Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle

by Lisa Jackson

  “Strange like a psycho, so stop it, okay? And leave me the hell alone. Face it, Kristi, you’re odd. Maybe it’s because of everything you’ve been through, but you’re definitely out of step.”

  “You asked me to look into this,” Kristi reminded her, her voice and temper rising. The older couple at a nearby table glared at them.

  “You’re causing a scene,” Lucretia hissed. “God, I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

  “Into what?”

  “Nothing!”

  Lucretia rolled her eyes and reached up to push her hair from her face. As she did, her sleeve slid and Kristi got a glimpse of gauze taped over Lucretia’s left wrist.

  “What happened?” Kristi asked, indicating the bandage.

  Lucretia turned chalk white. Her hand fell to her side. “I had a little accident. No big deal. I…oh, hell, I’m kind of a klutz in the kitchen,” she said, and it was obviously a lie. “But I’m okay. Really. And that’s not the point. What I’m asking, no, telling you to do, is forget we ever talked before about…you know.”

  “The cult—”

  “I was wrong, damn it!” Lucretia blurted out. “And now I want you to back off.”

  “You said that already, but…” Kristi trailed off. She was talking to dead air as Lucretia had already swung around and was hastening to the booth with Trudie and Zena. Trudie made a big deal of sliding over as Lucretia talked with them for a minute or two, before taking her place in line again.

  Kristi wasn’t sure what to think. She knew Lucretia had been ducking her. That much had been obvious, but to pretend that their conversation basically hadn’t happened? After talking about missing, possibly abducted, coeds and vampires and cults? What was that all about? And the bandage. Kristi would have thought it was no big deal, but Lucretia’s reaction said otherwise.

  Had someone warned Lucretia off?

  The hairs on the back of Kristi’s arms raised.

  Someone found out she talked to you and they’re threatening her. And someone’s following her, scaring her spitless. Even hurting her. That’s why she’s hiding a bandage.

  Kristi glanced at the table where Lucretia now sat with the other girls and caught her ex-roommate staring at her. Lucretia’s face was drawn and white, her lips pursed, and she looked worried as hell. She met Kristi’s eyes for the briefest of seconds, then looked away. As she did, her face turned the color of cold ashes.

  Kristi’s heart nearly stopped. What the hell was that all about?

  Maybe it’s nothing, she quickly assured herself. You’ve been seeing a lot of this, haven’t you? No one has died…yet.

  She swallowed hard.

  Lucretia’s color returned. As if it had never washed away.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Kristi. Maybe you are the freak!

  She thought about the conversation with Lucretia, how her ex-roommate had wanted her to forget everything they’d discussed before. Why?

  Someone got to her.

  Kristi folded her computer closed and packed up. She left the coffee shop without meeting Lucretia’s eyes again, but she’d be damned if she was going to back off. If anything, she was more committed than ever to finding out what had happened to Dionne, Monique, Tara, and Rylee.

  It was only when she’d unlocked the car and slid inside that she realized what else was off about Lucretia. Not only did she look worried as hell, not only had she tried to convince Kristi to back off, but she was no longer wearing the ring on her left hand, the one she’d been so coy about. Kristi had looked at her hands as she’d leaned over the table and they’d been bare. Even the nail polish missing, her fingernails bitten down.

  Have you been following me?

  Lucretia’s accusation echoed through Kristi’s mind.

  Not yet, Kristi thought, but maybe that’s not such a bad idea.

  “I already told you, I don’t know which professor Lucretia Stevens is dating,” Ezma said as she tossed her apron into the bin for dirty clothes. “Maybe it was just a rumor.”

  “So who told you?” Kristi wasn’t about to be derailed. It was nearly eleven P.M. and both she and Ezma were getting ready to leave.

  “I don’t know…oh, wait…it was someone from school, I think, a professor.” She snapped her fingers to jog her memory. “Oh, who was it?” Her face was drawn into a deep knot of concentration. “Oh, Lord…Oh, I got it!” She looked up, her eyes bright. “I was waiting tables right here, and I overheard two women gossiping. Let’s see, it was Dr. Croft, the head of the English Department, and, oh, hell, who was she sitting with that day?” She rubbed her chin. “I think it was the journalism instructor. The new one.”

