Chapters (48)
- MALICE
- Books by Lisa Jackson
- LISA JACKSON
- MALICE
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- PROLOGUE
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- CHAPTER 16
- CHAPTER 17
- CHAPTER 18
- CHAPTER 19
- CHAPTER 20
- CHAPTER 21
- CHAPTER 22
- CHAPTER 23
- CHAPTER 24
- CHAPTER 25
- CHAPTER 26
- CHAPTER 27
- CHAPTER 28
- CHAPTER 29
- CHAPTER 30
- CHAPTER 31
- CHAPTER 32
- CHAPTER 33
- CHAPTER 34
- CHAPTER 35
- CHAPTER 36
- CHAPTER 37
- CHAPTER 38
- CHAPTER 39
- EPILOGUE
“You got it, but everything I found only mentioned her maiden name, Valdez, and Salazar. But I’ll dig further.”
“Thanks.”
Bentz hung up, disturbed.
He stepped around two cops talking in the hallway, then found Hayes at his desk, papers spread around him. Montoya’s e-mail had gotten through. “Take a look.” Hayes showed Bentz the driver’s license photo of Yolanda Salazar. “You think that she’s your Jennifer?”
“Not on a dare.” Bentz rubbed the stubble on his jaw as he shook his head. “I don’t know how this woman is connected to the Jennifer who’s been trailing me.”
“We’ll have to dig deeper, but right now they’re waiting for us over at the morgue.” He motioned to the papers. “Bring those with you. We need to get over and ID our jumper.”
Bentz tried to read the information Montoya had sent as he followed Hayes to the parking lot, where security lamps were already raining down soft blue light. “Anyone hear from Petrocelli?” Bentz asked as they reached Hayes’s 4Runner.
“Not yet.”
“I don’t like this,” Bentz said as he climbed into the passenger seat.
Hayes dialed his cell phone with one hand and started the engine with another. “Hey, Sherry. Hayes here. Just wondering what’s the holdup. Give a call. I’m on my cell.” Then he hung up. “I don’t know, man. She’s not answering.”
Bentz glared at him. “LAPD’s finest?”
“She’ll be here when we get back.”
“She’d better be. With my wife.” Bentz stared out the windshield as Jonas eased out of the parking lot and pulled into moving traffic. Olivia. Where the hell was she?
Safe. With a trusted police officer. Relax.
He tried her number again, but the call went straight to voice mail. Damn it, Olivia, where are you?
A slow groaning terror thrummed through his bloodstream and it was all he could do to stay calm.
At the morgue, while Jonas Hayes had the coroner set up the body for viewing, Bentz paced, steeling himself. He’d never gotten comfortable around corpses, always felt a little nauseated when faced with death, a character flaw he’d attempted to hide from his peers. If other cops had gotten wind of it, he would have suffered years of razzing. Still, he’d been through this procedure enough to know how it went. Right now one of the attendants was wheeling a sheet-draped gurney into the viewing area, checking the toe tag to make sure they had the right Jane Doe.
“You ready?” Jonas asked.
Bentz steadied himself. “Yeah.” It was a lie, of course. The last time he’d seen Jennifer she’d been so vibrant; naughty and teasing and running like a gazelle. So alive. And in a few short hours she’d been reduced to a draped, dead body on a cold slab.
“I don’t know her name, you know,” he reminded Hayes.