her body under his.

  Writhing.

  Sweating.

  Wanting.

  Faith’s daughter.

  His blood ran hot remembering what her bed had smelled like. In his mind’s eye he’d seen her wild curls spread on the pillow, her lips parted and trembling, her body jerking upward as he’d thrust into her. Hard. Fast. Leaving her breathless until the perfect moment when he’d take her life . . .

  Oh, how he would have loved to have surprised her today. He trembled with anticipation and his hands were slick on the steering wheel.

  Be patient.

  Her time is soon.

  Now he opened the gate and eased his truck through then secured the chain again. The rain, which had been pouring most of the day, had lessened a bit, and he drank in deep lungfuls of the wet, night air. Stealthily, he drove onto the highway, eventually hitting the lights. With the police ever vigilant, it was time to act.

  For nearly twenty-four hours, he’d let the old man think about his life. Long enough.

  Now, it was time to end it.

  “Damn it!” Gina Jefferson threw her pencil across the tiny room. It hit the wall, scratching the plaster beneath her award for being the 2002 African-American Business Woman of the Year granted her by the city of New Orleans. The pencil slid down the wall, landing behind the file cabinet. “Great, Gina. Smooth move,” she muttered under her breath, angry at herself for letting her temper get the better of her. It was late, after nine, and she was the last employee still on the premises at Crescent City Center. She’d been here twelve hours, worked her tail off, and was as frustrated as she’d been in her fifty-five years. Feeling foolish, and glad no one else was in the room, she walked across the worn carpeting, tried to retrieve the pencil but couldn’t. The file cabinet was a behemoth and stuffed full of client files, clients who would soon have to find a new facility for their mental health needs.

  Unless she could pull a cash cow out of her hat.

  She’d already knocked on most of the doors of the donors she could count on, over and over again. She needed a new list of wealthy philanthropists, if there was one. Using a coat hanger, she fished out the pencil, now covered with a long, sticky cobweb. Wiping it off with a tissue, she stuffed it into the cup on her desk, a gift from someone the free mental health center had helped.

  “Lordy, lordy, give me strength,” she said as she snagged her raincoat from the hall tree and slipped it on. The coat seemed tight tonight and she reminded herself that she was supposed to be on a diet, that she needed to lose at least thirty pounds, but she was too depressed to think about her ever-expanding waistline. Too depressed and too stressed. Some of her friends smoked when they were on edge, others had the good fortune not to be able to eat. She, on the other hand, found food a balm in times of anxiety, and right now she was pretty damned anxious. The center was going to close and soon if she couldn’t find a way to raise the cash necessary to keep the damned doors open.

  Through the window the night seemed darker than usual, but maybe that was just because she was so depressed. After months of fund-raising, hours on the phone, working round the clock, all her efforts seemed to have been for naught. The free mental health center would inevitably close its doors. Unless the coffers of some ka-billionaire or the ka-billionaire’s charitable foundation miraculously donated thousands upon thousands of dollars to keep it open. Even then they would need more money, federal grants, and additional funds from the state or parish or city, all of which were tapped out.

  Rotating the kinks from her neck, she snapped off most of the lights, then glanced through the glass doors to a spot across the street where twice this evening she’d noticed a man standing alone.

  She was used to dealing with oddballs. After all, the center catered to those poor individuals who needed psychological and emotional help. The more serious cases were referred to the hospital, but most of the people they saw were troubled souls who needed some medication, or direction, or just to talk. One medical doctor and two nurses volunteered their time; the rest of the staff was made up of clinical psychologists or social workers.

  In her fifteen years here, Gina had seen more than her share of strange people. So why tonight, she wondered, did she sense that there was something different about the individual she’d caught lingering on the other side of the street, just out of the circle of the lamp post’s illumination?

  A sixth sense?

  Or just the fact that she was bone-tired?

