Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (187 page)

“Do I believe in vampires? As in the Hollywood archetype? No.” Lucretia shook her head slowly. Thoughtfully. As if she were wrestling with the idea for the first time. Almost unconsciously, she began shredding her paper napkin.

“Let’s take Hollywood out of it,” Kristi suggested. She should probably drop the entire conversation. It was too weird. Too unreal. But she couldn’t help herself. Her curiosity had been whetted with the mystery of the missing coeds and she’d already decided to look into their disappearances; maybe Lucretia could help. She certainly seemed as if she wanted to.

Lucretia thought hard, then said, “Philosophically, I believe that you can make your own truth. People who hallucinate, whether from drugs or medical conditions, see things that are very real to them. It’s their truth, their frame of reference, though it isn’t, maybe, anyone else’s. My grandmother, before she died, saw people who weren’t in the room, and she was certain she’d gone places that she couldn’t have, because she was stuck in a hospital bed in a nursing home. But she described her ‘trips’ with amazing clarity, to the point she nearly convinced us. Was she dreaming? Hallucinating?” Lucretia shrugged her shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. Her reality, her
truth
was that she had been there.”

“So you’re thinking that the students who are in this cult, they’ve altered their reality. Through what? Mental problems? Drugs?”

“Or maybe desire.”

Kristi felt an icy wind cut through her soul. “Desire?”

Sighing, Lucretia finally brushed the pieces of her napkin aside, piling the tiny bits with the gooey used packets of condiments. “They want to believe it so badly that it’s real. You know what I mean. Wanting something so badly in your life that you can almost taste it. Wanting something…
something
you would do anything to get.” Her dark eyes zeroed in on Kristi and she grabbed her hand, holding it so tight her knuckles showed white. “We all want something.”

A moment later she let go of Kristi’s hand. Kristi found that her heartbeat had accelerated. “But this particular fantasy…Why would anyone want to think that there are vampires?” Kristi asked, truly mystified.

“It’s hot. Sexy.”

“Really? Drinking blood? Living in darkness? Being undead for centuries? That’s hot? Who in their right mind would want—”

“No one said anything about them being in their right minds.” Lucretia stared at her again, then finally picked up her coffee cup and took a sip. “These—believers—their lives are empty, or boring, or so goddamned awful that any kind of magic, or sorcery, or alternative existence is better than what they’re living.”

“That’s whacked. You’re saying there’s a whole cult of these people who believe in this creature of the night fantasy.”

“It’s whacked to you. But not to them. Oh, there are probably some who participate just for the thrill of it. There’s an allure to the whole vampire culture. It’s dark. It’s sexual. In some ways it’s very romantic and visceral. But to some people it’s not a fantasy. Those are the ones that really, and truly, believe it.”

“They need help,” Kristi said.

When Lucretia stared at Kristi her eyes had darkened again. With worry? Or her own Stygian dogma? How weird was this? Kristi and Lucretia had never been friends, so why had her old roommate sought her out? Why were they even having this discussion? At a nearby table two jock-type guys scraped chairs from the table and set down a tray loaded with hot dogs and fries. They were joking and talking, grabbing at the mustard and ketchup packets. It was all so normal.

Was she really having a conversation about vampires with Lucretia?

“So what about Dr. Grotto?” Kristi asked, envisioning the tall sardonic man with such dark hair and intense eyes. “Do you think he promotes it with his classes on vampirism? Is he the cult leader?”

“What? God, no!” She set down her cup so hard that some of the foam and coffee beneath sloshed over the rim.

“But he teaches the classes—”

“Not on
being
a vampire, for Christ’s sake, but on the influence of the whole vampire, werewolf, shape-shifter, monster myth in society. Historically, and today. He’s an intellectual, for God’s sake!”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not into the whole thing—”

“You’re missing the point. It’s not about Dominic….” Lucretia shook her head vehemently and actually paled at the thought. “He’s a wonderful man. Educated. Alive. Look, this was a mistake.” Ashen-faced, she stood, and she was actually trembling as she gathered her things. “I thought because you’d been through a lot, because your dad is such a crack detective, that you might be able to help, that you might be able to convince your father to check into what happened to Dionne, Monique, Tara, and Rylee, but forget it.”

