Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (199 page)

“There has to be something here,” she said out loud. “Just find it.”

But the obvious items were missing: computer, purse, cell phone and/or BlackBerry. There was no secret diary. No love letters. No address book or phone Rolodex. In the boxes of clothes, she had found a backpack that she’d unzipped, searched, and even turned upside down. One of the straps had been broken, but there was nothing inside except an empty pack of cigarettes, two sticks of gum, a half-full box of breath mints, couple of receipts from a local quickie mart, a squashed tampon, and a rubber band.

She felt a little like Geraldo Rivera when he’d opened up what was supposed to be Al Capone’s vault on live national TV in the eighties, expecting to find all kinds of treasures or evidence against the gangster only to find the area empty except for debris. Which is just what Kristi had—nothing but debris from a missing girl.

After almost being discovered by Hiram, she’d made three trips downstairs with her laundry bag, hauling up Tara’s things bit by bit, then searching through the pockets of her pants and jackets, looking for anything that might be a clue. But nothing came to light.

“My father would be disappointed,” she said to the cat as he stared at her from an upper shelf on the bookcase flanking one side of the fireplace. “What am I missing?” She sifted through the piles of jeans, khakis, and shorts, then the sweaters, T-shirts, and jackets one more time.

Nothing.

Disappointment crawled through her. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this,” she muttered while the cat watched her box up Tara’s things. Either Tara had taken everything of value with her when she left, or her abductor had. Kristi folded her own laundry, whipped out a paper for Dr. Preston’s writing class, and kept nodding off in bed while reading the latest assignment from the tome of Shakespearean plays.

“Tomorrow,” she confided in Houdini as he hopped onto the bed and lay in the far corner, still ready to jump for cover should she startle him. Theirs was a growing, but extremely tentative, relationship. Bit by bit Houdini was edging closer, almost letting her pet him upon occasion, though his ears were often pinned back. Whenever she reached down he leaned away from her. She’d only managed to brush her fingertips along the tips of his fur.

Not too far from the way she and Jay reacted to each other, she thought. Wary. Suspicious. Interested but frightened. God, why did she always seem to return to Jay? He was her professor and he’d agreed to help her figure out what had happened to the four girls, but that was it. There was absolutely nothing romantic or sexual in their relationship. And that’s the way it had to stay.

“Right, Houdini?” she asked.

The cat gazed at her, unblinking.

Father Mathias Glanzer paced through the church, past the glass votives holding candles that had burned low. His footsteps sounded hollow along the floorboards of the nave. At the altar, before the huge suspended crucifix, he genuflected, made the sign of the cross, and sent up a small prayer for guidance as the image of Jesus stared down at him.

In anger?

Or compassion?

His clasped hands were clammy, his body beneath his robes covered in a nervous, self-loathing sweat. He’d been a priest for nearly fifteen years and still he sought guidance, still he doubted. His faith wavered, though he would deny it to anyone who asked.

But God knew.

As did he, himself. “Forgive me,” he whispered, and though he knew he should stay and pray for hours, he found no solace in prayer, no comfort in seeking God’s counsel. Straightening, he left the church, the door to the nave shutting behind him with a soft, definitive thud.

Outside, the night promised rain. Clouds were thick, the moon and stars blocked from a storm that was pushing inland. The January wind was cold, with a harsh bite as it blew through his soul.

He’d come to All Saints thinking he could start over, reaffirm his vows, make changes in the college. In himself. Find God again.

Just as in a marriage when spouses become too comfortable and take each other for granted, lose interest or vitality, so had he accepted his faith as pure and important and all-knowing. He’d become prideful. Vain. Seeking his own glory over that of God.

And, of course, as high as he’d climbed, as far as his blind ambition had taken him, it had abandoned him. Now he was falling, tumbling into a darkness so bleak, he feared there was no return. Moving to All Saints hadn’t been a blessing, but a curse.