  There were lots of homeless people and drifters in this part of New Orleans. And the town had more than its share of oddballs and neurotics and druggies. As much as she loved New Orleans, she knew the dangers of the city streets. She’d been born and raised here, the oldest of seven children. Her father, Franklin, had been a boxer in his youth, a bus driver later in life. Her mother had raised the children and cooked not only for the family, but for people in the neighborhood. Then, with a small inheritance and encouragement from everyone she knew, Ezzie Brown had opened her own restaurant on the fringe of the French Quarter. All of Ezzie and Franklin’s children, whether of legal age or not, had worked in the restaurant, busing tables, waiting, cooking, mopping the floors, and cleaning the grill, all the while learning the value of a dollar, and an appreciation for good jazz. A table made out of two doors stretched across the back room behind the kitchen and was set up as a long desk where, under the hum and bright illumination of fluorescent lights, every one of Ezzie’s kids was supposed to do his or her homework. They were surrounded by shelves packed with jars of pickles, cans of tomato paste, sacks of onions, garlic, and hot peppers, all vying for space with the boxes of cornmeal and flour.

  Now, Gina engaged the alarm system, tucked her umbrella under her arm, pulled her keys from her purse, and rezipped it, then, juggling her briefcase and everything else, she shouldered open the door. Outside it was a nasty night, wet and wild, water running through the dark streets, an occasional car flying past, splashing water, thrumming with music.

  The scents of the city filled her nostrils, the smell of the Mississippi ever present. Lordy, Gina loved it here.

  No stranger loitered in the shadows near the streetlamp.

  She checked.

  Breathing easier, she locked the door behind her, thinking of the restaurant where her mother, pushing eighty, still served the best creole shrimp in all of Louisiana. Her parents had taught each of their children to be strong and smart, work hard, and love the Lord. No matter how tight money had been while Gina had been growing up, Franklin and Esmeralda Brown tithed faithfully to their church, sang in the choir, donated to the missions, and made their children do so as well. Never had a neighbor come by who had not been fed. If Christmas was lean, so be it; if the bus company laid Franklin off, then he’d work odd jobs until he was hired somewhere else. Throughout it all, the good times and the bad, her parents’ rock-solid faith had never faltered.

  Not even when their youngest boy, Martin, had been born. There had been problems with his birth from the get-go. Esmeralda, who had delivered six chubby healthy babies into the world, had nearly died in childbirth with the seventh. An emergency C-section and subsequent transfusion had saved her life, but the scrawny baby had been in distress in vitro and had been fussy and colicky for the first year of his life. Who knew if that harsh entrance into the world had been a part of the violence and temper that followed? Whatever the reason, Martin had always been different.

  Always.

  He’d been in and out of juvenile facilities, mental facilities, and later jail all of his thirty-three years. Even as he’d grown into a big, strapping man, he’d never completely emotionally matured. Twenty-two years younger than his oldest sister, Martin had given Gina her first glimpse of the struggles of those with mental problems. Though Martin tested normal, even intelligent in the standard
exams, there was always something off. It didn’t help that he possessed a hair-trigger temper coupled with a need for violence. As many psychiatrists as Martin had seen, including Dr. Simon Heller at Our Lady of Virtues when the hospital had been open, he had never fit in.

  People like Martin needed this center and needed it desperately! She couldn’t let herself and the community down by not fighting for it to remain open.

  Still clutching her purse, briefcase, and umbrella in one hand, she managed to slide the accordion-style grate over the door and locked it as well, then tested it by rattling the bars.

  Opening her umbrella, she made her nightly mad dash through a gravel-strewn alley to her car. The Buick Regal, her pride and joy, was parked where it always was in the back parking lot, a sorry piece of asphalt. The wind caught in the umbrella and rain slapped at her legs, and again, she had that weird feeling that had been with her all day. She looked over her shoulder but saw no one. The alley was deserted, the traffic on the street thin and quiet.

  So why the case of the willies?

