Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (148 page)

“I can’t lie.”

Yolinda held up her hands, stood, then walked to the small window. “The last thing we want you to do is lie, but you’re going to be asked some tough questions while you’re on the stand.” Turning, she rested her hips against the window ledge, her dark gaze boring into Eve’s. “The fact is that you’ve got credibility issues, Ms. Renner. You were taken to the hospital, unconscious, and, along with other medical treatment, you were examined for rape.”

Eve had nodded. Braced herself. Felt as if the air in the room had suddenly gone stale. She knew what was coming.

Yolinda’s voice softened a bit. “You weren’t raped, Eve. We know that. There was no bruising or tearing consistent with rape. But you had semen in your vagina.”

Eve met the ADA’s hard gaze. She’d been through this before, but it was still difficult to hear. “I’d been with Cole,” she said softly.

Yolinda nodded. “Some of the semen belonged to Cole Dennis. But there was other semen as well. Other viable sperm. Definitely not belonging to Mr. Dennis.”

The first time she heard that horrifying information, the blood rushed to her head and made her feel like she would pass out, throw up, or both. With an effort, she just stared back at the ADA.

“And it was not from Royal Kajak.”

Eve swallowed but still said nothing. What was there to say? What kind of comment could she make? And how could she not remember something so vital? This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. True, she had holes in her memory—a dark, blank nothingness surrounding the night of Roy’s murder—but she knew herself well enough to understand that she would never sleep with two men within hours of each other. Never.

You weren’t raped. We know that.

Then
how
???

“I only remember being in bed with Cole,” she finally managed to get out, sounding as confused and shattered as she felt.

Yolinda shrugged and exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “You see my problem, don’t you? If I get you up on the stand, and you ‘don’t remember this’ and you ‘don’t remember that’ and you don’t even remember who you slept with, how’s that gonna look to the jury? What do you think Cole’s attorney, Sam Deeds, is gonna do with that testimony on cross-examination?” Eve shook her head, and Yolinda continued tersely, “I’ll tell you what he’ll do. He’ll go at you, over and over again, get you tongue-tied and angry, so that you look like you’re either stupid or a bald-faced liar. Then, when it’s already awful, he’ll just keep pushing you, so that you get defensive and look like a two-timing bitch.”

“It was only Cole!”

“That’s not what the evidence says.”

They were at an impasse. Eve’s paltry excuse of “I can’t remember,” though the truth, was not going to sit well with the jury.

Yolinda nodded as if they’d come to some kind of agreement. “Even if we can convince the jury that you’re telling the truth about your amnesia, the idea that you slept with two men within twenty-four hours will be planted. Add to that, you’re trying to pin a murder on a jealous boyfriend. That’s how Deeds’ll play it. And he’ll have clean-cut, smart, innocent-looking Cole Dennis at the table, looking for all the world like the wounded party—the choirboy whose girlfriend was two-timing him with another man she can’t, or won’t, name.” Yolinda pushed herself upright and walked to the desk, found a file in her top basket, and slid it over the polished wood so that it landed, open, in front of Eve. “This will be one of Deeds’s exhibits. It’s the DNA report. Two different semen samples taken from you. It won’t help that the sperm wasn’t Kajak’s. If anything, that will only make it worse, because you claim you can’t remember whose it is.”

“Stop.” Eve knew she was being goaded, but she couldn’t take it a second longer. “I get it. I see your point. But I haven’t slept with anyone but Cole in two years.”

“Then how?

“I don’t know!” Eve shook her head. “It…had to have happened…after…after I got into the cabin.”

“But you saw Mr. Dennis at the cabin. Was there someone in between the time you left Mr. Dennis at his home and went to meet Mr. Kajak at the cabin? Before Mr. Dennis arrived?”

“No.”

“Was there someone else there?”

“No.”

“Who was he, Ms. Renner?”

“No one!”

“Someone after you claim Mr. Dennis shot at you at the cabin?”

“No. I didn’t have sex with anyone!”

“How do you know, Ms. Renner? You don’t remember.”

“Then it…it was afterwards….”

