Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (192 page)

“Do you know the names of the boys she dated?”

“I keep my nose out of my tenants’ business.”

That, Kristi knew, was a bald-faced lie. Irene Calloway had already told Kristi enough that suggested she loved to gossip, so, Kristi figured, it was only a matter of buttering her up or trading information to learn everything the landlady knew.

“Who collected her things? Someone had to pick up her stuff if she just left it.”

“Not yet they haven’t! And I’m charging ’em rent, too. Space ain’t cheap, even storage compartments.”

“You boxed her things up?”

“Me? Nah.” She shook her head. “That’s a job for the manager.”

Hiram. The do-nothing. Great.

Kristi left the old lady muttering to herself as she yanked a few more weeds from the parking lot. Irene Calloway’s take on things always had a negative spin on it.

Jaywalking across the street, Kristi headed to Adam’s Hall, the vine-clad building that was home to the English Department, where her writing class with Dr. Preston was located.

As she reached the steps of Adam’s Hall, her cell phone jangled with a special tune reserved for her father.

Of course.

“Hey,” she said, making her voice sound cheery, even though she was a little bugged that he’d called. Had there been a day he hadn’t checked in, making up some excuse to talk to her? Well…maybe a couple, but for the most part, Rick Bentz had phoned daily, inventing some lame excuse to talk to her.

“Thought I’d call because you said something about wanting your bike and I thought I could run it up to you this weekend.”

“Give it up, Dad. You’re making an excuse to check in with me,” she said, squinting as she glanced back across the grassy area separating Adam’s Hall from the religious center. The chapel spire rose above the branches of the surrounding live oaks and the brick face of the abbot’s lodge, which was attached to a cloister, all part of the old monastery that was located on the premises.

Her father laughed and Kristi couldn’t help but smile. “Old habits, you know,” he said.

“Yeah, I do, and I would like the bike, but don’t make a special trip up here. I’ll get it my next trip down.”

“And put it in the Honda?”

“I’ve got a bike rack….” Staring at the chapel, she saw two figures emerge: one, a priest, not Father Tony, but the other guy; and two, Ariel O’Toole. So just how many hours did Ariel spend in the chapel or with the priest? Was she having an affair with the guy? Applying to become a nun? Confessing a myriad of sins?

“Look, Dad, I’ve got to run. We’ll talk later…or text me, okay? Bye.”

She clicked off and watched as Father Mathias, ever brooding, hurried into the chapel and Ariel, head down, walked rapidly in Kristi’s direction. Once again, Kristi saw her in shades of gray. Despite the sunlight, a coldness swept through Kristi’s bloodstream. She swallowed hard and knew she couldn’t confront the girl head on. Ariel would think she was a nutcase, for sure. No, Kristi would have to be sneakier about it. She dashed up the remaining steps and slipped into the hallway, then waited until she spied the glass doors open again and a group of five or six students pass through. Ariel lagged a little behind them but didn’t look up or notice Kristi as she turned down the corridor to Dr. Preston’s classroom.

Kristi followed and as soon as the door to the classroom closed behind Ariel, she went inside. Ariel found an empty desk and Kristi snagged one nearby. She didn’t catch the other girl’s attention, just waited and pretended interest in Dr. Preston as he began to lecture on the importance of perspective and clarity in writing.

“So let’s talk about last week’s assignment,” Preston was saying. He dropped his chalk in favor of a stack of printed papers. “The assignment was to write two pages about your darkest fear…right? Most of you used description very well, but, let’s see—” He flipped through the pages until he came to the one he sought. “Mr. Calloway had an interesting take on the subject. He writes: ‘This is supposed to be a creative writing class and I cannot write creatively when forced to write upon a specific subject. My creativity—and that word is in quotes—is stifled.’” Preston looked up and focused on Hiram Calloway, who stared defiantly back at him. “Well, that’s an interesting way to get out of an assignment.” He glanced to the rest of the class, his gaze touching lightly on Kristi’s before moving on. “However I would have been more impressed had Mr. Calloway said something like, ‘I feel chained to my desk, forced to write a paper I loathe.’ He might have gotten an A for that response; as it is, he’ll have to settle for a B as the paper, or lack thereof, was original.” He smiled then, white teeth against suntanned skin, blond hair gleaming under the lights. “Now, I’d like to read something more traditional and worthy of the A she received. This paper is written by Miss Kwan and I would say she has a good understanding of writing viscerally and descriptively.”

Kristi glanced at Mai, who lifted her chin a notch as Preston began to read.