  There’s no one out here, Gina, she thought. Get over your bad self! You’ve done this hundreds of times, every night, like clockwork. No one’s ever bothered you. You’re just upset because the center is going to close unless you find a way to keep the doors open! You, Gina. Ain’t no one else gonna step up to this plate!

  Walking briskly, she wondered how she was going to get the quick influx of cash. The trouble was, there just wasn’t enough money to go around, she thought, fighting with her umbrella in the gusts of wind and rain.

  But she needed one celebrity type to help out. Someone the public could relate to, someone they would trust and give generously to. She thought of Billy Ray Furlough, that nearly rabid televangelist. He managed to get people to donate weekly to his church and his catchphrase, “Lord, love ya, brother,” was heard all over the country.

  She’d never appealed to Billy Ray for money; there was something too slick, too big business, about him. But she might, after tonight’s meeting, have to swallow her pride and, rather than call in, see him personally and try to fight her way through the obstacle course of receptionists, bodyguards, and yes-men to get to the preacher, the tall man who’d been labeled as possessing a “Hollywood thousand-watt smile.” That phrase alone had made her want to throw up. She figured it was some spin doctor’s idea of good press. These days, apparently, even preachers had a public image to uphold—an image that probably wouldn’t need the world to know that the good preacher himself had worked through his own “issues.”

  Yes, she’d call on Billy Ray Furlough personally. And once again she’d approach Asa Pomeroy, another wealthy man in the city, one she could barely stomach. Pomeroy traded in wives for younger models on a regular basis, and he sold weapons to the highest bidder. And yet, he’d been known to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars if the cause appealed to him. And even Asa, the almighty, had a son who had battled his own share of mental challenges.

  Again, she’d have to smile, ask sweetly, and bite her tongue.

  You’re a hypocrite, Gina. You hate preachers who are more about glitz and television ratings than God, and you despise anyone who makes money by selling arms.

  But desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Boy, did she understand that old bromide. Just last week she’d phoned her friend Eleanor Cavalier, who worked at WSLJ. Gina had wanted some on-air exposure, and she’d hoped to be a guest on Samantha Leeds’s program, Midnight Confessions. Dr. Sam was a psychologist who worked at the Boucher Center off Toulouse Street and sometimes helped out here at Crescent City Center. The trouble was the program manager for the station had thought it would be more interesting for the audience if Gina appeared on Luke Gierman’s show as well. Gina, fearing she’d just made a deal with the devil, had reluctantly agreed.

  She figured now, with Gierman’s murder, she was off the hook.

  She walked through the parking lot to her car, fighting the umbrella, stepping in puddles that had collected in the potholes and feeling the water seep through her boots.

  A night not fit for man nor beast, her father used to say and she realized then why it was so dark. The only security light for the entire lot had burned out.

  How odd.

  She had a bad feeling, again.

  The long hours were getting to her. Every little thing made her jump tonight.

  What she needed was to drive the five miles to her home, take a warm shower, pour both Wally and herself a glass of wine, and beat the pants off him in a game of cut-throat Scrabble. He’d be waiting for her, just as he had for the entire thirty-six years of their marriage.

  He was a good man, had always been there through times of plenty and want. She reached her car and tried to slide her key into the lock, but just like everything else on this cussed night, unlocking the car turned out to be a problem. The lock was jammed.

  She tried again. “Come on,” she muttered between clenched teeth, her nerves strung tight as piano wires. “Oh, for the love of Mike!”

  Flustered, she started to unzip her purse for her cell phone when she sensed something, nothing that she could see, just a dark premonition that made her turn, swinging the damned umbrella. Too late! Something cold and metallic was pressed against her neck.

  She started to scream as thousands of volts of electricity sizzled through her body. Her legs gave way. Her arms flailed wildly. She couldn’t breathe. Her thoughts scattered. It felt as if a million tiny daggers were touching her skin. No! She tried to scream again and only a garbled, faint noise came out of her mouth.

