“Not pretty,” she said, splashing water over her face. But that really wasn’t the truth. She wasn’t too far into her thirties and her dark hair was still thick and wavy as it fell below her shoulders. Her skin was still smooth, her lips full, her eyes a shade of blue-green men seemed to find fascinating. All the wrong men, she reminded herself. Men who were forbidden and taboo. And she loved their attention. Craved it.
She opened the medicine cabinet, found her bottle of Valium, and popped a couple, just to take the edge off and push the threatening migraine away. Kristi was going to a friend’s house after swim practice; Rick wasn’t coming home until God knew when, so Jennifer had the house and the rest of the evening to herself. She wasn’t leaving. Yet.
Swoosh.
An unlikely noise traveled up the staircase from the floor below.
The sound of air moving? A door opening? A window ajar?
What the hell was going on? She paused, listening, her senses on alert, the hairs on the back of her arms lifting.
What if Rick were nearby?
What if he’d been lying on the phone and was really on his way home again, just like the other day? The son of a bitch might just have been playing her for a fool.
The “stakeout” could well be fake, or if he really was going to spend all night watching someone, it was probably her, his own wife.
Ex-wife. Jennifer Bentz stared at her reflection in the mirror and frowned at the tiny little lines visible between her eyebrows. When had those wrinkles first appeared? Last year? Earlier? Or just in the last week?
It was hard to say.
But there they were, reminding her all too vividly that she wasn’t getting any younger.
With so many men who had wanted her, how had she ended up marrying, divorcing, and then living with a cop in his all-too-middle-class little house? Their attempt to get back together was just a trial. It hadn’t been going on long and now…well, she was pretty damned sure it was over for good.
Because she just couldn’t be faithful to any one man. Even one she loved.
Dear God, what was she going to do? She’d thought about taking her own life. More than once. And she’d already written her daughter a letter to be delivered upon her death:
Dear Kristi, I’m so sorry, honey. Believe me when I tell you that I love you more than life itself. But I’ve been involved with the man who is your biological father again, and I’m afraid it’s going to break Rick’s heart. And blah, blah, blah… What a bunch of melodramatic crap. Again she thought she heard something…the sound of a footstep on the floor downstairs. She started to call out, then held her tongue. Padding quietly to the top of the stairs, she held on to the railing and listened. Over the smooth rotation of the fan in her bedroom she heard another noise, something faint and clicking. Her skin crawled. She barely dared breathe. Her heart pounded in her ears. Just your imagination-the guilt that’s eating at you. Or the neighbor’s cat. That’s it, the scraggly thing that’s always rooting around in the garbage cans or searching for mice in the garage. On stealthy footsteps she hurried to the bedroom window and peered through the glass, seeing nothing out of the ordinary on this gray day in Southern California, where the air was foggy, dusty, and thick. Even the sun, a reddish disc hanging low in the sky over miles and miles of rooftops, appeared distorted by the smog. Not the breath of a breeze from the ocean today, nothing stirring to make any kind of noise. No cat slinking beneath the dry bushes, no bicyclist on the street. Not even a car passing. It’s nothing. Just a case of nerves. Calm down. She poured the remains of the shaker into her glass and took a sip on her way to the bathroom. But in the doorway she caught sight of her reflection and felt another stab of guilt. “Bottoms up,” she whispered and then, seeing her own reflection and the glass lifted to her lips, she cringed. This wasn’t what she wanted for her life. For her daughter. “Stupid, stupid bitch!” The woman in the mirror seemed to laugh at her. Taunt her. Without thinking, Jennifer hurled her drink at her smirking reflection. The glass slammed into the mirror, shattering. Crraaack! Slowly, the mirror split, a spider web of flaws crawling over the slivered glass. Shards slipped into the sink. “Jesus!” What the hell have you done? She tried to pick up one of the larger pieces and sliced the tip of her finger, blood dripping from her hand, drizzling into the sink. Quickly she found a single, loose Band-Aid on the shelf in the cabinet. She had trouble as her fingers weren’t working as they should, but she managed to pull off the backing and wrap her index finger. Yet she couldn’t quite stanch the flow. Blood swelled beneath the tiny scrap of plastic and gauze. “Damn it all to hell,” she muttered and caught a glimpse of her face in one of the remaining jagged bits of mirror. “Seven years of bad luck,” she whispered, just as Nana Nichols had foretold when she’d broken her grandmother’s favorite looking glass at the age of three. “You’ll be cursed until you’re ten, Jenny, and who knows how much longer after that!” Nana, usually kind, had looked like a monster, all yellow teeth and bloodless lips twisted in disgust. But how right the old woman had been. Bad luck seemed to follow her around, even to this day. Spying her face, now distorted and cleaved in the shards of glass that remained, Jennifer saw herself as an old woman-a lonely old woman. God, what a day, she thought thickly. Heading for the broom and dustpan, she started downstairs, nearly stumbling on the landing. She caught herself, made her way to the first floor, and stepped into the laundry room. Where the door stood ajar. What? She hadn’t left it open; she was sure of it. And when her lover had left, he’d gone through the garage. So…? Had Kristi, on her way to school, not pulled it shut? The damned thing was hard to latch, but… She felt a frisson of fear skitter down her spine. Hadn’t she heard someone down here earlier? Or was that just the gin talking? She was a little confused, her head thick, but… Steadying herself on the counter, she paused, straining to hear, trying to remember. Good