He wanted to blame Dr. Grotto, or Father Anthony, or Natalie Croft with her damned vision for the English Department. He’d gone so far as to harbor feelings of injustice at the school administration with so many laypeople on the board, including the descendants of Ludwig Wagner, the man who had given the original plot to the archdiocese to build the school, but, in truth, all of his railing against the fates and those with whom he worked was foolhardy. The person who was at fault was himself. He thought of those who had gone before him, pure men who had tortured themselves in horsehair or with flails, who knelt for days upon cold stones, who fasted until they fainted…he would never test himself as they had.

For years he’d told himself those penances were for the weak and addled, that he was above them. Now he knew differently. They were for the strong, and only cowards like himself—weak, mortal men—would run from God’s challenges.

You can never outrun yourself, Mathias, now, can you? And even if you could, the Father would see your pathetic efforts. He looks deep into your soul and witnesses the wretched darkness within.

He knows of your sins.

The chapel bells tolled, their deep dulcet tones reverberating in his brain, echoing in his heart. They should have uplifted him, but their deep resonance only served to remind him of how much he’d lost, how much he’d so willingly, almost eagerly, cast away.

Swallowing hard, Father Mathias made the sign of the cross over his vestments yet again as he strode through the wet grass. He would go to his apartment, drink a little brandy, and try to come up with a plan, an escape.

Coward! You can never break free. You are condemned to hell by your own hand. You are Judas.

From the corner of his eye, he saw a movement, the slightest shiver of the shrubbery flanking the galilee, the porch at the west end of the church.

Father Mathias felt his heart shudder. He told himself not to be so frightened, the movement was probably caused by a cat out on a nightly hunt, or an opossum hiding beneath the branches or…Oh, God.

He froze.

A dark figure rose from its crouching position beneath the narrow tracery windows. “Father Mathias,” it whispered hoarsely as it drew near.

Mathias was struck by fear as dark as Lucifer’s soul.

“What is it, my son?”

The being, for that’s how he thought of it, was large, a man in a costume, or something otherworldly? Male? Or an Amazon woman? Or sexless? Its features were hidden in the dark recesses of a thick cowl, its eyes seeming to glow bloodred.

Mathias trembled, cold as death.

White teeth flashed in the darkness. Lips dark, as if stained with blood, warned, “Do not betray us. I see it in your eyes, feel it in your expression, smell the fear within you.” The lips curled as if in disgust and for a millisecond he imagined he saw fangs within that shadowy evil countenance. “If there is a whisper of treason, the barest breath of your disloyalty, you will be blamed. And, I assure you, you will be punished.”

Before Mathias could raise his arms to hold his crucifix in the demon’s face, it lunged, grabbing hold of his wrist in a painful grip. Hot breath scorched his skin.

“No!” he cried.

Too late.

Cloth ripped.

Lips curled back.

Fangs clamped down hard.

“Aaaah!”

Pain screamed through his arm as the fiend’s teeth sliced into his flesh. “God in heaven no!” Mathias cried, horror tearing through his body.

The demon wrenched on his wrist and he screamed out again. “Please, don’t!”

“Shhh!” The creature raised its dark head and blood—the priest’s blood—dripped from its horrid lips. “Be gone,” it hissed, spraying Mathias with his own lifeblood, a forked tongue visible through those blood-smeared incisors.

Holy Father, what kind of beast from hell was this?

Stricken, the priest fell to his knees, scrabbling for his rosary, sending up prayer after prayer in his terror-riddled, near-paralyzed state. What had he gotten himself into?
What?

He heard voices. From the other side of the church. Dear God, he couldn’t be found like this…had no explanation. The fiend turned and ran, sweeping almost silently across an expanse of lawn, then into the darkness.

Mathias crumpled into a heap. Tears tracked from his eyes. Tears of fear. Tears of remorse. Tears of a broken, faithless man.

“Our Father,” he started to mumble, but the words stuck in his throat. His tongue was thick and awkward, his repentance too little, too late. He’d gone too far. Crossed a burning threshold from which there was no return. Prayer wouldn’t help. Confession, the ultimate cleanser of all sins, was no longer his salvation.

The truth of the matter was that he, like so many before him, had sold his very soul to the devil.

And Satan wanted his due.

