Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (186 page)

They were all tired. Needed a break.

He sped to the crime scene, where two units were already in position, lights flashing around a roped off area where officers were keeping the onlookers at bay. Montoya’s Mustang was parked half on the sidewalk, and he, dressed in his favorite leather jacket, was already talking to the officer who’d been first on the scene.

The body was lying face up on the sidewalk. Bentz’s gut clenched and the taste of bile climbed up his throat. The woman was Caucasian, in her early forties. Two gunshot wounds stained a short red dress. There were signs of a struggle, a couple broken fingernails on her right hand and several scratches across her face. Bentz stared at her long and hard. She wasn’t one of the missing women who had disappeared from All Saints College. He’d memorized the faces of Dionne Harmon, Tara Atwater, Monique DesCartes, and now Rylee Ames. Their images haunted his nights. This unidentified woman was none of them.

He felt a second’s relief and then a jab of guilt. This victim belonged to someone, and whoever it was—mother, father, brother, sister, or boyfriend—would be devastated and grief-stricken.

“…so I’m thinkin’ it was probably a robbery gone bad. No wallet or ID on her,” the officer was saying.

Jane Doe.

“She was found by those guys over there—” He hitched his chin to a sober group of four, two men and two women, who’d been separated from the lookie-loos wandering by. “They’re just partiers on their way home from the Hootin’ Owl, a bar on Decatur,” the officer said.

Bentz nodded. He knew the place.

The officer continued, “They claim they didn’t hear or see anything, just nearly stumbled over her body. But then, they’re pretty wasted.”

Bentz glanced at the two couples, dressed in glittery clothes and looking suddenly sober as judges.

“I’ll talk to them,” Montoya said, easing toward the couples, both African American. The girls rubbed their arms as if chilled to the bone, their eyes wide with fear. Their dates were both tight-lipped and tough-looking. The slimmest girl stared at the body, the other looked away, and the tallest of the group lit a cigarette that he shared with his date, the thin one.

Bentz’s cell phone rang as the crime lab van arrived with Bonita Washington at the wheel. She double-parked behind a cruiser. Inez Santiago, hauling a tool kit, climbed out of one side, while Washington cut the engine of the big rig.

Bentz glanced down at the digital readout on his phone. Police dispatch. No doubt another homicide.

Crap.

“Bentz,” he answered, watching as Bonita, in all her self-important fury, ushered the uniforms and gawkers away from what she considered “her” crime scene. She was an intense black woman with a don’t-mess-with-me attitude and an IQ rumored to be in the stratosphere. She loved her job, was good at it, and didn’t take flack from anyone. Santiago was already taking pictures of the dead girl. Again Bentz’s stomach twisted.

Over the phone, the dispatcher gave him the location and a quick rundown of what looked like a hit-and-run closer to the business district.

“I’ll be there ASAP, as soon as I’m done here,” he said, hanging up.

“Move away,” Washington yelled at one of the uniforms near the yellow tape, waving him off with one hand. “Who the hell has been tromping all over here? Damn it all—Bentz, get these people back, will ya? And you,” she said to the uniformed cop, “don’t let anyone, and I mean not even Jesus Christ himself, across that line, you got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Just as long as we understand each other.” She flashed him a smile with zero warmth and got down to the business of collecting samples, gunshot residue, footprints, and fingerprints as the medical examiner’s van pulled up.

“Don’t tell me,” Montoya said as his phone began to play a salsa melody. “Damn.” He checked his watch. “Fifty-three friggin’ minutes into the new year and already two DBs.”

“There’ll be more,” Bentz predicted as he glanced once more at the victim. Two hours ago, this woman had been ready to celebrate the new year.

Now she’d never see another day.

His cell phone rang again.

His jaw clenched.

It promised to be a helluva night.

Midnight.

The witching hour.

A time when the last day was done and the next starting, and, in this case, a new year. He smiled to himself as he walked through the rain-washed city streets, hearing the sounds of firecrackers and, he supposed, champagne corks, all sounding like the rapid-fire reports of guns.

Not that he was into that type of weaponry.

Too impersonal.

Being so far from a victim, hundreds of yards in some cases, took away the thrill, the feeling of intimacy that came when the lifeblood drained from the body, the light in the victim’s eyes died slowly, and the frantic, fearful beating of her pulse at her neck slowed to nothing. That was personal. That was perfect.

Dressed in black, blending into the shadows, he crossed the campus, smelled the sweet odor of burning marijuana, and watched a couple clumsily fumbling at each other’s clothes as they kissed and made their way toward a dorm, and presumably a small twin bed where they’d go at it all night.

