Never Die Alone (A Bentz/Montoya Novel Book 8) (30 page)

“I do.”

With a final don’t-get-used-to-messing-with-me look at Bridges, Nellie walked quickly down the hallway.

For his part, the reporter didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by her discomfiture and got right down to business. “I need some answers, Bentz.”

“About the homicide off of Chartres?”

“That, too,” Bridges said, “but the reason I’m here now is that I’m working with Brianna Hayward.”

Bentz nodded. Not surprised. “You want to know about the 21 Killer,” he surmised. “I’ve talked to Ms. Hayward, heard her theories.”

“And I found out that Donovan Caldwell died early this morning or late last night. I figure you, as an investigating officer of the original case, might know a little more than most.”

Bentz didn’t respond.

“Tell me about Donovan Caldwell. What happened?” Bridges prodded. “How did he die while incarcerated? An accident? Natural causes? Come on, he was a young man. There’s talk of suicide.”

“Twitter at its best,” Bentz muttered.

“It’s happened before.”

“Look, the investigation is ongoing. I was just talking to Detective Hayes from the LAPD. He was my partner for the years I was on the force. He tells me nothing is certain yet. There will be an autopsy. Lab tests. You know how those things go. The final report could take weeks.”

“Won’t they rush the autopsy?”

Bentz shrugged. “It’s not really an emergency. And they’ll be extremely thorough. Caldwell was convicted of heinous acts, didn’t have a lot of fans in prison. The Department of Corrections will want to make sure everything was on the up-and-up.”

“You’ve heard Brianna Hayward’s theory,” Bridges pressed on. “Do you really think Donovan Caldwell was the 21 Killer?”

Bentz wanted to stick to the company line, that, of course, the LAPD had gotten their man, but in light of recent findings, he wasn’t a hundred percent certain. Before he could come up with a suitable answer, he heard a ruckus out in the hallway.

Once again, Nellie’s sharp voice could be heard over the usual hubbub of cell phones, voices, printers, and the air-conditioning fans.

“I’m sorry, but Detective Bentz is with someone right now.”

“Tough! I have to talk to him. Now.” The woman’s voice sounded close to hysteria. Lately, it seemed, it was the story of his life.

“If you can wait—”

“No way! This is a damned emergency. My name’s Zoe Denning and my mom says Detective Bentz has been looking for me.”

“Denning?” Nellie repeated as Bentz shot to his feet and Jase Bridges, who hadn’t yet sat down, stepped into the hallway.

“She’s my daughter,” another voice said as a shriek loud enough to wake the dead in the neighboring parishes ricocheted through the station.

Bentz grabbed his sidearm and ran out the door to the hallway, where a terrified Zoe Denning cowered as she stared, wide-eyed, at Jase Bridges. The girl was a mess, with stringy hair, her skin burned and streaked with mud. But she was alive. And in a panic.

“It’s him!” she cried. Frantic, she scrambled backward, trying to get away from Bridges. “He’s the psycho who grabbed me! Him! For the love of God, somebody get him!”

C
HAPTER
30

“F
or the love of God!” Zoe screamed at the sight of the freak. “He’s the one! He’s the perv who’s got Chloe!” What the hell was he doing here? At the police station? All cleaned up and . . . “For the love of God! Arrest him,” she said, panic flooding through her. This was wrong. So very wrong.

“Miss—?” The cop who followed him into the hallway looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look all right? Did you hear me?” she said, her voice rising, anger and rage beating through her.

“Miss—?” The damned cop again.

“Where the hell is my sister?” She glared at the cleaned-up version of the psycho. “What did you do with her?” She started to launch herself at the man, attack him, and force him to tell the truth, but Rand, the farmer, stopped her short, restraining her with a big hand suddenly clamped over her shoulder.

“Slow down,” the farmer said into her ear. “Something’s not right here.”

“You’re damned right about that!”

The object of her wrath held up both hands, palms out, fingers splayed, his face earnest. “Not me.”

“Yes! You!” Somehow this creep was trying to trick her, trick the cops with his clean, respectable façade, but she wouldn’t be fooled, not after days of being held captive. “Where’s Chloe, damn it! Where the hell is she?” Zoe was nearly hyperventilating, her mind spinning, only vaguely aware that other people in the department, other policemen and women were clustering around them. Voices. Phones. Shuffling feet. Stares. Her heart thudding, she was sweating, in a near panic at the sight of him.

