Malice

EPILOGUE

Olivia opened her eyes slowly, against soft lights that seemed impossibly bright. She was in a hospital room of sorts and there was someone in the room with her, a glow near the window.

You’re going to be all right, the emanation said to her without making a sound. You and the baby, you’re going to be fine.

“Excuse me? Who are you?”

But the figure only smiled.

“Olivia?”

She blinked. Bentz’s voice jarred her back to reality.

“Did you see that?” she asked, turning to the window that was now just a view of pink sky streaked with orange and lavender as the dawn rose.

“See what?” he asked, glancing at the window.

“There was someone…something…” But when she caught the look on his face to see if she was pulling his leg, she shook her head. “I think I was dreaming.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like I need to get out of here.” She’d been in the hospital for two days now, under observation for the ordeal she’d been through, but the baby was still viable, and she had suffered nothing more than trauma.

“I’ll see if I can spring you.”

“Please use all of your powers of persuasion.”

“You got it.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, a sweet lingering kiss that promised more to come, once they were home in New Orleans again.

She couldn’t wait to get back, to plan for the baby, to put the trauma of Los Angeles behind her. “City of Angels,” she muttered sarcastically, then looked at the window again, wondering about the spirit that she could swear had been there.

According to Bentz, Corrine’s attack was recorded on the camera that was found on the Merry Anne just before it had sunk. No doubt she would be in prison for the rest of her life.

In the two days since then, details about the deranged woman had emerged in the newspapers. Olivia glanced over at the L.A. Times on her night stand, which had published an updated piece today.

Apparently Corrine had faked an injury to get a desk job at Parker Center-a way to gather information about new cases and about former LAPD Detective Rick Bentz. There was now evidence linking O’Donnell to the murders of Shana McIntyre, Lorraine Newell, Fortuna Esperanzo, and Sherry Petrocelli.

“O’Donnell wrought a trail of death and anguish,” the article stated, “which included the kidnapping of a New Orleans woman who is married to O’Donnell’s former lover, New Orleans Police Detective Rick Bentz.”

Poor Hayes, Olivia thought. He’d been duped. He’d repeatedly told Bentz that he’d been a fool not to have seen the signs and that he was swearing off women for the rest of his life.

“Won’t last long,” Bentz had predicted.

Montoya had already returned to New Orleans to be with his wife and the Los Angeles Police Department was returning to a routine without the agitation of Rick Bentz. Though Fernando Valdez and Yolanda Salazar seemed to have been duped, rather than participants in Corrine’s grand plan, the LAPD was taking another look at them as well as Jane Hollister.

As for the Twenty-one killer, Bledsoe, with the help of two female detectives as decoys and a lot of searching Internet chat rooms, had run a sting operation and caught someone who fit the profile-Donovan Caldwell, older brother of someone the LAPD had thought might have killed his sisters. It looked like he was their guy. The speculation was that the return of Bentz to L.A. had set him off and that he loved all the attention he was getting.

Corrine had been adamant that she hadn’t been a part of his vicious attacks against twins, so the LAPD was treating the case as if it had nothing to do with the string of murders perpetrated by Corrine O’Donnell, one of their own.

Still, Corrine’s killing spree was more than another black eye on the department.

She was alive, in a hospital, under police custody, and the most anyone could speculate was that she was paying back Bentz for dumping her twice, and for the fact that after the second time, her mother, Merry Anne, had been killed on the way to consoling her daughter. Hayes said that Corrine, who had been an orphan and suffered through a string of foster homes before being adopted by the O’Donnells, hated being alone, feared growing old by herself, though she’d put on a pretty good act of independence. She’d admitted to him once that after her adoptive mother died and her father, who’d been having an affair for years, married his second wife, she’d felt alone and abandoned.

Her love affair gone sour with Bentz, twice no less, only confirmed that fact.

Apparently she’d targeted not only Jennifer Bentz, whom she’d murdered, but then Olivia as well, the woman Rick had married.

Although Bentz’s leg had not completely recovered, he needed his cane less and less, and he’d been able to hold his own during his Los Angeles investigation. Melinda Jaskiel had called and offered him his job again, as long as he kept up with his physical therapy and a doctor approved his work schedule. “Since you’re bound and determined to get yourself into trouble, then do it here, where I can keep my eye on you,” she’d said.

“Good news,” Bentz said as he strode back into Olivia’s hospital room, barely limping. “As soon as the doc takes another look at you, we’re outta here. Personally, I just think he wants to take another peek at that gorgeous body of yours.”

“Yeah, Ace, that’s it,” she said, but laughed.

“I called Kristi. Brought her up to date,” he said. “Guess who’s excited about being a big sister?” He laughed at the thought. “So Kristi will be married before we know it. And next she’ll have a kid. And our baby will be playing in the sandbox with her own niece or nephew.” He touched his chin. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

“I get it, I get it.” Olivia suppressed a smile. “You’re too old to be a father again. But that’s just too damned bad, because like it or not, Hotshot, a baby’s on its way. Get ready!”

“I am,” he assured her with a wink as he leaned down to kiss her. “You’re the one who doesn’t know what she’s in for.”

“Then bring it on!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and grinned. “I’ve been waiting for this all my life!”