“Your friends are still missing,” Kristi pointed out, as she, too, got up from the table.

“They’re not ‘my friends,’ okay? Just some girls I knew. Part of a study group.”

“They knew each other?”

“Peripherally, I guess. I’m not sure. They were English majors and all of them, I think, were kind of troubled, lonely kids, the kind who could’ve gotten caught up in the wrong thing. But I should have known you’d twist it all around.” She rolled her eyes as she tossed the wet napkin into a nearby trash can.

“Did you tell this to the police?”

“No—I—I’m an assistant professor here now, but I’m not tenured, and I don’t have access to all the records as I’m not a full professor yet and…damn, it’s complicated. I can’t go spouting off about cults on the campus, but then I ran across you and…so, I’m telling you now. Because I thought your father could look into this quietly, without getting me into any hot water. Before, I wasn’t convinced that there was anything wrong. Dionne and Monique, they were pretty wild and always talked of just hitchhiking away, but now…I don’t know. Tara was unhappy, but Rylee?” She shoved her hair out of her eyes, caught sight of the boys at the nearby table, and lowered her voice. “Maybe I’m imagining all this. You know, the whole blur between what’s real and fantasy. I don’t know why I even told you about it.”

Neither did Kristi. She’d never seen someone go from ice cold to red hot in a matter of seconds. Obviously she’d hit a nerve bringing up Professor Grotto, who just happened to be the teacher of Kristi’s next class, the one she was late for, the one on vampires. Kristi decided she’d keep that information to herself for the moment. She gulped the last of her coffee and tossed the cup away while Lucretia gave the table one last swipe.

Kristi couldn’t help but notice the ring on Lucretia’s left hand. “Are you engaged?” she asked, and remembered the conversation Lucretia was having about the guy who was absolutely “
amazing
.” Could she have meant Grotto?

Lucretia stopped mopping for a second, looked down at her fingers, and her white face instantly flushed scarlet. “Oh…no…” she stammered. “It’s…it’s just…nothing.” Quickly she wadded the napkins over the old packets of sauce and dropped the whole mess into the trash bin. She added quickly, “And it’s not a ‘promise ring’ or whatever you called it when you were a freshman.” A little smile crawled across her lips. “Remember?”

“Yeah.”

Lucretia was wiping her hands on a fresh napkin. “Isn’t that a hoot? To think that the guy you tossed over when you were first here is now on the staff. Talk about a twist of fate.”

Kristi stared, trying to make sense of Lucretia’s comment. “You mean Jay?”

“Yeah, Jay McKnight.”

Her stomach dropped to the floor. Whatever she and Jay had shared was long over, but that didn’t mean she wanted to bump into him. No, Lucretia had to have gotten bad information. “He works for the New Orleans PD,” Kristi argued, then started to get a really bad vibe when she saw a glint of triumph in Lucretia’s gaze as she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

“But he’s teaching a class here. A night class, I think. Filling in for a professor who had family problems and had to take a leave of absence or something.”

“Really?” Kristi couldn’t believe it, but wasn’t about to argue. Lucretia was just plain wrong or yanking on her chain just to bug her. She wasn’t about to give it any credence until she saw Jay McKnight with her own two eyes. Then she was hit by another bad feeling. “What class?”

“I don’t know…something in criminology, I think.”

Kristi’s stomach tightened. “Introduction to Forensics?”

“Could be. As I said, I’m not sure.”

Oh, God, please no.
She couldn’t imagine Jay being her instructor—that would just be too much to deal with. She flashed on how she’d so callously broken up with him and cringed. Even though it had been nearly a decade, she didn’t want to think there was a chance she could run into Jay on campus. Or that he could be her teacher. That would be torture.

“See ya around.” Lucretia was already heading for the door when Kristi noticed the big clock mounted on the back wall of the building over the doors leading to the admin offices.

She noticed the time.

It was three minutes to eleven.

No way could she make it across campus. No doubt, she’d be late. But maybe it was worth it. Lucretia’s fears, her theories about a cult here on the campus, were definitely interesting. Worth checking out. But really—vampires?

