Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 64

He waited a few minutes, finis.h.i.+ng his first piece, and said casually, "I heard you went out to the old sanitarium."

She nearly choked on the bite she was chewing. "How did you know that?" The only person she'd confided in was Zoey and she doubted her sister had picked up the phone and called the New Orleans Police.

Were the police tailing her?

If, so, why would Montoya bring it up?

"My aunt is Sister Maria," he explained, then washed down another bite with a swallow of wine.

"Oh." Heat climbed up the back of Abby's neck at the thought of trespa.s.sing on the grounds of the hospital. "So she turned me in?"

Montoya grinned, his smile disarming. "Nah. If she wanted to punish you, she'd make you get down on your knees and say the rosary from now until eternity. I called and asked about the hospital, if anything was going on over there with the pending sale and demolition, and she mentioned that you'd been by."

Just my luck, to meet up with Sister Maria, the gossiping nun. She forced down another bite of pizza. "Did she say why I was there?" She forced down another bite of pizza. "Did she say why I was there?"

"No. Even when I asked."

"So now you're asking me?"

He didn't respond, just stared at her.

"It's no big deal," she said, deciding to level with him. "Under the advice of a psychiatrist I went to a few years back, I decided to go to the hospital and confront my past, you know, walk the grounds where my mother spent her last days. She committed suicide on my fifteenth birthday, her thirty-fifth, by jumping from the window of her room . . . the closed window." She s.h.i.+vered and added, "But you already know that, don't you? My guess is you know a lot about me, more than anyone's willing to admit, and that makes me wonder why?" Growing angry, Abby pushed her plate away. It slid across the counter, nearly landing on the floor. She barely noticed. "So what is it? Am I a suspect? If so, in what? Luke's murder? Asa Pomeroy's disappearance? My mother's suicide?" Drilling him with her gaze, she said, "Come on, Detective Montoya, what's this really all about? And please, don't be reticent or try to spare my feelings. Didn't dear old Auntie Sister Maria tell you that confession's good for the soul?"

He smothered a smile. Wasn't intimidated in the least. Blast the man. "Maybe I just wanted to see that you were okay."

"You expect me to believe that? After you've had the Our Lady of Virtues spies checking up on me?" She couldn't keep the bite out of her words, but he wasn't offended. If anything, he appeared amused by her outrage. G.o.d, she'd love to shake some sense into him. He was just so d.a.m.ned maddening!

There was a part of her that was dying to believe that he had stopped by because he cared for her, that he had felt compelled to see her again, but that was just wishful thinking by a very feminine and silly piece of her. The more real down-to-earth side of her nature knew better.

This man was a cop. Period. He didn't trust her and she, now, didn't trust him.

"Believe what you want," he said, standing and wiping his hands on a paper towel he snapped from a roll on the counter.

"I will."

He tossed the used towel into the trash. "So everything cool here?"

Boy, he wouldn't give it up, would he?

"Except for a neurotic dog and a paranoid cat, yeah, everything's fine." She was tempted to tell him about the open window, and Hershey's growl-fest, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She didn't want to come off as some kind of scared little mouse of a woman, and besides, no one had been in the house.

She'd proved that, hadn't she?

He looked around the kitchen as if to satisfy himself. "Well, thanks for the dinner."

"If it could be called that."

Again, he flashed her that infectious, disarming smile, and if she let herself, and looked beyond his black goatee, she might see a dimple or two.

"It was the best invitation and dinner I've had in a long, long time." When she started to protest, he held up a hand. "Seriously."

"You're an easy man to please."

"Maybe." His dark eyes sparked and smoldered and she felt her breath catch in the back of her throat. "Come to think of it, maybe I am."

Oh, dear G.o.d. Her pulse was thundering. Heat curled in her stomach and spread to her limbs. What was it about this man that bothered her so? One minute he was so d.a.m.ned infuriating she wanted to strangle him, and the next, he was getting to her, teasing and flirting, and generally digging under her skin.

Which was not not a good thing. a good thing.

He was s.e.xy as h.e.l.l in his black leather jacket, faded, b.u.t.t-hugging jeans, and irreverent att.i.tude, and she guessed he knew just how to play a woman, something that should have turned her off completely. She warned herself to tread carefully; flirting was one thing, falling for a man like Detective Montoya was another thing altogether. He was still off-limits. Way off.

