by Lisa Jackson
“Like loan you the car.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“A smoke screen,” Bentz said, “so I wouldn’t be looking in the right direction.”
Jada said, “I guess. She didn’t want me to have anything to do with the police department, either. And I was told to avoid somebody named Hayes. He was totally off limits.”
“Hayes?” Bentz said barely able to draw a breath.
“Yeah. I thought maybe he was in on it with her.”
Jonas Hayes? A bad cop? No way.
“You think?” Montoya said, as if reading Bentz’s mind.
Bentz shook his head. “No. Couldn’t be him.”
“I’m just sayin’.” Jada shrugged as if she didn’t have a care in the world, her bad attitude returning. “She said something once, like, I don’t know, when I asked about what was going on, she told me not to worry, that she had it handled that Jonas would take care of things, or tell her about it.”
“Pillow talk?” Bentz said with mind-numbing certainty.
“I don’t know.” Jada rolled her now-blue eyes. “Maybe.”
Not just maybe. It made sense. Bentz had suspected a cop. And if it was a cop with access to police intelligence, someone with a position at Parker Center, someone who could learn through Hayes how the investigation was going, he or she could be one step ahead.
Someone like Corrine O’Donnell.
A woman he’d dumped twice. For Jennifer. Bentz cringed inside, not willing to believe…then he remembered Corrine’s overly concerned smile and words of encouragement when he’d filed the Missing Person’s report on Olivia. How could he have missed it? Corrine, involved with Jonas, Bentz’s link to the LAPD.
It explained how Jada had anticipated Bentz’s every move. Bentz’s throat went dry as his mind sped through the past week, the images of dead women, car chases, “Jennifer” sightings.
Was it really possible?
Was Corrine the one behind all this?
And Hayes, holy Mother of God, how did he fit in?
Jonas Hayes had known everything Bentz was doing, had insisted they play it by the book. The wail of sirens split the night air, reverberating through the parking garage, snapping Bentz back to the moment. The LAPD was on its way. “You’d better not be bullshitting me,” he warned Jada.
“I just want to get paid.” She eyed him expectantly.
Montoya sent her a look of pure disgust. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t bet on it. I want to be Brad Pitt, you know, but sometimes things don’t work out the way we plan.”
Her lip curled. “Yeah, well, too bad about the Brad Pitt thing,” she said and Bentz could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. “And by the way, I want my lawyer. I’m not saying another word until we have some kind of deal.”
Martinez stopped by Hayes’s desk and handed him blowups of the picture of Olivia. “This is the hard copy of what they came up with in the lab.”
Technicians in the lab had analyzed the shot, which they’d enlarged and enhanced in an attempt to bring out every detail of the picture, even images that were hidden.
“They sent it to you via e-mail, too.”
“Got it,” Hayes said, bone tired. He compared the images, on the screen, on paper.
“It’s a boat, obviously,” Martinez said. Sliding her finger a bit, she touched the corner of the picture over Olivia’s head. “These puffy things stuffed in here? Life jackets. And take a look at those curved lines on the walls. Seems to be painted with stripes.” She pointed to a detail in another blowup. “They make that out to be the handle of an oar.”
“A boat. So she’s being held on the water somewhere?” Jonas touched the knot of his tie, thinking about that. “So in a marina probably? Or private boat slip? Or…even dry-docked?” He eyed each shot, looking for more details.
“Or out to sea.”
“Damn.” Something about the blowup nagged at him, tugged at his mind.
“We might have to coordinate a search effort with the Coast Guard.” Martinez brought him back to reality as she tapped another shot. “There’s an image that isn’t visible to the naked eye in this one. The lab thinks it’s a script, probably the name of the vessel on a life preserver. It ends in n, n, e.”
Hayes closed his eyes for a second, then looked again. She was right. The image resembled a life preserver. With the letters n, n, e stenciled on faintly.
The end of a boat’s name?
He blinked again, feeling a sense of dread crashing over him as he studied the original photo. It couldn’t be.
No way.