“Don’t make me laugh,” she muttered to herself, then was annoyed by the involuntary shiver that slid down her spine.

CHAPTER 6

T
he double doors of the student union clanged shut behind Lucretia, then opened again as a wave of students, talking and laughing, dripping from the rain, pushed their way inside and headed for the counter to order.

Wasting no time, Kristi gathered her notebook computer and purse, then hurried outside and down the steps as the bells from the church tower began tolling off the hour. “Great,” she muttered, noticing how few people were still hurrying across the quad.

Because everyone’s already in class.

Even Lucretia, who had left just moments before Kristi, was nowhere to be seen, as if she’d vanished into the gloomy day.

This is no way to start the term,
she told herself as she half ran along a brick pathway that led out of the quad and cut past the chapel and around Wagner House, the two-hundred-year-old stone mansion where the Wagner family, who had donated the land for the college, had once lived. Now a museum, and rumored to be haunted, the towering manor rose three full stories and was complete with mullioned windows, gargoyles on the downspouts, and dormers poking out of the steep, ridged roof.

Raindrops began to fall as Kristi dashed past the wrought-iron fence that separated the gabled house from the edge of the campus, then cut behind a science building. She rounded a corner and nearly crashed into a tall man dressed all in black who was standing with his back to her. He held a hand to his forehead, as if protecting his eyes from the rain. He was deep in discussion with someone Kristi couldn’t see, but as she dashed by, she caught a glimpse of his white clerical collar and etched, grim features. He was talking to a small woman in an oversized coat. Her face was turned up to him as she lowered her voice when Kristi passed, but Kristi recognized Lucretia’s friend, Ariel. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, she was holding a bag of books, her glasses were splattered with rain, but even so, she looked as if she were on the verge of tears.

“…I…I just thought you should know, Father Tony,” Ariel said, flipping the hood of her jacket over her head.

Father Tony.
The priest Irene Calloway had griped about being too hip. Kristi had seen his name in the school catalogue, where he’d been listed as Father Anthony Mediera. In the All Saints information packet the priest had been smiling and calm, wearing a cassock as he stared into the camera with large eyes. Now those blue eyes were dark and guarded, his jaw set, his thin lips flat in repressed anger.

“Don’t worry,” he said with the hint of an Italian accent, also lowering his voice as Kristi passed. “I’ll handle it. Promise.”

Ariel’s smile was tremulous and adoring, until she spied Kristi. Her expression changed quickly and she hurried away, as if hoping Kristi hadn’t recognized her like she’d obviously recognized Kristi.

Which was fine.

Kristi was late. Whatever Ariel was confessing to Father Tony had nothing to do with her.

She zigzagged behind the religious center and finally, nearly ten minutes late, reached Adam’s Hall, where she took the exterior steps two at a time. Inside the old building she clamored her way to the second floor, where the doors to her classroom were already closed.

Damn,
she thought, yanking open the door to a room so quiet she was certain anyone within could hear a pin drop let alone her bold entry.

The windows were draped in thick dark velvet, the rectangular classroom lit by fake candles. A tall man stood at the podium. Her heart nearly stopped as he stared at her with near-black eyes, then glanced at the clock over the door.

She found one of the few empty seats and told herself he wasn’t glaring at her with eyes like embers, dark but threatening to glow red. It was all just a matter of lighting and her own vivid imagination. Because the classroom had been converted to a creep-a-thon, and the image that was cast behind him on the chalkboard from a slide projector plugged into his computer was of Bela Lugosi, dressed as Dracula, in white shirt and cape.

Bela’s picture disappeared, changed to another image, one of a horrible, hissing creature with needle-sharp teeth and blood dripping from his lips.

“Vampires come in all shapes and sizes and have varying powers,” Dr. Grotto said, glancing at the next picture, an old comic book cover with a cartoon image of a lurking vampire creature about to lunge at a fleeing, scantily clad blonde with a figure that would make Barbie envious.

