Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (184 page)

“Wonderful,” Kristi groused to herself as she backed up, then rammed the car into drive. No one was about but a man walking his dog near the gaslight, and a biker pedaling fast enough to keep the beam of his headlight steady. No criminal was waiting for her. No deranged psycho hiding between the parked cars on the street. All was quiet. All was normal.

But as she drove onto the street, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go wrong.

So she’d returned.

Like a salmon drawn from the sea to a creek to spawn.

Kristi Bentz was a student again at All Saints.

It was fitting somehow, he thought, from his rooftop viewpoint. Through the skeletal branches of the trees near the thick stone wall of the campus, he focused his binoculars at the attic loft she’d rented.

Where one of the others had once lived.

A sign from the Almighty?

Or from the Prince of Darkness?

He grinned as he watched her check her window latches, make small talk with the Asian girl, then fly down the exterior steps to that pathetic little car she’d parked beneath a security lamp in the nearest lot. His view was cut off, of course, once she was down the stairs and below the wall, but he knew what she was doing.

The sound of the Honda’s engine firing up was barely audible over the drip of rain and swoosh of traffic on the side streets, but he heard it. Was tuned to it. Because it was she, the prodigal daughter. How perfect.

His throat went dry at the thought of her: long dark hair streaked with red, pert nose, intelligent green eyes, and wide mouth…. Oh, what she could do with those lips! He imagined them trailing down his body as she let her tongue slide across his flat abdomen, her breath hot and anxious as she undid the fastening to his jeans.

His groin tightened and his cock grew thick and he knew a minute of regret. He had to deny himself, at least for now. There was another…

He slid through the darkness and inside the fortresslike structure within the campus walls. Without turning on any lights, he made his way to the stairwell and eased down the steps, quiet as a cat. His gift was his vision, a gaze that could penetrate the darkness when others couldn’t. He was born with the ability, and even in the thick Louisiana nights, when low-lying fog clung to the cypress trees and oozed over the water of the bayou, he had vision. Enough that he could see prey and hunt without the use of night goggles or flashlights.

His ability had served him well, he thought, as he slipped outside and took in a deep breath of the fresh scent of rain…and more. He imagined he smelled the salty scent of Kristi Bentz’s skin, but he knew the aroma to be an illusion.

The first of many, he imagined, as he jogged silently and easily through the night. His body was in perfect shape. Honed. Ready.

For the ultimate sacrifice.

She wouldn’t be taken easily.

But she would be taken.

And, at first, willingly.

He just had to plant the seeds to pique her curiosity.

And then she wouldn’t be able to stop herself.

CHAPTER 3

“
…This is Hiram Calloway,” a thin, reedy voice said over the static of a bad cell connection. “I got your message about the locks. I thought I’d stop by your apartment and see if I could fix them.”

“Too late,” Kristi said, irritated. Only today, at two o’clock on New Year’s Eve, had he decided to return her calls. “I already installed new ones and put in new latches on the windows. I couldn’t wait any longer. I’ll bill you.”

“What?” he shrieked, his nasal voice hiking up a notch. “You can’t—”

“I can and I did.”

“That kind of thing has to be approved. It’s…it’s in the lease, paragraph seven—”

“I’m just telling you, the apartment wasn’t secure and I think there’s something about that in the lease, too. Check it. And I don’t know what the paragraph is, but I’ve already taken care of the problem.”

“But—”

“I have to get back to work,” she said, snapping her cell off. She slipped the phone into the pocket of her apron and walked past two cooks loitering under the overhang of the back porch where they were smoking in their greasy chef coats. The screen door slapped shut behind her as she made her way through a maze of hallways in the thirties bungalow that had been converted to a restaurant years before. The history of the building had been written up in the local paper ten years earlier and was yellowing in its frame that hung between the bathrooms, marked
LORDS
and
LADIES
. As if any of the clientele were blue bloods.

Retying her apron, Kristi passed through swinging doors from the kitchen to the dining area and stopped fuming about Hiram. At least he’d finally called back. Kristi had been beginning to think the manager/grandson was a figment of Irene’s imagination.

So far, it had been a busy morning and early afternoon, but things were slowing down, thank God. Her feet were sore, her clothes feeling grimy from the grease and smoke that hung in the air and clung to her hair. After a few hours working frantically in her section, she’d wondered why she hadn’t taken her father’s advice and tried to nail a desk job at another insurance company. After all, it wasn’t as if she were getting rich on tips. However, just the memory of hours on the phone with complaining customers of Gulf Auto and Life had reminded her of her goal and her dream of writing true crime.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since downing a muffin on the fly early in the morning. After her shift she thought she might splurge on a Mercutio melt and a slice of King Lear’s key lime pie.

Happy New Year,
she thought sarcastically as she grabbed a pot of coffee and refilled half-empty cups on the tables in her section.

A group of women strolled in and squeezed into the worn bench seat of a corner booth.

