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 hide 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.