“‘I fear the devil. Yes, Satan. Lucifer. Evil incarnate. Why? Because I think he, or she, if you so believe, lurks in all of us, at least, if I’m honest, he lives in me, deep in the nether regions of my soul. I struggle to keep him trapped and locked away for fear of what he, and I, as his vessel, might do. I cannot imagine the pain and suffering he might inflict should he be unleashed.’”

Preston grinned at Mai, almost as if he knew her intimately. What was
that
all about? “That was just the first paragraph and yet we feel the writer’s battle, her fear, her worry about her own psychosis. For in that one paragraph we see that she still has the upper hand. She talks not of the devil breaking free but of her unleashing him. She still has control, albeit a very tenuous hold on Satan and her sanity.” He nodded as if agreeing with himself, his blond hair catching the light of the fluorescent bulbs humming over his head. “Well done, Miss Kwan. She received the only A because she was the only one of you who made me believe she was indeed writing from her heart.”

Mai smiled self-consciously, blushed, then looked down at her desk, as if she were slightly embarrassed, but Kristi wasn’t buying it. She knew her neighbor better than to believe the humility act. But the subject matter of Mai’s fears gave her pause.

Satan in her soul? Not spiders or snakes or dark places or airplanes, or falling from bridges or marrying the wrong person, but the devil lurking in her soul? Where did
that
come from?

“Jesus,” Kristi whispered, and caught a quick, non-approving glance from Ariel. “I just meant that was pretty creepy.” Frowning, Ariel gave a little shrug.

Her attempt at becoming Ariel’s friend was not going well. At this rate it would take eons for Kristi to gain her trust, and she felt as if she were running out of time. Why did she even care? Because Ariel was Lucretia’s friend? So what? And the gray-faced thing, maybe it was all a figment of her imagination.

Leaning back in her desk chair, Kristi forced her full attention to the lecture. Finally, after Preston tossed the chalk a few times, returned their papers and gave the next assignment, Kristi gathered her belongings and walked out of the building, one step behind Ariel. The day was still warmer than usual but the sunlight was now filtered by high, thin clouds, causing dappled shadows on the ground.

Kristi figured she’d blown her chance at cozying up to the girl. No surprise there. Kristi had never been able to fake a friendship or hide her true feelings. She couldn’t count how many times she’d been told she wore her heart on her sleeve. It just wasn’t in her to fake it, so she decided to just flat-out ask Ariel what was going on. “Hey, Ariel,” she called.

Hearing Kristi’s voice, Ariel stopped dead in her tracks. “What?” she asked, and pointedly checked her watch.

“Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?” She started walking again, a little faster. Obviously wanting to get away.

“You seem preoccupied.” Kristi kept up with her, stride for stride and tried not to think that she had to get to work in less than half an hour.

Ariel hazarded a quick glance at Kristi. “You don’t even know me.”

“I can tell that something’s bothering you.”

“And you’re here to help?” She shot Kristi a bewildered look, and in that instant Kristi decided to confide in her.

“Look, I know this sounds weird, but…I…have this thing, okay? Call it ESP, or whatever, but I’ve had it ever since I was in the hospital and nearly died. The deal is that I…can kinda see into the future. Not always, but sometimes, and I can see if someone’s in danger.”

Ariel folded her arms, shrinking into her oversized hoodie. “Either you’re crazy or this is some kind of weird joke.”

“I’m serious.”

“What are you saying? That I’m in trouble?”

“Danger. Possibly life-threatening,” Kristi answered earnestly.

“Oh. My. God. You are nuts! Leave me alone.”

“It’s just that sometimes, when I see you, there’s no color in your skin. It’s like you’re in a black and white movie.”

Ariel shuddered despite her bravado. She backed away from Kristi, her eyes searching around as if for help. “Leave me alone. Don’t ever talk to me again. You must be on something. Or you’re a head-case. This isn’t funny, you know.” Kristi took a step forward and Ariel looked ready to scream. “Get away from me. Now!”

“I’m just concerned.”

Ariel snorted, putting more distance between them. “You’d be the first,” she muttered fiercely as she hesitated at the gate of Wagner House. Her face was so washed out she looked half dead already. “Stay away from me! You hear? Don’t ever come near me again or I’ll call the police and have a restraining order slapped on you.”

Before Kristi could say anything more, Trudie and Grace rounded a corner not far from the library. Ariel saw them and began to wave frantically, like a panicked, drowning woman hoping for a lifeline. Without another word, she met up with her friends and walked through the open gates. They all headed up the steps to the old stone manor. As Kristi understood it, Wagner House had been the home of the original settler of this tract of land. Now it was a museum.