Kristi tried to meld into the other students, but no such luck. Dr. Grotto seemed to single her out, to glower at her as she opened her notepad and laptop computer. Finally, he cleared his throat and glanced down at his notes. “We’ll start the term with Bram Stoker’s
Dracula,
discuss where he found his inspiration. In cruel Vlad the Impaler, as most people believe? In Romania? Hungary? Transylvania?” he asked, pausing for effect. “Or perhaps in other historical monsters such as Elizabeth of Bathory, the countess who tortured servant girls, then bathed in their blood to protect her own waning beauty? Myth? Legend? Or fact?” Grotto went on about the course itself and what he required. Kristi took notes, but she was more interested in the man than his lecture. He walked catlike from one side of the room to the other, engaging students, seemingly to mesmerize them. Tall and lithe, he embodied his subject matter.

The images kept changing behind him, from campy to cruel. As a trailer for the television series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
appeared behind him, Grotto hit a button on his desk. The overhead lights glowed and the curtains retracted. Buffy and the gang’s image faded and the room transformed into a normal classroom. “Enough of the theatrics,” Grotto said, and the class groaned. “I know, we all like a stage show, but this is a college credit course, so, I trust you have all received a syllabus through your e-mail and you know that you’re to read Bram Stoker’s
Dracula
by the end of this week. If not, see me after class.

“So, let’s start the discussion…. What do you know of vampires? Are they real? Human? Do they really feast on human blood? Morph into a variety of creatures? Sleep in coffins? Today we’ll discuss what you know about vampires, or think you know.” He smiled then, showing off glistening fangs, only to remove the false caps and set them on the desk. “I said I was done with the theatrics, didn’t I?”

From that second on, Dr. Grotto held everyone’s attention for the rest of the lecture. The class was lively with Grotto asking questions as well as answering some, and it was obvious why the class was one of the most popular at the college.

Dominic Grotto could transform as easily as the mythical creatures he studied. One minute dark and thoughtful, the next animated and witty. He had an easy manner and used the entire front of the classroom as his stage, walking from one side to the other, making notes on the chalkboard, pointing to students to speak their minds.

Kristi recognized several students in the class, a couple of kids who had been in her Shakespeare class with Dr. Emmerson, including Hiram Calloway—was there no getting away from the creep? Again, she spied Lucretia’s spiked-haired friend Trudie, and Mai Kwan, the girl who lived downstairs from Kristi.

Small world,
Kristi said to herself, then corrected herself, thinking
small campus.
With less than three thousand students in the entire school, it wasn’t that surprising that she’d see familiar faces in her classes.

Within seconds, the door opened again and the professor glared as Ariel slipped into the room, grabbing the first empty seat she found near the door. Ariel looked as if she wanted to do nothing more than melt into her seat. Kristi sympathized. Ariel caught Kristi’s glance, but turned her attention to her notepad, flipping it open as the professor continued to speak.

An odd girl, Kristi thought, wondering about Lucretia’s mousy friend. Ariel seemed shy, even needy, the proverbial wallflower who wanted to disappear into the background. Kristi glanced at the girl again, but Ariel had lifted the book up, to hide most of her face.

Was she still crying?

Why? Homesickness? Something else?

Whatever it was, Father Tony had promised to “take care of it,” so Kristi focused all of her attention on the front of the room.

She listened raptly to Dr. Grotto, taking in the man’s appearance. He was tall with thick, expressive eyebrows, a strong jaw, and a nose that looked as if somewhere along the way it had been broken a couple of times. His eyes weren’t red or black, but a deep brown, his lips thin, his body honed, as if he worked out. There was an arrogance about him, but an affability as well, and Lucretia’s words rang through her brain.
He’s a wonderful man. Educated. Alive.

As opposed to dead? No…as in
animated
, Kristi berated herself. All this vampire talk was getting to her. Lucretia was certainly quick to defend Dr. Dominic Grotto, despite her suspicions. She’d acted as if the man were nearly a god, for crying out loud, and then there was the matter of the ring….

Kristi watched the professor’s hands. They were large. Strong looking. Veins apparent when he wrote on the board. But his left hand was bare. No wedding ring. No tan line or indentation suggesting he’d recently removed it. What had Ezma at work said? That Lucretia was rumored to be involved with one of the professors? A big secret? Hmmm.

