Читать книгу Lost Souls - Lisa Jackson - Страница 12

BANG!

A sharp gun report blasted through the thick dark night, the smell of cordite overriding the earthy odor of the wet grass, the horrible crack reverberating through Kristi’s skull.

In horror, she watched as Rick Bentz went down, falling, falling, falling…near the thick stone wall surrounding All Saints College.

Blood flowed. His blood. All over the street. Staining the concrete. Spraying the grass. Running in the gutters. Draining from him.

“Dad!” she screamed, her voice mute, her legs leaden, as she tried to run to him. “Dad, oh, God, oh, God….”

Lightning sizzled through the sky, striking a tree. A horrid rending noise keened through the night as the wood splintered and a heavy branch fell with a thud. The ground shook and she nearly fell.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

More shots! People were yelling, screaming through the hail of bullets. Someone was howling miserably as if he or she, too, had been hit.

But her father lay still, his color fading to black and white.

“Dad!” she screamed again.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Kristi sat bolt upright in her chair.

Oh, God, she’d been dreaming, the nightmare vivid and terrorizing. Her heart was thundering, fear and adrenaline screaming through her blood, sweat breaking out on her skin.

She jumped, then looked at the clock and realized she was hearing the sound of firecrackers. People were ringing in the new year. Muted laughter and shrieking reached her ears. Church bells on campus peeled and over the din she heard the sound of horrible yowling, the noise she’d attributed to someone injured in the attack.

“Dear God,” she whispered, her heart still thundering.

Still a little groggy, she pushed herself up from the chair. She’d been reading about a serial killer and the imagined images still danced inside her head as she shoved her hair from her eyes and then walked to the door of her studio. Only her desk light was on, and aside from the pool of light cast from the small lamp, the room was in shadows. Peeking through the peephole in the door, she saw nothing. Just the empty stair landing where the dim bulb in the ceiling offered a hazy blue glow. Still the crying continued. Leaving the chain locked, she slid the dead bolt out of place and opened the door a crack.

Instantly a skinny black cat shot inside.

“Whoa…!” Kristi watched as the half-starved creature scurried under the daybed, the bedskirt undulating in the cat’s wake. “Oh, come on, kitty…kitty…no…” Kristi followed the scrawny animal, then got down on her knees and peered under the skirt. Two yellow eyes, round with fear, stared back at her. Somehow the damned thing had wedged itself between the top mattress and the lower trundle in a space barely wide enough for Kristi’s hand. “Come on, kitty, you really can’t be here.” She tried to reach into the tight space but the cat hissed and flattened itself deeper in the crevice, its body pressed against the wall. “I mean it, come out.” Again, she was shown a curling pink tongue and needle-sharp fangs. “Great. Okay.”

Kristi pulled on the lower bunk and the cat dropped into the space between the mattress and wall. When she pushed the trundle back, she thought the cat would squirt out one end, but apparently the little thing found a hiding spot. No amount of moving the bed could dislodge the animal and Kristi wasn’t about to drag out the bed and slide into the tight space with a terrorized feline and its sharp claws.

“Please, cat…” Kristi sighed. She didn’t need this. Not tonight. Besides, there was some damned rule in clause five hundred and seventy-six or something about not having any pets on the premises. She was certain Hiram could recite it chapter and verse. “Come on…” she said, trying to sweet-talk the frightened feline.

No such luck.

“Kitty” wasn’t budging.

“Okay…how about this?” She scrounged in her cupboard, found a can of tuna, and opened it. Glancing over her shoulder, she expected to see a little nose or curious eyes or at least a black paw peeking from beneath the daybed.

She was wrong.

She put a couple of forkfuls of tuna into a small dish and half filled another with water, then set them close enough to the bed to entice the cat, but far enough away that Kristi thought she could grab it by the back of its neck and haul it outside. But she’d have to be patient.

Not her long suit.

She set the dishes on the floor and backed up. Then waited, watching the digital clock on the microwave as the minutes dragged by as if they were hours and more revelry sounded outside: people yelling, horns honking, fireworks exploding, footsteps on the porches below. Laughter. Conversation.

Inside, the cat stayed put. Probably petrified with all the noise.

Perfect, Kristi thought, fighting a headache. She was bone tired. The minutes dragged by and she finally gave up. She couldn’t wait all night.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Already in her PJs, she closed the door, locked it, double-checked the latches on the windows, and crawled into the daybed. It creaked beneath her weight and she thought for certain she’d hear the cat slink from beneath the mattress, but not a chance. There were noises outside. Music and laughter filtering up through the floor. Mai Kwan’s group back from the Watering Hole, no doubt, but her new houseguest didn’t so much as stick his nose out from under the bed.

