Cold Blooded Read Online Free PDF Page A

mouth. A faint scent of jasmine entered with her. "I don't know. He called her Cecilia but she said that wasn't her name and ... and she never told him what her name was."
    "Told who?" "The killer," she said, staring at him as if he were as dense as granite.
    "Wait a minute. Let's start over," he said. "You witnessed a woman being killed, right? You were there?" he asked.
    She hesitated before answering. "No."
    "No?"
    "But I saw it."
    Wonderful. Just what he needed to start the day right.
    Bentz clicked his pen. "Where did the murder take place, Miss.--?"
    "Benchet. I'm Olivia Benchet, and I don't know where it happened ... but I saw someone, a woman about twenty-five, I'd guess, being killed."
    Olivia's face paled and she swallowed hard. "She ... she had shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes, a few freckles, and ... and kind of a heart shaped face. She was thin, but not skinny ... in ... good shape as if she worked out or ... oh, God." Olivia closed her eyes, took in a deep, shuddering breath, then slowly let it out. A second later her lids opened and she seemed calmer, in control. Again the scent of jasmine teased his nostrils.
    "Wait a minute. We'd better back up. You heard him say her name and you saw him kill a woman, but you weren't there?" Shit. Montoya had called this one, and the Cheshire cat smile beginning to stretch across his chin indicated he knew it.
    "That's right."
    "Was it on film?" ' '," she said, then rushed on,' ' think I should explain something."
    That would be a good start. She leaned forward in her chair, and then, as if trying to grasp something, anything, she opened and closed her hands. Here it comes, Bentz thought. The part where it all falls apart but she tries to convince us that this outrageous story is true. She
    was, no doubt as Montoya had explained, a bonafide nutcase.
    "I'm able see some things right before or as they're happening. In my mind. Even though I'm not there. I know it sounds bizarre, even crazy, but it's true."
    "You're a psychic." Or a psychotic.
    "I don't know if you'd call me that. I think of myself as having a
little bit of ESP."
"A little bit?"
"It comes and goes. Last night, while I was sleeping, this was very
    real. I mean, I was there."
Hell, this just got better and better. She'd been asleep.
Great. "So you were dreaming."
"It was more than that."
"And all of your dreams, do they come true?"
"No. Of course not!" She threw her hands into the air.
"I already told you I know this sounds nuts, but just hear me out, okay?
And please, don't make any judgment calls.
I'm telling you these ',' if you want to call them that, are different.
I can't explain it. They're beyond real. Beyond surreal."
/'// bet. Bentz rubbed the back of his neck as he studied her. She was
    so earnest. She wasn't lying. Whatever it was she was peddling here, she
    believed every word of it.
"I woke up and I could still smell the smoke, feel the heat, hear her
cries for help. I mean, / was there. Not physically, but ... "
    "Spiritually?" he offered.
    Montoya suggested, "Mentally. Or telepathically."
    "However you want to explain it," she said, starting to sound irritated.
"I can't." "I know. Neither can I," she admitted.
Because it's inexplicable.
"I know ... I mean, I understand that you're used to working with facts.
Cold, hard evidence. I don't blame you, but surely you've worked with
    psychics or people who have a different level of sensitivity, or psychic prowess. I've read about police departments using psychics to help solve particularly difficult cases."
    "That's when they run out of that hard evidence," he said to her,' ' they actually have a dead body or missing person and have exhausted all other conventional avenues."
    "There's nothing conventional about this."
"Amen," Montoya said and she tossed a sharp look over her shoulder.
"My grandmother, she had the same gift, but not my mother." Her lips
    twisted into a wry, self-deprecating smile.
"Lucky me," she said. Her smooth