Malice

“It doesn’t.”

“And you’re a bad liar. A real bad liar.”

He remained silent, wondering what had tipped her off. Of course…he’d told Kristi he’d seen Je

“Aren’t you supposed to be pla

“Don’t deflect, Dad. It doesn’t work with me.”

“So why did you call? Obviously not just to tell me to have a nice trip.”

“Very fu

“Thought so,” he said as he moved to the bathroom where a single-cup coffeepot was wedged onto a slice of countertop. Tearing open the packet of coffee, he listened as Kristi kept firing questions at him: Why was he in L.A.? When was he coming back? Were there problems with Olivia? How worried should she be? He plopped the packet of “fine roast” into a basket, added a cup of water to the pot, and pressed the on button.

“I’m fine. Olivia’s fine. Nothing to worry about,” Bentz insisted as the coffeepot gurgled and hissed. He needed to take a leak, but decided not to freak his daughter out any further and waited until she hung up.

It took another five minutes, but she finally told him “to keep in touch,” before taking another call. He relieved himself, hopped in the shower, and dressed. With his cup of coffee in hand, he decided to hunt up breakfast. He figured a coffee shop on Colorado Avenue might be a good place to start.

After breakfast he would continue trying to locate the women on his list. First up: Shana McIntyre…well, after some digging last night he discovered that her name had changed a couple of times. She’d been Wy

Last night he’d found a number for her and had tried it, only to get her lofty voice on the answering machine. “You’ve reached Leland and Shana. Leave a message. We’ll get back to you…sometime.”

Nice, he’d thought and didn’t bother leaving his name or number. His cell would show up as “restricted call” and he wanted to catch her off guard. Didn’t want to give her time to make up answers or avoid him.

By the time he walked outside, the sun was already rising in the sky, glare bouncing off the pavement. His car was warm, its interior collecting heat more quickly than a solar panel in the middle of the Sahara. He rolled out of the parking lot and headed toward Santa Monica and Colorado Avenue, which he’d tentatively identified in one photo of Je

He’d already done some Internet research. An online map had shown three coffee shops in a twelve-block stretch.

Within twenty minutes he spotted it-a cafe on a corner that matched the photo. The Local Buzz, it was called. Two newspaper boxes stood by the front door, and tall café tables were positioned near the windows.

This was too easy, he thought. Whoever had taken the picture had lured him here without too much finesse.

He parked on a side street and made his way inside, where the smell of ground roast was overpowering. Jazz competed with the hiss of the steamer and the gentle din of conversation. The booths were full and several patrons had their laptops open, taking advantage of the free wi-fi co

Neither coffee server claimed to have ever seen her. They were certain. The tall girl in frumpy suede boots and shorts barely glanced at the photos as she wiped off the hot milk nozzle and shook her head. But her partner, a shorter, rounder woman of around fifty, studied the shots thoughtfully. Above her rimless glasses her eyebrows drew together. “She could have come in when we were busy or when someone else was working, but she’s not a regular. At least not a morning regular. I would know her.” She went on to explain that there were six or seven servers on staff, so someone else might have helped the woman in the picture.

He glanced at the table where “Je

He sipped his coffee and tried to imagine what Je

Shana, breaking the surface after swimming underwater the length of her pool, drew in a deep breath, then shook the wet hair from her eyes. Forty laps. She was congratulating herself on keeping in shape when she heard the doorbell peal.

She wasn’t the only one. At the first bong of the dulcet tones Dirk, her husband’s damned German shepherd/rottweiler mix, began barking his fool head off. He’d been lying at the edge of the pool, but was instantly on his feet, the hairs at the back of his neck bristling upward.

Great.

Just what she needed-a surprise visit by some stranger. She hoisted herself onto the tile strip near the waterfall, then climbed to her feet. She was naked, not even the small pieces of her string bikini covering her body. The housekeeper had the day off, the gardener had already left, so she’d taken her alone time to sunbathe for a perfect tan, one completely devoid of lines or shading. She’d just swum her laps after lying on her back on her favorite chaise. Had she not been interrupted, she would have lain facedown, toasting her backside.

“Later,” she promised herself as she scooped up her white poolside robe, jammed her arms down the sleeves, and cinched the belt around her slim waist.

The doorbell rang once more, setting off Dirk all over again. “Hush!” she commanded to the dog, then louder, “Coming!”

Quickly wringing the excess water from her hair, she slid into her low-heeled mules near the French doors before clicking through the sunroom, hallway, and foyer. Dirk was two steps behind. The loyal dog loved her for some unknown reason when she really didn’t much care for him, or any dog for that matter. All that hair, the dirt, and the poop in the yard bothered her. When the big mutt drank from his oversized water dish, the laundry room floor was splashed with a trail of drool-laced water that ran to the entry hall. If it were up to her, there would be no pets, but Leland wouldn’t hear of getting rid of his 150-pound, often snarling “baby.”

“Stay,” she ordered and the dog stopped dead in his tracks. Peering through the beveled glass sidelight, she locked gazes with her visitor.

“I’ll be damned.”

The last person Shana had expected to find on her doorstep was Rick Bentz. But there he was in the flesh, arms folded over his chest, legs slightly apart as he stood between the gigantic pots overflowing with trailing red and white petunias. A pair of aviator-type sunglasses were perched on the bridge of a nose that had been broken at least once, probably a couple of times. He’d trimmed down, too, lost maybe fifteen or twenty pounds since she’d last seen him a dozen or so years ago at Je