Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (216 page)

She screamed, but no sound passed her lips as he bit into her flesh. Her skin was punctured by the awful fangs and then…oh, God…then, her blood pumped to the surface.

And he began to feed.

CHAPTER 27

V
lad had his work cut out for him.

No doubt about it.

And Elizabeth was nervous as a cat, watching over his shoulder, certain that any second they would be “found out.” Not that she didn’t have some cause for concern, he thought as he slipped through the shadows of the campus, but he was handling everything. Didn’t he always? It irritated the living hell out of him that she, the one whom he adored, couldn’t, or wouldn’t, trust him.

He’d been working on the details for a very long while. It was time she had some faith in him.

Control freak,
he thought as he felt the shift in the atmosphere, the calmness of the night slipping away with a gust of wind. Wispy clouds rolled over the moon, becoming thicker and moving more quickly as the minutes passed. The promise of a storm was heavy in the air, and it sent his blood singing through his veins.

He crept close to Adam’s Hall, hiding in the shrubbery as he made his way to the chapel. As he slipped quietly through the night-soaked umbra, he thought of Kristi Bentz…beautiful, frightened, supple Kristi…she’d had just a little taste of what was to come. He licked his lips at the thought of her blood, how sweet she would taste, and couldn’t help imagining what he would do to her. The images in his mind caused an immediate response between his legs and he had to tamp down the lust that boiled through his veins.

But first, there was work to be done.

He couldn’t be distracted.

Afterward he would savor her, all of her…alive and dead.

The storm picked up, gusts chasing across the campus, bending the grass and weeds, threatening rain and more…thunder perhaps. The bells began to chime and clouds swirled over the moon as he slipped into the chapel. Inside, the rush of the wind was muted and row upon row of candles, their tiny flames flickering in the vestibule, greeted him. He smelled their burning scent, noticed the wax turned liquid.

Yes, he thought, padding silently up the stairs that curved off the vestibule, he would take care of everything. As he had since he’d been a child. Elizabeth should calm herself and trust him. Had he not always provided and protected? Though often he’d been in the shadows, had she not been able to rely on him?

Yes, he thought, as he reached the balcony. Yes, he knew that four bodies had been discovered, and it pained him to think that the police were even now touching and cutting into the bodies of those he’d chosen so carefully. Yes, he realized that soon the authorities with their sophisticated equipment, trained detectives, dogs, and determination would eventually find their way here. They could no longer linger.

They had to leave.

But not until he tied up a few little loose ends. It wouldn’t take long, but those that knew the truth, or suspected it, would have to perish.

To sacrifice themselves, little though they might be.

Now, he slipped between the folds of the heavy velvet curtain and waited. The final performance of the morality play was over and the priest would soon come to pray at the altar before taking the back path to his private residence, where he would pray for forgiveness, absolution, and mercy.

Vlad smiled in the darkness.

Mercy.

He kept his gaze trained on the door. As soon as Vlad was certain Father Mathias wasn’t altering his routine, he would follow him and ensure that the priest’s tormented soul was released.

Father Mathias would no longer suffer.

Jay whistled to the dog, opened the door of his truck, and once Bruno was inside, slid behind the wheel. He kicked himself up one side and down the other for being such a fool and tried to keep from panicking.

Checking the glove box, he found his Glock and shoved it into a pocket of his jacket, all the while thinking of Kristi—beautiful, athletic, sassy, and stubborn Kristi. How had he let her talk him into leaving her alone in Baton Rouge?

He switched on the ignition and, grinding the gears, threw the old Toyota into reverse, squealing onto the street. Then he rammed the truck into drive, hit the accelerator, sped out of the cul-de-sac onto the main street, and headed for the freeway.

He’d been delayed at the lab with the discovery of four bodies—the missing girls from All Saints. The evidence found with the bodies had taken quite a while to collect and process. And as he’d worked he’d tried, over and over again, to call Kristi, to no avail.

Where the hell was she?

One more time, he hit her speed dial number.

One more time he was thrown to her voice mail.

“Hell!” He nearly tossed the phone across the seat as he kept one eye on the road, skirting around a tractor trailer. Why wasn’t she answering the damned phone? Had she forgotten it? Had it run out of battery life? Or had something happened to
her
?

