Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 175

She parked in a hurry, running up the steps to her apartment. Inside, she quickly stripped off her work clothes and tossed them into her laundry bag. She also threw in two packets of detergent, the bolt cutters, and a flashlight, then stepped into jeans and a sweater. After slipping on a pair of tennis shoes, she started on her mission.

She was nervous as a cat, her stomach knotted as she descended two flights before unlocking the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt and snapping on the wimpy lights.

At night the cavernous room below the building was even more formidable, the nooks and crevices more shadowy and dark. None of the washing machines were agitating, nor the dryers heating and spinning.

Good.

Carefully, certain someone would walk down the dark stairs at any second, Kristi removed the bolt cutters and set them on the floor near the wire storage bins, then she sorted her clothes quickly and started two of the washers.

As the machines began to fill, she grabbed the bolt cutters and studied the bins. They were each clearly marked and locked, one for each unit and two extras. One of the extra bins held gardening supplies and tools, obviously used for the apartment house, the other was filled with boxes. Kristi shined her flashlight through the mesh and saw Tara At.w.a.ter's name scrawled across them, along with a date of November 13, over a month after the girl had been deemed missing.

"Good enough," she said, and went to work.

Unfortunately Randy of the I-Man, You-Woman caveman mentality had been right. Using the bolt cutters proved difficult. She could get the blades over the shackle, the metal piece that attached the lock to the door, but then she didn't have the strength to make the d.a.m.ned cutters snip through.

Which ticked her off.

"Come on," she said, and tried again, pushing the handles together so hard that her arms ached, pain screaming down them, the muscles trembling with the pressure. "Wuss," she muttered under her breath as the washers continued to fill, water rushing into the tubs.

Again she put all her strength behind it.

Again she failed, only managing to score the shackle with the cutters. "They must be dull," she told herself, and twisted the cutters around, so that they were pressed against the side of the steel door. Setting her feet on the concrete floor she shoved against one handle with all of her weight, wedging the other into the door. Straining...straining...sweating...eyes squeezed...jaw set...

Click!

Oh, G.o.d, was that someone at the door?

d.a.m.n!

What idiot would be doing their laundry this late at night?

Just you.

Her heart, already pounding, soared into overdrive. Adrenaline shot through her bloodstream. With a grunt she shoved harder just as she heard the key turn and the upstairs door creak open over the changing of gears in the washers, then footsteps. Heavy tread descending.

No!

With all her strength she gave one final shove.

Snap!

The shackle broke.

Kristi didn't check to see if it was cut through. She shoved the bolt cutters into her laundry bag and, sweating, though the temperature in the bas.e.m.e.nt couldn't have been over sixty, she bent over the dryer and opened the door as if checking on her wash.

Except someone else's wash was already there. Still very wet.

Criminy! She hadn't thought to check to see if there were clothes in the dryer. "h.e.l.l," she muttered, straightening just as a huge shape hovered at the bottom of the stairs. Her insides turned to water. Dear G.o.d, could this be the abductor? Is this how the psycho found his victims, alone in a dark bas.e.m.e.nt? Had Tara been down here when...

She was about to reach for the bolt cutters to use as a weapon when Hiram stepped beneath the weak light of one of the overhanging bulbs.

She let out her breath and snapped back to the problem at hand. Would he notice the broken lock? "Hey, are those yours?" she asked, pointing at the dryer, then opening the door of the second one. It too was filled with wet clothes.

"Yeah." Hiram was dressed in flannel pajama bottoms that hung low on his hips and a hooded gray sweatshirt, his hands in the single front pocket of the hoody. On his feet were huge slippers that barely covered what had to be size thirteen or fourteens.

"Didn't you turn the dryers on?" she demanded.

"Yeah."

"When?"

"I dunno. Couple of hours ago." He was getting defensive, his lips, behind his scraggly beard, folding in on themselves.

"Well, your clothes are still wringing wet."

"I used 'low' so my jeans wouldn't shrink," he said as if it were she who was the imbecile who didn't know a thing about laundry protocol or procedure.

"Well, you've got about thirty minutes before the washers are finished with their cycles and when they are, I'm going to need both dryers."

"Too bad, you'll just have to wait." He made a big deal of checking the sodden clothes. Like he really cared. From the looks of his outfit, this might have been the first time he'd used the laundry facilities since Christmas.

Hiram hit the start b.u.t.ton again, the timer set for twenty minutes, the temperature once again on "low."

She said, "That's not going to work."

He snorted, turned, and faced the storage cages.

Holy c.r.a.p! Her heart was trip-hammering like mad.

What would she say when he accused her? Could she lie? From the corner of her eye she saw her laundry bag, the outline of the bolt cutters visible. She kicked the washer. The resulting clang rang throughout the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Hiram spun as if a top on a string.

