That seemed to satisfy the man, who slung his jacket under one arm and kept walking. “But then you know that, don’t you?” Bentz pressed her.

Her glossy lips turned into a pouty frown.

“Hey, if this badge isn’t good enough, then we’ll talk to someone from L.A. Fine with me. We’ve all been looking for you.”

“Then you already know who I am?” she asked, one eyebrow lifting over the frames of her sunglasses.

“I know that you’re trying to play some sick mind game with me.”

“Is that so?”

“You’ve been taunting me, trying to make me think you’re my dead ex-wife.”

“You sound like a lunatic. Give me back my keys.”

“Not on your life.”

He flipped up her sunglasses and found himself staring into eyes as green and vibrant as Jennifer’s. And yet something was off, something not quite right.

His heart was pounding in his eardrums, a million questions sizzling through his mind. Who was she? Why was she doing this? Where had she come from? “Two women are dead because of you.”

Something flickered in her eyes and she pulled back slightly. “What? Dead? No.”

“Shana McIntyre, killed in her pool. You heard about it, right?”

She seemed genuinely shocked. “You think that I…? Oh, God, no. I had nothing to do with that.”

“And Lorraine Newell. You remember her?”

The look she gave him was blank, as if she’d never heard of the woman.

“She’s dead, too. Took a bullet to the head last night. Just after she called me about you. She spotted you last night, right before you killed her.”

She seemed slightly unnerved. “I don’t know anything about that.”

The faint trembling of her lower lip was convincing. But then he’d had a taste of her acting ability. “You and I, we need to go downtown.”

“What?”

“There are some people you need to talk to. Detectives who have some questions for you.”

She closed her eyes a second. “Listen RJ, I—”

“Why do you call me that?”

Her smile faded, and for a second she became Jennifer again. “Because it’s what I always called you. Don’t you remember?”

He almost bought her act. Almost. But he couldn’t believe her gall. “Are you really still trying to make me think you’re her?” he asked, dumbfounded that she would try to keep up the ruse. “Why the hell are you doing this? Why are you haunting me? What do you want? Why did you show up at my house?” Although Bentz was usually taciturn, preferring to let a suspect ramble on and on while he sat quietly, he couldn’t keep the questions that had been plaguing him from tumbling out of his mouth.

“At your house?”

“You remember—the cottage outside New Orleans?”

“What?”