CHAPTER 16

B
oomer Moss had hunted gators all his life. Sometimes he’d done it all legal with a tag, in season, and sometimes, like tonight, not. He figured alligators were mean sumbitches who deserved to die, and if he could make a few bucks off their hides, their heads, and their meat, all the better. He was doin’ the world a big fat favor by takin’ the motherfuckers out, one slithery life at a time.

The fact that there was a season for the huntin’ and tags to be purchased and forms to be sent into the government really got his balls in an itch. His family had been hunting the swamps, ponds, lakes, and canals around New Orleans for over two hundred years. The government had no business, no damned business tellin’ him what to do.

Besides, huntin’in the swamps in the dark was a rush like none other. Boomer had a few beers stashed in a cooler as he trolled the black waters and passed the ghostly, skeletonlike trunks and roots of the cypress trees. He had his snares set, but you could never tell when you might come across a gator in the water, dormant season or not.

Sometimes he’d kill himself a raccoon or an opossum or a snake if he could catch one. He figured these swamps belonged to him. Here he ruled, and the bounty of the boggy land was his for the taking. He didn’t want to mess with any tags—hell, no. And he knew a raccoon or skunk was better bait than the cow guts sanctioned by the state.

Again, the government should have better things to worry about. Christ! Using the beam of a heavy-duty flashlight, Boomer scoured the water, hoping to see eyes emerge from the darkness, just over the inky water’s surface. The gators were sluggish this time of year, most dormant, but not impossible to find.

He had his traps set and come morning he expected to have at least one of the fuckers, maybe as many as five or six if he got lucky. For now, he’d troll, check the bait he had strung up a couple of feet above the water, hoping to lure a gator into propelling himself to leap up and snag himself on the hook.

He saw their eyes in the darkness, realized they not only saw him, but sensed him, as they did any movement in the water. Big dang toothed lizards. He heard a splash, saw one slide into the water not far from a nest where the grass had been beaten down, noticed the mound of mud and grass that indicated where the eggs had been laid.

“Come on, Mama,” he said in a cooing voice. “You all come over here to Daddy.” He waited, searching, his twenty-two pistol in his hand. But the she-gator hid in the shadows, away from the beam of his light, and he moved on, slowly, one hand on the tiller, the sounds of the night filling his ears: the whirr of bats’ wings, the hoot of an owl, the croak of bullfrogs, the hum of a few insects over the rumble of the boat’s small outboard motor. Every now and again he heard a splash, a fish jumping or a gator sliding into the still water.

He spent long hours trolling, not getting close enough to shoot a damned gator and haul him into the boat, but scouting out the swamp. Through the hours, he downed a six-pack of Lone Star and two of Mindy Jo’s fried oyster po’ boy sandwiches.

Finally, as the night waned, he checked his snares. The first was empty, the bait stripped clean.

“Shit,” he said, steering his boat further to the next trap, and there, hanging partially in the air, was a gator. Eight feet if he was an inch. “Hallelujah, brother,” Boomer said, moving close enough that he could raise his pistol to the critter’s small brain. He fired, the sound a sharp report. Had to make sure the reptile was good and dead before cuttin’ him down. Boomer sure as hell didn’t want any four-hundred-pound gator thrashing around in the boat. It was tricky enough dealing with a dead one.

He prodded at the gator with an oar, then certain the big reptile was indeed dead, carefully lowered the massive carcass into the bottom of the boat. The bull alligator was a prime specimen, not many scars on his hide. He’d fetch a damned good price. Feeling as if the night wasn’t a complete waste, Boomer checked his other snares, found the bait still hanging over the water without any gators attached. Might as well leave the traps baited for now. He could still get lucky.

He turned the boat back toward the dock where his truck was parked. He didn’t bother with gutting his prize, just wrapped the gator in a wet tarp, winched him into the truck bed, and drove back to the house, a small single-wide set on concrete blocks deep in the woods.

Boomer felt good. He’d go home, shower, then wake his wife and screw the devil out of her, just as he always did after a successful hunting trip. He could hardly wait, his hands clenched over the steering wheel as the old Chevy bounced and shimmied through the potholes in the gravel lane leading to the house.

