Didn’t I tell her not to waste her time? After grabbing my robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door, I throw it on and cinch the waist.
Now, time for the news. I walk to the living area with a quick pause at the refrigerator where I find a chilled pitcher of martinis waiting for me. I drop two olives in my stemmed glass, pour the cool concoction over them, and settle in the living area where I click on the television. There should be a lead in with “breaking news” about a car fire at Marina del Rey. I cross my legs and wait and see a familiar face on the screen.
Donovan Caldwell, that whiner, is being interviewed about the most recent double homicide-the Springer twins. He and the reporter are seated in a studio, backdropped by a huge screen upon which pictures of the two sets of twins are displayed. Four girls, their eyes wide as puppies’.
An obvious tug at the viewers’ heartstrings.
The reporter, a young woman with dark hair, huge eyes, and a concerned expression asks, “Do you think the killer who murdered your sisters is also responsible for the latest double homicide?”
“That’s exactly my contention,” he says fervently, an irate brother jabbing the air passionately. He’s a small, fit man in an Izod golf shirt and khaki pants. A perfect little goatee covers his chin and a faux-hawk of dirty blond hair keeps him “hip.” But he’s not out to impress anyone with his looks. No, he’s upset and flushed, all bristly anger. “I’m saying that if the LAPD had done its job right the first time and arrested the killer who murdered my sisters, two other lives wouldn’t have been lost.”
The camera zooms in on the victims, pretty girls with smiles so full of life.
“Oh, wah, wah, waah.” I take another cool, calming sip and search for another channel with my remote. Of course I realize that the dead twins are news, but they’re old news. Especially those Caldwell girls. They’ve been dead for over a decade…ancient history. And the little prick on the screen bugs the hell out of me. The nerve-grabbing my headlines. And that crack about the police department. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
I stare at the television and take a swallow.
Let’s get to the good stuff.
Where in the hell is the reporter who should be covering the car fire on the streets of Marina del Rey?
That’s the only story worth my time.
CHAPTER 33
“We need to find Fernando,” Bentz said as Hayes drove back to the Center to drop off Martinez before taking Bentz to pick up his rental car. “I put in a call to him, but he didn’t pick up.”
“I thought I told you to back off.” Hayes was irritated. “This is my case.”
“And my wife.” Bentz was equally upset, worried sick.
“I know.” Hayes sighed, loosening the tie at his neck. “We’ll put a tail on Yolanda as well as watch the house for Fernando.”
“I’ll check with his job and school,” Martinez said. “We’ll try to track what he did today,” she was saying when Hayes’s phone rang again and he took the call.
In the backseat, Bentz was quietly going out of his mind, trying to piece together the disjointed case. Though it had started out with him being lured to Los Angeles in search of his first wife, it now involved Olivia, he was certain of it. And now finding her was his number one priority. But with no leads to go on he figured the best way he could find her was through working this case, tracking down the person who obviously had a vendetta against him.
If he could pull his emotions out of it and study what was happening with a cool, cop’s eye rather than his own passionate ardor, he could see that he was at the center of the case in the eye of a murderous hurricane. The person behind it all, the mastermind of the operation, was targeting Bentz.
From the ongoing investigations, the LAPD could find no reason for either Lorraine Newell or Shana McIntyre to be murdered individually; the link was Bentz. Though it was too early for the police to connect Fortuna Esperanzo, Bentz knew the deal. She wasn’t left in the ocean in clothes identical to those that “Jennifer” had been wearing because she’d decided to go swimming. No, she’d been murdered, and the killer wanted to make certain that Bentz knew Fortuna had been a target, linked to this mess with Jennifer.
However if the woman who looked so much like his ex-wife were behind it all, then why hadn’t it all come to a head earlier today, before she’d leapt into the ocean? Why risk her life? And how could she have been at the airport at the same time Fortuna had been dumped into the ocean?
Everything that had happened had taken calculation. Patience. Long-term planning.
Someone who held a very personal grudge was playing him, had spent years creating the perfect scenario. He discounted anyone he’d sent to prison. Most of those guys, if they had escaped or been released, would have run in the opposite direction as far and as fast as they could go. If they wanted to satisfy a grudge, they would have killed him and been done with it. Whoever was behind this string of horrifying events was getting off on his torture, watching him take the bait of Jennifer over and over again.
And that fact made his blood congeal. Yolanda Salazar?
Did she have the burning hatred to serve up her revenge ice cold? It didn’t seem so. She seemed too much of a hothead, as witnessed by her act of spitting on him. She’d been scared and angry, but that wasn’t the reaction Bentz expected from the killer.
So if not Yolanda, who?
What about someone close to the Caldwell twins?
Maybe this is the old “eye for an eye” thing.
Again, he was stopped by the killer’s intimate knowledge of his ex-wife, of his relationship with her.
And now…Olivia was missing. Someone had the balls to call her and taunt her until she felt compelled to fly to L.A. That took confidence. Knowledge. And pure damned luck. How did the killer know Olivia would hop a plane?
Because whoever is behind this knows everything about you, about your life, about your wife. Damn it all, Bentz, this is your fault. Yours.
Absently he rubbed his leg as it had been aching since the chase down Devil’s Caldron. He felt like a fool, following some woman down the ridge. Chasing an elusive truth while his wife had felt obligated to fly to California to reconnect with him, her ever-distant husband. Hadn’t she mentioned they needed to talk? Hadn’t he, too, felt the rift in their marriage?
Guilt tore a hole in his heart and all their arguments now seemed petty. Stupid! Even the one about kids. Hell, if she wanted kids, he’d give her a whole passel of them.
If he got the chance.
Hayes hung up. “We’re not going back to the Center yet.”
“What’s up?” Martinez asked.
Hayes frowned, searching for the next exit. “Someone torched Sherry Petrocelli’s car.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Martinez pressed her face in her hands.
“It gets worse. Looks like they found a body in the backseat.”
“What? No!” Bentz shouted, coming up in his seat so fast, his seat belt clenched around him. Sick inside, rage and fear burning through him, he thought of Olivia. Beautiful, fun-loving, wickedly smart Olivia. Oh, God, please, no! He could hardly draw a breath. “Swear to God, Hayes, if something’s happened to Olivia, if she’s the person in that car-” He couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t think. Dread tore at his soul as the miles sped by and Hayes, breaking every speed limit, sped toward Marina del Rey, where the fire had been reported.
Bentz tried to calm himself. It’s not Olivia. It’s not Olivia. She’s alive and well. Somewhere. It’s not Olivia!
But he was frantic, fear eating him from the inside out.
The street was cordoned off, police barricades in place. Two fire trucks idled, their hoses snaking over the wet pavement, water running in sooty rivulets to the gutters. The blackened shell of a car still smoldered while the horrid stench of burnt rubber, melted plastic, and, worse, charred flesh filled the air.