Grace pulled one of the double doors open and the three girls stepped inside. Ariel turned to slip Kristi a final look, her face wan and shadowed. Though they were only yards away from each other, Kristi felt as if there were oceans of distance between them. The thick wooden door shut behind the trio with a distinct thud.

Kristi hesitated. Obviously the girl didn’t want her help. And who was to say that Ariel was caught in some dire, fatal situation? Sure, the elderly woman on the bus had died, but so what? Her father was still alive, wasn’t he? True, the glimpses she’d caught of the ghostly Rick Bentz had been fleeting and spotty, sometimes not being apparent for months, but he didn’t seem on the brink of death.

The knot in her stomach said otherwise, but she wanted desperately to believe she was mistaken about him—that she was wrong about all her visions. However, in the case of Ariel O’Toole, the ghostly appearance was steady. Every time Kristi caught sight of her she was washed out, pale and gray. Ariel had needed to be warned, but Kristi already knew she’d made a mistake in confiding in her. Now Ariel thought she was deranged and should be in a mental hospital, or that she’d been playing a cruel joke on her. Worse yet, the secret Kristi had kept for all the past months was no longer hers alone. That wasn’t good. She shouldn’t have blurted out the truth, but what other choice had she had?

She glanced up at the mullioned windows of Wagner House and thought she saw Ariel’s image, shattered and misshapen, by the beveled panes of glass. Even so, she appeared a ghost.

CHAPTER 11

O
fficer Esperanza in Missing Persons wasn’t happy. A big bosomed woman, she leaned on the other side of the counter separating the work space from the reception area and glared at Portia. She didn’t like Portia Laurent or anyone else questioning her authority, and it showed in the tightness of her lips and the flare of her nostrils. Portia pressed her lips together waiting for the explosion. Pushing sixty, her hair dyed a Lucille Ball red, Lacey Esperanza was not known for her restraint. Smart, sassy, and sometimes downright ornery, she took her job beyond seriously. Waaay beyond.

“I’m gonna tell you exactly what I tell anyone who calls from the press, Detective, and that is to take it up with the goddamned FBI. They have the resources, the manpower, and the GD know-how to deal with this,” she said in a gravelly voice. “They’ve been notified and are running their own investigation or lack thereof. The way I see it and we all agree here, there is no case. Yes, the girls disappeared from All Saints. Missing? Phooey! Murdered? Then where the hell are the bodies? I don’t know about you, but I got a butt-load of work to do on cases where people are actually”—she made air quotes with her fire-engine red fingernails—“missing. You know, where family members or friends are calling and looking for someone.” She leaned close enough so that Portia could smell the scent of stale cigarette smoke mingling with her perfume. “What’s wrong over there at All Saints that they can’t keep track of their students, huh? LSU is what? Five or six times the size of All Saints and they seem to keep track of theirs.”

Which was exactly the point. What was it about the smaller college that caused it to lose some of its coeds? Portia didn’t say it to Esperanza, but she believed there was a predator at large and his hunting ground was the campus of All Saints College. She’d checked. Lacey was right. Louisiana State, located only thirty minutes from the campus of All Saints, hadn’t reported any missing students. Nor had Our Lady of the Lake, or Southern University, or the community college, or any of the bible colleges or even the beauty schools. Just All Saints.

So far.

Until this monster that Portia believed was stalking the small college broadened his hunting ground. Dear God, she hoped she was wrong.

“Let me tell you,” Lacey rambled on, “I get nearly a hundred e-mails a day and that’s after the spam has been filtered out. Double that many come in over a weekend. I’m pretty damned busy. Let the Feds figure it out. However”—she turned her palms toward the acoustic tiles of the ceiling—“if you want to look in the files, be my guest. I guess it says something about the Homicide Department if you have time on your hands to go rootin’ through our files.”

Lacey turned to a coworker sitting at a nearby desk so clean it looked as if no one actually worked there. Not a photo, dying plant, or name plate on the desk. The in-basket was as empty as the out. “Mary Alice, if Detective Laurent wants anything, you see that she gets it, y’hear. Me, it’s time for my break.”

Lacey scraped her pack of cigarettes from the top of her cluttered desk, then rained a saccharine smile on Portia as she opened the top of the long counter that served as a gate. Squeezing her way through, she walked briskly between the scattered desks to the staircase leading to the front entrance of the station.

Mary Alice, a thin girl with stringy mouse brown hair, looked up at Portia with huge hazel eyes. “I apologize, Detective. Lacey, she’s got herself a passel of trouble at home what with that daughter of hers. Nearly forty years old and the woman can’t seem to hold down a job or get her act together. Sheeeeit, she’s got three kids of her own, for God’s sake, and that oldest one, Lacey’s grandson, he’s already got hisself into trouble with meth. Nasty stuff, that.”

