“Impossible.” But she was shaken. “Bentz is sterile.”
“I’m not kidding! I’m going to have a baby! Another innocent life. You don’t want to be responsible for something like that.” It took all of Olivia’s strength to steel herself and not reveal that she was crumbling inside. “You don’t want to be a serial killer, right? A lunatic like the Twenty-one killer. You said that yourself. You’re different!” She was trying to find any way to reason with the killer.
“A baby?” she said, almost to herself, disbelieving. “Bentz’s? No…but…”
“It’s true!” Maybe she was making headway, appealing to this woman’s warped sense of values. “Please, really, you don’t want to hurt an unborn child.”
Still blindsided, the woman narrowed her eyes on Olivia. “What a sick, pathetic lie. You are not pregnant!”
Olivia moved closer. “I am. I’m going to have a baby!”
Her captor waved wildly in the air to dismiss the thought, but her equilibrium was shaken, her voice tinged with a new anger. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if by some miracle you are with child, well, all the better. Bentz can watch you and the baby die, all in living color. Hear that, ‘RJ’? Her death, and this fictitious baby’s, will be on tape and you can relieve her agony and fear and desperation over and over again. This is just so perfect. Worth every minute of the damned wait.”
“No! Listen, I don’t know who you are or why you’re doing this, but please, don’t,” Olivia said, screaming inside, but trying to keep her voice level. She saw that pleading for her life only fed into this maniac’s ego; she had to try a different tack, a diversion. “Tell me what your problem is with Bentz. Maybe I can talk to him-”
“Talk to him? Haven’t you been listening to me?” The woman clapped her hands over her ears, as if she needed to hold on so her head would not burst. “Don’t you get it?”
Olivia sensed that her captor was at a meltdown point, but she re fused to cower. She kept her gaze trained on her would-be killer. “Don’t do this,” she said evenly. “Please. Don’t-”
“Enough!” Her round eyes blazed with renewed fury. “You can blabber and beg all you want, but I’m not falling for it. Got that? It’s over. You’re going to die, ‘Livvie,’ and you’re going to die tonight.”
Jaw set, seething, but in control again, she double-checked the camera, then hurried up the stairs.
This time, she left the lights on.
Now the camera caught Olivia’s every move.
Staying perfectly still she heard noises above and then the sound of a big engine roaring to life. The floor below her shifted as the boat began to move.
“Oh God,” she whispered, spurred into motion. She paced the perimeter of the cage, checking and rechecking each bar, knowing they were sturdy. Immoveable.
No way out.
Her blood congealed as she considered her fate: Doomed to die at the hands of this twisted, deranged maniac, her baby never having a chance at life.
Olivia’s throat grew thick with regret.
She would drown on camera.
Her death recorded for posterity.
To be used to torture Rick Bentz for the rest of his life.
She knew it.
The maniac knew it.
And soon, unless some miracle occurred, it would be over.
Then Bentz would know it, too.
CHAPTER 38
Bentz drove back to the So-Cal wired on caffeine, adrenaline, and just plain lack of sleep. And overriding all that sick energy was fear for Olivia. He was scared to death. The minutes were ticking by and he knew nothing more than he had earlier tonight.
Fernando Valdez had stonewalled them.
Bentz had stood on the other side of the glass ready to tear his hair out as the kid was interrogated for three hours. Hayes and Martinez went after him with questions peppered with some indication of the trouble he might be in, but Fernando responded by slouching in the chair, folding his arms, closing up.
“Who was this woman you loaned your sister’s car to? The silver Impala?” Martinez asked.
“Just…someone I know. A girl at school.”
“You got a name?”
“Jada. I don’t know her last name.”
That sent Bentz flying into the squad room, asking Bledsoe-who, unfortunately, was the only detective available-to run a search on a female, first name Jada, with a criminal record. Back in the interrogation room, Martinez was playing the good cop.
“Nice of you to help her out when she’s low on cash and everything,” she said. “Sounds like you’re a good friend. But did you know that Jada has been linked to several murders?”
Unbroken, sullenly Fernando shook his head.
“Did you help her kill some of those people?” Martinez asked. Her dark eyes softened. “Maybe you didn’t realize it. Maybe you just gave her a ride somewhere, not knowing what she was doing.” She shrugged. “As far as you know, you’re just helping out a friend.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t kill anyone.”
Finally a response.
“Come on, Fernando,” Hayes nudged. “We’ve got your fingerprints now.” The kid had tightened up earlier when Hayes printed him. “I’m sure they’ll match up with prints found in the Impala. Maybe even with prints found at some of the crime scenes.”
“No! I swear.” Fernando turned his body away from them, refolding his arms across his chest. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No one is saying you did, Fernando,” Martinez said in a soothing voice. “Your sister, your professors…everyone says you’re a good kid. That’s why I was thinking you might help us. We need help finding someone. A woman named Olivia Bentz. Blond hair, dark eyes. Did you ever meet her, Fernando?”
Bentz had watched through the one-way mirror and felt his life unraveling while the kid shook his head no.
“Olivia Bentz is missing,” Hayes said, “and we have reason to believe your friend Jada is involved in her kidnapping. What can you tell us about that?”
“Nothing!” Valdez insisted.
Frustrated, Bentz had wanted to smash his fist through the glass and curl his fingers around the kid’s throat to shake the truth from him. Since Fernando hadn’t lawyered up, the detectives continued questioning him, and Bentz stayed for every second of the tedious process.
Bledsoe checked on the name Jada, but hadn’t found any females with that name who had been booked in the past eighteen months. Another dead end. Bledsoe would get Jada’s photo ID and records from the college in the morning, but he couldn’t work on that until the college’s administrative offices opened.
Finally Bentz left the surly youth to Hayes and the FBI, who would probably release him, then have someone follow him. There was nothing more he could do at the Center.
As he drove he thought about the photos the LAPD lab had been working on. The pictures of the runner from the Santa Monica web cam looked enough like the same jogger who had been caught on the security cameras of the motel. Something about the runner seemed familiar to Bentz, as if he should be able to visualize her face.
A woman? Yeah, they were all pretty sure about that. The police were checking traffic cameras and parking tickets issued in the area around the motel at the time of the letter’s delivery, along with the pier where Jennifer had jumped into Santa Monica Bay and the security cameras near the place where Sherry Petrocelli’s car had been torched, but Bentz didn’t hold out much hope. This person who had killed so easily seemed to know how to avoid detection.
A master criminal?
A cop?
He drove by instinct, his hands on the wheel, beams of headlights washing over him as his mind spun.
It’s someone with a personal grudge.
Someone who’s enjoying this.