In his mind’s eye he saw the bloodless bodies of the girls in the morgue and sent up a prayer that she hadn’t become a victim of the psycho who was behind the killings. Why hadn’t he insisted she go to the police when they found the damned vial of blood? What kind of an idiot was he to allow her to stay in Baton Rouge, alone, when they both suspected that a serial killer was stalking coeds. And that someone was videotaping her apartment!

Like you could have stopped her! No way. Not that bull-headed woman.

But he couldn’t shake the guilt. He should have stayed with her. Now…oh, God, now…

“Son of a bitch,” he bit out, driving like a madman, ignoring the speed limit, hitting the gas whenever a light turned amber. Bruno, unperturbed, stared out the window as Jay’s headlights cut through the night.

He’d left three messages for Rick Bentz, too, none of which had been returned, but then Bentz himself was up to his eyeballs in this case, the press, and the resulting chaos. As Jay understood it, the New Orleans Police Department, as well as the Baton Rouge PD, had issued statements to the press and general public that there was a serial killer on the loose. The university had been contacted, so hopefully a warning had already been issued to the students to stay indoors or in groups, and a curfew had been imposed.

Jay had finally connected again to Portia Laurent, who had given him all the information she had over the phone. The upshot was that Dominic Grotto had access to a navy blue van, one he borrowed from his brother-in-law upon occasion. Jay was convinced the vampire-loving professor was their man; Portia Laurent was reserving judgment. She was still doing background checks and Grotto, so far, was clean. She had another couple of leads she was following up, something that was bothering her, but before she could explain, another call had interrupted her and she cut him off, saying she’d phone him later.

So far, she hadn’t.

Jay was nearing Baton Rouge when his cell phone rang. He picked up before the second beep, his hand gripping the damned thing as if it were a lifeline. He hoped to God that Kristi was on the other end of the wireless call, that she was safe, that his worst fears were unfounded.

“McKnight,” he answered.

“Bentz. You called.” Rick Bentz’s voice. Tight. Hard. Seething with fury—and maybe repressed fear.

“Yeah. I’m on my way to Baton Rouge, but I haven’t been able to reach Kristi. I was hoping you had.”

“No.” The single, damning word echoed through Jay’s head and until that moment he hadn’t realized how much he’d hoped that Kristi had been in contact with her father. “I thought she might be with you,” Bentz went on. “She’s not picking up her goddamned phone and I’m on my way up there right now.”

“Me, too. I should be there in about forty minutes.”

“Good. I know the Baton Rouge PD is stretched to the limit, FBI’s been called in. The public’s being made aware, police working with the press to get the word out. I’m surprised you got out of the lab.”

“I worked it out. I’m officially in the field.” Jay had put in over forty hours in the crime lab this week and Inez Santiago had taken over for him. Inez had been insistent that he leave when she’d arrived and had assured him that she, Bonita Washington, and the other criminologists on staff could handle anything that came up.

Jay hadn’t needed any more encouragement. Not after finding bodies drained of blood, their necks showing evidence of bite marks measuring the size of an adult male human, the puncture wounds consistent with razor-sharp cuspids. Bruising on the necks of all four victims was identical and the hope was that the police could match the mark on the victims’ skin with the killer’s teeth.

The work of someone trying desperately to make them believe that there were blood-sucking creatures of the night attacking girls at All Saints.

Jay’s hand clenched over the wheel and he braked to avoid rear-ending a motorcycle that had cut into his lane. He said to Bentz, “You know that Kristi was in a class on vampires in society or some such crap.” Checking his side view and switching lanes, he tromped on the gas and sped around a sedan driven by an old guy in a hat.

“Yeah?”

“I think someone’s taken this vampire thing to another level.” Quickly, he explained to Bentz about Lucretia tipping Kristi off about a campus cult, and how he and Kristi had found a vial of blood in Kristi’s apartment—Tara Atwater’s previous home. While Bentz listened silently, Jay explained about discovering the video camera and setting a trap. He added that Kristi was convinced Father Mathias, the priest who staged the morality plays, was somehow involved in the coeds’ disappearances. Jay finished with, “Kristi believes that Wagner House is at the heart of the cult.”