It appeared that the black cat she’d already decided to call Houdini had settled in for the night.

“It’s midnight. Come on, celebrate!” Olivia insisted, and offered Bentz a glass of nonalcoholic champagne. “It’s going to be a better year.”

“Doesn’t it have to be?” He pushed away from the desk in their cottage in Cambrai. Ever since the roads had been repaired from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he and Olivia, along with her scruffy dog and noisy bird, had lived out here. Kristi, too, off and on, had stayed in the spare bedroom upstairs in this cottage Olivia had inherited from her grandmother. Kristi, though, had always been restless in this little cabin on the bayou. Moreover, she’d never really felt comfortable with him and his new wife. For years it had been just the two of them, and though she gave lip service to “liking” Olivia and “loving” the idea that he wasn’t alone any longer, that he’d finally gotten over Kristi’s mother, that he was living his own life, there was a part of her that still hadn’t accepted it all. None of this had escaped his ultraperceptive wife, though Livvie held her tongue on the matter. Smart woman. And goddamned beautiful.

Since living out here they both had to commute to the city, but it was worth it, he decided, once he’d gotten used to living next door to gators and egrets and possum. The distance from the city gave both he and Olivia some peace of mind, a little time away from the chaos that had been New Orleans.

Olivia still owned her shop, the Third Eye, just off Jackson Square, where she sold trinkets, artifacts, and new age stuff to tourists. The store had been spared any serious damage, but the square itself had changed and the tourist business had been slow to return. The tarot readers and human statues, even many of the musicians, had left in the storm’s aftermath, as their homes had been destroyed and even now, things were slow.

“Don’t be such a pessimist, Bentz,” she teased, and he grudgingly took the drink and touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Happy New Year.” Her eyes, the color of aged whiskey, gleamed and wild blond curls surrounded her face. She’d aged some in the years since they’d married, but the lines near the corners of her eyes didn’t detract from her beauty; in fact, she insisted they gave her character. But there was a sadness to her, too. They’d never been able to conceive and now Bentz wasn’t really interested. Kristi was in her late twenties and starting over again seemed unnecessary, maybe even foolhardy. Jesus, he’d be in his sixties when the kid finished high school. That didn’t seem right.

Except Olivia wanted a child.

And she would make a damned fine mother.

“I’m not a pessimist,” he corrected as Hairy S. trotted into the room and hopped onto Bentz’s La-Z-Boy to peer at them through the bush of his eyebrows. “I’m a realist.”

“And a glass-is-half-empty-kind-of-guy.”

He took a swallow of his tasteless fizzy fruit juice and held it to the light. “Well, I’m right. It is half empty.”

“And you’re worried sick about Kristi.”

“I didn’t think it showed.”

“You’ve been a wreck ever since she left.” Olivia sat across his lap, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and touched her forehead to his. “She’s going to be all right. She’s a big girl.”

“Who was almost killed…had to have her heart started twice. Almost legally dead.”

“Almost,” Olivia stressed. “She survived. She’s tough.”

He rotated the kinks from his neck and drank in the scent of her as Hairy whined from the nearby recliner as if he wanted to join them in the oversized chair. “I just worry she’s not tough enough.”

“You’re her dad. She’s tough enough.” She took a long swallow from her glass, then twirled the stem. “Wanna fool around?”

“Now?”

“Yeah. You play the big, tough detective and I’ll be—”

“The weirdo who can read a killer’s mind?”

“I was going to say a weak little woman.”

He was taking another drink and nearly choked. “That’ll be the day.” But he kissed her and felt the warmth of her lips mold over his intimately. Familiarly. Old lovers who still had heat.

His cell phone vibrated loudly, quivering across the desk.

“Damn,” Olivia whispered.

He picked up the phone and glanced at the LCD. “Montoya,” he said. “No rest for the wicked.”

“I’ll hold you to that when you get home,” she said as he grinned and placed the cell to his ear. “Bentz.”

“Happy New Year,” Montoya said.

“Back atcha.” It sounded as if Montoya was already driving, speeding through the city streets.

“We’ve got a DB down by the waterfront. Looks like a party gone bad. Not far from the casino. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“I’m on my way,” Bentz said, and felt a jab of regret when he saw the disappointment in Olivia’s eyes. He hung up and started to explain but she placed a finger over his lips.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said. “Wake me.”

“You got it.”

