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 body 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.