  “Professor Senegal?”

  “That’s who it was, but I couldn’t hear much. They kept their voices low, especially when I was anywhere nearby. I was kinda surprised. I mean people gossip, of course, but Dr. Croft’s the head of a department and this is a pretty public place. Oh, well…” She lifted her shoulders, then smoothed out the bills she’d gotten for tips, counting them and leaving some for the busboys.

  Kristi did the same, handing the girl who had cleared the tables a percentage of her tips. She and Ezma walked out of the restaurant together. The night was clear and cool, the air crisp as Kristi climbed into her Honda and Ezma slid onto the seat of her moped and strapped on her helmet. A few seconds later, the motor bike was humming out of the lot.

  Kristi started the car. Though she usually walked to work, today she’d been late, so she’d driven the short distance. Before she put the Honda in gear she tried calling Dr. Grotto again and was immediately asked to leave a message on his voice mail. Kristi didn’t bother—the guy already had two from her. Obviously he wasn’t picking up his calls or he was singling her out and ignoring her. Nah, that didn’t make sense.

  She drummed her fingers on the wheel and decided if she didn’t hear from him by Monday she’d have to do a sit-in at his office, force him to talk to her. There were also the Internet chat rooms. Maybe she could test the waters with DrDoNoGood, if he showed up. Flirt with him, pander to his ego. So far she hadn’t turned on the video cam on her computer, preferring anonymity, but maybe it was the only way to reach him. She could buy a cheap wig, colored contacts or glasses. She had to do something to get the creepy professor to start a conversation with her.

  Shoving the hatchback into drive, she nosed out of the parking lot. Gunning the engine, she drove ten miles over the speed limit on the way home. She was anxious to gain access to the storage unit containing Tara Atwater’s things.

  Maybe she would finally learn something about the missing girl.

  She parked in a hurry, running up the steps to her apartment. Inside, she quickly stripped off her work clothes and tossed them into her laundry bag. She also threw in two packets of detergent, the bolt cutters, and a flashlight, then stepped into jeans and a sweater. After slipping on a pair of tennis shoes, she started on her mission.

  She was nervous as a cat, her stomach knotted as she descended two flights before unlocking the door to the basement and snapping on the wimpy lights.

  At night the cavernous room below the building was even more formidable, the nooks and crevices more shadowy and dark. None of the washing machines were agitating, nor the dryers heating and spinning.

  Good.

  Carefully, certain someone would walk down the dark stairs at any second, Kristi removed the bolt cutters and set them on the floor near the wire storage bins, then she sorted her clothes quickly and started two of the washers.

  As the machines began to fill, she grabbed the bolt cutters and studied the bins. They were each clearly marked and locked, one for each unit and two extras. One of the extra bins held gardening supplies and tools, obviously used for the apartment house, the other was filled with boxes. Kristi shined her flashlight through the mesh and saw Tara Atwater’s name scrawled across them, along with a date of November 13, over a month after the girl had been deemed missing.

  “Good enough,” she said, and we
nt to work.

  Unfortunately Randy of the I-Man, You-Woman caveman mentality had been right. Using the bolt cutters proved difficult. She could get the blades over the shackle, the metal piece that attached the lock to the door, but then she didn’t have the strength to make the damned cutters snip through.

  Which ticked her off.

  “Come on,” she said, and tried again, pushing the handles together so hard that her arms ached, pain screaming down them, the muscles trembling with the pressure. “Wuss,” she muttered under her breath as the washers continued to fill, water rushing into the tubs.

  Again she put all her strength behind it.

  Again she failed, only managing to score the shackle with the cutters. “They must be dull,” she told herself, and twisted the cutters around, so that they were pressed against the side of the steel door. Setting her feet on the concrete floor she shoved against one handle with all of her weight, wedging the other into the door. Straining…straining…sweating…eyes squeezed…jaw set…

  Click!