“Someone might have told me,” Bentz stated grimly.

Jay didn’t respond. Let Kristi’s father make of it what he would.

“And you left her there?” Bentz charged quietly.

“My mistake.”

“You bet it was.”

Jay let it go. The exit sign for Baton Rouge caught in his headlights just as the first drops of rain pelted his windshield. He accelerated onto the ramp and decided he’d been the brunt of Bentz’s rage long enough. “So where are you?”

“A half hour from Baton Rouge. With Montoya.”

“Good. I’m already there. I’m going directly to Kristi’s apartment. I’ll call you when I get there.”

Pushing the speed limit, Jay cut through town, past neighborhoods that had become familiar since the first of the year. But all the while he was driving by rote, spurred on by images of the drained, bloodless corpses dragged out of the Mississippi.

His hope was that the killer had kept them alive for a long time before taking their lives. The delayed decomposition suggested as much.

Unless they’d been frozen.

He couldn’t forget Bonita Washington’s assertion of freezer burn on the severed arm, which, as it had turned out, belonged to Rylee Ames, the last victim.

Unless Ariel was the last one to go missing.

Until Kristi…

He took a shortcut to the campus. The rain was heavy now, coming down in sheets. News vans and cop cars were parked around the gates of the All Saints grounds, where, it seemed, every officer on the campus security force was visible. Students were far and few between, but klieg lights had been assembled by the news teams, and reporters dressed in rain gear stood with microphones at the ready.

All in all it was a damned circus.

The campus of All Saints wasn’t officially a crime scene, at least not yet, but the presence of the police and the news teams announced to the world that a killer was on the loose, one who considered the private school his personal hunting ground.

“Not for long, you prick,” Jay muttered as he drove to the old house where Kristi lived and felt a second’s relief when he spied her Honda parked in its usual spot. Maybe she was home. Maybe she’d lost her cell phone. Maybe…Oh, God, please. He shoved open the door of his truck before it had even stopped rolling. “Stay,” he ordered Bruno, then ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his key already in his hand. He was on the third floor in an instant, unlocking the door, throwing it open.

“Kris!” he yelled, stepping inside.

It was dark and quiet, the smell of old candles in the air, the window over the sink open wide, a stiff breeze stirring the curtains.

His stomach clenched and he reached for a gun.

“Drop it! Down on the floor!” a female voice ordered. Mai Kwan stepped out of the shadows, directly in his path, the pistol in her hands leveled straight at his heart.

“Vampires?” Montoya, in the passenger seat, stared at Bentz as if the older detective had lost his mind. Light flashing, siren screaming, their Crown Victoria with Bentz at the wheel was flying up the freeway toward Baton Rouge. “Are you serious? Vampires? As in blood-sucking creatures that morph into bats and sleep in coffins and can’t be killed without silver bullets or a stake through the heart or some kind of crap like that?”

“That’s what he said.” Bentz squinted into the night and drove as if Satan himself were on his ass. The rain was thick, his wipers slapping it aside as the police band radio crackled and spat. In the distance streaks of lightning sizzled through the sky.

“You believe this?”

Bentz felt Montoya’s gaze drilling into him. “What I believe is my kid is missing and some crazed son of a bitch has her.”

“But vampires?”

Bentz muttered tautly, “Those bodies pulled from the river had only traces of blood in them. Traces. And the puncture wounds. No one’s reported finding any bloody crime scene without a body.”

“Except for our stripper, Karen Lee Williams aka Bodiluscious. There was blood there. And she went missing.” Montoya scratched at his goatee. “You think they’re connected?”

Bentz scowled. “Don’t know. There was blood there, yeah, but not six quarts. Not a whole body’s worth.”

“So, this fuckin’ vampire worshipper probably drank the rest. And then turned into a bat and flew off on bat wings to a vault somewhere and slept in a coffin while he digested his meal.” He reached into an inside pocket of his leather jacket and found a pack of cigarettes, the ones he saved, Bentz knew, for nights like this. His sarcasm couldn’t quite disguise the hint of uncertainty he felt. Neither of them knew what they were up against.