"d.a.m.ned thing," she said, shaking her head.

"What was that noise?"

"I don't know but it's been doing it ever since I loaded it."

"The washer? Which one?"

She pointed to the one she'd kicked. "Every couple of minutes or so it does that banging noise. Can't be good. You're the super or the manager or whatever, maybe you could fix it."

"It didn't do it for me."

"How do you know? Were you down here?" she asked, and saw by his eyes that he hadn't been. Good. Her lie was safe. "Maybe you should get your toolbox."

He nodded and edged toward the stairs. "Yeah, I will, but after you're done with the washer, you, uh, might put a note on it that no one is to use it until I, um, get it fixed."

"Good idea," she said, and let out her breath as he, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, started to climb the staircase. Every step seemed to groan in protest with his weight.

She waited until she heard the door at the top of the stairs open and close, then she didn't waste a second. She pulled the lock off the security cage, flung open the door, and started opening the boxes within. Clothes, CDs, candles, pictures in frames, books, and various personal items. Too much to fit into the laundry bag in one trip and she didn't dare carry the boxes upstairs. As quickly as possible, she grabbed up some small items, intending to come back for the rest later.

Then she took off the lock and replaced it with the one she'd purchased earlier today, the one with a combination she knew. It clicked into place. Until someone came down here and tried to get into the storage unit, no one would be the wiser.

CHAPTER 15.

Kristi, d.a.m.n her tight little a.s.s and sa.s.sy in-your-face att.i.tude, had gotten to him.

No two ways about it, Jay thought, disgusted with himself.

Maybe Gayle had been right all along.

Maybe he'd never gotten over Kristi Bentz.

"Fool," he muttered as he sat in his desk chair in the lab in New Orleans. Ever since leaving her apartment last night, he'd been thinking about her, worried that she was getting into something dangerous. So he'd had to do something.

Instead of tearing out the old bathtub and starting to fix the plumbing at Aunt Colleen's house, Jay had rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn Sat.u.r.day and, with Bruno at his side in the pickup, had driven like a bat out of h.e.l.l back to his house in New Orleans. Once he'd dropped the dog off, he'd driven to the crime lab and the computer at his desk, where he'd sifted through all of the police databases he could, accessing information on the missing coeds.

And he hadn't stopped there.

Over the course of the day, he'd called a couple of friends who worked for the Baton Rouge Police, a sheriff for the parish of East Baton Rouge, and even an old college buddy who was working for the Louisiana State Police. If they were off duty, he then tracked them down by their cell phones, interrupting their days. He figured it didn't matter. He was going to get to the bottom of Kristi's obsession come h.e.l.l or high water.

Because she's yours, his mind taunted. his mind taunted. You've been obsessed with that woman from the first time you set eyes on her, and if you think you're doing this for any reason other than to score points with her, guess again. You've been obsessed with that woman from the first time you set eyes on her, and if you think you're doing this for any reason other than to score points with her, guess again.

His jaw tightened and he pushed the thought aside. Besides, it wasn't true. He would have checked into any of his students' concerns. Maybe not with quite so much fervor, or he might have pa.s.sed the information along to the proper authorities and then stepped back, but he would have taken some action.

Face it, McKnight, you're p.u.s.s.y-whipped.

He refused to listen to the voice as he worked in his office, which was not much more than a closet with a window, but it had a computer terminal and access to all of the police databases. "All I need is here," he said aloud, though it was a lie. What he'd like was a beer. Instead, he settled for a semi-chilled can of iced tea from the vending machine and snacked on peanut b.u.t.ter cups and red licorice.

At least it was quiet here, the weekend shift busy in other areas of the building, away from his small office.

Everyone he'd phoned was willing to talk to him and all agreed to call him back if they found any information on the four girls, but so far no one had offered up anything he didn't already know.

To a one, the police officers believed Dionne Harmon, Monique DesCartes, Tara At.w.a.ter, and most recently Rylee Ames were troubled girls who had just taken off. If their credit or debit cards hadn't been used, it was surmised that they'd found a different money source. Probably dealing drugs or prost.i.tuting themselves for cash. Maybe gambling? Mooching off some low-life friends?

The only glimmer of hope Jay received was from his friend Raymond "Sonny" Crawley, with whom he'd gone to college and who now worked in the Homicide Department at Baton Rouge.

"Jeeeezus, McKnight," Sonny had said when he'd answered his cell phone. "What happened? You been talkin' to Laurent or somethin'? That's the trouble with that d.a.m.ned woman, she won't let this thing go, I'm tellin' ya. No bodies. No crime scene, but she seems to think the girls were abducted or killed or G.o.d only knows what. Trust me, we got all the work up here we need without creatin' any more, but she's not convinced. p.i.s.sin' everyone off."