Portia couldn’t agree more. “That’s too bad.”

“Praise the Lord and amen to that!” The small woman pushed on the edge of her desk and rolled her chair backward far enough so that she could stand, showing off her slight figure, slim skirt, and high heels. “So, tell me again, what is it exactly I can get for you?”

Portia slid the list of names across the counter. “Everything you’ve got on these girls.”

“The fearsome foursome,” Mary Alice said as she eyed Portia’s handwritten note. “Most of this is on the computer. Don’t you have your own files?”

And then some.
“Nothing official,” Portia hedged. “I’ve looked over what’s on the computer but, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see the actual files.”

“Makes me no never mind long as Lacey’s okay with it. Just give me a sec.” High heels clicking, Mary Alice walked to a bank of file cabinets and started searching through the folders. In a matter of minutes, she had slapped the pathetically thin files on the counter and Portia signed them out. Portia carried the few documents back to her cubicle and decided she’d copy everything within the files just so she’d be ready.

She prayed she was misguided, but all her instincts told her it was only a matter of time before one of the girls’ bodies showed up.

When it did, and there was an actual homicide case to be solved, she’d be ready.

Two classes down, too many more to go,
Jay thought as he drove north on Friday night. With Bruno by his side, nose to the crack in the window, and Springsteen blasting through the stereo, he hauled some new plumbing fixtures and tiles toward Baton Rouge. Even in the darkness as he squinted into the headlights of cars heading toward New Orleans, he noticed more evidence of Katrina that had yet to be cleared: uprooted, long-dead trees, piles of rotting boards alongside homes being restored by the most stalwart and determined of Louisianans.

So far he’d settled into his new routine. He enjoyed the challenge of renovating his cousins’ house and had found teaching exhilarating. Except, of course, for dealing with Kristi. After the first night when she’d run him down to clear the air between them, they hadn’t spoken. She hadn’t asked a question in class, nor had he singled her out to answer one he’d thrown at the students. She’d sat at the back of the room, taking notes, watching him, her expression fixed and bland. Icily cool and disinterested.

Definitely un-Kristi.

The fact that she tried so hard to look studious and unanimated made him smile. Obviously, by her attempt at detachment, she was having as hard a time dealing with him as he was with her.

Well, fine,
he thought, flipping on his wipers for a second, just to scrape off the thick mist that was settling with the night.

Kristi deserved a little discomfort. As much as she’d served up to him. Jesus, in the past two weeks he’d had three dreams involving her. One hot as hell, their naked bodies covered in sweat as they made love in a bed that was floating down a swift, dark river. In the second dream he’d watched as she’d taken off with a faceless man, looping her arm through his as they walked into a chapel with bells chiming, and in the third, she was missing. He kept catching glimpses of her, only to watch as she vanished into a rising mist. That nightmare had tormented him just last night, and he’d woken to a pounding heart, dark fear pumping through his bloodstream.

“Gonna be a long term,” he advised the dog as he signaled to leave the highway. Up ahead the lights of the city cut through the fog.

His cell phone rang. Bruno let out a soft woof as Jay managed to turn off the radio, answering without looking at the digital display.

“McKnight.”

“Hi.”

Well, speak of the devil. Jay’s jaw hardened. He’d recognize the sound of Kristi Bentz’s voice anywhere.

“It’s me, Kristi,” she said, and then added, “Kristi Bentz.” As if he didn’t already know.

“You memorized the number.” The wipers skated noisily over the windshield and he switched them off, driving for half a second with his thigh.

“Yes, I guess I did,” she said tightly.

His right hand gripped the wheel again and he braced himself. “Need something?”

“Your help.”

“With an assignment?”

She only hesitated a heartbeat, but it was enough to warn him. “Yeah.”

God, she was a liar. “Lay it on me.”

Angling his truck off the main road at the outskirts of the city, he followed what was becoming a well-worn route to his cousins’ house.

“I can’t. Not over the phone. It’s too complicated and I’m already late for work. It, uh, it took me a long time to screw up the courage to call you.”

Now that was probably the first bit of truth in the conversation. He didn’t respond.

“I thought that maybe…maybe we could meet,” she said.

“Meet? Like in my office?”

“I was thinking somewhere else.”

Jay was watching the road, spying a kid on a motorized scooter who, as he passed, zipped out of a driveway to speed across the road behind him. “Jesus!” he muttered.

“Wow…I’ll take that as a no.”

“I wasn’t talking to you. I’m driving and a kid nearly hit me.” He slowed for a stop sign. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the Watering Hole.”