"Listen," he was saying as she walked him to the front door. G.o.d, she hoped he was unaware that she was sizing him up. "If you think of anything or see anything that you think just doesn't fit, call me." He slid her a glance that she could have interpreted a dozen ways. "You've got my number."

Oh, I wish, she thought. She'd love to know what made this man tick. "I told you. I don't know anything." she thought. She'd love to know what made this man tick. "I told you. I don't know anything."

She opened the door.

Montoya hesitated a beat on the threshold.

For a full half-minute, he stared into the dark night, where the rain was beginning to lash the ground, and the wind was whipping the branches in the old oaks near the drive. "Listen," he finally said, turning to look her full in the face. Deep grooves cut into his forehead, and beneath his goatee, the corners of his mouth pinched downward. "Be careful."

Something inside her cracked.

She had trouble finding her voice. "I . . . I will."

"No, I mean it." He was deadly serious. One hand lightly touched her forearm, one rested over the deadbolt on the slim edge of the door. "Something's going on here. I don't know what, but I don't like it. Get that security system up and running. ASAP."

"You're starting to scare me."

"Good. That's the point." His expression didn't change. His dark gaze was intense, downright smoldering.

The back of her throat tightened. "Okay."

He slid a glance past her, to the interior and the table in the entry hall. "And the hammer's not such a bad idea. I'm not crazy about civilians with guns and guard dogs, but protect yourself." He frowned. "You might want a bigger one."

"Gun or dog?"

"Hammer."

"Like a sledge?"

"Yeah." He nodded and dropped his hand. "A sledge would work just fine." But he didn't smile as he hunched his shoulders against the rain. She watched him hurry down the steps of the porch, along the brick path to the driveway and into his black Mustang. Once inside, he engaged the engine, maneuvered a quick U-turn, and drove down the lane, his taillights fading in the rain.

"Did you hear that, Hershey? The hammer thing? As if. And he doesn't think much of your skills as a watch dog, does he?" She slid the deadbolt into place and walked into the bedroom, trying not to be depressed that he was gone. She barely knew the man, didn't trust him. But the house seemed suddenly empty without him.

Silly.

His warnings crept back through her mind. Maybe it was time to load the .38. She had ammo in a box in the closet.

She pulled open the drawer, intent on taking Montoya's advice.

But the gun was missing.

She blinked hard. No way! Luke's father's revolver couldn't be gone! She'd seen it only a few nights earlier, right?

So what had happened to it?

Shaken, Abby sank onto her bed, thought about dialing Montoya's cell, and decided against it. One more time, she looked in the nightstand drawer, then rolled across the bed to the other side and the matching night table. Nervously she pulled the drawer open, silently praying she would find the .38, that she'd forgotten where she'd last seen it.

No such luck.

The gun was missing.

And the window had been open.

Someone had been inside the house.

Someone had climbed inside and stolen Luke's precious handgun.

Her breath stopped in her lungs when she considered the possibilities.

The killer could have come inside, looking for something Luke had said was precious to him. Or some obsessed fan, who had heard Luke talk on the air about the .38, was either acting out of some fanatical obsession in righting the "wrong" she'd done his hero, or had thought the gun would get a great price on eBay, or the black market, or wherever it was that someone sold a weapon stolen from a famous person.

"Too bizarre," she murmured and too d.a.m.ned scary. Before allowing serious panic to set in, she spent the next half an hour tearing the bedroom and house apart, all the while hoping beyond hope that she'd misplaced the d.a.m.ned gun. But in the end, she found no trace of it.

So who had taken it?

And what were they going to do with it?

CHAPTER 16.

The old man was waiting.

Which was just fine, he thought as he slid through the darkness and climbed the fence. His truck was parked behind the shed of the abandoned sawmill and he decided this was the last time he could risk parking so close to the Pomeroy estate.

Adrenalin crackled through his body and he felt more alive than he had since killing Gierman and the virgin. The threat was much stronger now that the cops knew Pomeroy was missing. The FBI would be called in and they would wire the Pomeroy mansion while waiting for a ransom demand that wouldn't come.

A sly smile crept across his lips.

They had no idea what was happening, not yet.

But they would tomorrow . . . he would see to it. He already knew how to contact them, and through whom.

