Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 145

"Thought you'd want to know. The suspect that Noon brought in, Tessler, he picked Ronnie Le Mars out of the photo lineup."

"I'll be right there."

"That's not all, Bentz," Montoya said, his voice dark with anger.

"What?"

"Tiggs just died."

CHAPTER 33.

Eve was going stir-crazy. For the past three hours they had been working with a security expert from a local company. Cole wasn't satisfied with the locksmith who had come and done his job. He was insistent that Eve have the entire house rewired for a security system. As soon as Bentz had left, he'd called the same company he'd used on the house he'd had to sell.

"I don't even know if I'm going to stay here," she'd argued, but he wouldn't hear a word of it.

"Even if you sell, where are you going to live in the meantime? A hotel? For how long?"

"Maybe your friend Petrusky could find me a place," she'd teased but had given in. And so here they were on the back porch discussing how much it would cost for the system. She heard her cell phone ring in the kitchen, where it was charging, while Cole told the guy exactly what kind of high-tech security he envisioned for a house that had, in all its history, survived without the aid of security cameras and laser beams and access codes. From Cole's description of what he wanted, Eve was certain this old Victorian would rival the White House for a high-tech alarm system. "Seems a little over the top to me," she'd confided in Samson three hours earlier when this had all started.

"I'll be right back," she said and hurried inside. By the time she reached the phone, it had stopped ringing.

She saw that the last caller was Anna Maria. She pressed return call but was thrown to her sister-in-law's voice mail. She waited then called her own voice mail and heard the message from Anna, who, upon Eve's advice, had returned to New Orleans and wanted to meet. Anna suggested a bar downtown and said she'd be there in fifteen minutes. Eve called her back immediately but again Anna didn't pick up.

Sometimes high tech was nothing but frustrating.

She walked back to the porch, where Cole and the security guy were still hashing out the details of the new system, going over pages of several different models. "That was Anna Maria. She wants to meet me for a drink down at Gallagher's."

"Give me half an hour and I'll come with you," Cole said. "We'll have this figured out then, won't we?"

The security tech nodded. "Sure. Piece of cake."

"Mmmm. Why don't I go on down, and you meet me later. I'll scope out how she's feeling, you know, about everything, and once I see that she's okay, I'll call and give you the green light."

He hesitated. "I don't like you going out alone."

"Oh for Pete's sake, it's just downtown."

"Give us a minute, would you," he said to the security guy as he shepherded Eve into the kitchen.

"No problem." The man was flipping through pages of diagrams for a variety of systems.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Cole said, shutting the door behind him.

"Obviously, but I think I should see her. She needs a friend, and my brother is being a real jerk. She drove all the way back here because I asked her to."

"She'll wait a few minutes."

"Maybe she doesn't want you there. You're not her favorite person, and this is probably just some kind of girl talk. I'll call you the minute I get there and then again when it's okay for you to join us."

He shook his head.

"Look, Cole, you can't keep me on this tight of a rein, no matter what the reasons. I get it that you're worried. Really. And no, I haven't forgotten what happened right upstairs or that there's a nutcase on the loose, but I can't live my life inside a cave."

"I'm just asking you to be smart."

She let out a huff of air. "So...how about this, and let me tell you, I don't like it. You follow me down there, just see that I get inside safely, then vamoose before Anna spies you." She heard her own words and rolled her eyes. "Oh G.o.d, that sounds so ridiculous. Like I'm some pathetic little woman who can't handle her own life."

"You're just being cautious."

"Yeah, and I'm letting some kook determine how I'm going to run my life!"

"Not a 'kook,' Eve, a killer. A s.a.d.i.s.tic, deranged serial killer who's focused on you."

She let out a long breath and met his gaze. "Sorry, Cole, I can't live this way. I've got things to do. As soon as I know that Anna Maria's all right, I'm going to call Abby Chastain and meet with her to discuss all this business about being sisters. After that, I'll need to talk to Kristi Bentz. So you can handle the security system, okay? I'm pretty booked up today."

He wasn't buying her light and breezy mood. "This is serious, Eve."

"I know, but I think I've got a couple of policemen watching over me. Even though I told Montoya and Bentz I didn't want the extra security, I don't think they listened."

"Oh? Not that I wouldn't think they might do something behind your back, but why do you think you've got your own personal bodyguards?"

She took his hand and led him upstairs to the turret room and ignored the eerie feeling that stole through her blood whenever she crossed the threshold. She guided Cole to a window that overlooked the neighboring street. "See that red Pontiac?"