“For a drink?”

“Sure. I’ll buy.”

He stepped on the gas and drove to the next corner, where he turned down the street to his part-time bungalow. “You mean, like a date?” he asked, knowing she’d probably see red.

“It’s just a damned beer, Jay.”

“A beer and a favor,” he reminded her. “You want me to help you with something.”

“Call it whatever you want,” she said, a tinge of exasperation in her voice. “How about tonight? Around nine? I’ll meet you there. It’s not far from where I work.”

He knew he was asking for trouble just seeing her again. Big trouble. The kind he didn’t need. Just having her in his class caused him to have nightmares. Anything more intimate was bound to spell trouble.

He hesitated.

Who was he kidding? He couldn’t resist. Never could, when it involved Kristi. “Nine it is,” he said, and as the words spilled out of his mouth he was already giving himself a hard mental shake.
Idiot! Lamebrain!

“Good. I’ll see you then.” She hung up and he drove into the driveway with the cell phone still clasped in his hand. What the hell could she possibly want from him? He slammed the truck into park and sat behind the wheel. “Whatever it is,” he said to the dog, “it’s not gonna be good.”

Kristi untied her dirty apron, dropped it into the hamper near the back door of the restaurant where she worked, snagged her pack from a hook, then headed toward the restroom. Inside the cramped room she stripped off her grimy skirt and blouse, then stepped out of the black flats she wore on the job. With a spritz of perfume in lieu of a shower, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror, groaned, and pulled on her jeans and a long-sleeved T. In one motion she yanked the band holding her ponytail to the back of her head and shook her hair loose. Half a second later, she laced up her running shoes and stuffed her dirty clothes into her backpack. She was late, as usual.

It was already nine and she didn’t want to stand Jay up. She was bugged that she had to ask for his help, but she’d been butting her head against the wall when it came to getting more information on the missing girls. Kristi needed someone with connections, though asking her father for help was out of the question. But Jay was on campus, available in Baton Rouge part of the week, and since he was a professor he had access to records at All Saints. Her six hours a week working for the registrar weren’t enough to open the locked doors and filing cabinets she wanted to search. Nor had she been given a password to the most private and sensitive information stored in the school’s database.

So, she was forced to turn to someone on staff.

She’d thought about Lucretia and discarded the notion; her former roommate wasn’t the most trustworthy or helpful person on the planet.

So she had to find a way to persuade Jay to get involved.

If she could have come up with another person who had access to the kind of information she needed, she never would have called Jay—at least she
hoped
she wouldn’t have. She’d come to terms with suffering through his class for a few weeks, but this was different. It put her in closer contact to him.

Maybe that’s what you were angling for.

“Oh, shut up,” she said to that persistent and irritating voice in her head. She did
not
want to be close to Jay. Not now. Not ever. This was just a necessity, a means to an end.

“Date my ass,” she muttered, leaving the restroom and yanking her jacket from a peg.

With a wave to Ezma, she was out the back door of the restaurant, where two of the line cooks were smoking in the blue illumination from the security lights. The night was cool, a mist sliding through the parked cars in the lot and clinging to the drooping branches of the single tree.

Kristi took off at a jog for the Watering Hole. The student hangout would be crowded enough so that it wouldn’t feel intimate, yet there were spots in the connecting rooms that were quieter than the open space around the sports bar. There was a chance Jay might be seen with her, but she figured it didn’t matter. Who would care?

Barely breaking a sweat, she made it to the hangout only eight minutes late. Shouldering open the door, she slid inside. With a quick perusal of the semidark, crowded interior, she zeroed in on Jay seated at the bar, nursing a drink, staring up at a television screen where some football game was being played. He was facing away from her, but she recognized his shaggy brown hair, wide shoulders stretching the back of a gray sweatshirt, and jeans she’d seen him wear in class, the battered, sun-bleached ones with a tear at the top of a back pocket. The stool beside him was empty, but he’d claimed it by resting the sole of his beat-up Adidas running shoe upon one of the cross-rails, as if he were saving her a seat.

Fat chance. She knew he hadn’t wanted to come. She’d heard the hesitation in his voice.

But then, Kristi couldn’t blame him. It had taken her half a week to work up to calling him, and the only reason she had was that she was desperate and needed help. His help.

She took in a deep breath as she wended her way between the tables and knots of patrons talking, laughing, flirting, and drinking. Glasses clinked, beer sloshed, ice cubes rattled, and the smell of smoke hung in the air despite all the efforts of a wheezing air-filtering system. The televisions were muted but music wafting from speakers mounted high on the walls competed with the noise of the crowd.