The cop who was looking at her said, “You’re identifying this man as your abductor?”

“Yes!” Zoe nearly screamed. What was wrong with them? Why was he standing here all innocent-like. As if he didn’t know. “It’s . . . it’s . . . him! Where’s Chloe, you bastard? Where’s my sister?” she cried, but as she said the words and her panic at the sight of him subsided a bit, she realized that something was off. Not right. Even though she wanted to pummel the jerkwad with her bare fists, to gouge out his eyes, she wasn’t sure. The face, oh, God, the face was the same and the build, but all cleaned up? Not a scratch on his face, not a bruise, not . . . wait, there was a little scar, but it was old and . . . what the hell? The psycho didn’t have an old scar there but he sure as hell had fresh ones. Her throat closed in on itself as she stared at him, tried to get her bearings. Could this guy be, what? A dopple-ganger, another twin? Oh, Geez, was that the deal? The freak was actually a twin himself? She thought she might have a heart attack right then and there just staring at him.

Little nuances—differences—jumped out at her. Her stomach dropped. “Do you . . .” No, she wouldn’t talk to the guy. To the cop, she asked, “Does he have a tattoo? On his arm? There should be a tat!”

To her amazement, the guy nodded and pushed his sleeve up past the bend of one elbow where the inky image of a rattlesnake was coiled around his biceps. “Only one I’ve got.”

“No, no.” She was shaking her head, disbelieving, trying to wrap her near-crazed mind around what she was seeing. “That’s not right!” she whispered, attempting to get a grip on herself “Not a snake . . . this is all wrong.” Remembering the mountain and a bloody heart on her captor’s arm, she felt sick inside. She was wrong. This wasn’t the creep. The man standing before her had a straighter nose and, of course, that tiny scar, faint but discernable, from years past. She was sure the freak didn’t have one there. Finally, her heartbeat slowing, the truth that had been dawning taking hold, she admitted, “The tattoo was way different, like that of a mountain and a bloody heart, some weird crap like that.” Oh, God, she wanted this man to be her would-be killer, to see him in custody, in handcuffs and shackles, behind bars or worse. She tried to think straight, to push past her pain and exhaustion, her hunger and dehydration, but she couldn’t and felt her knees start to give.

For the first time she noticed how many of the cops had left their desks, their expressions interested and wary, some with hands on their weapons as they collected around the tense group clogging the hallway. All staring at her.

“What . . . what about some kind of mole?” she asked in desperation. “On your . . . ?” She turned her gaze to the cop who had walked out of the office with the freak. “On his butt cheek.”

Selma took in a swift breath. “You saw him without clothes?”

“Except for a rubber apron. Yeah.” But if this wasn’t the guy, then, oh God, Chloe was still in the maniac’s clutches . . . or worse.

“You want me to drop trou? Would that convince you?” the guy demanded and before she could answer, without batting an eye, turned around and let his pants fall from his buttocks. The cop stared at them all as if they were all ceritifiable while more and more people gathered around.

“Hey! I don’t think that’s necessary, Bridges!” the cop said as some Hispanic dude with a goatee and diamond stud earring swaggered around the corner and stopped short.

“Whoa! What the hell kind of freak show is this?” he demanded, eyeing the gathering crowd. He acted like a cop, too—kinda—but he was wearing a black leather jacket and a bad-boy attitude that were at odds with him being a part of the force.

“This is Zoe Denning,” the first cop said, and then to Zoe, his face all serious intensity as he motioned to the guy who had just shown his buttocks. “Is this your abductor?”

“No,” she admitted, as the guy pulled up his pants and, his expression no longer of surprise, adjusted his shirt. “No, it can’t be. But—”

“But,” he said, his eyes darkening, “I look enough like him to be his twin.”

“You want to talk about Myra now?” Brianna said, disbelieving as she stared at Milo. “I really can’t. I have an appointment.”

“Here?” Milo asked, and looked at the apartment building. “Your appointment is here?” He eyed her suspiciously.

She checked her watch. She wasn’t scheduled to meet with Jase for another fifteen minutes, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to spend the time alone with Milo; there was just something about him that she didn’t trust.

“You followed me. And you came to my house and looked in my bathroom window.”

He didn’t answer, but actually blushed, as if embarrassed.

“While I was showering!”

