Back Malice
Chapters (48)
  1. MALICE
  2. Books by Lisa Jackson
  3. LISA JACKSON
  4. MALICE
  5. CONTENTS
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Author’s Note
  8. PROLOGUE
  9. CHAPTER 1
  10. CHAPTER 2
  11. CHAPTER 3
  12. CHAPTER 4
  13. CHAPTER 5
  14. CHAPTER 6
  15. CHAPTER 7
  16. CHAPTER 8
  17. CHAPTER 9
  18. CHAPTER 10
  19. CHAPTER 11
  20. CHAPTER 12
  21. CHAPTER 13
  22. CHAPTER 14
  23. CHAPTER 15
  24. CHAPTER 16
  25. CHAPTER 17
  26. CHAPTER 18
  27. CHAPTER 19
  28. CHAPTER 20
  29. CHAPTER 21
  30. CHAPTER 22
  31. CHAPTER 23
  32. CHAPTER 24
  33. CHAPTER 25
  34. CHAPTER 26
  35. CHAPTER 27
  36. CHAPTER 28
  37. CHAPTER 29
  38. CHAPTER 30
  39. CHAPTER 31
  40. CHAPTER 32
  41. CHAPTER 33
  42. CHAPTER 34
  43. CHAPTER 35
  44. CHAPTER 36
  45. CHAPTER 37
  46. CHAPTER 38
  47. CHAPTER 39
  48. EPILOGUE

“Uh-uh-uh. She killed herself. Remember? And as for the suicide note, I didn’t even know about it. It was something she’d written a while before. Not very stable, our Jennifer. But Bentz…he just couldn’t get enough of her. Divorce wasn’t enough for him. He had to start up with her again. Some men just never learn.” She chuckled coldly. “But he will. Tonight.”

Sick inside, fear congealing her blood, Olivia could barely speak, but she forced the question over her lips. “What the hell did he do to you?”

“You really don’t know?” She paused, thought for a second. “He left me. Not once, but twice, for the same bitch that kept breaking his heart.” She looked toward the wall, but seemed to focus on the middle distance, to a place only she could see. “I loved him, I took him back, I trusted him, believed in him…” Her voice faced and tears welled in her eyes. “And he left me. Alone. And after Jennifer died, the son of a bitch poured himself into a bottle. Would he let me help him? Hell, no!” She sniffed loudly, straightened her shoulders. “That coward left L.A., went to New Orleans, and found you.” She was shaking her head. “He never looked back. And you, the wife who should know all his secrets, you don’t even know who I am, do you?”

That was the truth. Olivia couldn’t place her.

The spurned lover said ruefully, “Maybe it’s best this way. You don’t need to know,” she said. “But Bentz. He will. He’ll get it and he’ll live with it for the rest of his life.”

Olivia stared at the camera and felt a wave of nausea. Oh, God, she was going to be sick. From the pregnancy? From fear? “What are you planning to do?” she asked in a voice that she didn’t recognize as her own.

“What does it look like? I’m going to film. Well, it’s not really film, all digital, but I’m going to make a movie of you.”

Olivia flashed to all the prisoners of wars she’d seen with the enemy, forced to say things they didn’t mean, beliefs they’d never held, at the point of a gun or risk of being beheaded. She started to shake inside and had to talk herself down. Think rationally. Nothing had happened yet.

“It’s for posterity.” Satisfied that the camera and tripod were secure, the woman checked the viewfinder, and squinting, angled the lens to her satisfaction. “There we go, now we can begin.” She flipped a switch and turned the camera on, then she stood in front of the cage, just out of Olivia’s reach, but in front of the camera’s eye.