Cold Blooded

  He wrapped chilled fingers around her palm. “Come back anytime you have questions, Olivia. And… you might want to attend mass once in a while. Talking with me is fine, but maybe you need to speak to the Father directly.”

  “I can do that from home, can’t I?”

  “Of course, but God’s house is a welcome home.” He smiled and she felt better. “Here.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. From inside he pulled out a business card. “You’re welcome to come, to call me anytime and the door to St. Luke’s is always open.” He pressed the card into her outstretched hand. “I’ll look for you.”

  Don’t hold your breath, she thought, turning the card over.

  “Don’t tell me … you didn’t know priests carried business cards. Or use e-mail, right? Well, not all do. I find it just makes things easier. And making business cards with a computer is a snap.”

  She laughed, feeling more at ease, then tucked the card into her purse. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. There’s a higher power at work here.” Father James held the door for her and watched her cross the parking lot to a red truck. She was an interesting woman. Troubled. Beautiful. And she’d lied to him. Well, if not lied at least hedged: he saw it in her eyes. He wondered why, but he tried not to judge. Never. For there was no man who should judge another.

  He’d learned long ago that judgment should be left to God.

  Didn’t he know himself what it was to sin?

  What it was to feel the pull of evil?

  How hard it was not to transgress?

  He’d have to be careful, he thought, remembering how easily sin had come knocking on his door, and how quickly, eagerly, he’d opened it. He’d promised God as well as himself that he’d never unlock it again. He hoped he hadn’t lied.

  The Internet was a bust. Olivia clicked off her laptop and rubbed the kinks from the back of her neck. Seated on her grandmother’s old couch in the living room, she picked up her now-cold cup of tea, and frowned. Well, what had she expected? That all the priests in the state of Louisiana would have their pictures and personal bios on a website? WWW.WeAreSouthernPriests.com? And even if she had found photos and personal tidbits on the web, what would that prove? She couldn’t pick the guy out of the crowd anyway. And maybe he wasn’t even a priest. Maybe he’d just donned an alb that he usually saved for Mardi Gras. One that he let burn in the fire.

  That made more sense.

  “Give it up,” she told herself, and carried her cup into the kitchen to deposit it in the sink. It was late afternoon, the sun sinking fast, darkness shading the bayou. The rain had let up, but the clouds still rolled across the sky, making the day dreary and glum. Hairy S was curled on a rag rug near the back door. He looked up and thumped his tail on the floor before yawning broadly and resting his chin on his paws again. Chia whistled softly, then tossed water from her dish over her head.

  Olivia glanced at the caned-back chair where Rick Bentz had sat only hours before. The big man with the world-weary expression until he smiled, and then, look out. He transformed into a handsome, if determined male with intelligent eyes and a cutting sense of humor. She liked that. He could take it as well as dish it out. An interesting man, but off-limits. He was a cop; his interest in her was purely professional and he thought she was a crackpot. She could read it in his eyes.

  Then there was Father James McClaren. Hollywood handsome with intense blue eyes and just enough gray at his temples to make him interesting. Talk about off-limits! He was a priest, devoted to God and a life of celibacy. What a waste, she thought, remembering him climbing the ladder and the way her gaze had strayed to his buttocks and thighs …

  “You’ve been alone too long, Benchet,” she groused at herself, disbelieving. Lately her libido seemed to be making up for lost time. She, who after the last broken engagement had sworn off men for good. And now she was thinking ludicrous, sexy thoughts about two men she could never even date, much less have a future with. “Bentz is right, you’re a maniac,” she muttered.

  Hairy S jumped to his feet and growled.

  “What?”

  He began barking crazily and scrambled to the front door, making enough racket to raise the dead in the surrounding three parishes.

  “Cut it out!” Olivia ordered and followed him to the front door, half expecting to hear the peal of chimes. She smiled inwardly. It had to be Bentz. Back with some clue or question.

  But as she looked out the window, she saw no one. Hairy was still barking, jumping up to the window, acting as if there was someone on the other side of the door.

