Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle

by Lisa Jackson

  She heard his steps, light and quick, as he descended the staircase. She closed the door, locked it, then, shaking off all thoughts of making love to him, of getting involved with him, of falling in love with him again, she pulled off her oversized T-shirt. She had too much to do to think about the complications of a relationship with Jay McKnight….

  Oh, Lord, a relationship? What the devil was she thinking? And the fact that her mind even skimmed the thought of falling in love with him…well, that was just plain nuts. Dropping her T-shirt onto the floor, she stepped out of her pajama bottoms when she felt it again…that silly little notion that she was being watched.

  She shivered. There was no one in the apartment and the window shades were drawn. No one could see her. No one.

  And yet she sensed hidden eyes, watching her every move.

  “Guilt, for sleeping with Jay,” she told herself, but she yanked the bathroom door closed and locked it.

  She turned on the faucet, adjusted the spray, and waited for the water to heat. Stepping into the small glass cubicle, she pushed all thoughts of some unseen voyeur out of her head and took one of the shortest showers of her life.

  Aunt Colleen’s house could wait, Jay thought as he drove to the cottage to drop off the building materials he had stored in the back of his truck.

  It was threatening rain again, the sky gloomy, the defrost mechanism on his truck struggling with the condensation that had collected overnight. As it was early Sunday morning, traffic was thin, a little heavier by the churches.

  As far as Jay was concerned his battling cousins, Janice and Leah, could bloody well cool their jets as well. Oh, they’d probably start pushing him again, especially Leah with Kitt, her do-nothing of a husband. Kitt spent his time getting high and jamming with a garage band and dreaming of becoming a rock star. Kitt saw his dead mother-in-law’s cottage as a gold mine and a way to prolong his status as an out-of-work musician. Jay understood that his cousins needed to sell the place and Jay intended to keep up with the renovations, but right now, he had more important things to consider.

  Uppermost on the list?

  Kristi Bentz’s safety.

  Leah’s damned granite countertops and stainless steel appliances were a far-off second.

  As soon as he unloaded the pickup and cleaned up, he intended to return to her apartment and go over it carefully with his evidence collection kit, though what he expected to find eluded him. It had been months since Tara Atwater had lived in the unit, and there was no indication that it had ever been a crime scene. But if a prowler had broken in, there was a chance he’d left a fingerprint or latent shoe print or hair or something…maybe.

  Jay didn’t know what to believe. The place had seemed undisturbed.

  But the studio apartment had belonged to Tara Atwater and she was definitely missing.

  “So we’ll just see what we shall see,” he said to the dog as the clouds grew darker. He stopped for a traffic light and waited for a woman jogger pushing a baby carriage in front of her as she crossed in front of him. When the light changed, he beat out a minivan filled with teenagers. Once ahead of the van, he switched lanes, feeling a sense of urgency he couldn’t quite shake.

  Later today he planned to install yet another new lock on the door, one that Irene Calloway, her grandson, or anyone else they thought needed a key, wouldn’t have. He also considered installing a camera for the front porch. Afterward he would double-check on the staff of All Saints, particularly Dr. Dominic Grotto. Jay had already retrieved some information, but it was spotty at best and he wanted to do a deeper background check on the instructors who had taught the missing students. Jay also was going to take the official tour of Wagner House while Kristi was working. Something had been going on there last night, long after the museum doors were supposed to have been locked, something that frightened the bejeezus out of Kristi, who didn’t scare easily.

  He turned a corner just as a beagle puppy dashed into the street. Jay jammed on his brakes. Bruno fell against the dash. “Christ!” A sedan coming the other way skidded to a stop.

  A tall, thin man in his twenties, running with a leash wound in one hand, sprinted between the cars, yelling as he chased after the wayward dog.

  “You okay, buddy?” Jay asked Bruno, his heart beating overtime.

  Bruno climbed into the passenger seat again and barked at the disappearing pup while Jay drove the few blocks to the bungalow. At the house, Bruno pressed his nose closer to the glass and wagged his tail.

