Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 241

Caller ID showed that the phone was registered to L. Newell. Lorraine? Jennifer's stepsister?

He answered before the d.a.m.ned thing rang twice. "Bentz."

"Oh. Hi. It's Lorraine." She sounded tense. Breathless. What was this all about? "I...thought you should know...Oh, G.o.d..."

"What?" he asked, his senses on alert, an eerie feeling crawling along his skin.

"I saw her. I saw Jennifer."

Bentz's feet dropped to the floor. He slid his laptop onto the desk. "What?"

"I said I saw-"

"I know, but where? When?" He couldn't believe it. His heart was thudding, adrenaline spurting through his veins, his hands clutching the phone as if it were a lifeline.

"Just a few minutes ago. Here. On my street. In Torrance," she said, her voice quavering. She sounded scared as h.e.l.l. "In...in a gray car."

Really? Bentz was already grabbing his keys and wallet with his free hand. Bentz was already grabbing his keys and wallet with his free hand.

"I don't think she expected me to be looking out the window."

"Did she see you?"

"I don't think so."

"Wait a minute. You saw a woman who looked like Jennifer in a gray car?" Again, he glanced through the blinds to the dark parking lot illuminated by the motel sign. Something felt wrong about this.

"Yes!"

"How could you see her?"

"Uh...the streetlight. The car stopped under the streetlight and she looked right at the house. Right at me."

"Is she there now?"

"I don't know. She drove past slowly, around the cul-de-sac, only three or four minutes ago. I'm frightened. She's dead, Rick. She's supposed to be dead." Lorraine's voice was hoa.r.s.e with panic. "I didn't know what to do. I thought I should call you."

"I'll be there in half an hour. Sit tight."

He hung up and threw on his shoulder holster, new jacket, and shoes. His cell phone was just about out of juice, but he pocketed it along with his badge. Ignoring the ache in his leg Bentz flew out of the room and into the parking lot. Inside his car, he snapped on the ignition and drove out of the lot, squealing onto the street.

Someone else had seen Jennifer, or the woman who looked like her. Finally.

Once he was on the side street heading toward the 405, he phoned Jonas Hayes.

The call went directly to voice mail and he explained what he was doing.

Then he hit the freeway heading south, weaving through taillights to move ahead, pushing the speed limit. The night was clear and somewhere above the lights of the city the stars shone. He saw the moon and the blink of airplanes cutting across the sky, but his mind was on the phone conversation with Lorraine.

Was it possible?

Was "Jennifer" showing herself? Or casing Lorraine's house?

Or was Lorraine just freaking out?

Imagining things?

Like you? His mind teased while the speedometer inched past eighty. His mind teased while the speedometer inched past eighty.

As he maneuvered around a shiny red BMW another theory struck him. "d.a.m.n." Shana was already dead. Could "Jennifer" be looking for her next victim? That thought hit him hard. Was the woman he'd been looking for a murderess? His stomach twisted into a painful knot and he stepped on it, flying past a semi hauling milk and smelling of diesel, just as an idiot on a motorcycle blew by him and the eighteen-wheeler as if they were standing still. The biker had to be doing a hundred, maybe more, cutting through traffic. Idiot! Idiot!

Minutes ticked by and Bentz willed his cell phone to ring. He needed to talk to Hayes, or someone from the department, he thought just as he saw his exit ramp and some girl driving a Honda sped around him while texting. He barely noticed.

Bentz couldn't take any chances with Lorraine's life. There was no way of telling what this "Jennifer" was up to, but his gut told him it wasn't good. As he neared his exit ramp, he slowed and put another message to Hayes's voice mail, asking the L.A. detective to return the call immediately.

Bentz needed this confirmation. That he wasn't going out of his mind. That he wasn't conjuring up and fantasizing about a dead woman. Lorraine's sighting of Jennifer could do just that. At least now, if nothing else, by the time he left Lorraine's place tonight, the LAPD would know that Lorraine had been frightened, maybe even threatened by a woman who resembled Jennifer Bentz.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," he muttered, easing down the ramp into a clog of traffic at the stop light. A small man wearing an overcoat, camouflage pants, and a hat with a long feather slowly pushed an overflowing grocery store cart across all the lanes of traffic while Bentz felt time slipping by. Precious time.