  The hairs on the back of Olivia’s arms rose. She moved, angling herself so she could look down the length of the front porch through the window. But she saw nothing. Not even a shadow. She thought about her grandmother’s shotgun tucked into the closet under the stairs. “Just in case,” Grannie had said. “You just never know about people anymore. I’m ashamed to say it, but I don’t trust ‘em like I used to.”

  Me neither, Olivia thought now. Remembering Bentz’s warning, she went to the closet, pulled out the gun, and finding a box of shells on the shelf over the coats, loaded the darned thing, throwing the bolt. Then, telling herself that she would call the security people first thing Monday morning, she walked to the front door and cracked it open. Outside there wasn’t a sound. Not a sigh of wind, not a croak of a bullfrog, not the hum of insects. The world was still. As if everything had come to a halt. She stepped onto the porch and Hairy S, sticking closer to her, began to growl, low and deep, as if he were afraid.

  “It’s all right,” she said to the dog, but even to her own ears the words sounded false. Hopeful. Founded on nothing.

  He whimpered.

  “Come here.” Picking up the dog from the worn porch boards with her free hand, Olivia stared into the twilight. Shadows seemed to shift or was it a trick of the fading light? The air was cool and still, the clouds overhead barely visible but motionless. She curled her fingers into the scruff of fur at Hairy S’s neck and he whined, shivering. “Let’s go inside,” she whispered and backed into the house, locking the door firmly behind her, wondering if she’d ever have the nerve to actually fire the gun.

  She wasn’t one to be scared. Living alone wasn’t usually a problem, but tonight she wished she had someone with her. Someone big, strong, and unafraid. Rick Bentz’s face flashed through her mind. He was big. Strong. Determined. And he wore a sidearm. Then there was James McClaren. He had God on his side. Definitely better than a weapon.

  “Fool,” she muttered, shaking her head at the turn of her thoughts. Was she so desperate for a man, she wondered as she tucked the shotgun into the closet. Never. She wasn’t going to buy into that relying-on-the-stronger-sex theory. She had only to look at the men in her own life—her father, the con, or her fiancé, the cheat. There had been other boyfriends, all short-lived, all of whom had some major flaw that she hadn’t been able to see herself living with or compromising over. Not that all of the men she had dated had declared their undying love for her—well, other than Ted. But she just plain wasn’t interested.

  But now?

  What’s with thinking about the cop and the priest? You, Olivia, need some serious counseling. Serious. She glanced at herself in the mirror mounted over the bookcase near the front door. She felt it again.

  That stark coldness. Like black ice, deceptively benign, it lured, created a false sense of security. She saw beyond her own reflection and into the darkness … heard the sounds of the night, felt a pulse … an ache … a blood lust that ran through her veins …

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, shivering as she recognized the scent of the hunt, the black adrenalin rush at the thought of the kill. Her heart pumped wildly. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

  “No … no …” Her knees went weak and she leaned against the table, felt the worn edges of her grandmother’s Bible with the tips of her fingers. But her eyes stared deep into the glass and saw only the Stygian night.

  T
hrough the monster’s eyes.

  He was hunting again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Bastard,” Kristi hissed, looking at the clock in her dorm room. Seven thirty-five and no sign of Brian. She’d dressed in black hip-hugging jeans and a red sweater that showed off just a hint of her abdomen if she reached her hand over her head, and had spent nearly an hour with her makeup and hair, which was about fifty minutes more than she usually allowed. And he was standing her up.

  Glowering at the telephone, she willed it to ring. “Come on, come on.”

  Lucretia walked into the room carrying a Coke and a white sack from the local fast-food Mexican spot, located just a block off-campus. Black corkscrew curls bounced around her face. “You’re still here?” she asked, sloughing off a jacket that was already dripping onto the carpet. “I thought you had a hot date.”

  “So did I.”

  “No show?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Maybe you should call him and see what’s up. Does he have a cell phone?” She opened the bag, peered in, and withdrew some kind of taco wrapped in brightly colored paper.