No fuckin’ way.
But the boat looked so damned familiar.
He’d seen those preservers, those oars. His insides turned to ice…no, it couldn’t be…but the proof was right in front of his eyes. Those letters on the life preserver, they were the last letters of the Merry Anne, the boat he and Corrine had used a couple of times…
Panic swept through him as his mind turned back to all the cancelled dates, the cell phone calls from God-only-knew where, the hot sex that never really became warm affection, the understanding of his job and the questions about his cases, and her keen interest in his work.
“It is a boat,” he said finally and the realization cut to his very soul. How could he have been so stupid? So blind? “It’s the Merry Anne. It was named after Corrine O’Donnell’s mother, Merry, by her father.”
“Corrine?” Martinez repeated, looking at him as if he’d gone around the bend. “But, she—”
“Is my girlfriend. I know.” Bile crawled up his throat, bitter with betrayal.
“I was going to say she’s a cop.”
“Which makes it worse, because she’s our killer, Martinez, and she’s got Olivia Bentz held captive in the hold of the goddamned Merry Anne.” His eyes held hers for a second before he picked up the phone. “I’ll call the marina, make sure the boat is still in her slip.”
“And if it isn’t?”
He didn’t want to think about that, how far Corrine, an excellent sailor, could be out to sea. “Then we’ll call the Coast Guard.”
CHAPTER 39
“The way I figure it, you’ve got two choices,” Montoya said as he followed the flashing lights of the police cruiser hauling Jada Hollister to Parker Center. “One, you can tell Hayes straight out that his girlfriend is a freakin’ killer. Or two, you do an end run around him and tell someone else in the squad about it, just in case Hayes is involved.”
Bentz tapped his finger on the window ledge of Montoya’s rented Mustang. “My gut tells me Hayes isn’t in on it. How could he be? With all the hours he put in with me trying to crack this case? A guy can’t be two places at once.”
“So go with your gut.” Montoya nodded as he took a corner a little too fast and the tires chirped. He slowed for a second, then punched it again as he hit the freeway. “It’s worked for you so far. But we’ve got to cut through the crap fast and get to this Corrine. If she’s the one who’s got Olivia, we need to find her now.”
Bentz nodded, unable to clear the image of his wife, peering through the bars of her prison, from his mind. All because of him.
Hang on, he willed her. Just keep it together. We’ll be there soon.
“What really gets my goat is thinking that another cop is behind all this,” Montoya said, staring ahead to the dark road. “Someone from the inside. That’ll be a black eye on the department.”
Another cop. That burned Bentz the most. A woman he’d once cared about, made love to. Corrine. She was behind all the death and destruction. She’d kidnapped Olivia and was planning no doubt to kill her, if she hadn’t already.
To hell with playing by the book.
They planned to follow the squad car to Parker Center, blow the whistle on this cop gone bad, and enlist every hand they could to help them find Corrine O’Donnell.
“We’ll get her,” Montoya said, his face grim in the lights of the dash. “We’ll find Olivia and we’ll nail O’Donnell’s h
ide to the wall.”
No backing off.
No excuses.
No leniency if she pulled the “I’m a cop” card, or looked at him piteously.
And if Hayes was involved, then he’d go down, too.
A muscle worked in Bentz’s jaw. He just kept tapping his finger, his gaze straight ahead as they flew down the freeway.
His cell phone rang, and he glanced at the caller ID—Jonas Hayes. “Hayes,” he said to Montoya, bracing himself for a bevy of lies. If that son of a bitch was involved in the least…
Beside him Montoya glowered, his hands holding the wheel in a death grip.
He cleared his throat. “Bentz.”
“Look, man, I know where Olivia is,” Hayes said, his voice quiet and restrained, as if he were seething with a slow, black fury that was eating him from the inside out.
“Where?” Bentz was wary, slid a glance at Montoya.
“Olivia’s being held on a boat. We got that much from the lab and…oh, hell, there’s more to it than that,” he said tightly. “I recognize the boat from some of the equipment hanging on the walls.”
