Devious - Lisa Jackson [127]
He passed.
Didn’t like the fact that his daughter was dabbling anywhere near a killer.
“Yes, really, though if you wanted to talk over the case with me, I’d be glad to listen.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Oh, Dad, come on.”
The battle they’d had all her adult life. Headstrong and as beautiful as Jennifer, her mother and Bentz’s ex-wife, Kristi had given him most of the gray hairs that were silvering his head—and prematurely, he thought. “How’s married life?”
“Oooh. Smooth segue,” she said, but wasn’t really pissed that he’d abruptly changed the subject. “I’ll tell you all about it this weekend. I thought I’d drop by and see Ginny . . . uh, you and Olivia, too.”
He grinned; she was needling him. “We’ll look forward to it. Bring Jay along.”
“I intend to.” She laughed. “You know me, Dad—I never go anywhere without my husband.”
“And you probably pump him for information, too.”
“Only when he wants sexual favors.”
“Ouch! TMI, Kristi. I’m your dad, remember?”
“My dad who has an infant. Don’t pretend you don’t know anything about sex, but, okay, let’s change the subject.”
He laughed and his eyes fell onto the list of names from St. Marguerite’s. Orphaned girls who’d been adopted from St. Elsinore’s. All young and full of life. All potential murder victims.
“I’ll call Olivia and set something up, okay?” Kristi said, and he nodded.
“Great. She’ll love it.”
“Okay, Dad. I’ll see ya.”
She hung up, and he held the phone for an instant. Kristi’s life had been in danger more times than he wanted to think about, times when, because of who he was, the cop, she’d come into a killer’s sites.
He hoped to hell that was all over now.
Troubled at the thought of his daughter and her penchant for mystery and crime, he noticed that the tox screen for Camille Renard had come through on his e-mail. He scanned it and scowled when he recognized that she’d had Rohypnol in her bloodstream. Rohypnol, or “roofies” as it was called on the street, was the date-rape drug. Slipped into food or drink, the strong sedative could render a victim more than pliable, could even induce memory loss.
He wasn’t surprised.
Now at least he understood why the victims went along with their killer’s need to have them in bridal dresses. It explained why Camille was found in the chapel, apparently of her own free will, and why Asteria died in the cemetery. But it didn’t tell him who had drugged them and forced them into being an integral actor in his bizarre play.
Drugs were easy to get these days. They could be bought on the street, stolen, or even purchased on the Internet. How many times had he, a cop for crying out loud, been bombarded with offers for GHB, another date-rape drug, in his personal e-mail account. “Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath.
It was hours later, and he’d gotten through the last of his paperwork and was no closer to figuring out what had happened to the victims than he had been.
Stymied, he stared at the images on his computer screen. Camille lying dead near the altar and Asteria in the cemetery, her gaze fixed on the night sky and the angel over the tomb where she lay.
Both orphans from St. Elsinore’s.
Both enamored with the same priest.
Both joining the convent because of trouble with men. He tapped his fingers and hadn’t noticed that beyond the window, night had fallen, darkness above the glow of city lights.
“Hey!” Montoya appeared in his doorway. Without his jacket, stubble darkening the usually shaved area of his face, looking as rough around the edges as Bentz felt.
“Yeah?”
“Look what I got in the mail.” He slid a prepaid cell phone wrapped in an evidence bag across Bentz’s desk.
“Camille Renard’s?”
“Yep.”
“Who sent it?” Gingerly, Bentz picked up the bag.
“Anonymous.”
“You check it out?”
“The info on the phone? Yeah.”
“Anything good?”
“Not sure yet, but it’s something.”
Bentz nodded. “Yeah, it’s something.” The trick was to find out just what.
“The lab’s going over it, see if they can come up with prints or even DNA from the saliva used