Free Malice by Lisa Jackson Page B

Bentz is back in L.A.!
    No big surprise there.
    Like a hungry lion leaping onto a weak gazelle, Rick Bentz took the bait. Just in time.
    I check the calendar and nod to myself. Feel a little thrill race down my spine. It didn’t take long and he’s still recuperating, not quite agile or fleet-footed, still using a cane, which is just damned perfect. I can’t help but experience a wave of pride. In myself. Not just for this, his return, but for my patience. I had to wait until the timing was right, but now I think I can pour myself a drink, a strong one.
    Let’s see…how about a martini? That would be fitting. I walk to the bar and find the vodka and curse myself for being out of olives. Oh, damn…well, who cares? I find the vermouth and pour just a whisper, then shake the concoction with ice and pour…mmm. Since there are no olives I settle for a twist of lemon…perfect.
    I walk to the full-length mirror, where I see myself and lift my glass toward the woman in the glass. She’s beautiful. Tall. Willowy. The ravages of age not yet apparent. Her dark hair falls to her shoulders in easy waves. Her smile is infectious, her eyes those of a woman who knows what she wants and always gets it.
    “To new beginnings,” I say touching the rim of my glass to the mirror and hearing the soft little click of glass on glass. “You and I, we’ve waited a long time for this.”
    “That we have. But no longer,” she replies, arched eyebrows lifting conspiratorially.
    I tingle inside knowing that everything we—I—have worked for is about to come to fruition.
    The window is open and I feel evening settling in the rising moon, a ghostly crescent glowing in the twilight sky.
    “Cheers,” my reflection says back to me, her eyes twinkling in naughty anticipation as she holds her glass aloft. “May we be successful.”
    “Oh, we will,” I assure her, smiling as she grins back at me. “We will.” Then we drink as one, feeling the cool cocktail slide so easily down our throats. Together we think of Rick Bentz.
    Handsome in a rugged way. Athletic and muscular rather than thin. With a square jaw and eyes that could cut through any kind of lie, he’s smart and pensive, his emotions usually under tight rein.
    And yet he has an Achilles heel.
    One that will bring him down.
    “Bravo,” I say to the mirror. Because I know that soon, that sick son of a bitch will get his.

CHAPTER 6

    B entz had a lot of ground to cover and he didn’t want to waste time.
    First things first: He had to find a place to stay. He decided to stick close to where he’d lived with Jennifer and in the area of the zip code on the envelope that had been sent to him.
    Though hotel prices in Southern California were through the roof, he found a motel in the older part of Culver City that advertised, “inexpensive, clean rooms.” The So-Cal Inn was a long, low-lying stucco building that, he guessed, was built in the decade after World War II, and offered, along with weekly rates, a swimming pool, air-conditioned rooms, cable TV, and wi-fi. The place also claimed to be “pet and kid friendly.”
    Everything he needed and more.
    Bentz parked in front and walked into the small reception area, where a glass pot of coffee sat congealing on a hot plate. A kid who looked no more than fourteen was working, fiddling with the remote to a television mounted on the wall over a display of brochures for activities in the area. “Mom,” the teen yelled toward a half-open door behind the long desk, then pointed the remote at the television and pressed down over and over again, in rapid-fire succession, with the agility of the generation that grew up with text messaging and video games. However, the TV channel or volume didn’t change and the boy’s frustration was evidenced in his red cheeks and set jaw.
    As Bentz reached the counter a woman slipped through the open door. Her red hair was piled high on her head, her mascara so thick her eyelids appeared weighted down.