by Lisa Jackson
“Maybe Olivia decided to check into a hotel? Get settled in somewhere instead of waiting around here.”
“No way.” Olivia had been as desperate to see him as he was to see her. He’d heard it in her voice.
Hayes sat back in the chair and slung his loose tie over one shoulder. “Look, you saw this Jennifer jump off the cliffs into Devil’s Caldron, right? So your wife is safe.”
Bentz wasn’t certain. Nothing made sense anymore. Everything he believed in had gone sideways or turned upside down. He rubbed a hand over the stubble covering his jaw and tried to think clearly. Logically. Find the nugget of truth woven into so many lies. “Let’s just get this interview over.”
“We’re done here.” Hayes rose, straightening his tie. “But I’ll need you to ID the woman we found at Devil’s Caldron. The morgue isn’t far.” He opened the door and nodded toward the squad room. “Martinez will help you get your vouchered possessions, and then we can go.”
While Hayes went over to his desk, Riva Martinez led Bentz down the hall to the property desk.
“Hey, my wife didn’t show up yet, did she?” Bentz asked her, trying to keep a cordial tone. “Olivia Bentz?”
“Not yet. I called Petrocelli’s cell, but she didn’t pick up.” Riva Martinez smiled at the property clerk, then started filling out the paperwork. As she handed him his gun, the look she sent Bentz could have cut through granite.
Bentz slung the holster over one shoulder, wondering what he ever did to piss off Riva Martinez. Maybe it was just the fact that her caseload had doubled since he’d returned to L.A.
“They should be here by now,” he said, concern mounting. “It’s not that far.”
With a shrug, she handed him the bin containing his cell phone, wallet, house keys. “Probably traffic. Last week there was an accident on the 405, made me forty minutes late for my shift.”
She nodded toward the paperwork. “Sign here to verify that you got everything back.” After he signed, she gave him a copy of the receipt, then turned and walked briskly down the corridor.
Bentz watched her leave, the bad feeling in his gut worsening as she disappeared behind a tall rubber tree. Something was wrong.
As he headed back to the squad room, Bentz powered up his phone. No messages from Olivia. “Damn it.” He dialed her. Got nowhere. “Come on, come on,” he whispered as uniformed cops and detectives passed by. His call went to Olivia’s voice mail box and he asked her to call him ASAP, then hung up.
This wasn’t like her.
Relax. She’s with a cop. Who knows what’s holding them up? Maybe a problem with her luggage, or they stopped to get something to eat. Maybe her cell phone battery is dead… But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. He speed-dialed Montoya, who picked up before the second ring.
“Montoya.”
“Got your call,” Bentz said.
“Yeah, I just talked to Hayes. I sent him information on the owner of the Chevy, Yolanda Salazar. A relative sold it to her for cash. She never changed the title, which isn’t a big deal, but the kicker is this: Her name is Yolanda Valdez Salazar. She’s the older sister of Mario.”
“What? Are you kidding me? Mario Valdez’s sister,” Bentz repeated, stunned. But he knew from the tone of Montoya’s voice this was no joke. In a second he was back in the dark alley, a person aiming a gun at Trinidad…
A silver glint of moonlight on the black gun barrel.
Panic tearing through his heart.
“Police. Drop it!” he yelled in warning.
But in the next instant, the gun didn’t fall away.
He’s going to shoot! He’s going to shoot Trinidad!
As the realization throbbed in his brain, Bentz pulled the trigger.
And the gunman went down…
Now, a dozen years later, that fatal moment was still emblazoned in Bentz’s memory. The rush of relief that he’d saved his partner’s life had quickly given way to horror when he saw that the gunman was just a kid, a boy with a toy pistol. It was a nightmare Bentz would never be able to put completely behind him. “Sweet Jesus,” Bentz said, half to Montoya, half to himself.
“She lives in Encino,” Montoya went on. “I e-mailed and faxed all the info to Jonas Hayes. It should be there by now.”
“Good. Thanks.”