He nodded.

"It's been there for a couple of hours. Two people inside. Before that, there was a blue Blazer parked about two s.p.a.ces down. It was there when Bentz was here."

"How do you know it's the police?"

"I don't, but I'm willing to put fifty bucks on it. You watch, when I leave, if they follow."

"It could be the killer."

"Nah...not with two people." She turned and pecked him on the cheek. "Face it, Counselor, the cops are watching our every move. So go figure out the alarm system, and I'll keep in touch with you via cell phone."

A muscle worked in his jaw. He obviously wanted to argue with her, but she was hearing none of it. She felt stronger today, ready to take on the world. Though the room still bothered her, she might eventually get over it.

Might.

She tore off her sling and tossed it onto the bed; her arm had quit hurting, and she was tired of having her movements restricted. After rotating her shoulder a couple of times and deciding it was working without too much pain, she changed into clean jeans and a red cotton sweater while Cole stood, arms crossed over his chest, eyeing her with disapproval. "I'll call, promise," she said and kissed him again. Then, before he could argue, she was down the stairs and out the door.

As she drove through the rain, she saw Cole still standing in the turret window, staring down at the street. The guys in the red Pontiac came to life. She turned the corner, pa.s.sed them, and, in her rearview mirror, saw the Pontiac pull away from the curb and do a quick one-eighty.

Poor Anna Maria.

She had no idea Eve was coming with her own personal posse.

Anna Maria could barely move. Whatever the whack job had given her was taking effect, and her legs felt like rubber. Scared out of her mind, she was lying in the back of his truck, trying to keep her wits about her, alternately praying and trying to find a way to escape.

The p.r.i.c.k had held a knife at her eye and forced her to make the call to Eve. Now she was lying in the truck, listening as rain pounded on the canopy and wondering if she'd ever see Kyle again. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Oh G.o.d, how she wished he'd come and save her...that someone would. And now she'd dragged Eve into this madman's sickness.

She hadn't seen his face. He'd worn some kind of neoprene mask, but he was big and strong and had attacked her in the bedroom, gagged her, bound her, and hauled her out to his truck, where she'd ridden for hours, her body aching, her bladder stretched to the breaking point.

He must've figured out that she'd have to pee because he'd pulled off into the woods somewhere, yanked down her pants, and watched as she'd relieved herself. She'd been so mortified, she'd almost been unable to go, but then nature had finally taken its course.

She'd been forced into the back of the truck again, onto the stained mattress, her arms once again bound behind her, but, as he'd pushed her inside, she'd caught a glimpse, beneath her blindfold, of the license plate mounted on the truck's b.u.mper. She'd immediately pressed those letters and numbers into memory just in case she somehow got the upper hand and escaped. Then he'd driven away again, and she'd listened hard, hearing the sing of the tires on the pavement, the rumble of the truck's engine, and his voice droning as if he were chanting or praying, the words unclear.

She'd felt an increase of speed when he'd reached the freeway again and tried to remember how to make the vehicle noticed by other cars, how to communicate to the other drivers on the road that she was being abducted.

By a madman.

But bound as she was, she couldn't move, could communicate with no one.

In her heart she knew the psycho who had captured her was the same killer who'd taken the lives of her father-in-law, Royal Kajak, and those nuns. Dear G.o.d, what could she do?

And she'd been weak.

She'd spent the next, long stretch of hours crying and praying. Then she'd felt the truck's speed slow down, and the sounds of the traffic had changed. She knew that he'd driven her into a large city, most likely New Orleans. The truck stopped and started at several lights. Then he'd parked, and her heart had been a wild drum.

Was this it?

Where he planned to kill her?

Oh dear G.o.d, no!

Her mouth was dry as sand, her fear palpitating as she heard him climb into the back of the truck with her. It was so dark. So d.a.m.ned dark. He'd touched her, and she'd recoiled. Then she'd felt something cold and hard as steel, the barrel of a gun, now pushed against the underside of her chin. He'd told her what to do. And promised to kill her should she make one slipup. Too terrified to do anything but what he'd demanded, she'd made the call to Eve.

And so she'd lured her best friend into the psycho's trap.

She'd thought he would kill her right then and there once Eve had agreed, but he'd lowered the gun and said, "Good girl" in a soothing voice that made her want to scream.

Then he'd slithered out of the canopy like the snake he was and locked her inside again. She'd yanked on the ropes that bound her, tried to bang and get someone's attention, but the sounds were m.u.f.fled by the mattress, the gag stopping her screams.