  Oh, God, was that someone at the door?

  Damn!

  What idiot would be doing their laundry this late at night?

  Just you.

  Her heart, already pounding, soared into overdrive. Adrenaline shot through her bloodstream. With a grunt she shoved harder just as she heard the key turn and the upstairs door creak open over the changing of gears in the washers, then footsteps. Heavy tread descending.

  No!

  With all her strength she gave one final shove.

  Snap!

  The shackle broke.

  Kristi didn’t check to see if it was cut through. She shoved the bolt cutters into her laundry bag and, sweating, though the temperature in the basement couldn’t have been over sixty, she bent over the dryer and opened the door as if checking on her wash.

  Except someone else’s wash was already there. Still very wet.

  Criminy! She hadn’t thought to check to see if there were clothes in the dryer. “Hell,” she muttered, straightening just as a huge shape hovered at the bottom of the stairs. Her insides turned to water. Dear God, could this be the abductor? Is this how the psycho found his victims, alone in a dark basement? Had Tara been down here when…

  She was about to reach for the bolt cutters to use as a weapon when Hiram stepped beneath the weak light of one of the overhanging bulbs.

  She let out her breath and snapped back to the problem at hand. Would he notice the broken lock? “Hey, are those yours?” she asked, pointing at the dryer, then opening the door of the second one. It too was filled with wet clothes.

  “Yeah.” Hiram was dressed in flannel pajama bottoms that hung low on his hips and a hooded gray sweatshirt, his hands in the single front pocket of the hoody. On his feet were huge slippers that barely covered what had to be size thirteen or fourteens.

  “Didn’t you turn the dryers on?” she demanded.

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “I dunno. Couple of hours ago.” He was getting defensive, his lips, behind his scraggly beard, folding in on themselves.

  “Well, your clothes are still wringing wet.”

  “I used ‘low’ so my jeans wouldn’t shrink,” he said as if it were she who was the imbecile who didn’t know a thing about laundry protocol or procedure.

  “Well, you’ve got about thirty minutes before the washers are finished with their cycles and when they are, I’m going to need both dryers.”

  “Too bad, you’ll just have to wait.” He made a big deal of checking the sodden clothes. Like he really cared. From the looks of his outfit, this might have been the first time he’d used the laundry facilities since Christmas.

  Hiram hit the start button again, the timer set for twenty minutes, the temperature once again on “low.”

  She said, “That’s not going to work.”

  He snorted, turned, and faced the storage cages.

  Holy crap! Her heart was trip-hammering like mad.

  What would she say when he accused her? Could she lie? From the corner of her eye she saw her laundry bag, the outline of the bolt cutters visible. She kicked the washer. The resulting clang rang throughout the basement.

  Hiram spun as if a top on a string.

  “Damned thing,” she said, shaking her head.

  “What was that noise?”

  “I don’t know but it’s been doing it ever since I loaded it.”

  “The washer? Which one?”

  She pointed to the one she’d kicked. “Every couple of minutes or so it does that banging noise. Can’t be good. You’re the super or the manager or whatever, maybe you could fix it.”

  “It didn’t do it for me.”

  “How do you know? Were you down here?” she asked, and saw by his eyes that he hadn’t been. Good. Her lie was safe. “Maybe you should get your toolbox.”

  He nodded and edged toward the stairs. “Yeah, I will, but after you’re done with the washer, you, uh, might put a note on it that no one is to use it until I, um, get it fixed.”

  “Good idea,” she said, and let out her breath as he, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, started to climb the staircase. Every step seemed to groan in protest with his weight.

  She waited until she heard the door at the top of the stairs open and close, then she didn’t waste a second. She pulled the lock off the security cage, flung open the door, and started opening the boxes within. Clothes, CDs, candles, pictures in frames, books, and various personal items. Too much to fit into the laundry bag in one trip and she didn’t dare carry the boxes upstairs. As quickly as possible, she grabbed up some small items, intending to come back for the rest later.