Yolanda Valdez. He clicked off, saw that Hayes was still on the phone. Pacing the corridor, he tried to remember the older sister. There had been three kids in the family, right? Mario was the youngest and Yolanda quite a bit older, maybe twenty when the accident had occurred. And there had been a brother, too…what the hell was his name? Franco? Or Frederico? Or…no, wait…Fernando, that was it. But he didn’t remember Yolanda looking like Jennifer…no, this wasn’t making any sense.
Salazar? That didn’t sound right. Hadn’t she already been married? And the name had been different. He tried to come up with it, but her surname eluded him. Now she was Salazar? He rolled that around in his mind, tried to make some connections. Something didn’t make sense.
He called Montoya back. When his partner answered, Bentz told him his concern. “I think she was married to someone else. Not Salazar. I think the name was Anglo…something like Johns, no that’s not right. Can you double-check?”
“You got it, but everything I found only mentioned her maiden name, Valdez, and Salazar. But I’ll dig further.”
“Thanks.”
Bentz hung up, disturbed.
He stepped around two cops talking in the hallway, then found Hayes at his desk, papers spread around him. Montoya’s e-mail had gotten through. “Take a look.” Hayes showed Bentz the driver’s license photo of Yolanda Salazar. “You think that she’s your Jennifer?”
“Not on a dare.” Bentz rubbed the stubble on his jaw as he shook his head. “I don’t know how this woman is connected to the Jennifer who’s been trailing me.”
“We’ll have to dig deeper, but right now they’re waiting for us over at the morgue.” He motioned to the papers. “Bring those with you. We need to get over and ID our jumper.”
Bentz tried to read the information Montoya had sent as he followed Hayes to the parking lot, where security lamps were already raining down soft blue light. “Anyone hear from Petrocelli?” Bentz asked as they reached Hayes’s 4Runner.
“Not yet.”
“I don’t like this,” Bentz said as he climbed into the passenger seat.
Hayes dialed his cell phone with one hand and started the engine with another. “Hey, Sherry. Hayes here. Just wondering what’s the holdup. Give a call. I’m on my cell.” Then he hung up. “I don’t know, man. She’s not answering.”
Bentz glared at him. “LAPD’s finest?”
“She’ll be here when we get back.”
“She’d better be. With my wife.” Bentz stared out the windshield as Jonas eased out of the parking lot and pulled into moving traffic. Olivia. Where the hell was she?
Safe. With a trusted police officer. Relax.
He tried her number again, but the call went straight to voice mail. Damn it, Olivia, where are you?
A slow groaning terror thrummed through his bloodstream and it was all he could do to stay calm.
At the morgue, while Jonas Hayes had the coroner set up the body for viewing, Bentz paced, steeling himself. He’d never gotten comfortable around corpses, always felt a little nauseated when faced with death, a character flaw he’d attempted to hide from his peers. If other cops had gotten wind of it, he would have suffered years of razzing. Still, he’d been through this procedure enough to know how it went. Right now one of the attendants was wheeling a sheet-draped gurney into the viewing area, checking the toe tag to make sure they had the right Jane Doe.
“You ready?” Jonas asked.
Bentz steadied himself. “Yeah.” It was a lie, of course. The last time he’d seen Jennifer she’d been so vibrant; naughty and teasing and running like a gazelle. So alive. And in a few short hours she’d been reduced to a draped, dead bod
y on a cold slab.
“I don’t know her name, you know,” he reminded Hayes.
“Doesn’t matter. Just let me know if this is the same woman.”
Bentz nodded and Hayes motioned for the attendant to pull the sheet away.
Slowly the woman’s face was uncovered. She lay staring upward, unmoving, her skin cast in a bluish hue.
Bentz felt bile climb up his throat as he gaped in disbelief.
Jennifer wasn’t on the slab.
Instead he found himself staring into the decidedly dead face of Fortuna Esperanzo.
CHAPTER 31
“It’s not Jennifer,” Bentz said, forcing the words out, his fear and confusion mounting. What the hell was this? Fortuna? Dead? Oh, hell!
Hayes’s head snapped around as he stared at Bentz. “What?”
“It’s not the woman I was chasing. This is Fortuna Esperanzo. Jennifer worked with her in an art gallery in Venice.”
“This woman?” Hayes pointed at the body. “Esperanzo?”