She studied Dr. Grotto and tried to imagine him with Lucretia. It just didn’t fit. Grotto was smart enough, that much was evident, but he exuded an innate sexuality in his beat-up jeans and casual black sweater. Lucretia was the egghead’s egghead. Not unattractive, just socially a step off, almost snooty in her pseudo-intellectuality, but then, maybe that air of superiority was what had attracted him to her.

Stranger things had been known to happen.

Kristi settled back in her desk chair and scrutinized her new professor.

As Ezma had warned, Grotto was definitely “hot.” Was he involved with the missing coeds? The man who’d maybe inspired the vampire cult that had attracted Rylee?

When Kristi had first driven to Baton Rouge, her father’s warnings had fallen upon deaf ears, but now that she was here, on the campus of All Saints, she was beginning to think there might be some merit in Rick Bentz’s fears. Four girls were missing. Maybe dead. All had taken Grotto’s class on vampires.

Coincidence?

Kristi didn’t think so.

In fact, she was going to find out. She’d start calling the family, friends, and neighbors of the girls today, in between classes, if she had to. Something had happened to the missing students. Something bad.

Kristi was damned well going to find out what it was.

Jay stepped out of the shower and toweled off after a weekend of ripping off paneling and repairing the tears to the plaster that had been beneath the wooden facade. His muscles ached from hours with a chisel and hammer, but the house was taking shape. Most of the deconstruction was about finished. He had only a bit of linoleum to rip up and then he’d be ready to rebuild. He threw on boxers, a pair of khakis, and a cotton sweater, then yanked on a pair of socks and stepped into his shoes as he checked his watch. Less than an hour until his first class. With Kristi Bentz. He’d had no notes of anyone, including Kristi, dropping out, so he expected to see her.

Brace yourself,
he thought, then chided himself for being childish. They were both adults now. So they’d gone together as teenagers. So what? Time had marched on and other relationships had come and gone.

The phone rang and he recognized Gayle’s number. What the hell did she want and why now, when he was just getting ready to deal with Kristi, did he have to talk to her? He almost didn’t answer. But the thought that she might really be in trouble, might really need him, caused him to take the call. Good old trusty Jay. “Hi,” he said, without preamble. They both knew about Caller ID.

“Hi, Jay, how’re you?” she asked in that soft, dulcet drawl he’d once found so intriguing.

An interior designer who adored antiques and New Orleans architecture, she’d grown up in Atlanta, the only daughter of a judge and his wife. Jay had found her cultured, smart, beautiful, and fun-loving. Until they’d gotten serious. Then he’d recognized her strong, unbending will and almost obsessive attention to detail. How many times had she insisted his tie hadn’t matched his shirt and jacket, or that his shoes were out of style, or that his jeans were far too “ratty to even be considered hip, darlin’?” Her temper, too, had come to the fore. What did it say about his personality that he always picked hardheaded, smart, sassy women who could blow at any minute. For a half a second, he thought of Kristi Bentz. Talk about a temper! Kristi’s was practically legendary. Jay figured his choices in women were a major character flaw.

“I’m doin’ fine, Gayle,” he said, realizing she was waiting for a response. Tonight, he didn’t have time for niceties. “How ’bout you?”

“All right, I guess.”

“Good, good.” He was gathering up his keys and wallet, making certain he had everything he needed. His gaze scraped the interior of the cottage as he made certain he was leaving everything secure.

“But I have to be honest. Sometimes I get lonely. Sometimes I miss you,” Gayle said, drawing his attention back to the telephone conversation.

His gut tightened. “I thought you were dating someone—an attorney, right? Manny or Michael or something?”

She hesitated, then said, “Martin. But it’s not the same.”

“Nothing ever is. It’s always different, sometimes better, other times worse.” Why the hell was he even having this conversation?

As if she knew she’d pushed him too far, she said, “I know this is the night of your first class and I wanted to wish you luck.”

Yeah, right. “Thanks.”

“You’ll do great!”

The woman did know how to stroke his ego.

“Hope so.”

“Believe me, those kids will be enthralled with all that creepy forensic stuff.”

“Yeah?” He checked his watch. Time to go. Where the hell was the leash? He didn’t want to take Bruno anywhere without it. Oh, maybe in the truck!