He felt a twinge of jealousy.

The pleasures of the flesh…

But he had to wait.

He knew it.

Despite his restlessness.

His
need.

Deep inside he craved release and knew it would only come through the slow taking of a life…and not just any life. No. Those who were sacrificed were chosen.

The ache in him throbbed, refused to be denied, and his nerves were strung tight. Electrified. Anxious.

He smelled their lust. Their own special yearning. The blood singing through their veins.

He clenched his fists and cleared his mind of lust, of desire, of the heat that pounded through his skull.

Not now.

Not this night.

Not
them.

Giving the entwined, stumbling couple one last angry glance, he clamped down hard on the most basic of urges to follow.

To hunt.

To kill.

They are not worthy,
he reminded himself.
And there is a plan. You must not stray from your mission.

On noiseless footsteps he made his way swiftly through the campus gates and along several streets, zigzagging through alleys to the old building that had long been condemned, a once-grand hotel that was locked and boarded, where the only inhabitants were spiders, rats, and other vermin. He made his way to the back of the building, where once there had been a service entrance for deliveries. He hurried down the crumbling stairs and, using his key, unlocked a back door. Inside, he ignored the dripping, rusted pipes, broken glass, and rotting boards that had been part of a previous attempt at renovation. Instead he walked along the familiar hallway to another locked door and spiral steps leading downward. At the base of the steps, he unlocked the final door and stepped inside to an area that smelled of chlorine. Locking the door behind him, he waited a few seconds, headed down a short dark hallway to a large open area, then flipped a switch, where dim bulbs illuminated an Olympic-sized swimming pool, its aquamarine tiles shimmering silently in the ghostly light.

Stripping noiselessly, he cast his clothes into a corner and, once completely naked, walked to the pool’s edge and dove deep into the bracing, unheated water. The shock puckered his skin, but he stretched his body and began knifing through the water, breathing naturally, turning at the far end, athletically, then swimming the length again. His body, honed by hours of exercise, sliced through the water as easily as a hunting knife through flesh. He stroked faster and faster, increasing his speed, feeling his heart pump and his lungs begin to strain. Five lengths. Ten. Twenty.

He only drew himself out of the water when he felt the first wave of exhaustion pulling at him, calming him, forcing the bloodlust from his heart. There was time enough for that later. Cool air slid over his wet skin. His nipples tightened. His cock shriveled. But he embraced the cold as he made his way through a dark hallway, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light as he turned two corners and walked into another chamber where his trophies were hidden.

There was a bare writing desk in the room, a squatty black table, and a few thick pillows upon the tired concrete floor. A computer screen from a notebook added a faint blue glow and he considered logging on. He communicated with them over the Internet; on pirated wireless connections throughout the city they knew him by several screen names, but he called himself Vlad. Not particularly clever but fitting for his purposes, he decided. What was the quote from Shakespeare? “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.” Well, Vlad smelled sweet and tasted even better, he thought. So, for the purposes of this, his mission, he would be known as Vlad the Impaler. And was he not? Did he not impale each of the ones he chose?

Oh, irony.

Lighting a candle, Vlad sat cross-legged at the stubby Japanese table, opened a drawer within it and drew out the pictures, snapshots taken for student ID cards. He set the first four onto the glossy surface of the table.

Sisters,
he thought, though not genetically related.

He touched each photo with the tip of his index finger, in the order in which he’d taken them.

Dionne, sweet and supple, her rich dark skin soft as silk. Oh, she’d been ripe and so hot…so damned hot and wet…Crying out her unwillingness, but her body responding to him as he made her ready, made that perfect body want him. His throat tightened at the memory of taking her, from behind, his hands kneading her abdomen, making her come just before he did.

He swallowed hard.

And Tara, the thin one with her gorgeous breasts. Full and white, with pale rose-colored nipples the size of half-dollars. He felt his prick twitch at the thought of those glorious tits. He remembered suckling them, teasing them, biting them, scraping them with his teeth as she cried out in heated torment…again his blood began to sing. He touched Tara’s photo, then looked to the next girl.

Monique. Tall and lean, an athlete’s body. Muscles that had strained against him as he’d sculpted her with his palms, fingers exploring all her intimate, sweet crevices. He licked his lips as his cock stood at attention.

He glanced to the next photo. Rylee. Small. Frightened. But oh, so delicious. Her pale yellow hair had caught his attention and when she was stripped bare, her white skin had been luminous, her veins visible beneath the surface, her beating heart apparent in the fluttering, frightened pulse throbbing so perfectly within the circle of bones at her throat.