“Yes!” Bentz leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for a second, only to open them again and still find himself in the middle of this nightmare.
Hayes rubbed his forehead, frustration and exhaustion evident. “No wonder I couldn’t reach her.”
“Are you certain this is the woman they fished out of the ocean?” Bentz asked.
“Yep. She still smells of salt water,” the attendant said. “Don’t know how she died yet. Not until the autopsy.”
Frustrated, Bentz shoved a hand through his hair. “What was she wearing?” He looked at the attendant. “You have the clothes?”
“I think…let’s see.” She checked a clipboard. “T-shirt, size small, sleeveless. Pink. Shorts. Size two. White. White panties, and a nude colored bra. Thirty-two B. No shoes. No jewelry.”
“Son of a bitch,” Bentz said.
“What?”
“The outfit. Exactly what the woman I was chasing had on. I mean, I don’t know about the underclothes, but she definitely had on a pink sleeveless tee and white shorts. Someone knew. The killer. He or she knew.”
“You don’t think Jennifer’s the killer?”
“How could she be?”
“Who else?”
“Damned if I know.” As a wave of sickness roiled inside him, Bentz turned away. “Let’s go talk to Yolanda Salazar and see what she knows. Maybe she can make the connection between Fortuna Esperanzo and the woman who jumped off the cliff.” He was already walking toward the exit, a deep soul-numbing fear holding him in its icy grasp. Olivia, oh for the love of God, where was she? God help him if she was dead. To Hayes he said, “But first, we need to stop at the Center and find my wife.”
As I stand on deck of my boat with my precious cargo below, I can’t help the tremor of excitement that skims through my blood. So far, so good. Everything is going perfectly.
No thanks to that Olivia.
When we drove away from the airport, “Livvie” was checking out the road signs, a cause for some worry. What if she was more familiar with the city than she’d let on? She pressed me to do this sooner than later. I just couldn’t take a chance that she would get wise and ask to make a call. I needed to have the element of surprise on my side.
As soon as the airport was in the distance, I slowed for an amber light and sneezed. “Oh, Jeez, could you get me a tissue?” I asked her as the light turned red and I braked to a stop. “There in the box?”
“Sure.” She opened the glove box and began searching through the maps and napkins stuffed in there, not realizing that I had pulled out my trusty little Pomeroy Taser 2550. I had bought it on Craig’s List, under an assumed name, of course. “Oh, here we go,” she said as I hit the automatic door locks.
I struck quickly, placing the electrodes against her neck and pulling the trigger. Her mouth was open, her eyes bulging. Then her body reacted and she lost control of her appendages. Her breathing went wild, her eyes round in horror.
This was where it got tricky. I had to do this all while I was driving the car. Reaching into my purse, I pulled out a piece of pre-cut duct tape and slapped it over her startled mouth. Then I grabbed Sherry’s cuffs and placed them over her wrists. I had to work fast, so there was no time to try and wrestle her arms behind her back. So Livvie got cuffed in the front.
That was when the asshole driver behind me laid on the horn of his Porsche and I realized the light had turned green.
“Take a chill pill, bastard!” I mumbled, too busy to care. I had my hands full, Olivia staring at me, her mouth working behind the tape, and that jerk wants me to peel out.
Blasting his horn again, the newest Dale Earnhardt wannabe screeched around me. Yelling filth, he flipped me off and burned rubber. Much as I would have loved to bash in the sleek car’s rear end and take out the driver at the same time, I tamped down the urge. Right then I had a full plate.
Once Olivia—oh, excuse me, “Livvie”—was subdued, I stepped on it and headed to the marina. With her delayed plane, I had lost a lot of time. People would be calling. I had to give her another shock so I could shackle her. Then I loaded her onto the boat, which was no easy task. She weighs a helluva lot more than I had imagined.
Now, on the deck, Olivia secured in the hold below, I can breathe a little easier. I feel a little thrill and wonder if Rick Bentz has any idea that his precious wife isn’t going to meet up with him. In fact, she’s never going to see him again.
“Take that,” I say under my breath and hope to hell that he’s sweating bullets.
Olivia wasn’t answering.