  “You think this is home?” Jay asked, and parked in front of the dilapidated cottage with its sagging porch and overgrown yard. “Nah!”

  But then what was? His sterile place in New Orleans?

  That wasn’t any better.

  Truth to tell, since Katrina, Jay had been restless, feeling as if he didn’t truly belong anywhere any longer. His renovated apartment had suddenly seemed small and confining, and when he’d stayed with Gayle in those months they’d dated, he’d felt as if he hadn’t belonged at all, always concerned about wearing his shoes in the house or spilling coffee…no, her house had been too perfect, everything in its place except for Jay. He’d been the one thing Gayle had chosen that hadn’t fit into her home or her life.

  Then there was Kristi’s studio, where he could pop a beer, eat cold pizza on a Sunday morning, or leave his jeans crumpled on the floor.

  “So what?” he said aloud.

  Kristi Bentz’s apartment was no more the answer to his need for a permanent home than this cottage that belonged to his cousins.

  Not liking the path his mind was determined to take, he climbed out of his truck. Bruno sprang to the ground, ready to lift his leg and mark every scraggly shrub and pine tree leading to the front door. Jay unloaded the truck bed, taking out the bags of cement, light fixtures, and cans of primer and paint. He hauled everything inside, then fed the dog, and headed to the shower.

  His thoughts turned to Kristi and their night of lovemaking. After all of his warnings to himself, all the mental admonitions, he’d fallen into the same old trap and had ended up in her bed. Just where he’d really wanted to be. And damn it, as a scientist he didn’t believe in a lot of romantic nonsense. Sex, after all, was sex. Some better than others. But he hadn’t really bought into the emotional connection of it. At some level he’d even hoped that after tumbling into bed with Kristi and spending hours making love, he would somehow, miraculously, be cured of her.

  Of course he’d been wrong.

  Seriously wrong.

  With Kristi, there was more to it than pure sexual gratification. Always had been. In fact, if he were honest with himself, he’d admit his fascination with her was worse than ever. “Good goin’, Romeo,” he muttered, yanking off his clothes and stepping into the shower of the Day-Glo green bathroom. He couldn’t help but wish she was with him, that he could wash her body with soap, feel his hands slide down her slick skin, kiss her breasts while water cascaded over them both, and lift her up, feel her legs wrap around him and…

  Oh hell. He was giving himself a hard-on just thinking about it. He scrubbed quickly, turned the spigots to cold and braced himself as his erection softened. Within minutes, he toweled off, then pulled on clean jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt from his duffel bag. Socks and shoes followed, and he grabbed his notebook computer and was out the door again, calling to Bruno, who was lying in the overgrown yard beneath a live oak, where a squirrel had taken up residence on a bough just out of reach.

  “Give it up,” Jay advised his dog as the squirrel, tail flickering, scolded noisily. “Let’s go.”

  On cool days, he took the old hound with him everywhere. Bruno was content to wait in the car while Jay ran errands. As long as the temperature allowed, Jay figured it was better than having the dog cooped up in the semi-gutted bungalow for hours at a time.

  He pulled out of the driveway and onto the street. Next stop: the hardware store followed by Wagner House, which would be open in the afternoon. He thought he might ev
en stop by the diner for lunch, see Kristi in action.

  She would hate it.

  And he would love it.

  Kristi didn’t have much time, but on the bike she zipped across campus, cutting between pedestrians, joggers, and skateboarders to Wagner House. Today in the gloomy daylight the house appeared less sinister, the sharp peaked roof, beveled glass windows, gargoyle downspouts all just part of the architectural style of a bygone era.

  Before leaving her apartment, Kristi had taken the time to pull up a list of students in the school, locating Marnie Gage on the roster. Marnie’s picture had flashed onto the screen along with her short bio indicating that she had graduated from Grant High School in Portland, Oregon, and was an English major working on a minor in theater.