Oh, God, how succulent she’d been…the taste of her…He turned the photo over where the smear of her blood was still visible on the back of the snapshot. Smiling in pure self-indulgent wickedness, he lifted the picture to his mouth and gently flicked the tip of his long tongue over the dark crimson stain. The taste of her filled his mouth and he sucked in his breath with the euphoria of it.

His cock was rock hard now. Ready.

To impale.

Licking his lips, he laid the picture onto the table with the rest of his chosen ones, then searched the others…hundreds of them tucked into his hiding place.

He’d already pulled those he thought the most likely candidates, the girls who appealed to him. Though he was missing a few. The new ones. The coeds who had signed up for this, the second term, as new students. He didn’t have their pictures yet.

But he would.

And soon.

Then they would join those he’d already identified, those who would soon join their sisters.

He smiled, running his tongue over his teeth, savoring the taste of poor, scared-out-of-her-mind Rylee Ames.

In the next batch, though he had yet to procure her photograph, Vlad thought of another, the cop’s kid who had rented Tara’s apartment. As if she were fated to do so, he thought, conjuring up her image in his mind.

He’d seen her. Watched her. Mentally claimed her. She was a gorgeous woman with just the right amount of spirit and the perfect body for his needs, for his sacrifice. When her time came. She was not slated to be the next, but her time would come soon enough. He could wait. He had no choice. All that was to be, had already been decided.

His blood flowed hot at the thought of taking her and he looked down at the pictures on the table before him.

Though she didn’t yet know it, Kristi Bentz would soon join her sisters….

CHAPTER 5

S
o this is what everyone was talking about, Kristi thought as she took a seat in the packed classroom on the first day of the term. It was the Monday after New Year’s at eight in the morning. Most of the students looked as if they’d just rolled out of bed.

Chairs scraped against the floor, shoes shuffled, voices buzzed with conversation, and in the background the soft strains of Renaissance music drifted from speakers mounted high on the walls of the large, auditoriumlike room. Rows of seats were situated on tiers that funneled down to a barren center stage that held a battered table, podium, and microphone. A stack of books and an open three-leaf binder were situated near a laptop computer on the table.

A man in his mid-to-late thirties, presumably Dr. Victor Emmerson, was already standing behind the table, one jean-clad hip thrown out as he leaned over his notes, his scruffy black leather jacket tossed over a white T-shirt, a pair of reflective sunglasses folded and tucked into the shirt’s crew neck. His hair was shaggy, dark brown, and appeared not to have been combed since the day before. About three days’ worth of beard-shadow covered a strong jaw. He looked as if he took road trips on a Harley-Davidson. Everything about him oozed “cool, moody biker.” A far cry from the stuffy teachers she remembered from a few years earlier.

Maybe the class would be as interesting as she’d heard. She’d signed up because it was required for an undergraduate English degree and it sounded interesting. Even more so now.

Emmerson scratched at the stubble on his chin as he read his notes, flipping through pages, scowling at his own scribbles, only looking up when the door to the room opened and yet another student walked in and searched for a vacant desk.

The remaining spots to sit in were few and far between.

This class on Shakespeare was surprisingly popular and Kristi figured the fascination with the class had more to do with the sexy, unlikely professor than the Bard or his works. She slid her computer onto the desk to take notes and checked out the other students, several of whom looked familiar. Mai Kwan, her neighbor, was seated near the front of the room, several rows below Kristi, and a couple of girls who had been with Lucretia the day she’d come into the diner were huddled together near the windows. But the kicker was that just before class was to start, who should stroll in but Hiram Calloway, Kristi’s would-be apartment manager. She turned away quickly, hoping that he didn’t notice one of the few vacant seats was next to Kristi. Fortunately, he found another desk, near the back of the room.

Good.

The door slammed shut behind Hiram, and Emmerson checked the clock on the wall, then hit a button behind the podium, killing the music. Straightening, taking the entire class in with one broad look, he said, “Okay, I’m Professor Emmerson, this is Shakespeare two-o-one and if this isn’t the class you signed up for, leave now and make room for someone who intended to enroll. For those of you who have heard that this is an easy class, a guaranteed A, you, too, are welcome to exit.”

No one moved. The class was silent except for the ticking of the clock.

A cell phone chirped loudly and Emmerson looked directly at the kid in a baseball cap who was fumbling in his pocket.

“That’s the next thing. No phones in class, and not just ringing. If I sense one is vibrating, or if anyone looks at his or hers to read a text or even to check the time, you’re history. Automatic F. If you don’t like the rules, then drop the class and take it up with the administration. I don’t care. This classroom is not a democracy. I’m the king, okay? Just like the ones we’ll study, only, I hope, not quite as self-serving.