“You do.”
“It’s the Merry Anne…That’s merry as in Merry Christmas, A-N-N-E. Corrine’s old man owned it. She inherited the boat.”
“O’Donnell?” Bentz asked carefully, though he knew the truth. He had to hear Hayes’s theory word for word so there would be no mistake. “Corrine O’Donnell’s holding Olivia captive on a boat somewhere?”
“Shit, Bentz, I can’t believe it myself but…goddamn it, she’s played me for a fool. Anyway, I’m on my way to the marina now, but it sounds like she’s a step ahead of us. According to the security at the Marina del Rey docks and the harbor patrol, the Merry Anne isn’t in her berth.”
“Where? Where is this marina?” he asked and Hayes gave him the info, which Bentz repeated to Montoya then entered into the G.P.S. “You’re sure it’s Corrine?”
“Fucking Corrine was behind it all. I think…oh, hell I think I fed her information. You know how that is, cop to cop. I never thought she’d…” Hayes’s cool facade cracked. “She’s killed people, people she considered her friends.”
Bentz felt his jaw harden. “Sounds that way.”
“Shit.” In the silence, Hayes seemed to be working to pull himself together. “I’ve called the Coast Guard. They’re on the lookout for her, but she knows how to run that boat. She could be on her way to Mexico by now.”
“And Olivia might be dead.”
Hayes waited a beat and said, “Yeah.” His voice was filled with regret. “Christ, I’m sorry, Bentz.”
“We’ll meet you at the marina,” Bentz said stiffly.
“I’m on my way. Already called backup. Got a boat waiting at the marina.”
As Bentz hung up, his partner was already hitting the gas, following the navigator’s voice on the G.P.S. to head west, toward the Pacific, though Bentz knew the route.
Toward Olivia.
Olivia felt a shift.
The boat’s engine changed speed.
Her heart leapt to her throat. This was it!
The engines died, and the big vessel slowed to a stop. For a few seconds within the hold, it was deadly quiet, the gentle movement slow and eerie. Then she heard the creaking sound of the boat rolling softly with the vast, silent ocean.
How far out to sea were they?
How far from anyone?
She bit her lip and listened. No one knew where she was. No one would ever find her. In the cavernous vessel, Olivia felt more alone than she ever had in her life.
Her cramps had eased, though the twisting ache still hit her every few minutes. Pushing herself up from the floor of the cage, she knew she had to fight.
Somehow…
Don’t give up. Do not!
Fighting her fears, Olivia tried to pull herself together. She tried not to think about the fact that she was still bleeding, slowly yes, but bleeding nonetheless. No doubt miscarrying the baby she wanted so desperately.
She forced herself upright as she heard the heart-stopping noise of a running chain, metal being spun out. Oh Lord! The killer was dropping anchor.
For a second, Olivia couldn’t move.
This, wherever it was off the shore of California, was where the killer had planned for her to die. A slow and torturous death.
Think, Olivia, think! You’re not dead yet!
She reasoned that the boat couldn’t be too far out to sea if the killer expected the boat to be found, her body located, the camera intact.
Her captor was, if nothing else, precise, her plans comprised of minute details, her timeline plotted to the last second. A control freak to the nth degree, she’d chosen this particular spot carefully, had anticipated and savored this moment for years, fantasized exactly how Olivia’s death was to be executed.
“Like hell,” Olivia said. She wasn’t going down without one helluva fight. What was it Grannie Gin had always said when Olivia was growing up?
Where there’s life, there’s hope.
And Olivia wasn’t dead.
Yet.
There had to be a way to outsmart this twisted maniac…maybe fake that her spirit had been crushed, pretend that the killer had “won,” breaking her psychologically, so that her captor would become overconfident, perhaps slip up.
Really? You think for a second a diabolical woman who has been planning this moment for twelve years will make that kind of error?
No way, you have to make sure it happens. You, Olivia. You can’t count on anyone but yourself.
Olivia had to beat the maniac psychologically.