“At the crime scene? Or the hospital? When the police were crawling all over the place, or in the ambulance ride when you were still unconscious? Could you pick out the EMT with whom you had sex from a lineup?” Yolinda hammered at her. “You know, those people who saved your life? Which one of them did you have consensual sex with?”

Eve’s eyes stung. “I’m telling the truth.”

Yolinda nodded. “We can’t use your testimony, Eve. You see that, don’t you? Not unless I want to completely destroy my case.” With a sigh, she said, “We’re done here,” and that was the end of it.

And Eve had no more answers now than she had then.

The old man was drunk.

So it wouldn’t take long.

Hidden in the shadows of the aging trellis in the side yard, the Reviver checked his digital watch. Twenty minutes had passed since he’d slipped into the house, taken care of business, and then noiselessly walked outside again. His victim, who had been in the den and listening to some radio program, was none the wiser that he’d ever had a visitor.

Yet.

That was soon to change.

Everything had gone perfectly, just like clockwork. Just as the Voice of God had instructed.

He watched through the window. The kitchen was now lit, the open bottle of Jack Daniels in the sink, a tray of ice cubes left on the counter, the few remaining in the tray beginning to melt.

Unlike the good doctor to be so messy.

Tsk, tsk,
he thought as he retrieved the cell phone from his pocket.

He made the first call. Listened as the man on the other end answered.

“Hello.”

The Reviver didn’t respond. Not yet. He had to do just as God had told him last night in his dreams.

“Hello?” A pause. “Damn it, who is it? Can you hear me? If you can, I can’t hear you.” Another pause. “Terry?” he said, a trace of frustration in his voice.

“I have evidence,” the Reviver whispered, his voice so low and raspy no one would ever recognize it.

“
What did you say?
”

There was no need to repeat himself. The message had been heard and understood.

He hung up.

Glancing up at the house, he then swiftly checked the menu on the phone for a list of contacts, scrolled down, and pressed the dial button again.

Within seconds, the phone was connected.

One ring.

Two.

Three.

“Hello?” The old man’s voice was brusque, loud over the background noise of the talk radio show he was tuned to. “Wait a minute. Who is this? How did you get my…shit!” A beat. “You’re calling from
my
cell number…but…how?”

The Reviver smiled as the man appeared in the kitchen, walking with an uneven gait.

“You have my phone!”

Outrage. And his words were slightly slurred.

The Reviver didn’t respond.

“Hello? Are you there? How the hell did you get my damned phone?”

Again, no response.

“Did you find it somewhere? Did I leave it in my car…? No, wait. It was here earlier. I remember plugging it into the charger….” His voice trailed off. “You were in my house? You
stole
it, you punk bastard!”

“I have information,” he finally said.

A pause. “Information about what?”

“Information you’ll want.”

“Hey…what is this?”

Another lengthy pause.

“So, what is the information you have for me?” The man’s voice was calmer now, but the Reviver spied him walking from room to room, peering out the windows. “Why did you take my phone?”

Checking his watch, the Reviver hung up then flipped the ringer to vibrate and slipped it into his pocket. Within seconds he felt the cell vibrate against his leg, and he smiled inwardly, sensing the man’s panic.

Just as he expected.

The vibration stopped as quickly as it had started.

Quietly he walked to the side of the house, careful to stay in the shadows. The cell vibrated again, and he could feel the man’s growing unease.

Good. You feel it. It’s your turn.

In the window, his victim nervously lifted a short glass filled with whiskey to his lips.

Drink up, moron. Drink it all.

The man visibly swayed, caught himself by pressing a hand to the glass pane.

The Reviver grinned in the darkness. He’d spent so little time in the kitchen, just long enough to steal the phone and slip the small tablets into the open bottle of whiskey.

It had been so easy.

And now those pills were working their magic, making his victim sluggish.

“Bottoms up,” he mouthed, feeling a rush steal through his blood as the man stumbled away from the window, heading, no doubt, for his recliner.

No reason to wait.

He hurried to the back of the house and stole up the steps to the back porch.

The door to the kitchen was still unlocked.