Mindy Jo never complained about being waked for the sex, no siree. She was probably at home now, waiting for him, her cunt already wet. She loved it when the old testosterone was flowin’ fast and hot after the thrill of a hunt. He’d spend hours in the big old bed they shared, pushin’ her to the brink over and over again, rutting over her like a damned stallion.

She’d get so turned on she’d even let him slap her buttocks in the process. Man, she loved that!

At the house, he parked in the garage, put some ice over the tarp, then went inside. He decided to forget about the shower and see what she’d think if he smelled of the hunt…he’d done that a time or two and this morning it seemed like a damned good idea, so he stripped out of his hunting clothes, left the camouflage shirt and pants in a pile in the kitchen in front of the new washer and dryer, then walked into the bedroom.

King of the realm.

It was dark, the black-out curtains drawn, and it smelled of cigarette smoke and the damned cats she insisted on keeping around the place.

“Honey, izzat you all?” she mumbled, her face buried in the pillow.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, “it’s me, all right, and I’m horny as hell. Caught myself one helluva bull gator.”

“Oh.”

He touched her thigh with a finger and she rolled away, making a disturbed, bothered sound. He didn’t buy it. Kneeling on the mattress beside her, his dick rock hard, he touched her again. “Did you hear me? He’s a big un.” He slipped his hand around her body, touching her breast.

“Oh, Boomer. Not now. Leave me alone.”

“No way, baby,” he said, and she sighed, already waking. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe she’d suck him off.

“Ooh, God, you stink.” She rolled over and faced him, her mouth only inches from his cock. “Didn’t you shower?”

“Nah!”

“Oh, God, Boomer. Go clean up!”

But he’d already leaned down to kiss her and he took one of her small, soft hands and placed it on his penis. “I can’t wait, baby. You’re just so damned beautiful.”

“And you’re a lyin’ son of a bitch. It’s too dark in here to see anything.”

“I see you in my head, honey.”

“What a bunch of crap,” she said, but her fingers were already flexing around him and as he came to her, she opened her mouth, kissing him with a fever that was always with her in the morning. More and more it seemed that at night she was just too tired for sex and slapped him away, but she woke up horny in the morning and that was fine with him.

He rolled atop her and decided since he’d been up all night as it was, he wasn’t going to spend too much time getting her to come. No siree. He would work fast and hard, touch all her hot spots right off the bat and once he’d felt her start to move against him, going into that low moan of hers, he would finish the job. But, he’d rushed things. Misjudged her reaction. She was a little tight this morning, not fully awake or into it like she usually was, and by the time he’d got her slicked up inside, he couldn’t wait and came in a rush, before she was ready, flopping down on her just like the dead gator.

Which really pissed her off.

“You big oaf,” she declared, pushing him to the side of the bed. “What the hell do ya think ye’re doin?”

“It’s all right, baby, I’ll take care of you.”

“Forget it. I’m not in the mood.” He tried kissing her roughly and she pushed him away. “Stop it, Boomer. You got your damned rocks off, now just leave me alone.” She rolled to the side of the bed and scraped her fingers across the nightstand, feeling for her cigarettes. One of her stupid cats walked across his pillow, its tail brushing his nose and reminding him that they were never alone, not with all the goddamned felines crawling through the house.

Boomer closed his eyes and figured he’d sleep for a few hours. The gator was safe, iced up as it was. He heard the click of a lighter, then smelled burning tobacco as she inhaled. Tired as he was, he fell asleep and only opened an eye when he felt her stir nearly six hours later. He wanted to sleep longer—hell, he deserved it—but he had to check on the gator and make sure it was still cool and besides, the damned banty roosters that belonged to Jed Stomp, his stupid-ass neighbor, were crowing up a high-pitched raucous that could wake the dead.

A bit of a headache nagged at him as he climbed out of bed. He gave Mindy Jo’s naked, round little butt a playful slap and headed back to the kitchen, where he pulled on his hunting clothes again.

The sun was high in the winter sky, the day promising to have a little heat for January. A crow sat on the peak of the roof, eyeing him and emitting irritating caws.

“Oh, shut up,” he grumbled, wishing he had his twenty-two. Damn noisy thing.