He found his jacket, keys, wallet, and badge, then, making sure Hairy S. stayed inside, walked outside to his truck, an ancient Jeep that he kept threatening to trade in. So far he hadn’t had the heart, nor the time. Climbing behind the wheel, he heard the familiar creak of the worn leather seats as he jammed the SUV into reverse, backing around Olivia’s sedan. Ramming the Jeep into first, he managed to find a pack of gum and unwrap a piece of Juicy Fruit as he nosed his rig down the long lane and across a small bridge. Popping the stick of gum into his mouth, he slowed as he turned onto the two-lane road toward the city, then hit the gas. Olivia was right, he supposed, he had been out of sorts. Worried. He had his reasons and they all centered around his kid. The boles of cypress, palmetto, and live oak trees caught in the splash of his headlights while he thought about Kristi.

Headstrong and beautiful as Jennifer, her mother, Kristi had been described as “a handful,” “stubborn,” “independent to a fault,” and a “firecracker” by her teachers both in LA where he and Jennifer had lived, and here in New Orleans. She’d certainly given him more than his share of gray hairs, but he figured that was all part of the parenting process and it would end once she’d grown up and settled down with her own family. Only, so far, that hadn’t happened.

He took a corner a little too fast and his tires skidded just a bit. A raccoon, startled by the car, waddled quickly into the undergrowth flanking the highway.

Kristi seemed as far from getting married as ever and if she was dating anyone, she studiously kept that info to herself. In high school she’d gone with Jay McKnight, even received a “promise ring” from him, whatever the hell that meant—some kind of preengagement token.

Bentz snorted, listening as the police band crackled, the dispatcher sending units to differing areas of the city. Kristi had claimed she’d “outgrown” Jay and broken up with him when she’d attended All Saints the first time around. She’d found an older guy at the school, a TA by the name of Brian Thomas who’d been a zero, a real loser, in Bentz’s admittedly jaded opinion. Well, that had ended badly, too.

Gunning the engine, he accelerated onto the freeway and melded with the sparse traffic, most vehicles driving ten miles over the speed limit toward Crescent City.

Now, Jay McKnight had finished college and a master’s program. He was working for the New Orleans Police Department in the crime lab and Bentz would defy his daughter to think of Jay as “boring” or “homegrown” any longer. A little turn of the screw was that Jay was going to teach a night class up at All Saints. Maybe Kristi would run into him.

And maybe he could be convinced to check in on Bentz’s daughter….

He inwardly groaned. He didn’t like going behind Kristi’s back, but wasn’t above it, not if it meant her safety. He’d nearly lost her twice already in her twenty-seven years; he couldn’t face it again. Until the Baton Rouge Police figured out what was happening with the missing coeds, Bentz was going to be proactive.

Easing off the freeway, he headed for the waterfront. In the moonlight, the decimated parts of town looked eerie and foreboding, abandoned cars, destroyed houses, streets that were still impassable…. This part of New Orleans was hardest hit when the levees gave way and Bentz wondered if it could ever be rebuilt. Even Montoya and his new wife, Abby, had had to abandon their project of renovating their home in the city, two shotgun row houses that they had been converting into one larger home. The house, which had survived over two hundred years, had been in its final phase of reconstruction when the wind and floodwaters of Katrina swept through, destroying the once venerable property. Montoya, pissed as hell, was commuting from Abby’s cottage outside the city.

They were all tired. Needed a break.

He sped to the crime scene, where two units were already in position, lights flashing around a roped off area where officers were keeping the onlookers at bay. Montoya’s Mustang was parked half on the sidewalk, and he, dressed in his favorite leather jacket, was already talking to the officer who’d been first on the scene.

The body was lying face up on the sidewalk. Bentz’s gut clenched and the taste of bile climbed up his throat. The woman was Caucasian, in her early forties. Two gunshot wounds stained a short red dress. There were signs of a struggle, a couple broken fingernails on her right hand and several scratches across her face. Bentz stared at her long and hard. She wasn’t one of the missing women who had disappeared from All Saints College. He’d memorized the faces of Dionne Harmon, Tara Atwater, Monique DesCartes, and now Rylee Ames. Their images haunted his nights. This unidentified woman was none of them.

He felt a second’s relief and then a jab of guilt. This victim belonged to someone, and whoever it was—mother, father, brother, sister, or boyfriend—would be devastated and grief-stricken.

“…so I’m thinkin’ it was probably a robbery gone bad. No wallet or ID on her,” the officer was saying.

Jane Doe.

“She was found by those guys over there—” He hitched his chin to a sober group of four, two men and two women, who’d been separated from the lookie-loos wandering by. “They’re just partiers on their way home from the Hootin’ Owl, a bar on Decatur,” the officer said.

Bentz nodded. He knew the place.