“While you’re in here”—he held up two hands to indicate the entire classroom—“with me, we’ll be studying good old Willie Boy like you’ve never studied him before. We’re not just going to read his plays and his poems. We’re going to learn them. Inside and out. We’ll read them as they are meant to be read, the way Mr. Shakespeare—or depending upon your viewpoint, whoever wrote them—meant them to be read. For the purposes of this class, we’ll assume they belong to William Shakespeare. If you’re one of those Francis Bacon freaks who thinks he did it, even though he wouldn’t have had a lot of time, or Edward de Vere enthusiasts, or for those of you who think Christopher Marlowe, even though he supposedly died in 1593, took up the quill in his dead hand under Shakespeare’s name, or, for that matter anyone else, again”—he pointed toward the back of the room—“there’s the door. I know there’s a movement to prove that poor, illiterate William couldn’t possibly have written anything so sophisticated or knowledgeable about the upper class and Italy and all that rot. I also know some of academia think that his works were really written by a group of people. We’re going to have a lot of lively discussions about Shakespeare’s work, don’t get me wrong, but the whole ‘did he or did he not write them’ subject is taboo. I don’t care who wrote them, okay? That’s for another class. I’m only interested in what you think of the work.” He walked around to the front of his desk and rested his jean-clad hips against the edge. “I assume you all received a syllabus via e-mail for this class. If you haven’t, double check your inbox or spam folder and only if you really didn’t receive one, call my office and I’ll shoot another your way. Most of your assignments will come through the Internet and that’s why you all have an address ending with allsaints.edu. If you don’t have one, or think you don’t, check with the registrar or admissions. It’s not my problem.

“For those of you who did check your syllabus, you’ll see that we’re going to begin with
Macbeth.
Why?” His smile was a little wicked. “Because what better way to start off the year than with witches, prophesies, blood, ghosts, guilt, and murder?”

He had everyone’s attention now and he knew it. Glancing over the captivated students, his gaze moving from one rapt face to the next, he nodded slowly. His eyes found Kristi’s and held for a split second. Was it her imagination or did he linger just a little longer on her than the others?

No way.

It was just a trick of light.

Had to be.

And yet, his grin seemed to shift a little before he looked away, as if he knew a deep secret. An intimate secret.

What the hell was wrong with her? Just because he was good-looking she was thinking all kinds of ridiculous things.

“Besides,” he said in his deep voice, “in this classroom, I get to decide what we do. I like
Macbeth.
So—” He clapped his hands together and half the class jumped. Again the knowing smile. “Let’s get started….”

“Kristi!” As she was walking briskly past the steps of the library, she heard her name and her stomach nose-dived. She recognized the voice. Turning, Kristi spied her old-roommate-cum-assistant professor, Lucretia, black overcoat billowing, umbrella held in one fist, hurrying toward her. The skies were threatening a downpour, the wind was kicking up, and the last thing Kristi wanted to do was have a chat with Lucretia Stevens in the middle of the quad. “Hey, wait up!”

There was no escape.

She paused and Lucretia, breathless, half ran to catch up with her. “I need to talk to you,” she said without preamble.

“Really.”

Lucretia ignored Kristi’s irony. “Do you have a minute?” Other students, heads bent against the wind, hurried along the concrete and brick paths intersecting the lawn in the middle of campus. Some were on bikes, some walking, and one zipped by on a skateboard. “We could go into the student union and get a cup of coffee or tea or something.” She seemed earnest. Worried.

“I have a class at eleven and it’s across campus.” She glanced at her watch. Ten thirty-six. Not much time.

“It won’t take long,” Lucretia insisted, grabbing hold of Kristi’s arm and trying to shepherd her toward the brick building that housed the student union, café, and on the other side, the registrar’s office. Kristi pulled her arm back, but walked with Lucretia into the cafeteria-style restaurant, where they headed to the coffee counter and waited behind three girls ordering coffee drinks. Kristi perused a display of scones, muffins, and bagels, then ordered a black coffee while Lucretia asked for a caramel latte with extra foam. Kristi tried not to notice the minutes ticking by as they waited for their drinks, but it ate at her that she’d be late for her next class, The Influence of Vampyrism on Modern Culture, taught by Dr. Grotto.

Once they were served, she followed Lucretia through scattered tables where students were clustered, talking, studying or listening to their iPods. She noticed a couple of Lucretia’s friends, Grace and Trudie, locked in a deep conversation at a table near the back door, but Lucretia, as if to avoid them, headed for a corner booth that hadn’t been cleaned in a while. She took a seat with her back to her friends.