"Who's Laurent?" Jay asked, scribbling a note to himself as he stared at the computer screen with the picture of Rylee Ames, the girl who was supposed to have been in his cla.s.s this term.

"Portia Laurent's a junior detective with the department who has a bug up her b.u.t.t about those girls. h.e.l.l, we all want to find them, but sheeeit, there just isn't a case. Not yet. But you know how those newbies are. They tend to get fired up about any little thing. Not that I'm makin' light of the situation, but there just isn't much we can do about it until we come up with a body, murder weapon, suspect, or witness. So why the h.e.l.l are you interested?"

"Just curious," Jay hedged. He'd already decided to keep Kristi's name out of it, unless he determined that she was in any kind of danger. The fact that she lived at the address of one of the missing girls bothered him. "I work up there, part-time, teach a cla.s.s on forensics, and there's been a lot of talk about what happened to the girls."

"Don't I know it?" Sonny agreed. "Every time it's a slow news day around here, I get some reporter nosin' around, tryin' to stir up trouble, make news if there isn't any. Take that Belinda Del Ray from WMTA...what a pain in the a.s.s she is. Good-lookin', I'll grant you that. And she uses it, let me tell you. But she's like a d.a.m.ned pitbull with a bone, don't ya know? Won't take no for an answer and keeps pokin' around even when we try to steer her to the PIO. But she's not interested in the official statement from the Public Information Officer, no siree, not Belinda. She wants more than we're willing to give. As far as the department's concerned: no bodies, no case. But some reporters don't know how to b.u.t.t out."

"Just doing their jobs," Jay said, playing devil's advocate. He was ambivalent about the press. A necessary evil. Often useful. Sometimes a real pain. Especially the aggressive reporters hungry to make a name for themselves.

"Humph," Sonny snorted. "Obviously you haven't dealt with too many reporters."

This was going nowhere. "So tell me about Detective Laurent. Why isn't she buying the company line?"

"f.u.c.k, I don't know what the h.e.l.l Laurent thinks. You'd have to ask her. Oh, h.e.l.l, I got another call comin' in."

He clicked off and Jay stared at the notepad on his desk. Portia Laurent. He definitely wanted to hear what she had to say. He circled her name, tore off the sheet, stuffed it into a pocket of his jeans, and settled in to work.

By the end of the day, chewing on his last brittle rope of red licorice, he didn't know a whole h.e.l.luva lot more than he had last night. Just enough, though, that he was starting to believe that Kristi was onto something. As for the whole vampire thing, he was surprised how many people bought into it. Not only books, movies, television, online gaming, but there was an entire Internet culture, linked, he was certain, to real people.

A cult?

Maybe.

Centered at All Saints?

He hoped to h.e.l.l not.

He thought about all the missing girls and Dr. Grotto's cla.s.s. He'd heard from a few members of the staff he'd met about the guy's theatrical way of presenting the cla.s.s, the fake fangs and contacts that covered his irises and made his eyes appear flat and black. Without a soul. Inhuman. But no one was worried about it. It was drama. Flair. And the students loved it. The fact that he was taller than most with thick dark hair and penetrating eyes didn't hurt the image either.

Jay rubbed the back of his neck and rotated his head to relieve the tension, all the while staring at the computer screen, where the face of Rylee Ames met his gaze. Young. Beautiful. Vibrant. At least in the head shot. But obviously messed up.

Runaway? Or abduction? Possible murder victim...?

Had she been a part of some private cult?

Was Grotto into it? h.e.l.l, if so, he was flaunting his part, wasn't he? Really out in the open with this vampire c.r.a.p. How stupid would that be, to point a finger at himself? Or was it Grotto's ego? Did he really think he was invincible? If so, the intense teacher wouldn't be the first. Jay chewed hard on the tasteless candy, then tossed the wrapper into his trash can, all the while thinking about his colleague at the school. Maybe it was time for a background check on Grotto, a deeper check than the university had made. For that matter, what about some of the other professors and department heads? Or members of the administration? From what he knew about cults, they crossed all sorts of social barriers. He had the resources, he decided, and there was no reason not to use them. All he had to do was cross reference names and addresses. Some of the information would be public, other private. He'd go as far as he could without breaking the law.

And then what?

What if you need to dig deeper?

"h.e.l.l," he muttered. He would d.a.m.ned well cross that slippery bridge when he came to it.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

Shifting on his chair, Jay retrieved the phone and saw Gayle's home phone number flash onto his screen. Inwardly groaning, he considered not answering, but knew that was only postponing the inevitable.

He had tried to be kind.

It hadn't worked.