And quickly. Dear God, time was running out. All too soon the boat would start sinking. Wasn’t that her plan? Mother Mary, Olivia couldn’t think of a worse death than trying to save herself, feeling the cold water rush in, push her off her feet, force her to tread water in the cage knowing there was no way out while she was gasping for an ever-dwindling supply of air.
Her heart was pumping crazily and her skin was sheathed in a cold, clammy sweat as she frantically searched the hold for any means of escape.
Stop it! Calm down. Do not panic! That’s what she wants you to do, what she’s counting on. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and think rationally.
Above, the woman was moving around, setting her plan into motion. Olivia had to work fast!
Drawing in a shaky breath, forcing back the terror eating at her, Olivia tried to get hold of herself. She knew the killer wanted her to appear miserable into the camera, for Bentz to be able to watch his wife’s desperate, horrifying confrontation with death over and over again. This woman’s goal seemed to be to haunt Bentz for the rest of his life: first by raising Jennifer from the dead, then by slowly and excruciatingly killing Olivia.
That was her whole game.
Control.
Terror.
To thwart the killer, Olivia would somehow have to deny her the ultimate fantasy, her coup de grâce over Bentz.
The answer was simple: She had to stop the filming.
But how?
If she could reach the oars to knock down the camera and attack her jailer…but that was impossible. Olivia had already tried to stretch through the bars and grab them, only to fail miserably. The same was true of her attempt to reach the fishing poles. Or the tripod.
Out of the question.
She could only use the tools she had handy. A bucket, a water jug, and a photo album.
She tried with the water jug, hurling the contents at the camera through the bars.
Water splashed wildly, drenching her hands and wrists.
The camera with its incessant red light didn’t so much as shudder. “Great.” Hurriedly, she tried pushing the plastic jug through the cage, but even pressing the sides together to make it thin enough to get through the bars proved impossible.
She tried to swing it from her hand, stretching her arm through the iron rails so that she could beat the tar out of the camera.
No
luck.
“Damn it.”
Determined, she eyed her surroundings one last time and her gaze landed on the album. Faux leather-bound and stuffed with pictures and articles bound in plastic, it was too thick to pull into her cage.
But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be torn apart, the individual pages used somehow. Heart pounding wildly, her mind spinning with her desperate, newly hatched plan, Olivia reached for the album. Her fingers brushed against the pages and she pressed her shoulder into the bars, straining, barely touching. Gritting her teeth, she stretched as far as possible and the pad of one finger touched the album. She pressed down, dragged it forward but her finger, sweaty from her exertion slipped. Another pain ripped through her and she winced.
“Damn.” Determined, she kept at her task, forcing one hand as far outside the cage as possible, touching the faux leather, inching it closer only to lose it. As she strained, perspiring, she heard the sound of footsteps ringing overhead as her tormentor walked on the deck above. Moving things. Getting ready. To ensure that she and the baby drowned.
No! Olivia wouldn’t allow herself to concentrate on anything but her escape. Nor could she give into the cramps that were wracking her body, reminding her of the fragile life within.
“Be tough,” she said and didn’t know if she were talking to herself or her unborn child. Finally the album was close to the cage. Using both hands, she worked to tear the pages out of their bindings, unfastening the hooks that held the album together.
Her hastily conceived plan had to work!
It had to.
For her.
For Bentz.
For the baby.
Montoya stood on the brakes and the Mustang screeched to a stop at the marina, the frame shuddering. Before the car completely stopped Bentz was out, hitting the ground running, his leg aching, reminding him that he’d already abused it.
He didn’t care. Across the pavement, down the boardwalk, and aboard the sleek Coast Guard cutter, Montoya right behind him. Within seconds, the skipper set sail, easing out of the marina, heading toward open water, moving much too slowly.
Hurry, damn it! Hurry.
He was worried, his eyes trained on the vast, dark Pacific. God, how could they possibly find her? He swallowed back his fear, told himself that there was time, but he was sweating, his heart beating with dread.