  “I don’t know. I don’t have his number,” Kristi said, frowning. She’d checked caller ID, but Brian’s last call had come in as an anonymous call, which made the service that her paranoid cop of a dad insist she have absolutely worthless.

  “Maybe he got sick,” Lucretia suggested as she unwrapped a soft taco and took a bite.

  And maybe he just set you up. He probably could tell that you had a crush on him and he was just playing with you—a silly little freshman interested in a thirty-year-old grad student on his way to his doctorate. Face it, Kristi, he’s not going to show. “Then he could have called.”

  “Well, it’s not that late. Maybe he just got detained. Traffic or … I don’t know …” Lucretia drank from her Coke and sat on her desk chair.

  “He still could have phoned,” Kristi said, burned.

  “Well, then he’s a jerk. And you should probably stick with Jay anyway. At least he loves you.”

  That much Kristi knew. “Jay’s good, but he’s kinda boring.”

  “But he’s true-blue.”

  Which you’re not, Lucretia didn’t add, but Kristi read it in her eyes. Lucretia had dated only one boy in her life and she stuck to him like glue. They went to different colleges, rarely saw each other, spent hundreds of dollars on phone cards, but stuck it out. Lucretia spent every weekend that she wasn’t with her boyfriend in this cracker box of a room, studying night and day.

  Which, in Kristi’s opinion was zero fun. Probably less than zero.

  “Oh, by the way. Someone else called.” She searched her desk and found a tiny scrap of paper. “A guy named Willie Davis.”

  Kristi groaned. “He’s the kid I told you about. The guy who always sits behind me in Psych and I can feel him staring at me.” She took the piece of paper from Lucretia’s hand and wadded it in her fist. “He’s harmless, but I’m not interested. He’s a nerd, but he likes me. The only thing good about him is that Dr. Sutter seems to have a thing against him. He’s always calling on Willie in class and that takes the pressure off me.” She tossed Willie’s name and number into the trash. “If he calls again, tell him that I’m out, or that I dropped out or to drop dead or any of the above.”

  “I’m sick of lying for you.” Lucretia shook her head. “You deal with him.”

  “I will,” Kristi snapped, irritated with Lucretia and especially with Brian. The jerk. Why the hell didn’t he show up? Irritated, she grabbed her jacket. “I’m going out.”

  “Without Brian?” Lucretia’s eyes rounded as she took another bite from her taco.

  “Yeah, without him.”

  “But you shouldn’t go out alone, Kristi. The sorority’s rules are—”

  “Meant to be broken. I’m leaving. Alone.”

  “But … But what should I tell him if he calls?”

  To go screw himself. “That I’m out,” she said as she took off, pushing her arms down the sleeves of her jacket and hurrying down the hall to the stairwell. She heard a phone ringing as she reached the door to the stairs, but she wasn’t about to turn around and run down the hall and see if it was for her. If he called, fine. He could live with the fact that she wasn’t about to sit around for any boy.

  Not even if he was the sexiest guy on campus.

  He watched from the shadows. Saw her shoot out of the glass doors of Cramer Hall and across the street toward the quad. She was perfect, with her long, athletic legs and tight, swimmer’s body. Her hair streamed behind her as she jogged, glinting with just a hint of red in the blue haze of the security lamps. And she was alone. Just as he’d hoped.

  Kristi Bentz was soon to become St. Lucy.

  If he could wait that long.

  A fine mist shrouded the grounds, rising up from the grass and bushes, creating a dense, shifting curtain, and clouds blocked any moonlight.

  He wanted her. Tonight. December thirteenth seemed much too far away.

  Silently following the same path she’d taken, keeping a safe distance behind her hurried steps, he thought of ways to take her … to keep her until the perfect time … to prolong the thrill. He could stalk her, capture her, and hold her for just the right moment. The day of her salvation was preordained. December thirteenth, still over three weeks away. Could he wait that long? Would the sacrifice of another satisfy him, for there was one before her. But this one … she was the one he wanted. The fact that she was Bentz’s daughter, the princess, only added to the intensity of his need.

  He slid through the shadows.