Snagging four plastic-encased menus, Kristi approached. The women hardly noticed, they were so into their conversation, and one of the voices sounded familiar. Kristi couldn’t believe it, but as she stared at the back of a curly head, she realized that she was about to serve Lucretia Stevens, her original roommate when she was an undergrad and living in the close quarters of Cramer Hall. Inside, Kristi cringed. She and Lucretia had never gotten along and had been as different as day to night. Kristi, in those days, had been a party girl and Lucretia a brainiac who, when she hadn’t been studying, had spent hours flipping through
Brides
magazine and munching on Cheetos. She hadn’t had any social life and had been evasive when talking about her boyfriend, who’d gone to another college. Kristi had never seen the guy and had often wondered if he’d only existed in Lucretia’s mind.

What goes around, comes around,
she thought as she slid menus in front of the women and asked them what they wanted to drink.

“Kristi?” Lucretia asked, before anyone answered.

“Hi, Lucretia.” Geez,
this
was going to be uncomfortable.

“What’re you doing here?” Lucretia’s eyes were wide, probably due to the contacts that, when she’d worn them in lieu of her glasses, had always made her appear owlish.

“Trying to take your order,” Kristi said, offering a smile.

“Hey, everyone, this is Kristi Bentz, my old roommate when I was a freshman, oh, God, a kabillion years ago.” She laughed, then motioned toward a woman of about twenty-five with narrow-framed glasses and dark brown hair that fell to her shoulders. “Kristi, this is Ariel.”

“Hi,” Kristi said, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Oh, hi.” Ariel nodded, then glanced past Kristi to the door, as if she were looking for someone, at least someone more interesting than Kristi.

“And this is Grace,” Lucretia indicated her thin friend who wore braces and had spiked, reddish hair. The woman couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds. “And this is Trudie.” The last girl, seated next to Lucretia in the booth, was heavier-set, had thick black hair pulled into a long ponytail, a smooth olive complexion and white teeth with a bit of a gap. All three managed smiles as Lucretia said, as if surprised, “Geez, Kristi, you look great.”

“Thanks.”

“Bentz?” Trudie repeated. “Wait a sec. Didn’t I read about you?”

Here we go,
Kristi thought. “Probably about my dad. He makes the press.”

“Wait a minute. He’s a cop, right?” Ariel asked, twisting her head and squinting up at Kristi. She was suddenly interested. “Didn’t he crack that case at Our Lady of Virtues a year or so ago?” She shuddered. “That was soooo weird.”

Amen,
Kristi thought, anxious to end the personal conversation about a time she’d rather forget.

“Weren’t you involved?” Lucretia was now serious. “I mean, didn’t I read something about you being injured?” Her forehead wrinkled as she thought. “The way the article was slanted it was as if you were almost killed.” She was nodding, her hair shimmering in dark curls beneath the overhead lamps. “Like before.”

Kristi didn’t want to be reminded of her close calls at the hands of sicko perverts. Twice already, she’d nearly been killed by a psychopath, and the shards of memory about those encounters were enough to turn her blood to ice. She needed to deflect the conversation and fast.

“It was a while back. I’m over it. So, the special today is red beans and rice, I mean Hamlet’s hash.”

But Lucretia wasn’t about to be derailed. She had everyone at her table and the surrounding area’s attention, and she wasn’t going to let go. “I think I read or heard that you
died
and came back or something.”

“Or something,” Kristi said as all of the women at the table, Lucretia’s friends who had been so animated a few minutes earlier, grew silent. The strains of an old Elvis tune ran over the clink of silverware, buzz of conversation, and hiss of the ancient heater as it struggled to keep the diner warm. She shrugged, relegating the story of her past to “who cares” status.

“Kristi’s used to it,” Lucretia said. “Lives the life.”

Ariel asked, “What does it feel like to have a famous father?”

Pen poised over her order pad, Kristi ignored the knot in her gut. “Quasi famous. It’s not like he’s Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise or even—”

“We’re not talking about movie stars.” Lucretia interrupted her. “Just local celebs.”

“Local celebs like Truman Capote and Louis Armstrong?” Kristi said.

“Dead,” Trudie said.

“My dad’s just a cop.”

Lucretia stared at her as if she’d just said she’d become a devil worshipper. “He’s not
just
anything.”

Kristi held on to her patience with an effort. That hadn’t been what she’d meant, but Lucretia had always had a way of twisting things around. Maybe it was because her divorced parents had hardly had time for her; they’d been so wrapped up in their own problems. Or, maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, it was annoying and always had been.

“You’re right,” Kristi managed. “He’s great, but he’d be the first to tell you he was just doing his job.”

“How cool is that?” Trudie asked.

Time to end this. “So, anything to drink?” Kristi asked. “Coffee?”

Thankfully, Lucretia and her group picked up their menus and rattled off their choices.

“Two sweet teas, a Diet Coke, and a coffee. Got it,” Kristi said, thankful to hurry back to the kitchen. Who would have thought that Lucretia would have kept up with her, or her father? Kristi and Lucretia hadn’t kept in touch over the years; in fact, while living together, they hardly spoke. They’d had
nothing
in common before. Kristi doubted that had changed over the years.