The officer continued, “They claim they didn’t hear or see anything, just nearly stumbled over her body. But then, they’re pretty wasted.”

Bentz glanced at the two couples, dressed in glittery clothes and looking suddenly sober as judges.

“I’ll talk to them,” Montoya said, easing toward the couples, both African American. The girls rubbed their arms as if chilled to the bone, their eyes wide with fear. Their dates were both tight-lipped and tough-looking. The slimmest girl stared at the body, the other looked away, and the tallest of the group lit a cigarette that he shared with his date, the thin one.

Bentz’s cell phone rang as the crime lab van arrived with Bonita Washington at the wheel. She double-parked behind a cruiser. Inez Santiago, hauling a tool kit, climbed out of one side, while Washington cut the engine of the big rig.

Bentz glanced down at the digital readout on his phone. Police dispatch. No doubt another homicide.

Crap.

“Bentz,” he answered, watching as Bonita, in all her self-important fury, ushered the uniforms and gawkers away from what she considered “her” crime scene. She was an intense black woman with a don’t-mess-with-me attitude and an IQ rumored to be in the stratosphere. She loved her job, was good at it, and didn’t take flack from anyone. Santiago was already taking pictures of the dead girl. Again Bentz’s stomach twisted.

Over the phone, the dispatcher gave him the location and a quick rundown of what looked like a hit-and-run closer to the business district.

“I’ll be there ASAP, as soon as I’m done here,” he said, hanging up.

“Move away,” Washington yelled at one of the uniforms near the yellow tape, waving him off with one hand. “Who the hell has been tromping all over here? Damn it all—Bentz, get these people back, will ya? And you,” she said to the uniformed cop, “don’t let anyone, and I mean not even Jesus Christ himself, across that line, you got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Just as long as we understand each other.” She flashed him a smile with zero warmth and got down to the business of collecting samples, gunshot residue, footprints, and fingerprints as the medical examiner’s van pulled up.

“Don’t tell me,” Montoya said as his phone began to play a salsa melody. “Damn.” He checked his watch. “Fifty-three friggin’ minutes into the new year and already two DBs.”

“There’ll be more,” Bentz predicted as he glanced once more at the victim. Two hours ago, this woman had been ready to celebrate the new year.

Now she’d never see another day.

His cell phone rang again.

His jaw clenched.

It promised to be a helluva night.

Midnight.

The witching hour.

A time when the last day was done and the next starting, and, in this case, a new year. He smiled to himself as he walked through the rain-washed city streets, hearing the sounds of firecrackers and, he supposed, champagne corks, all sounding like the rapid-fire reports of guns.

Not that he was into that type of weaponry.

Too impersonal.

Being so far from a victim, hundreds of yards in some cases, took away the thrill, the feeling of intimacy that came when the lifeblood drained from the body, the light in the victim’s eyes died slowly, and the frantic, fearful beating of her pulse at her neck slowed to nothing. That was personal. That was perfect.

Dressed in black, blending into the shadows, he crossed the campus, smelled the sweet odor of burning marijuana, and watched a couple clumsily fumbling at each other’s clothes as they kissed and made their way toward a dorm, and presumably a small twin bed where they’d go at it all night.

He felt a twinge of jealousy.

The pleasures of the flesh…

But he had to wait.

He knew it.

Despite his restlessness.

His need.

Deep inside he craved release and knew it would only come through the slow taking of a life…and not just any life. No. Those who were sacrificed were chosen.

The ache in him throbbed, refused to be denied, and his nerves were strung tight. Electrified. Anxious.

He smelled their lust. Their own special yearning. The blood singing through their veins.

He clenched his fists and cleared his mind of lust, of desire, of the heat that pounded through his skull.

Not now.

Not this night.

Not them.

Giving the entwined, stumbling couple one last angry glance, he clamped down hard on the most basic of urges to follow.

To hunt.

To kill.

They are not worthy, he reminded himself. And there is a plan. You must not stray from your mission.

On noiseless footsteps he made his way swiftly through the campus gates and along several streets, zigzagging through alleys to the old building that had long been condemned, a once-grand hotel that was locked and boarded, where the only inhabitants were spiders, rats, and other vermin. He made his way to the back of the building, where once there had been a service entrance for deliveries. He hurried down the crumbling stairs and, using his key, unlocked a back door. Inside, he ignored the dripping, rusted pipes, broken glass, and rotting boards that had been part of a previous attempt at renovation. Instead he walked along the familiar hallway to another locked door and spiral steps leading downward. At the base of the steps, he unlocked the final door and stepped inside to an area that smelled of chlorine. Locking the door behind him, he waited a few seconds, headed down a short dark hallway to a large open area, then flipped a switch, where dim bulbs illuminated an Olympic-sized swimming pool, its aquamarine tiles shimmering silently in the ghostly light.