  Quickly and adeptly, as if he’d done it thousands of times before, her assailant slapped tape over her mouth, grabbed her keys from the pavement beside her, peeled something off the lock of her car, opened both doors on the driver’s side, and stuffed her unceremoniously into the backseat. Helpless, unable to move, she saw him scrape up something from the ground . . . her purse, then the umbrella. He tossed both items into the front passenger seat.

  Panicked, Gina tried to get away, to force her jellied limbs to move, but it was no use. He was quick, and using the same kind of tape he’d pressed over her mouth, he bound her ankles as her legs still dangled off the seat, hanging out of the car. Once her legs were lashed together, he crawled half inside, painfully wrenched her arms behind her back, and wound tape over her wrists.

  She tried to see him and wound him, to scrape some of his skin from his arms, but he was too quick, disguised in a black wetsuit or something like it. Who was he and why, oh, why was he doing this? With all her might she tried to struggle, to fight, to save herself, but as many orders as her brain screamed, her muscles ignored. Her arms and legs were useless. A blindfold was swiftly tied over her eyes.

  In less than two minutes she was trussed and locked into the backseat of her own car and he, whoever he was, began to drive. She felt the Regal’s tires bouncing over the ruts and holes in the parking lot as he eased down the alley.

  Throughout the entire ordeal, he’d been silent.

  Deadly efficient.

  Working with a cold brutality that drove fear straight into her heart.

  It was as if he’d planned the attack for days, or weeks, possibly even months.

  But why?

  Who would do this?

  Dear Jesus, help me! Tears burned behind her eyes and her entire body trembled. She tried to concentrate, to figure out a plan of escape, to, at the very least, fling herself out of the moving car, but just as the thought hit her brain, she heard the childproof door locks click down.

  He slowed at, she assumed, the alley’s entrance and eased onto the street, turning toward the river.

  Oh, God, where was he taking her?

  To do what?

  She was shaking all over, tears tracking from her eyes, and she blinked hard, tried to get her bearings.

  Think, Gina, think! Your cell phone! If you could just get to it and hit speed dial for 911.

  Frantic, she willed
her muscles to respond, but what good would it do? She was tied, her arms pulled behind her back, her shoulders aching in their sockets. Besides, her phone was in her purse and her handbag was in the front passenger seat.

  Her heart dropped like a stone.

  There was no escape.

  There isn’t unless you find a way! Don’t give up, Gina . . . find a way out of this mess! Isn’t that what you tell the people that you counsel, that God always gives you an opportunity, you just have to discover it and work for it? Then find that opportunity, now, before it’s too late!

  This is a test. God’s test.

  You can save yourself. The Lord will be with you.

  She tried to stay calm, to keep her wits about her, to find comfort in her faith. God helps those who help themselves. What she could do was concentrate on where they were going. She couldn’t see, but she knew the streets of this city like the back of her hand. The center was two blocks off Esplanade and he’d taken the alley to the west.

  Now, he was driving slowly, winding through the city. She thought they were continuing west. Through the blindfold she sensed illumination, streetlights. She heard other traffic as well—tires humming, engines racing, people shouting—and then, as her Buick picked up speed, she knew they were on the freeway, but which direction? She waited for the sound of a bridge. A short one over the Mississippi River, or the bridge across Lake Pontchartrain that would go on for over twenty miles.

  However, he’d taken so many corners before he accelerated onto the freeway that she was confused. Soon the illumination from the city lights no longer bled through her blindfold. She felt that they were on the freeway, but had no clue any longer which direction.

  She was lost, hog-tied and alone with a would-be killer.

  She prayed for her safety, but with each passing mile, her hopes for rescue died.

  She knew the odds. This monster’s motive wasn’t money. Otherwise he would have stolen her wallet and jewelry and left her. Nor would he be demanding ransom as she and Wally lived modestly and had no money to speak of. She wasn’t a rich woman. So if her abduction wasn’t for money, his motive was darker, more frightening. Deadlier.