Dr. Terrence Renner drained his glass, set it on the table next to his recliner, and tried not to panic. Someone had called him…using his own cell phone. Someone had been in the house. Probably the teenagers who lived about a quarter of a mile away; three boys, and hellions every one. Troublemakers.

All that talk about “information” was probably just part of a prank. Right? And yet he’d heard real menace in the caller’s voice. Determination.

It took him three attempts to place the portable receiver into its cradle. Then he half collapsed into his recliner and stared at the phone, expecting it to ring again. All the while
Midnight Confessions,
that ridiculous radio show with “Doctor Sam,” a pseudo-psychologist, was playing on the radio. The show and woman irritated him, but he hadn’t been able to stop tuning in. Pop psychology. Ridiculous.

So who had his damned phone?

“Stupid punks,” he muttered and told himself to calm down, enjoy his fire—perhaps the last crackling fire of the season—and the remains of his drink.

He flipped off the radio, couldn’t stand to listen to that damned fake shrink another minute.

Had someone been in the house?

When?

Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked at the phone again and considered calling the police but was just too damned dizzy. He’d think more clearly in the morning. Tonight he’d finish his crossword puzzle then go to bed. He pulled the folded newspaper onto his lap and forced himself to concentrate.

From habit, he reached down to pat Rufus’s old head then realized his mistake. The dog had been dead over two weeks, and it was amazing how much Renner missed the old terrier, who in his youth had chased rabbits, squirrels, and cars with the same enthusiasm. Fortunately, the stupid dog had never caught anything.

A soft footstep sounded in the back of the house.

What the devil now?

He looked up quickly, knocking the newspaper from his lap as he stared over the top of his reading glasses. The room seemed to rotate slightly, and he blinked a couple of times. His nightcaps had hit him hard. Harder than usual, and as he pushed himself upright, he wobbled slightly, his legs unable to hold him.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled as his buttocks landed on the worn cushion of his favorite chair. “Son of a goddamned—”

There it was again. That familiar creak of floorboards in the hallway running from the kitchen, the sound made when someone walked along its length.

But he was alone.

Wasn’t he?

The hairs lifted on the back of his skull.

Had the punks who’d stolen his phone returned?

“Hello?” he called, slightly nervous and feeling like a fool. No one was in the house.
No
one.

He strained to listen, to rise from the chair, to push up, but his arms were as weak as his legs, flaccid, useless appendages. Had he had a stroke? Was that possible?

Another footstep. Heavier this time.

His heart froze for an instant.

“Ith thum-one there?” he demanded and heard the slurred panic in his voice. “Inez?” he asked, calling out the housekeeper’s name though she wasn’t scheduled for another couple of days. “Franco?” But the farmhand who worked for him had left hours earlier, before the sun had gone down. For the first time in his life, he felt isolated out here.

Again he tried to push himself upright, his arms trembling with the effort, his legs wobbly.

Again he fell back.

Don’t panic. You’re imagining all this. The drinks were stronger than you thought…that’s all.
Get up, damn it. Get up!

“Dr. Renner.” A deep male voice called to him from the darkened hallway beyond the French doors.

His eyes widened, felt stretched across his face.

He lunged for the phone, throwing himself from the recliner, knocking over the remains of his drink.

Ice cubes skittered over the gleaming hardwood floor.

Pain shuddered through him.

Pushing himself, he was determined to get to the phone, even if he had to crawl. But…but his arms wouldn’t drag him. His legs were useless. He was facedown on the floor when the light shifted. The glass doors opened, a shadow stretched in front of him, and he found himself looking at a pair of thick army boots.

He nearly lost control of his bladder as he slowly raised his eyes, up, up, up long, powerful-looking legs covered in camouflage, then farther upward past a matching jacket that covered a massive chest. Above the collar was a thick neck and a face concealed by a ski mask.

Startling blue eyes stared down at him.

“Who are you?…What do you want? I have money…in the safe….” Renner squeaked as panic closed his throat and constricted his lungs.

“Money.” The intruder spat the word. Moved his gloved hands.

Renner saw the knife—a long, wicked hunting knife, the blade catching and gleaming, reflecting the fire.