“No word from your wife?” Hayes asked.
“I was hoping you knew something.”
“Working on it.” Hayes touched the knot of his tie. “Tracked down the phone with the G.P.S.,” he said.
“What?”
“No, don’t get excited. Obviously the phone was dumped. We found it in the sand beneath the Santa Monica Pier.”
“Shit!”
“We’re checking with the webcam people again. So far nothing, but it’s still early.”
Santa Monica. Again. Bentz’s guts twisted because he knew why the phone had been left there. Because of Jennifer. Because that pier and town were so much a part of her life, their life together. Whoever had kidnapped her was pointing that out, rubbing salt in the wounds, laughing at him.
“Son of a bitch.” Bentz couldn’t stop the black fury that overtook him. “Jennifer,” he spat out. “She’s playing with me.”
“It’s not Jennifer,” Hayes said, hitching his chin toward the coffin.
“I know…you know what I mean. The woman I was with in the car. She looked a lot like Jennifer. A lot, but her voice was off and she was too young, and once I was that close, I knew she wasn’t my ex-wife. But damn it, she knew so much about Jennifer…about us.” His skin crawled at the memory of kissing her, of touching her. His stomach roiled at the thought of the taste of her and how he’d been duped. Furious with himself, he tried to focus, to move on, to think like a cop, not a husband. “Okay. So the phone’s a bust, what else are you doing?”
“Backtracking mostly. Talking to people at the airport who might have seen Olivia connect with Petrocelli at baggage claim. We’re checking security cameras at the airport and piecing together Sherry’s schedule yesterday.”
It’s not enough, Bentz thought. “Have you called the FBI?”
“The captain’s taking it up with-”
“It’s a kidnapping case, Hayes.”
“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours. Not that our Missing Persons Department plays by that rule.”
“I hope not. Jesus H. Christ! A police officer is dead. Along with a lot of other people. So, not only do we have kidnapping, we’ve got a serial killer on the loose. A cop-killer. I think the Feds should be involved.”
“They’re already checking into the Springer twins’ murder. We’re just not sure that all these incidents are connected,” Hayes admitted. “Bledsoe’s working that angle.”
“Great.” Bentz couldn’t stand to think that Olivia’s safety might hinge on Andrew Bledsoe’s investigative work. “What about Fernando Valdez? Have you talked to him?”
“Still trying to find him. He didn’t go back to the Salazars’ house last night. We watched.” He glanced at Bentz. “I talked to Jerry Petrocelli. He was devastated.”
“I bet,” he said, hoping to high heaven that he wouldn’t be the next husband to learn that his wife had been murdered by this whack job. Not if he could help it.
Bentz watched as the casket was carried to the van by six strong guys…so reminiscent of the burial when Jennifer was originally laid to rest. The dusty box was slid into the back of the vehicle. “At least now we’ll know if it’s Jennifer inside,” he said as the back doors of the van were slammed shut.
“It won’t take long,” Hayes said. “We’ve already received the records from her dentist. Got an expert who’s going to compare them to what we find in the skull.”
And then what? Bentz wondered. No other body had washed onto the beach, so they still didn’t know what had happened to the woman who’d teased him, lured him to the cliffs, and jumped into the sea. God, why would anyone do that? Who was this woman who looked so much like Jennifer? Why was she tormenting him? And what the hell had she done with Olivia?
As if reading his mind, Hayes said, “We’ll find her.” His cell phone chimed. “Later, Bentz.” He fished the phone out of his pocket and took the call as he walked back to his 4Runner and the vehicle carrying the casket took off. Bentz was left staring into the dry, empty hole where he’d thought he’d buried his first wife forever. Even in the hazy morning light, he felt a chill snake down his spine, as if someone were watching him, unseen eyes observing his every move. He looked up and turned, searching through the fog. A human form seemed to materialize, then fade, leaves and limbs of trees shivering. Was someone watching him from the shrubbery on the other side of the fence?
He told himself that he was imagining things, that the exhumation had weirded him out, but he walked toward the area where he’d thought he’d seen the branches move. As he approached he was certain he caught a glimpse of eyes peering at him! Green eyes, so like Jennifer’s, studying him through the thick mist.
His pulse skyrocketed.
“No way,” he said between clenched teeth. But despite his denial, he had to check it out. Picking up speed, he broke into a jog, his gaze fastened on the area where he’d first caught sight of the voyeur. As he spurred himself forward, his knee and thigh protested, but he gutted it out. Upon reaching the fence, he vaulted over, landing with most of his weight on his good leg.
No one was in the scrub brush of the vacant lot. No green eyes were staring at him. But he’d been certain someone had been here, watching…waiting, anticipating that he’d be at the exhumation; someone who knew where Olivia was.
Hell.
He pressed forward to a small copse of trees that stood still and quiet in the swirling fog. But he had seen her here, before she slipped through the sycamores and scrub brush.
A ghost in the mist.
“Where are you, you bitch?” Methodically, he searched the area, a strip of trees, grass, and brush between the cemetery and the subdivision abutting it.
He strained to listen. No twig snapped, no footstep over the sound of his own heartbeat and breathing. He heard only the sounds of muted traffic and voices from the men working on the exhumation.
Frustrated, he peered over the fence that edged the tree line and again saw nothing. No one.
No one was here, he told himself. Just you and your paranoia. A mirage you conjured in your tired and willing brain.
He took one last sweeping look, but found nothing.
“Hell.” He climbed over the fence again, paid no attention to the pain in his leg, and decided he was going to take the law into his own hands. He knew that Hayes and the LAPD were doing their best to locate Olivia, but they were playing by the rules, doing everything by the book, and he didn’t give a damn about what protocol should be used, or whether he was compromising the damned case.
Olivia was missing.
Maybe already dead.
Bentz wasn’t going to mess around any longer.
He’d do whatever it took to find his wife.
“Screw this.” Montoya hung up the phone. He wasn’t one to sit on the sidelines when the action was elsewhere. Bentz was in trouble, seeing ghosts, for God’s sake. Now Olivia was missing. Bentz was going even further around the bend, and there wasn’t a whole helluva lot he could do from here in New Orleans.
So California, here I come.
He had the next two days off anyway, and there was some leave he could use if he needed it. He didn’t even wait for the end of his shift, just told Jaskiel that he wanted to take a few hours comp time, and walked out the door.
On the way home he called Abby at work and gave her the same word. Fortunately she was cool with it.
“Do what ya have to do,” she told him. “But be careful, would you? Come back in one piece. I’m not great at playing Nancy Nurse.”
“You got it.” He hung up smiling. At the house he packed a quick bag, then jumped into his Mustang again and headed to the airport.
Hayes returned to the office to find Bledsoe on a rampage, trying to build a case to nail Bentz for any and all crimes committed in L.A. and the surrounding area for the last week.