No.
I focus on Bentz.
The good-looking prick.
In this shot, his face is in profile. His features are harsh and rugged, his stern jaw set, his razor-thin lips flat in anger. Always the tough cop.
Yeah, right. “Bastard,” I say, keeping my voice low.
I spy another photograph of him on the Ferris wheel at an amusement park. Kristi is at his side. She is all of seven in the photo, and Bentz’s lips are wide in a grin-a rare shot of him having fun.
The photograph, not clear to begin with, is around twenty years old. I run my fingers over the images. As I have done hundreds of times.
Twenty years!
Twenty effin’ years.
The child a grown woman.
It’s true, I think ruefully, time flies.
But no more. Time is about to stand still.
These pages with their clear plastic covers are filled with his life. Old wedding photos of his first marriage are fading, washing out, the fashions worn by the happy couple evidence of another era.
As the music runs through my brain I flip forward quickly, my fingers urging the years to spin past, faster and faster. Until I stop at the present. Here the more recent pictures of his new wife, Olivia, are fresh and clear.
New wife.
New life.
We’ll see about that.
One picture of the bitch, a photograph where she’s looking straight into the camera, catches my eye. In the shot, Olivia is serene and smiles slightly, as if she knows a secret, as if she can read my mind.
What a nut case!
And to think that Bentz actually believes he’s happy with a woman who has several screws loose!
A psychic?
If so, then she should be worried.
Really worried.
But then, of course, she’s a fraud.
Do she and Bentz believe her “visions?”
Well, then how about this, Olivia? Tune into what’s happening to you, will you? What do you think about lying six feet under, huh?
Rick Bentz won’t be able to save you.
And he’ll know what real mental anguish is.
I glare at the woman staring up at me. So smug. So self-satisfied. As if she really thinks she can see the future.
Oh, like, sure.
“No way,” I whisper to her. “No damned way.” But her curved lips get to me and I remember that somewhere in her past she had a twisted ability to see murders committed as they happened.
How will she feel about her own? I wonder.
The thought is thrilling, brings a zing into my veins, not so much for her pain and suffering but for Bentz’s.
He’ll be the one who will have to deal with the torment, the pure, soul-sick torture of knowing that, because of him, the woman he loves will be subjected to excruciating, mind-shattering fear and deep, abysmal pain.
But I can’t get ahead of myself.
Everything is falling into place, but my mission is far from over. Still undone.
There are those who need to be destroyed, those who have served their purpose by leaking information about Jennifer to Bentz, those who knew her well and now are of no further use. I take a deep breath.
To remind myself of my mission, to stay on target, I reach into my pocket and pull out my Pomeroy 2550, a sweet little multipurpose tool that disguises its sharp blades in an innocuous plastic shell. Designed to look like a pink manicure kit, the tool can become lethal with the flick of a tiny lever. It boasts a corkscrew, screwdriver, nail clipper, a pair of petite scissors, and a tiny little knife as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel.
My favorite.
The razor-thin blade is perfect.
Grinning at this newfound ritual that solidifies my determination, I hum along to the refrain of “Losing My Religion” as I slowly draw the blade across my inner wrist.
A sharp sting.
I suck in my breath in a hiss, losing track of the words to the song. But it’s a bittersweet pain and I locate the melody again, catching up to the band.
With eager eyes, I watch the blood bloom. My blood rise against my skin.
Reverently, almost mesmerized by the image I’m creating, I drizzle the thick red drops onto the photograph of Olivia.
She smiles up at me through a nearly opaque sheen of red.
Unknowing.
Fearless.
I smear the blood over the plastic that protects her image and yet she grins.
Poor, dumb bitch.
“Don’t tell me you need another favor,” Montoya said when Bentz phoned him as he drove with the pack on the clogged L.A. freeway. He had the window cracked but closed it and cranked up the A/C.
“You’re off work anyway.”
“And I thought I’d go home, spend some time with my wife, and relax. This is your deal, Bentz, not mine.” Despite his complaints, Montoya didn’t sound pissed off.
“Okay, okay, but I could use some help.”
“What?”
“Some more searches of Internet and police records.”
“Great.”
“I need the name of an astrologer who may or may not still be alive or practicing. All I have is a first name: Phyllis.”
“No last name. Nothing else?”
“She was somewhere in the Los Angeles area. And then, if you can, find out if Alan Gray is still in business. He’s a developer in Southern California. At least he was twenty-five years ago.”
“Alan Gray?” Montoya repeated “Have I heard of him?”
“Probably. I might have mentioned him. He’s a big shot. Multimillionaire, owned a house in Malibu, I think, and maybe had an apartment in New York, and a place somewhere in Italy, too. Even a yacht that he kept moored down at Marina del Rey, if I remember right. He was involved with Jennifer before she and I became an item, and I’d like to see if he’s still around.”
“You don’t ask for much.”
“Only what I need,” he said and hung up.
It was late in the afternoon, the sun sitting low in the sky, the heat of the day settling into the pavement. Bentz decided to grab some dinner at Oscar’s, a restaurant he and Jennifer had often frequented in their old neighborhood. He needed a quiet place where he could find some vestiges of the past and try to put together everything he knew about his ex-wife. Which changed day to day, as if Jennifer really had been a chameleon. Bentz hoped to mesh the old with the new to get some idea of the woman who, with each passing day, was becoming more of a stranger to him.
Even in death, Jennifer Nichols Bentz was the ultimate enigma.
Shana McIntyre was pissed as hell as she walked into her cedar-lined closet and yanked the headband from her hair.
She should never have talked with Bentz, never have confided in him, never have told him one solitary thing about Jennifer. The woman was dead, damn it. She had driven herself into a damned tree and, thankfully, was at rest.
In the dressing area of her massive closet and connecting bath, Shana stripped off her tennis skirt and sleeveless tee to stand naked in front of the floor to ceiling mirror. Not too bad for a woman on the north end of forty, she thought, though she’d have to consider some boob work and a full face-lift in the next five years to add to her tummy tuck and lipo. She pulled her breasts up to a spot where they were perky again and thought she could use another cup size as well. B to C. That would be nice. Then she drew back the skin around her chin and mouth. The lines there weren’t too bad yet, but there was a bit of sag that would only get worse. At least Jennifer Bentz would never have to worry about laugh lines, age spots, or cellulite. Early death, though scary, in some ways was seductive.
Shana believed that Jennifer was dead and had been for twelve years. Whoever had sent Bentz those photos was just mind-fucking him.
So why had Shana thought it necessary to play with Bentz? True, she’d had her own doubts about Jen’s death, but come on, there was no way the woman was alive today.
It’s because you were attracted to him, her mind silently accused, though she would never admit as much. A cop? Come on. But, then, Bentz always had been and was still undeniably sexy, and lately Shana had been more than a little denied in the sex department. Leland had once been a wild man, insatiable, but with advancing age and a few health issues his interest in sex, along with his ability, had diminished.