Jada, the girl who looks so much like Jennifer, she has the answers. And Fernando won’t give her up.
And right now Olivia was locked behind bars, a prisoner, because no one could find a shred of a clue that led to her captor. Bentz felt his life unraveling, everything that he believed in falling away, the woman who had turned his life around, made him a better man, now suffering because of his actions.
He saw his exit and rolled off the freeway, picking his way through traffic. He wondered if he’d find another disturbing, dark photo of his wife waiting for him back at his dive of a motel.
“Just keep her alive,” he said to the car’s interior. The dash lights glowed on his face as he glanced in the rearview mirror and caught his reflection. The man staring back at him looked older than he remembered. Haunted. By the ghost of a dead woman.
He pulled into his parking spot, yanked the keys from the engine, and looked in the mirror again.
This time, he saw past his own face to a person behind his car, standing on the far side of the parking lot.
Jennifer!
No way. She wouldn’t appear now. He swung around to look.
She was gone.
Shaking inside, he slid out of the car and stood next to it, hearing the ticking of the rental’s engine as it cooled and the night closed in.
Where had she been?
Under the streetlamp?
Near the ficus tree?
He started walking faster and faster across the dusty, uneven lot, beneath the flickering, humming neon lights of the So-Cal’s advertising board offering free wi-fi and cable TV.
Was that a movement on the other side of the planter?
Someone running?
It might not be her.
But he was jogging now, his eyes trained on the image ahead, a fleeing woman with dark hair.
Déjà vu.
The eerie sensation tugged at his mind. He remembered following her down the steep trail over the sea, how she’d turned and blown him a kiss before leaping from the cliff to the ocean below. He recalled chasing her shadow through the decrepit mission in San Juan Capistrano. Following her earlier today in the woods beyond the cemetery.
What do you want, you bitch? I know you’re not Jennifer. You’re a fraud.
He broke into a sprint, barely aware of the traffic lights glowing red and green, or the cars whipping by. Keeping her in his sights, he crossed traffic against the light, heard a horn honk in protest, and someone shout. But he ignored the driver and picked up his pace. He felt the pain in his leg. Gutted it out. He was gaining on her now, but she was still a block ahead, running full out.
What the hell?
An old memory surfaced and a feeling of déjà vu settled over him. Another time. Another place.
He remembered chasing Jennifer, through the sun-dappled park at Point Fermin. How he’d caught her, breathless at a pergola, where he’d kissed her madly, both of them sweating, her breasts, beneath a thin blouse, pressed up against him. He’d hoisted her hands over her head, pushed her back against the rough trunk of a tree, and proceeded to strip her and make love to her in the shadows.
Oh…
Hell…
Another memory surfaced. Of running after her along the beach at Santa Monica just after sunset, the western sky ablaze, the tide lapping at their ankles, as the Ferris wheel spun on the pier jutting over the ocean…
Fool. Stop it! Forget her. Nail this woman and put Jennifer out of your mind forever. It’s Olivia you love, Olivia who is your life.
He saw Jennifer turn, cutting into a parking structure.
Gritting his teeth, breathing hard, his leg throbbing, he ran, faster and faster.
Within seconds he reached the entrance to the parking garage, its florescent bulbs sputtering weak light. No one on this level. He stopped, listened.
Over the sound of his own pumping heart, he heard the sound of feet madly slapping concrete, running up stairs. Spying the staircase, he followed, his knee screaming, as he pounded upward, looking into the spiraling stairs above and catching sight of her dark hair. As if she felt his stare, she glanced down at him, managed a wicked smile over the rail, then turned toward the interior lot.
Damn!
Was she on the third floor?
The fourth?
Grabbing the rail, hauling himself upward, he pressed on, his heart thudding, his lungs tight, his skin damp with sweat. Don’t give up. Don’t let her get away. This is your chance!
On the third floor, he turned into the shadowy lot, but saw no one, only a few abandoned cars, their paint jobs shimmering beneath the watery lights.
Back to the staircase, running upward, straining to hear anything over the pounding of his pulse. On the fourth floor he thought he saw a glimpse of her, on the far side of the structure, and definitely heard her racing footsteps. He flew toward the sound, rounded a pillar and saw her, still fifty feet away, clicking a keyless remote.
The lights on a dark blue SUV flashed.
No!
He couldn’t let her get away.
She pulled the door of the car opened, then turned back to Bentz and grinning provocatively, blew him a kiss.
“Jennifer!” he yelled.
In that second a man stepped out of the shadows, a gun leveled at her head.
Bentz nearly stumbled.
“Police. Freeze!” Reuben Montoya ordered, his face a grim mask, his hand steady as he held his pistol. “Jada Hollister, you’re under arrest.”
As long as the boat was moving, there was still time.
Olivia could find a way to escape…somehow.
Of course she’d been around this cage, searching for a means of escape over and over again with no luck. Now the camera was just out of reach and the only thing close enough for her to touch outside her cage was the damned photo album with its faded pictures and bloody smears. Apparently this psychotic woman got off on dripping her blood, or someone’s blood onto Bentz’s life.
At least the leather-bound album was near. Extending one arm through the bars, she managed to flip the pages. Her horror magnified as she viewed the history of Bentz’s life in photographs: Rick as a child with James, his half brother. Photos from high school showing Rick in boxing shorts and gloves, posing by a punching bag. His college graduation photo and one from the police academy. Then a shot of a younger version of the woman who held her hostage, a faded snapshot of her with Rick at a bar, drinks and cigarettes in hand, all smiles and very much together.
Just as she’d said.
This psycho and Rick had been lovers.
She was a woman scorned-twofold, as Rick apparently had dumped her twice:
For Jennifer.
She’d said as much, of course, but these pictures were confirmation. Biting her lip, Olivia sifted through pages of his life with Jennifer, and pictures of him with other women, presumably after he’d split from his wife. Again, this woman surfaced. And this time her smiles weren’t as wide; not as trusting.
How could someone be so obsessed?
Olivia felt sick to her stomach.
She flipped a few more pictures, seeing the family together again and then…and then there were snapshots of her. The wedding. Photos of Bentz and her at charity events.
Tears filled her eyes as she saw the love that they’d shared, caught in these pictures. The twinkle in her eye, the sexy grin on Rick’s jaw.
Oh, God, what had happened to them?
Her heart twisted when she thought of all she’d lost. And now it was too late. This sick killer’s rage hadn’t stopped with Jennifer’s death. If anything it had intensified, her obsession with Rick Bentz more focused, and Olivia had become her target. Now, just like Jennifer before her, she was going to die in some carefully plotted and executed horrific “accident.”
Olivia closed her eyes and felt a pang deep in her abdomen.
So sharp she sucked her breath in through her teeth. Oh, dear God. She collapsed forward against the cage and held tight onto the bars, her fists clenching, knuckles showing white as the pain ripped through her.