As much as he loved watching the police scratch their heads and chase their tails, they were making things more difficult for him. With all the law enforcement agencies swarming around this part of the state, he would have to be careful. Very careful. That's why he'd snagged the gun today when Abby had been working in her studio. He'd watched her for over an hour, realized she'd probably spend most of the day in her studio, so he'd taken the chance. He'd known that soon things would become harder, especially as he intended to step things up, work more quickly. So he had risked sliding into her house and slipping the .38 from its hiding spot in her bedroom.

But he had indulged himself.

Despite the danger, he'd taken the time to lie on her bed, to drink in her scent, to imagine what it would be like to feel her body under his.

Writhing.

Sweating.

Wanting.

Faith's daughter.

His blood ran hot remembering what her bed had smelled like. In his mind's eye he'd seen her wild curls spread on the pillow, her lips parted and trembling, her body jerking upward as he'd thrust into her. Hard. Fast. Leaving her breathless until the perfect moment when he'd take her life . . .

Oh, how he would have loved to have surprised her today. He trembled with antic.i.p.ation and his hands were slick on the steering wheel.

Be patient.

Her time is soon.

Now he opened the gate and eased his truck through then secured the chain again. The rain, which had been pouring most of the day, had lessened a bit, and he drank in deep lungfuls of the wet, night air. Stealthily, he drove onto the highway, eventually hitting the lights. With the police ever vigilant, it was time to act.

For nearly twenty-four hours, he'd let the old man think about his life. Long enough.

Now, it was time to end it.

"d.a.m.n it!" Gina Jefferson threw her pencil across the tiny room. It hit the wall, scratching the plaster beneath her award for being the 2002 African-American Business Woman of the Year granted her by the city of New Orleans. The pencil slid down the wall, landing behind the file cabinet. "Great, Gina. Smooth move," she muttered under her breath, angry at herself for letting her temper get the better of her. It was late, after nine, and she was the last employee still on the premises at Crescent City Center. She'd been here twelve hours, worked her tail off, and was as frustrated as she'd been in her fifty-five years. Feeling foolish, and glad no one else was in the room, she walked across the worn carpeting, tried to retrieve the pencil but couldn't. The file cabinet was a behemoth and stuffed full of client files, clients who would soon have to find a new facility for their mental health needs.

Unless she could pull a cash cow out of her hat.

She'd already knocked on most of the doors of the donors she could count on, over and over again. She needed a new list of wealthy philanthropists, if there was one. Using a coat hanger, she fished out the pencil, now covered with a long, sticky cobweb. Wiping it off with a tissue, she stuffed it into the cup on her desk, a gift from someone the free mental health center had helped.

"Lordy, lordy, give me strength," she said as she snagged her raincoat from the hall tree and slipped it on. The coat seemed tight tonight and she reminded herself that she was supposed to be on a diet, that she needed to lose at least thirty pounds, but she was too depressed to think about her ever-expanding waistline. Too depressed and too stressed. Some of her friends smoked when they were on edge, others had the good fortune not to be able to eat. She, on the other hand, found food a balm in times of anxiety, and right now she was pretty d.a.m.ned anxious. The center was going to close and soon if she couldn't find a way to raise the cash necessary to keep the d.a.m.ned doors open.

Through the window the night seemed darker than usual, but maybe that was just because she was so depressed. After months of fund-raising, hours on the phone, working round the clock, all her efforts seemed to have been for naught. The free mental health center would inevitably close its doors. Unless the coffers of some ka-billionaire or the ka-billionaire's charitable foundation miraculously donated thousands upon thousands of dollars to keep it open. Even then they would need more money, federal grants, and additional funds from the state or parish or city, all of which were tapped out.

Rotating the kinks from her neck, she snapped off most of the lights, then glanced through the gla.s.s doors to a spot across the street where twice this evening she'd noticed a man standing alone.

She was used to dealing with oddb.a.l.l.s. After all, the center catered to those poor individuals who needed psychological and emotional help. The more serious cases were referred to the hospital, but most of the people they saw were troubled souls who needed some medication, or direction, or just to talk. One medical doctor and two nurses volunteered their time; the rest of the staff was made up of clinical psychologists or social workers.

In her fifteen years here, Gina had seen more than her share of strange people. So why tonight, she wondered, did she sense that there was something different about the individual she'd caught lingering on the other side of the street, just out of the circle of the lamp post's illumination?