  Again, the English Department, Kristi had thought. It didn’t take a PhD to figure out that the girl probably was or had been in the same block of classes as Kristi and the missing coeds were. Kristi was starting to believe the entire department was somehow involved in this underground vampire cult or whatever it was.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she told herself.

  But was it?

  Her skin crawled, and she sensed again that someone was watching her. Someone hidden. Someone evil.

  She felt a chill, a cold gust of wind brush against the back of her neck. As the clouds overhead threatened rain, she propped her bike against the wrought-iron fence and tried the gate. It was locked. Of course. No matter how hard she pushed on it, or fiddled with the clasp, it didn’t budge, and the hours of operation posted on the gate indicated the museum wouldn’t be open until two this afternoon. Supposedly the museum closed at five-thirty PM.

  But it had opened last night.

  Kristi had damned well been inside. Along with Marnie Gage and at least one other person, maybe more. Had they been in the basement, down the locked staircase? Was it the meeting of the cult Lucretia had mentioned, then denied?

  “Weird, weird, weird,” she told herself. Staring through the wrought iron bars of the fence, she studied the old foundation but could only see the tops of basement windows, dark and opaque. Probably used for storage. Not secret meetings where blood was let and vampires revered.

  But the blond girl, Marnie Gage, had gone inside, and someone had been following her throughout the upstairs rooms. Could Marnie have doubled back and gotten behind her? But why? Was this place somehow connected to the missing girls, the damned cult that Lucretia now disavowed?

  In that second she felt cold as death. Hadn’t she seen Ariel hanging around here? Then Marnie? Both whose faces had turned the color of death. That left Lucretia. Kristi didn’t know of any connection she had with the old house, but she was willing to bet her life that her ex-roommate was somehow involved with this old, dark edifice.

  So how does Dad fit in?

  Kristi curled her fingers around the bars of the fence. As far as she knew Rick Bentz had nothing to do with Wagner House or anything else concerning All Saints College. He’d solved a couple of crimes connected to the campus, and sure, his only daughter was enrolled here, again, but that was it. Her vision of his gray pallor didn’t seem connected.

  So, maybe her visions had nothing to do with premonitions of death, and everything to do with something wrong in her own mind, something that had just slipped out of gear after she’d been attacked.

  So many questions.

  And no answers.

  “The museum is closed until later this afternoon.”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “Two o’clock,” Father Mathias said, glancing to the sky as the wind picked up. “Wagner House opens then.”

  “I know, but I have to get to work and I…” She thought fast. “Well, I think I lost my sunglasses here. They’re prescription.”

  “I’ll check the lost and found.” He unlocked the gate and as he did, the sleeve of his cassock fell away, exposing part of his arm and a bandage.

  “What happened?” she asked automatically. He pulled back his keys and the sleeve covered his arm again.

  “Nothing. An accident. From yard work,” he said quickly. “Electric hedge clippers. Guess I’ll wait for the gardener next time. Come back after two when the docent is here. If I find your glasses, or she does, you can pick them up then.”

  “But I need them for work. I’ll come with you.”

  “Really, child,” he said, “I can’t allow it. Two o’clock isn’t that far away. I’m just stopping by for a second myself.” He slipped through the door and up the steps as the gate swung shut. On impulse she stopped it from latching with her foot and waited until Father Mathias disappeared within.

  As soon as she heard the door of the mansion close behind him, she swept into the fenced yard and walked quickly around the perimeter of the house. What she expected to find, she didn’t know, but she peered through the basement windows just the same, spying nothing in the darkness, feeling like a fool.

  At the back porch, she considered walking up the steps and trying the door when she heard a voice inside. A woman’s voice. “I told you to take care of it,” she said. “Don’t make it my problem!”

  The other voice was muted, farther away. Male.

  Father Mathias Glanzer’s?

  Or someone else’s?

  Kristi strained to listen as the first drops of rain started to fall, but she couldn’t hear what the man was saying, only the woman’s sharp, quick response. “The whole thing backfired, I know, but you should be able to handle it. The sooner the better. Before the police get involved. Do you know what would happen then? Do you?”

