“And we’ll need the script,” Montoya added.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Montoya asked, “How does Fernando Valdez fit into this?”

“He doesn’t,” she said with a shrug. “I was supposed to use him, get to know him, pay him some attention, get him to do things for me.”

“Like loan you the car.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed.

“A smoke screen,” Bentz said, “so I wouldn’t be looking in the right direction.”

Jada said, “I guess. She didn’t want me to have anything to do with the police department, either. And I was told to avoid somebody named Hayes. He was totally off limits.”

“Hayes?” Bentz said barely able to draw a breath.

“Yeah. I thought maybe he was in on it with her.”

Jonas Hayes? A bad cop? No way.

“You think?” Montoya said, as if reading Bentz’s mind.

Bentz shook his head. “No. Couldn’t be him.”

“I’m just sayin’.” Jada shrugged as if she didn’t have a care in the world, her bad attitude returning. “She said something once, like, I don’t know, when I asked about what was going on, she told me not to worry, that she had it handled that Jonas would take care of things, or tell her about it.”

“Pillow talk?” Bentz said with mind-numbing certainty.

“I don’t know.” Jada rolled her now-blue eyes. “Maybe.”

Not just maybe. It made sense. Bentz had suspected a cop. And if it was a cop with access to police intelligence, someone with a position at Parker Center, someone who could learn through Hayes how the investigation was going, he or she could be one step ahead.

Someone like Corrine O’Donnell.

A woman he’d dumped twice. For Jennifer. Bentz cringed inside, not willing to believe…then he remembered Corrine’s overly concerned smile and words of encouragement when he’d filed the Missing Person’s report on Olivia. How could he have missed it? Corrine, involved with Jonas, Bentz’s link to the LAPD.

It explained how Jada had anticipated Bentz’s every move. Bentz’s throat went dry as his mind sped through the past week, the images of dead women, car chases, “Jennifer” sightings.

Was it really possible?

Was Corrine the one behind all this?

And Hayes, holy Mother of God, how did he fit in?

Jonas Hayes had known everything Bentz was doing, had insisted they play it by the book. The wail of sirens split the night air, reverberating through the parking garage, snapping Bentz back to the moment. The LAPD was on its way. “You’d better not be bullshitting me,” he warned Jada.

“I just want to get paid.” She eyed him expectantly.

Montoya sent her a look of pure disgust. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t bet on it. I want to be Brad Pitt, you know, but sometimes things don’t work out the way we plan.”