Dear Lord, forgive me, she prayed, fighting tears and mind-numbing terror. Desperately, she tried to concentrate. There had to be a way. she prayed, fighting tears and mind-numbing terror. Desperately, she tried to concentrate. There had to be a way.

She had to save Eve.

Save herself.

Oh G.o.d, please help me. Please!

So he hadn't lied.

Kristi stood in the cemetery and stared at the open pit where once there had been a casket. Just like her source had told her. She peered inside then pulled her digital camera from her backpack. The day was dreary and overcast, threatening rain, but it was light enough to click off a few pictures for the book. She imagined a section with photographs of the crime scene.

Which led her to believe she should really get some shots of the hospital. Before it was torn down. She knew there were a lot of pictures available; the place had been photographed hundreds of times. But she'd like a picture of Faith Chastain's bedroom, and the stairs leading to the attic, where Sister Vivian Harmon's body had been found. The attic itself, of course, Eve Renner's house, and, if she could swing it, pictures of the cloister of the Our Lady of Virtues convent. That might be a tough sell because there were nuns living in the convent, people working there. She doubted anyone would just let her enter without some kind of viable excuse.

This is why it would be nice if her father would open some doors for her, use his influence.

She stared through the trees and the thickening shadows toward the convent and figured it would be a dead end. But the hospital, if she could scale the walls, shouldn't be a problem.

She glanced to the menacing sky just as the first few drops of rain started to fall. It was dark as twilight already, so she'd have to work fast. She'd come prepared, not only with her camera but with a few tools, a strong flashlight, and, of course, her pepper spray.

She felt the slap of wind against the back of her neck as she looked through the gloom at the crumbling headstones, some of which had toppled, and the few family tombs that rose above the ground or cut into it.

If she let herself, she could be creeped out by all this, but that would serve no purpose. She took a few more pictures of the graveyard then climbed into her car and drove to the convent, searching for the access road she'd heard about from her father the last time there was a serial killer on the prowl near the old hospital. Supposedly there was a driveway that led to the garages and working sheds of the convent and a walking path that cut through a hedgerow of arborvitae and led to a gate in the fence surrounding the hospital. This path had been used by the nuns of the convent and some of the gardeners and other staff as a shortcut.

Or so Kristi had heard.

Well, it was time to test the theory.

The rain was starting to come down hard enough that she flipped up the hood of her jacket as she reached the garage area, where a pickup was parked and a dumpster rusted in the rain. A hedge grew beside the fence line, and she walked next to the dripping evergreen shrubs until she spied a flagstone and an overgrown path that sliced between two of the tall bushes. As she stepped along the stones, wet branches slapped at her shoulders.

On the other side, she found a rusted gate hanging open. She stepped through, onto the campus of the hospital. Through a canopy of limbs just starting to leaf, she spied the dark roofline of the asylum.

Ridiculously, a chill swept through her, but she ignored any trepidation as she found her camera and started clicking off shots. She couldn't let unfounded fears stop her. The rain was really coming down now, and she ducked her head and followed what had once been a trail through the thicket of pine and live oak. Her heart was pounding, and she felt a little as if she'd stepped into another world, a dark and forbidden path that wound through the pain and misery of the past. Closer to the hospital, she clicked off a few more pictures and considered the people who had lived here, who had been misdiagnosed, mistreated, or trapped in this monolith of an inst.i.tution.

Her cell phone jangled, and she jumped, saw that her father was calling again and decided to keep ignoring him. He'd ask what she was doing, and then she'd either have to lie, which he always seemed to sense, or she'd have to tell him the truth, in which case he would come unglued and start in on his routine, discouraging her from writing the true-crime book.

She didn't want to hear it.

For G.o.d's sake, she was an adult.

She switched the phone to vibrate and continued. Once she had finished her business, she'd call him back. She'd heard the earlier messages about dinner, but she wasn't all that interested, wasn't going to change her plans to suit him. Nah, she was done with that.

So what if he's had a change of heart, what if he finally wants to talk to you?

It could wait.

At least a few more hours.

Frowning, she kept walking through the wet puddles and damp leaves that had never been raked from the fall.

Closer to the asylum, she saw the decay. The crumbling mortar, the falling bricks, the broken windows, the encroaching weeds and vines. Once grand and imposing, the structure was now forbidding and bleak. Again she found her camera and trained her lens on the rusted-down spouts, freakish gargoyles, and black windows. What a creepy, almost h.e.l.lish place.