At last the man rolled past, the light changed, and the idling vehicles were able to move again. Bentz gunned it, his heart hammering crazily. Fueled at the prospect of coming face to face with Jennifer.

Lorraine Newell knew she was a dead woman.

Shaking, she watched as her a.s.sailant, the woman who had held the phone to her ear and a gun to her temple, hung up the phone in her living room. All the shades were drawn. They were alone. And she'd lied to Rick Bentz, begged him to come over. She should have warned him, told him the truth, but she'd been afraid, so d.a.m.ned afraid. Either way this witch was going to kill her.

Trembling inside, she looked at the woman holding the gun on her, the dark, deadly muzzle only inches from her forehead.

"He's coming," she whispered and thought she might pee all over herself. How had she been so foolish to open the door to this woman, to agree to let her use her phone? She was just being a Good Samaritan. She'd wanted to help. When she'd opened the door, handing her phone through the crack, the woman who had pleaded that she'd needed to call a tow truck and that her cell was out of batteries had turned into a demon. She'd slammed the door in Lorraine's face, pulled a black gun from her jacket, and rammed the steely muzzle deep into Lorraine's ribs.

Once in the house, she'd bound Lorraine's hands behind her back, then held the phone to her ear and forced Lorraine to read from a careful script, only improvising when she had to.

And she had.

Oh, G.o.d forgive her, she would have done anything to save her life. But it was for nothing. She knew it now.

"You...you can leave me out of it," she said, in a desperate plea, sweat running down her back, her insides quivering. "I won't say anything to anyone. I promise. When Bentz gets here I'll...I'll tell him it was all part of a joke."

"It is," the woman said cryptically.

"Please."

"Shut up!"

If only she could run. Could knock the gun away. But it was too late. She didn't doubt for a second that this fiend would blow her to kingdom come.

Without a modic.u.m of mercy her captor s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper away-the script she'd forced Lorraine to read. Lorraine had searched the woman's face for a shred of compa.s.sion, a crack in her icy veneer. But the woman's expression was stone cold as she then prodded Lorraine forward, down a short hallway, and into the kitchen.

Where it was dark.

Oh, G.o.d.

There had to be a way to save herself. Had to!

"Move!" she ordered, the unforgiving nose of the pistol hard against Lorraine's back.

Tears ran down Lorraine's face. Her heart, beating so rapidly, so erratically, felt as if it would explode. She said a silent prayer, begging G.o.d for mercy.

"Please. Don't do this," she whispered, physically quaking with fear. She didn't want to die. Not now. Not this way. She was too young, had too much to live for. "Please," she begged, desperation cracking her voice. "I won't tell a soul. I swear. You can trust me."

"Shhhh. It's going to be all right." Slowly her attacker ran the cold muzzle of the pistol up Lorraine's spine, from the small of her back to the base of her skull.

Where it stopped.

Oh, sweet Jesus!

In that horrifying second Lorraine knew it was over.

Nothing she could do or say would change this demented criminal's mind.

She closed her eyes just as the gun blasted.

CHAPTER 24.

Something was off.

Way out of kilter.

Bentz felt it in the air, in the silence of the night. When he pulled up in front of Lorraine's home the street was empty-no silver Chevy prowling the neighborhood. A few lights glowed from the tri-level house, but the curtains were drawn. Hadn't Lorraine said she'd seen Jennifer from her window? Worse yet, as he approached he noticed the front door was ajar.

Had she left it open for him?

No way. When he'd talked to her, Lorraine had been scared out of her mind. Every muscle in his body tensed. "Lorraine," he called, slowly and silently withdrawing his weapon from his shoulder holster. "Lorraine? It's Rick Bentz."

Silence.

Carefully, sensing danger, he nudged the door further open with his weapon, and hearing no sound from within, slipped into the house. Lights were on in the living room, and he stiffened at a subtle movement across from him until he realized that it was his own reflection in the mirrored wall. The room was empty, a book facedown on the worn green sofa.