“Old friends?” Ezma, a waitress with mocha-colored skin and impossibly white teeth, asked as she filled plastic glasses with shaved ice from a rumbling ice machine positioned near the soda dispenser. Ezma, barely five feet and a hundred pounds, was a part-time student and full-time waitress, a wife, and a mother of a precocious two-year-old.

“I guess.” Kristi took three of the glasses and filled two from the pitcher of sweetened iced tea, then pushed a button on the soda machine and filled the final glass with diet cola, holding the dispenser button a second too long. The soda fizzled over the top. Sweeping a towel from a nearby hook, she swabbed at the spilled cola and topped off the glass. “One of the women”—she hitched her chin toward the table where Lucretia seemed to be holding court—“was my roommate when I first enrolled at All Saints, back before the turn of the millennium.”

“Let me guess—Lucretia Stevens,” Ezma said, sliding a glance toward the table.

“How did you know?”

“I guess I’m just omniscient.”

“Yeah, right.” Kristi smiled faintly.

“And”—she lifted a slim shoulder—“I eavesdrop.”

“That’s more like it.”

Ezma laughed as she grabbed the dispenser handle for the water hose and filled the remaining glasses. “Actually, I had her for one of my classes, writing two twelve, I think it was.”

“She’s a professor?”

“Assistant.”

Kristi was stunned. She’d always known Lucretia was a perpetual student, but she’d never imagined she would actually stick around All Saints to teach.

“And I think she’s involved with someone at the university. Another professor.”

“Really?”

So much for Lucretia’s college boyfriend, whom she’d pined about for the year Kristi had known her.

“Well, I have to admit, if I weren’t a happily married woman, I might be interested. Some of the professors are hot!”

Kristi remembered some of her teachers from the past. Weird Dr. Northrup, edgy Dr. Sutter, and crusty, superior Dr. Zaroster. All of them were musty, slightly crotchety academics who suffered from superiority complexes. Definitely not “hot.” Not even lukewarm. At least not in Kristi’s vocabulary. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Uh-uh. I’m tellin’ you, the staff at All Saints is something. At least the English Department. It’s as if whoever was recruiting was looking at Hollywood head shots.”

“Now I know you’re full of it.”

“Well, you’ll see soon enough.” Ezma added a slice of lemon to each glass. “Classes start next week. I bet you’ll agree.”

Kristi filled her tray. “And so you think Lucretia is dating one of these hotties?”

“Rumor has it. But I don’t know which one. Whenever I get too close, she clams up, like she’s hiding it or something.”

“Why?”

Ezma shook her head. “Don’t know. Maybe he’s married or engaged or there’s some rule about the staff fraternizing. Or maybe it’s Dr. Preston.” Her lips tightened at the corners. “He teaches writing and he’s bad news.”

“I think I have him for a class.”

“Oh, yeah? My friend Dionne took his writing class and was all about him, but he comes in here and he’s just plain rude. Then Dionne went missing.”

“Your friend is one of the missing girls?” Kristi asked. “And you think Preston might be involved?”

Ezma was about to say no. But she changed her mind. Kristi could see it in the way her chin slid to the side. “I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t put anything past that guy. The trouble is, no one really believes anything bad happened to Dionne. They think she just disappeared, probably took off with her boyfriend.” Ezma shook her head.

“Then why hasn’t anyone heard from her?”

“Exactly! The common theory is that she’s with Tyshawn and they’ve taken on new identities. Tyshawn Jones is also bad news. Into drugs, did time for robbery when he was still a minor. Personally, I never knew what she saw in him. Before Tyshawn, she dated a really great guy, Elijah Richards. Was going to school at a junior college, planning on being an accountant, but Dionne started seeing Tyshawn and that was the end of her relationship with Elijah. A shame.”

“What about Tyshawn? Is he missing, too?”

“No one ever mentions that, do they?”

Kristi swept around one of the line cooks as he tossed a handful of sliced potatoes into the fryer and the hot oil sizzled and bubbled. She pushed the swinging doors open with her back, then carried the drink tray to the women’s table and heard Lucretia’s voice over the piped in music.

“…I’m telling you, he’s a
mazing.
Absolutely and undeniably amazing. I’ve never…not ever met anyone like him.”

Kristi had to fight from rolling her eyes. Even as a freshman Lucretia had been a hopeless romantic. It seemed as if things hadn’t changed. Lucretia was on the verge of adding something else, but quit gushing when she spied Kristi. She sent the other women a silent glance, which they understood, and everyone at the table went quiet.

Kristi got the message—Lucretia did not want her old roommate to know anything about her love life. As if Kristi cared.

As Kristi distributed the cold drinks and poured coffee, Lucretia eyed her old roommate. “So you’re enrolled at A. S.?”

“Uh-huh.” No reason to lie about it. Kristi poured coffee into a cup.

“Didn’t you graduate?”

Kristi wasn’t about to be baited. “Just a few credits shy.” Jesus, why did Lucretia care?

“I thought you had a thing about writing.”

“Mmm. Cream?” she asked the woman who had ordered coffee, ignoring Lucretia’s questions.