Bentz told himself not to panic, but even Hayes was starting to worry. He’d called Bledsoe from the car and asked him to get a unit down to Venice to cordon off and search Fortuna Esperanzo’s house. They would check with the gallery where she worked as soon as they opened their doors in the morning. He’d also called Tally White, who was very much alive and scared to death. Tally was so freaked out by the pattern of killings that she’d booked a morning flight to Portland, Oregon, for a visit with her sister.
Hurrying inside the Center, Bentz eyed Riva Martinez, who was still working at her desk. “Bledsoe and Trinidad are going to Venice,” she told Hayes as she twisted her red hair into a knot at the back of her head and secured it with a long-toothed tortoise shell comb. “Uniforms have already secured the scene.”
“If it is a scene.”
Bentz’s jaw was rock hard. Three women dead since he’d arrived in Los Angeles, and that didn’t include the Springer twins.
And now…Olivia?
Fear gnawed a hole in his gut.
But he couldn’t, wouldn’t let it get the better of him.
“My wife still didn’t get here?” he asked.
Martinez shrugged. This time her dark eyes revealed a shred of concern. “I’ve been calling Petrocelli, but she doesn’t pick up.” Martinez’s eyebrows pulled together as she stared at her computer monitor, where a picture of Shana McIntyre’s body filled the screen.
Bentz had to look away. It had been bad enough seeing the dead corpse, worse yet to think his wife might be in the hands of the maniac who had killed Shana, Lorraine, and now Fortuna.
“I talked to Petrocelli a few hours ago,” Hayes said, checking his watch. “Maybe four hours ago? She knew the flight was late, but said she’d get to the airport in plenty of time.”
“It’s been too long.” Martinez reached for the jacket slung over the back of her chair. “I’ve already put a BLOF out for Petrocelli’s vehicle; I figure I’d rather err on the side of caution.”
“Good idea,” Hayes agreed.
Bentz felt time slipping by, precious seconds that could be the difference between life and death for Olivia. “We have to find her.”
“We will,” Hayes assured him.
But Bentz wasn’t satisfied. He felt restless, needed to do something, anything other than wait around. God, if Olivia was in danger because of him, because of this Jennifer fiasco…
He pu
t in a call to his daughter and felt his knees go weak when Kristi answered. “Hey, Dad, are you home?”
“Not yet.” Oh, God, Kristi, I wish I was. Back in Louisiana with Olivia. Christ, what was I thinking?
“Still out chasing ghosts?”
“I guess.” He didn’t tell her about Olivia, didn’t want to worry her. In truth he had only called to assure himself that someone he loved was safe, that he hadn’t put his whole damned family in jeopardy.
Just Olivia.
Dear God, the thought that she might even now be in the hands of a murderer…Fear gnawed at his gut but somehow he was able to keep up the conversation with his daughter. After hanging up, he made another quick call. This time to the airlines. He was connected to a representative and, after arguing about legalities, the rep told him that Olivia had been on the flight and that the plane had touched down hours ago, which only confirmed what he’d already known as he talked to her. The airline had no more information for him.
She’d gone missing between LAX and here.
“The airport has security cameras,” Bentz told the other detectives. “Cameras at the door and at baggage claim. I want to see the tapes.”
“We’ll get ’em. If we don’t locate Petrocelli,” Hayes agreed.
Bentz didn’t know if he could stand the waiting. He didn’t like this, didn’t like the feeling. He’d experienced it too many times in his life before, when someone he loved was in danger. This wasn’t the first time he’d been worried sick over Olivia’s fate. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. Couldn’t.
And he couldn’t sit around here, waiting for other people to call the shots. “Come on,” he told Hayes. “We need to have a chat with Yolanda Salazar.”
“I’m way ahead of you. Already working on a warrant. But you’re not talking to anyone. This is our case, and you have a personal ax to grind.”
“You bet I do. My wife is missing!”
“I’m talking about the shooting, Bentz. The department settled with the Valdez family, but I don’t think it would be wise for you to get into it with them. In fact, I don’t want them to know you’re a part of this. At least until we know where we stand. If you go on the interview, you’re a bystander. Lucky to be going along. You know the rules; you just need to play by them.”