God, she was more than a little out of it. She walked into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and noticed the hint of cigarette smoke in the air. No doubt from her ex-husband. How many times did she have to tell him to take his foul habit and smoke outside? Way outside. Not just out on the back porch, where the damned tobacco odor wafted through the screen door. But Rick hasn’t been here in two days… She froze, her gaze traveling upward to the ceiling. Nothing…and then…a floorboard creaked overhead. The crunch of glass. Oh, God, no. This time it wasn’t a guess. This time she was certain. Someone was in the house. Someone who didn’t want her to know he was there. Someone who wanted to do her harm. The smell of cigarette smoke teased at her nostrils again. Oh, Jesus. This wasn’t Rick. She slid on silent footsteps toward the counter where the knives were kept and slowly slid a long-bladed weapon from its slot. As she did, she thought of all the cases Rick had solved, of all the criminals who had channeled their wrath toward him and his family when they’d been arrested or sentenced. Many of them had vowed to get back at Detective Bentz in the most painful ways possible. He’d never told her of the threats, but she’d learned from other cops on the force who had gladly repeated various criminals’ promises to seek revenge. And now someone was in the house. The back of her throat turned desert dry. Holding her breath, she eased into the garage and nearly tripped on the single step when she realized that the garage door was wide open to the driveway, a blatant invitation. One the intruder had accepted. She didn’t think twice and slid behind the wheel, where the keys were already in the ignition. She twisted on the keys. The engine sparked. She threw the gear into reverse and gunned it, tearing out of the driveway, nearly hitting the neighbor’s miserable cat and just missing the mailbox. She glanced up to the master bedroom window as she crammed the van into drive. Her heart froze. A dark figure stood behind the panes, a shadow with a cruel, twisted smile. “Shit!” The light shifted on the blinds and the image was gone-maybe just a figment of her imagination. Or was it? She didn’t wait to find out, just hit the gas pedal, racing down the street as old Mr. Van Pelt decided to back his ancient tank of a Buick into the street. Jennifer hit the brakes, her tires screeched, and then once past the startled neighbor she floored it. “There was no one in the window. You know that,” she tried to convince herself. “No one was there.” Driving with one hand, she searched the passenger seat for her purse and cell, which, she now remembered, sat in the bedroom where she’d seen the dark figure. “Just your imagination,” she said over and over as she drove out of the subdivision and onto the main highway, melding into the thick traffic. Her heart pounded and her head throbbed. Blood from her hand smeared the steering wheel. She checked her rearview often, searching for a vehicle following her, looking through the sea of cars for one that seemed intent on chasing her down. Metal glinted in the sunlight and she cursed herself for not having her sunglasses with her. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Tons of cars heading east: silver, white, black sedans and sports cars, trucks, and SUVs…at least she thought that was the direction she was going. She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t paid a lot of attention and she was starting to relax, starting to think she’d eluded whoever had been after her. If anyone really had. Just another Southern California day. She spied a dark blue SUV coming up fast and her heart jumped, but it sped by, along with a white BMW on its tail. She flipped on the radio, tried to steady her nerves, but she was sweating, her finger still bleeding. The miles passed, nothing happened, and she began to breathe easier…really relax. She drifted a bit, nearly sideswiping a guy who hit the horn and flipped her off. “Yeah, right, whatever,” she said, but realized she shouldn’t be driving, not in all this traffic in her altered state. At the next exit, she turned off…dear Lord, where was she?…in the country? She didn’t recognize the area, the sparseness of the homes, the stretches of brush and farmland. She was inland somewhere and the Valium had kicked in big-time. Blinking against the sunlight, she looked in her side-view mirror and saw another big blue SUV bearing down on her. The same one as before? No! Couldn’t be. She yawned and the Explorer behind her stayed back, following her at a distance on the two-lane road that led into the hills. It was time to turn around. She was so damned tired. The road before her seemed to shift and she blinked. Her eyelids were so heavy. She’d have to slow down and rest, try to clear her head, maybe drink some coffee… There was a chance no one had been in the house. Jeez-God, the way she was imagining things, the way her nerves were strung tight these days, the way guilt was eating at her, she was probably letting her mind play tricks on her. Her thoughts swirled and gnawed at her. She saw the curve in the road and she braked. As she did, she noticed the dark Explorer riding her ass. “So pass, you idiot,” she said, distracted, her eyes on the rearview mirror. The rig’s windows were tinted and dark, but she caught a glimpse of the driver. Oh, God. Her heart nearly stopped. The driver stared straight at her. She bit back a scream. It was the same intruder she’d seen in the upstairs window of her house. Scared out of her wits, she tromped on the accelerator. Who the hell was it? Why was whoever it was following her? She saw the corner and cut it, hoping to lose the SUV, but her judgment was off and one of the van’s tires caught on the shoulder, hitting gravel. She yanked on the wheel, trying to wrestle the car onto the road, but the van began to spin. Wildly. Crazily. Totally out of control. The van shuddered. Skidded. And then began to roll. In slow-motion certainty, Jennifer knew she was going to die. More than that, she knew she was being murdered. Probably set up by her damned ex-husband, Rick Bentz.