  Then she took off the lock and replaced it with the one she’d purchased earlier today, the one with a combination she knew. It clicked into place. Until someone came down here and tried to get into the storage unit, no one would be the wiser.

  CHAPTER 15

  Kristi, damn her tight little ass and sassy in-your-face attitude, had gotten to him.

  No two ways about it, Jay thought, disgusted with himself.

  Maybe Gayle had been right all along.

  Maybe he’d never gotten over Kristi Bentz.

  “Fool,” he muttered as he sat in his desk chair in the lab in New Orleans. Ever since leaving her apartment last night, he’d been thinking about her, worried that she was getting into something dangerous. So he’d had to do something.

  Instead of tearing out the old bathtub and starting to fix the plumbing at Aunt Colleen’s house, Jay had rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn Saturday and, with Bruno at his side in the pickup, had driven like a bat out of hell back to his house in New Orleans. Once he’d dropped the dog off, he’d driven to the crime lab and the computer at his desk, where he’d sifted through all of the police databases he could, accessing information on the missing coeds.

  And he hadn’t stopped there.

  Over the course of the day, he’d called a couple of friends who worked for the Baton Rouge Police, a sheriff for the parish of East Baton Rouge, and even an old college buddy who was working for the Louisiana State Police. If they were off duty, he then tracked them down by their cell phones, interrupting their days. He figured it didn’t matter. He was going to get to the bottom of Kristi’s obsession come hell or high water.

  Because she’s yours, his mind taunted. You’ve been obsessed with that woman from the first time you set eyes on her, and if you think you’re doing this for any reason other than to score points with her, guess again.

  His jaw tightened and he pushed the thought aside. Besides, it wasn’t true. He would have checked into any of his students’ concerns. Maybe not with quite so much fervor, or he might have passed the information along to the proper authorities and then stepped back, but he would have taken some action.

  Face it, McKnight, you’re pussy-whipped.

  He refused to listen to the voice as he worked in his office, which was not much more than a closet with a wind
ow, but it had a computer terminal and access to all of the police databases. “All I need is here,” he said aloud, though it was a lie. What he’d like was a beer. Instead, he settled for a semi-chilled can of iced tea from the vending machine and snacked on peanut butter cups and red licorice.

  At least it was quiet here, the weekend shift busy in other areas of the building, away from his small office.

  Everyone he’d phoned was willing to talk to him and all agreed to call him back if they found any information on the four girls, but so far no one had offered up anything he didn’t already know.

  To a one, the police officers believed Dionne Harmon, Monique DesCartes, Tara Atwater, and most recently Rylee Ames were troubled girls who had just taken off. If their credit or debit cards hadn’t been used, it was surmised that they’d found a different money source. Probably dealing drugs or prostituting themselves for cash. Maybe gambling? Mooching off some low-life friends?

  The only glimmer of hope Jay received was from his friend Raymond “Sonny” Crawley, with whom he’d gone to college and who now worked in the Homicide Department at Baton Rouge.

  “Jeeeezus, McKnight,” Sonny had said when he’d answered his cell phone. “What happened? You been talkin’ to Laurent or somethin’? That’s the trouble with that damned woman, she won’t let this thing go, I’m tellin’ ya. No bodies. No crime scene, but she seems to think the girls were abducted or killed or God only knows what. Trust me, we got all the work up here we need without creatin’ any more, but she’s not convinced. Pissin’ everyone off.”

  “Who’s Laurent?” Jay asked, scribbling a note to himself as he stared at the computer screen with the picture of Rylee Ames, the girl who was supposed to have been in his class this term.

  “Portia Laurent’s a junior detective with the department who has a bug up her butt about those girls. Hell, we all want to find them, but sheeeit, there just isn’t a case. Not yet. But you know how those newbies are. They tend to get fired up about any little thing. Not that I’m makin’ light of the situation, but there just isn’t much we can do about it until we come up with a body, murder weapon, suspect, or witness. So why the hell are you interested?”