  She would be a match for him. Unlike the others, the cop’s daughter had spirit and fire. He imagined what he would do to her. Surely God would forgive him one transgression, surely he would be absolved for touching her … feeling her soft, supple flesh and hard muscles … He’d watched her in the pool, cutting through the water, turning, and later, in those perfect moments when she’d climbed out of the water and snapped the bottom of her swimming suit over her tight buttocks, he’d glimpsed the curve of her rump, eyed the length of her leg, observed her shaking the water from her hair.

  His cock stiffened, rising and wanting. Was she a virgin? Or was she tainted? Another whore? Would he be the first, were he to break his vows and mount her?

  The thought of shackling her, of keeping her, of touching her and teasing her, made him groan. This is not part of the plan. She’s not the one. Not yet. But he couldn’t resist. She was a siren, a Jezebel, and he was weak … so weak.

  She dashed along an alley separating the fraternity and sorority houses, then crossed a street and didn’t stop for another block. He kept after her and watched as she rounded a corner to follow the seduction of neon lights sizzling in the window of a popular spot where college kids tended bar and rarely checked the patrons’ IDs.

  One sign was the name of a popular beer written in pulsing blue script; the other was a pink martini glass complete with olive, tipped invitingly. Beckoning.

  She walked brazenly into the bar though she was underage and her father was a cop. Yes, she was bold.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk, “ he whispered, his pulse pounding, his erection stiff. “Naughty, naughty.”

  She never so much as looked over her shoulder.

  He followed her in.

  Bentz ignored the open pizza box. He’d eaten three slices while watching ESPN and downing a beer—or what he now referred to as a beer. But his mind was still on Olivia Benchet and the case surrounding the Jane Doe in the fire.

  He’d contacted the Lafayette Police. They were supposed to be questioning Reggie Benchet. When they rounded him up, they’d call. So far nothing.

  Bentz had given up trying to figure out the meaning of the symbols that Olivia Benchet had scribbled on the paper, and he’d faxed them to a cryptographer who worked for the department. He’d taken a copy of the list of her friends and family and given it to a civilian staffer, but he was going through it himself anyway, acqua
inting himself with the people with whom she was close.

  Resting a heel on his coffee table, he glanced at the screen, then back to the papers spread on the couch beside him. He knew psychics who had worked with the LAPD. But they worked from being at the scene, or working with items of clothing or the habitats of suspects. Never had he dealt with someone who’d actually seen through the eyes of the killer. Or through a mirror or reflective surface, a macabre takeoff on the magic mirror in Snow White. Damned weird.

  It didn’t make sense. Yet he believed her. There just wasn’t any logical explanation. His television was on low as he was catching the latest basketball scores, but he concentrated on the list. Her family was odd and he was double-checking the whereabouts of her father. An ex-con on parole after serving time for murder was a pretty big red flag. Then there was the ex-boyfriend, Ted Brown, now divorced, working for the railroad and living across the river in Gretna. He’d had a few brushes with the law. Officers had been called out to his apartment three times for domestic squabbles. Twice with his wife and once with a girlfriend. Supposedly he’d been brandishing a knife, but the charges had been dropped each time.

  “Nice guy,” Bentz observed, wondering how Olivia could have come close to marrying the jerk. Ted Brown warranted being checked out. Spurned ex-lovers tended to be hostile and nasty.

  Bentz wondered if Olivia still talked to Brown. Saw him? Was close to him? Was it enough of a connection if he was the killer? That was what bothered Bentz: the damned connection. What was it that linked Olivia Benchet with the killer? Who the hell was he? How did she see him, and did it work two ways? Why didn’t she see his face every waking moment, why just the killings? Was the killer in tune with her? Did he know her name? She was a threat to him. If he knew who she was, she was potentially in serious danger. Serious.

  He clicked his pen nervously. Didn’t like the train of his thoughts. He saw the mother’s name. Bernadette Dubois Benchet Martin. He circled her name because it wasn’t complete. According to Brinkman, Bernadette had been married “five times” so there were a few husbands missing. He’d have to check that. And what about the kid who’d drowned? The sister, Chandra?