Stripping noiselessly, he cast his clothes into a corner and, once completely naked, walked to the pool’s edge and dove deep into the bracing, unheated water. The shock puckered his skin, but he stretched his body and began knifing through the water, breathing naturally, turning at the far end, athletically, then swimming the length again. His body, honed by hours of exercise, sliced through the water as easily as a hunting knife through flesh. He stroked faster and faster, increasing his speed, feeling his heart pump and his lungs begin to strain. Five lengths. Ten. Twenty.

He only drew himself out of the water when he felt the first wave of exhaustion pulling at him, calming him, forcing the bloodlust from his heart. There was time enough for that later. Cool air slid over his wet skin. His nipples tightened. His cock shriveled. But he embraced the cold as he made his way through a dark hallway, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light as he turned two corners and walked into another chamber where his trophies were hidden.

There was a bare writing desk in the room, a squatty black table, and a few thick pillows upon the tired concrete floor. A computer screen from a notebook added a faint blue glow and he considered logging on. He communicated with them over the Internet; on pirated wireless connections throughout the city they knew him by several screen names, but he called himself Vlad. Not particularly clever but fitting for his purposes, he decided. What was the quote from Shakespeare? “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.” Well, Vlad smelled sweet and tasted even better, he thought. So, for the purposes of this, his mission, he would be known as Vlad the Impaler. And was he not? Did he not impale each of the ones he chose?

Oh, irony.

Lighting a candle, Vlad sat cross-legged at the stubby Japanese table, opened a drawer within it and drew out the pictures, snapshots taken for student ID cards. He set the first four onto the glossy surface of the table.

Sisters, he thought, though not genetically related.

He touched each photo with the tip of his index finger, in the order in which he’d taken them.

Dionne, sweet and supple, her rich dark skin soft as silk. Oh, she’d been ripe and so hot…so damned hot and wet…Crying out her unwillingness, but her body responding to him as he made her ready, made that perfect body want him. His throat tightened at the memory of taking her, from behind, his hands kneading her abdomen, making her come just before he did.

He swallowed hard.

And Tara, the thin one with her gorgeous breasts. Full and white, with pale rose-colored nipples the size of half-dollars. He felt his prick twitch at the thought of those glorious tits. He remembered suckling them, teasing them, biting them, scraping them with his teeth as she cried out in heated torment…again his blood began to sing. He touched Tara’s photo, then looked to the next girl.

Monique. Tall and lean, an athlete’s body. Muscles that had strained against him as he’d sculpted her with his palms, fingers exploring all her intimate, sweet crevices. He licked his lips as his cock stood at attention.

He glanced to the next photo. Rylee. Small. Frightened. But oh, so delicious. Her pale yellow hair had caught his attention and when she was stripped bare, her white skin had been luminous, her veins visible beneath the surface, her beating heart apparent in the fluttering, frightened pulse throbbing so perfectly within the circle of bones at her throat.

Oh, God, how succulent she’d been…the taste of her…He turned the photo over where the smear of her blood was still visible on the back of the snapshot. Smiling in pure self-indulgent wickedness, he lifted the picture to his mouth and gently flicked the tip of his long tongue over the dark crimson stain. The taste of her filled his mouth and he sucked in his breath with the euphoria of it.

His cock was rock hard now. Ready.

To impale.

Licking his lips, he laid the picture onto the table with the rest of his chosen ones, then searched the others…hundreds of them tucked into his hiding place.

He’d already pulled those he thought the most likely candidates, the girls who appealed to him. Though he was missing a few. The new ones. The coeds who had signed up for this, the second term, as new students. He didn’t have their pictures yet.

But he would.

And soon.

Then they would join those he’d already identified, those who would soon join their sisters.

He smiled, running his tongue over his teeth, savoring the taste of poor, scared-out-of-her-mind Rylee Ames.

In the next batch, though he had yet to procure her photograph, Vlad thought of another, the cop’s kid who had rented Tara’s apartment. As if she were fated to do so, he thought, conjuring up her image in his mind.

He’d seen her. Watched her. Mentally claimed her. She was a gorgeous woman with just the right amount of spirit and the perfect body for his needs, for his sacrifice. When her time came. She was not slated to be the next, but her time would come soon enough. He could wait. He had no choice. All that was to be, had already been decided.

His blood flowed hot at the thought of taking her and he looked down at the pictures on the table before him.

Though she didn’t yet know it, Kristi Bentz would soon join her sisters….