Kristi settled in to her side of the booth and realized she now only had twenty minutes to get to class. She was doomed to be late. “Better make it quick. I don’t have a lot of time,” Kristi warned as she blew across her steaming cup.

Lucretia let out her breath, then glanced over her shoulder as if she expected someone to be watching them. Satisfied that they weren’t being observed or overheard, she leaned over the table and whispered, “You’ve heard that some of the students—girls—have gone missing from campus.”

Kristi pretended only mild interest. She nodded. “Four, right?”

“Yes.” Lucretia bit at the corner of her lip. “So far they’re just missing….”

“But…you think…something else?”

Lucretia didn’t touch her coffee, just let it sit on the chipped Formica table near some used packets of hot sauce and mustard that someone hadn’t bothered to throw away. “Well, I just think something’s going on. Something weird.” She lowered her voice even further. “I knew Rylee.”

“Knew. As in past tense?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I mean, I
know
her, but no one and I mean no one has seen her since before Christmas. I think maybe…oh, God, this is just so weird.”

“What is?”

“I think she might have been a part of some cult.”

“Cult?”

She was nodding, rotating her small cup and watching the foam slowly melt into her untouched coffee.

“You mean like a religious cult?”

“I don’t know exactly what kind…. There are rumors about all kinds of weird things going on. The big thing seems to be some interest in vampires.”

“Like in
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
or
Dracula
or—?”

“I mean in real live vampires.”

Kristi gave her a look. “Vampire bats…or the Count Dracula kind? Oh, wait, I get it. You’re putting me on.”

But Lucretia was serious. “This isn’t a joke! Some of the kids run around with fangs and vials of blood hanging from their necks, and they are so into Dr. Grotto’s class that it’s almost like an obsession. Totally out of line.”

“But they don’t really believe there are vampires who sleep in coffins during the day and run around and drink human blood at night. The kind that are only killed by wooden stakes or silver bullets and can’t look into mirrors.”

“Don’t be that way.”

“What way?” Kristi asked.

“So…harsh. And I don’t know what they believe.” Almost guiltily, Lucretia played with a gold chain encircling her neck. Between her fingers a small diamond-encrusted cross dangled.

“So, Rylee was into this vampire thing,” Kristi said skeptically.

“Yes. Oh, yeah…” The diamond cross glittered under the huge suspended lights of the dining hall.

“What do they do? This vampire cult?”

“I don’t know. Rylee was…secretive.”

“What do you know about her?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call her the most stable girl on the planet,” Lucretia admitted. “She had quit college once before, maybe in winter or spring term of last year.” She cleared her throat. Looked away. The cross winked.

“And—” Kristi prodded, sensing there was more.

“And, well…she was…is a bit of a drama queen. Well, not just a bit, I would say. She did try to commit suicide once.”

“Suicide?”

“Shh!” Lucretia lowered her voice and quit playing with her necklace. “I know, that’s a cry for help and I’m not sure she ever got it. Her mother spent so much time worrying that Rylee would get pregnant, she never saw how much pain Rylee was in.”

“Her mother ignored her suicide attempt?” Krista asked incredulously.

“The way Rylee told it, she gave her mom a lot of trouble as a teenager—staying out late, partying, the wrong crowd, drugs, boys, you name it. So she washed her hands of her, turned her back on her own kid. How about that?” Lucretia said the last phrase bitterly and Kristi was reminded of Lucretia’s own disengaged parents. At least disengaged emotionally.

Lucretia cleared her throat. “Anyway, from what I understand, her mother thinks Rylee’s disappearance is just one more of her ‘stunts,’ a clamor for attention.”

“But you think it’s this…cult.”

“Yes.”

“And that she got mixed up with something or someone evil within the cult.”

Lucretia swallowed hard. “I hope I’m wrong.”

“You think she took this vampirism thing too far, really believed it, and got in over her head.”

Lucretia was obviously turning it over in her mind. “Yes…yes…I think it’s possible.”

There was something off about the conversation, something Lucretia wasn’t saying, something worrisome. Here they were in the middle of the damned cafeteria of the student union, surrounded by kids and adults, talking, laughing, joking, or studying, some listening to iPods, some eating or drinking coffee or sipping on sodas, and she and Lucretia were actually talking about vampires and cults. Something soulfully evil? She eyed her ex-roommate and wondered what had happened to her over the past few years. “What about you, Lucretia?” she asked, watching for the tiniest reaction. “Where are you on the whole vampirism thing?”

Lucretia glanced at the window to the gloomy day beyond. “Sometimes I don’t really know what’s real and what’s not.”

A shiver of apprehension slid down Kristi’s spine. “Seriously?”