In the carport, he opened the bed of the truck, then worked to slide the gator and the tarp out onto the gravel of the driveway. The crow’s caws were echoed by a jay who’d come to squawk. To add to the noise, he heard the damn squeal of the coffee grinder from inside the house. Mindy Jo was up and going through her ritual of grinding coffee, which he thought was a big bother when you could buy a can of Folgers for less money at the Piggly Wiggly.

Ignoring the morning cacophony, Boomer grabbed his sharpest knife and went to cuttin’ on the gator. It was hard work, but he was already counting the dollar signs in his head and thinking that he’d go check the other traps later. Maybe he’d gotten lucky. Just about finished with the messy job, he heard the screen door creak open, then slam shut.

Mindy Jo, wrapped in some silky Asian robe, pink slippers, and faux ostrich feathers, walked onto the screened-in porch. She held a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. Three of those miserable cats wound around her leg. The gray tom, with no tail and only one eye, had the nerve to glare at him. God, he hated that stupid lynx.

“He is a big un,” she said, not stepping off the porch as she eyed the alligator’s carcass. “Just get one?” She took a drag from her cigarette and tipped back her head to let out a stream of smoke from one side of her mouth.

“Fer now. I’ll check the traps again later this morning.” He was sweating, working hard as he eviscerated the animal. “And he ain’t too scarred. Skin’s good. The hide’ll fetch a good price.”

“Nice,” she said, drawing hard on her cigarette. The banty rooster started up again. Mindy Jo ignored the screeching. “Ya want grits and bacon?”

“Yeah.”

“Eggs?”

“’Course…hey…what the hell?” He saw something that just looked wrong. He’d gutted a helluva lot of alligators in his lifetime and never had he seen one of ’em’s stomach look so oddly shaped. “What the fuck you been feedin’ on, big fella?”

“Don’t you dare open up his guts here!” Mindy Jo screeched.

Too late. Boomer’s curiosity had already gotten the better of him. He slit the stomach wide and the inside, smelling of stomach acid and dead fish, opened up.

Boomer jumped back. “Holy shit!” He nearly threw up at the sight.

“What?” Mindy Jo asked.

“I think we’re in trouble,” he said, wondering how the hell he was going to explain the obviously poached alligator and already trying on several lies to save his own skin. But Boomer did have a conscience. “Big trouble.” How could he explain this? “Call the sheriff.”

“The sheriff?” Mindy Jo’s slippers clipped down the two steps and along the brick path toward him.

“Do as I say. This gator ain’t been snackin’ on Fig Newtons, that’s fer sure.”

The clicking stopped and her shadow passed over him and onto the open belly of the dead reptile. “Lord, Jesus!” she whispered, her eyes bugging at the smelly contents of the gator’s gut. Amongst the crayfish, frogs, turtles, and fish lay an arm, a very human female arm and hand, painted fingernails and all.

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

Kristi cut through the water of the pool cleanly, breathing easily, feeling her muscles begin to strain. She’d been at it over half an hour, was going for forty minutes.

The smell of chlorine was everywhere and there was mist on the windows of the college’s pool house, but aside from an older guy several lanes over, she had the water to herself.

She hadn’t swum in over a month and it felt great. Energizing. Cleared her mind.

Stroke.

She thought of Jay and had to admit she liked seeing him again. But just as a friend…

Stroke.

She hadn’t found anything in Tara Atwater’s personal items, but she’d look again. There
had
to be some evidence about her disappearance in the same damned apartment in which she’d lived.

Stroke.

Ariel and Kristi’s father were still very much alive. So her black and white vision thing might just be a physical thing, not some kind of special ESP or visions of the future.

Stroke.

There were no such things as vampires. And she was going to talk to Professor Grotto and see what he had to say for himself. Then, perhaps, the police.

Stroke.

Maybe she should call Jay…. No way. She needed his help, yes, but that was it. She was
not
trying to start something up with him again.

Stroke.

Liar! There’s something about him that gets you.

Damn!

She couldn’t think about Jay McKnight as a man. That part of their relationship was long over. Still…she found the way he pushed his hair from his eyes endearing, the boyish hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth fascinating, and the way his eyes darkened with humor or interest compelling. Dear God, she was a mess when it came to that man.