  Again the male voice.

  Arguing?

  Explaining?

  Coming up with excuses?

  Kristi’s heart was pounding, her nerves strung tight. She was about to risk it and climb up the steps when she felt it again—that eerie sensation that she was being watched. Slowly she dragged her gaze up the side of the building, past the kitchen and second floor to a window high above, shadowed by heavy eaves. Her blood ran cold as she saw a face…a girl’s face…white as death, taut with fear.

  Ariel O’Toole?

  Or someone else. The image was too blurry.

  Kristi blinked and she was gone, the window empty.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Sunday morning, not even noon, and how did I know that you’d be here?” Del Vernon asked as, holding a manila envelope, he rested a hip against Portia Laurent’s desk at the station.

  “Are you insinuating I don’t have a life?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Nah. Just that you’re a workaholic.”

  “It takes one to know one.” She leaned back in her chair and stared up at him. Lord, he was a handsome man. Eyes as dark as midnight, long straight nose, a shaved head that seemed flawless, and a mouthful of white straight teeth.

  “Possibly.”

  “So what brings you in here? It is Sunday morning.”

  “Thought you might want to see this.” He handed her the envelope. “I think you might just have your body.”

  “My body?”

  “Well, part of one anyway.”

  She opened the flap and slid out an eight-by-ten photograph. “Sweet Jesus,” she said as she stared at the picture of what appeared to be a slightly decomposed arm. Female arm. Left hand. Polished fingernails.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “In the stomach of an illegally caught alligator. We’re lucky the hunter, a yahoo named Boomer Moss, had the smarts to turn it in. We’re searching that part of the swamp where the gator was caught, but don’t have a whole lot of expectations. The animal could have moved from one spot to the next, the body drifted down there…. From the looks of it, we’re guessing the arm was in the water less than a week, but the ME isn’t certain, at least not yet.”

  Portia was rapidly getting up to speed. She’d come into the department on a Sunday to catch up on paperwork, which she instantly shelved. “So you think it’s one of the girls from All Saints? That our perp capt
ures them, keeps them alive, then finally kills them and gets rid of the bodies,” she said, feeling vindicated, excited, and sick inside all at once. She, too, had held out hope that the girls had run off, left town, hoping to disappear, but as she stared at the picture of the severed arm, she knew better. She could only pray that if the scenario she’d just outlined was the truth, some of the missing coeds were still alive.

  Tortured, maybe.

  Traumatized, certainly.

  But alive.

  Del frowned, his jaw set and hard. “We don’t have many answers yet. There’s a chance this doesn’t belong to any of the girls from All Saints.”

  She snorted. Her gut told her this belonged to Tara, Monique, or Rylee. The only missing coed excluded was Dionne, because of her race. The arm in the photo belonged to a white girl. A girl who liked plum-colored fingernail polish.

  “If he doesn’t keep them alive, then why wouldn’t the arm show more signs of decomposure?”

  “Don’t know, but it doesn’t look like he cut the limbs. It’s ripped and bitten, consistent with the alligator’s jaw.”

  Her stomach clenched. None of the scenes running through her mind were good.

  “The ME thinks the gator did it. But there wasn’t any more of the body in his digestive system. We checked.”

  “So what finally convinced you that this arm belongs to one of the girls from All Saints?”

  “Missing persons says no other white girl has been reported missing recently, at least not up here; New Orleans has a few. I’ve already checked with the local hospitals and no one’s shown up missing an arm, from an accident with a hungry gator or otherwise. But here’s something odd: the first thing the ME noticed was that there was no blood in the arm.”

  “Maybe it drained out when it was severed.”

  “Uh-uh. ME says the severing occurred post mortem.”

  “Drained in the gator’s stomach? Degraded by the time in the water or with stomach acid?”

  “The ME’s double-checking,” Del said, but he sounded doubtful.