"Lorraine?" He listened but heard nothing.

Moving silently through the hallway toward the back of the house, Bentz pa.s.sed an empty dining room with mail piled on the table. As he approached the darkened kitchen he smelled it.

The distinctive, metallic odor of blood.

His stomach dropped to the floor.

Bracing himself, he stepped into the kitchen doorway and caught a glimpse of feet, one slipper kicked off, poking out from behind a cabinet. He stepped closer. Her body lay facedown, blood matting the back of her head.

Lorraine.

Bile crawled up his throat. Bentz flicked on the light and quickly checked to make sure the room was empty before kneeling at her side. But he knew she was dead. He felt for a pulse.

Nothing.

"Holy Christ." This was his fault. He knew it. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h." Yanking his phone from his pocket, he dialed 9-1-1, identified himself, and gave the dispatcher the pertinent information.

Who had done this to Lorraine?

No doubt the same person who had offed Shana McIntyre. The connection was obvious: Rick Bentz.

And Bentz knew he was the cause. The catalyst. "Jennifer" had shown herself to Lorraine, knowing full well that Lorraine would phone him. Then, after Lorraine had reported the sighting, "Jennifer" had killed her with flawless dispatch. Even now she could be watching, enjoying the show.

Twisted b.i.t.c.h.

Though he sensed that the house was empty, the murderer long gone, he couldn't be certain. He hung up and checked the rest of the house. Moving carefully, trying not to touch anything or disturb any fingerprints or evidence the killer may have left behind, he searched closets and did a perfunctory check of the back deck, but the perp had fled the scene. Of course. Bentz put in another call to Hayes and left his third message within an hour, then returned to the living room. A loud, unworldly screech reverberated through the room.

Bentz ducked behind the hallway wall, then peered out in time to see a gray cat streak from the back of the couch and bolt behind a plaid upholstered chair. From behind the worn cushions it hissed, glaring at him with glittering gold eyes.

Bentz's skyrocketing pulse slowed a bit. He'd forgotten Lorraine had always kept cats, having seen no evidence of the animal when he'd visited.

Shaking inside, craving a cigarette, he waited outside on the porch near a grapefruit tree. His leg throbbed and he tried to maintain calm by focusing on the sounds of the night. Over the buzz of insects and the barking of a dog a few streets over, the wails of sirens split the night air. Good. He shoved his hair away from his face, noticing a nervous neighbor peeking out at him through blinds.

The show's about to begin, he thought while a jogger ran past the entrance to the cul-de-sac. His eyes followed the movement. The runner was a slim woman-or was it a man?-in a baseball cap and dark clothes. No reflective gear. She glanced toward him, but she was too far away to see her features. he thought while a jogger ran past the entrance to the cul-de-sac. His eyes followed the movement. The runner was a slim woman-or was it a man?-in a baseball cap and dark clothes. No reflective gear. She glanced toward him, but she was too far away to see her features.

Yet, there was something about her that seemed familiar.

What? The thought stopped him cold. The thought stopped him cold. Familiar? Are you out of your mind? You can't even make out the runner's gender. Get a grip, Bentz, and figure this thing out before another one of the people you interviewed winds up dead. Think, for G.o.d's sake. You're going to have to answer a lot of questions. Familiar? Are you out of your mind? You can't even make out the runner's gender. Get a grip, Bentz, and figure this thing out before another one of the people you interviewed winds up dead. Think, for G.o.d's sake. You're going to have to answer a lot of questions.

As he watched, she turned down a side street. Maybe she'd seen a silver car cruising the neighborhood. "Hey!" he called after her, but she was too far away. He'd never catch her on foot, and he couldn't leave in the car. Not after calling the cops, who, by the sound of screaming sirens, would arrive within the next thirty seconds.

Forget the runner for now.

Bentz turned off the voice in his head and, still longing for a cigarette or a stiff drink or both, walked toward the curb.

Why had Lorraine phoned him?

Had she really seen Jennifer?

Or was it all a ruse?