“No . . . no . . . I’d rung the bell. Really. I wanted . . . I needed to talk to you and you didn’t answer. I saw lights on, so I walked around the house and . . .”

“Looked at me while I was showering? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“You were out of the shower. You had a towel around you.”

“Doesn’t matter! That’s voyeurism, Milo. I could have you arrested! I
should
have you arrested! You can’t go around peeping in windows.”

“You wouldn’t!” He was nervous now, his tongue darting around the corners of his mouth.

“I’m not sure about that.” She was furious and wanted to let him have it with both barrels. “You scared me to death!”

“I just . . . I just didn’t know how to talk to you.” He seemed sincere and confused and upset. “I’m sorry. Really. Please,” he said. “I just want to talk about Myra. I thought you cared about the whole twinless twin thing . . . I . . .”

A horn blasted as a minivan rolled down the street.

“Okay,” Brianna said. “Just find a parking spot. I’ll wait.”

“You could just hop into the van.”

No way would she jump into a van with a guy who had admitted to peering through her windows, a man who, at some level, made her more than nervous. She clicked off her phone’s camera but put it in alarm mode, should she need to call for help. She considered moving her Honda, parked as it was in a tow-away zone, but decided this hastily convened meeting would only take a few minutes. Twinless twin or not, it was all the time she could give him.

It took Milo five minutes to park his vehicle and walk back to her spot near the tree, and she couldn’t help but second-guess her own sanity at having agreed to this. She glanced around the area, just to make certain she wasn’t alone.

A woman pushing a baby carriage while trying to walk some kind of big dog, a Lab mix, she thought, was on the far side of the street. She also spied a man leaning over the rail of the third-floor porch. Smoking a cigarette and staring at her. Hard. Or was it her imagination? Were her nerves jangled because of Milo and the fact that Donovan Caldwell had died today. It was all kind of weird. Outré. Unnerving. Silently she told herself she was just a bundle of nerves and jumping at shadows, not in small measure due to Milo Tillman, her own personal stalker.

Was it even safe to deal with him?

What if he had a weapon?

What then?

She glanced up at the apartment building again and saw the gray-haired guy still watching her. Friend or foe?

Dear God, she was letting her imagination run wild with her. Now she was seeing evil in someone doing nothing threatening. But as Milo approached, she felt herself tense.

“Let’s go somewhere where we can sit down,” he suggested. “I think there’s a café two blocks down.”

Like this was a date or something? Two friends having coffee? No way!

“I’m sorry,” she said. She needed to keep her relationship with this man professional. She’d crossed the barriers before and blurred the lines several times. Max had been a mistake, and she probably was more involved with Tanisha and Selma than she should be. They’d become friends. But Milo? The Peeping Tom? No way. His excuse for peering through her window was flimsy at best. “I really don’t have a lot of time. So what’s going on? What’s happening that couldn’t wait until our next meeting?”

“I, um, I lied about that,” he admitted, and her gut clenched.

“You lied?”

“About needing to talk about Myra. Well kind of... and about watching you.” He scratched the back of his neck nervously. “I think you’re in danger.”

“Me?” What was he talking about? Where was this going?

“I’ve followed you,” he admitted as a car left the parking lot of Jase’s apartment building, nosing into the street where the traffic was picking up.

“I know.” She glanced up to the third floor of the building. The smoker was still there, observing the ground below and, she felt, keeping an eye on her. All the better considering.

“And I’ve seen you with him.”

“With who?”

“Jacob.”

“Jacob?” she repeated, confused. “I don’t know a Jacob.”

He stared at her as if she were nuts. “But I saw you together. You know, after the meeting. The other night?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Milo’s face grew hard. “It was later, you remember, after the meeting where Selma told us about her daughters going missing?” An earnest look crossed his face, but of course she still didn’t trust him. “You went to dinner, I think, or out for drinks with Tanisha and Selma after the meeting and Jacob, he was waiting for you by your car.”

Now she got it. Milo was mixed up. That was it. Or he got Jase’s name wrong. “His name isn’t Jacob.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “He’s a reporter. Jason Bridges.”

But Milo’s face had changed. Any confusion in his expression had been chased away by anger. “What he is, Brianna, is a liar. His name is Bridges, yeah, but he’s Jacob and he’s a murdering son of a bitch. He killed Myra.”

He drove as if Lucifer himself was on his tail, taking corners too fast, putting Myra’s Ford through its paces, and all the while he was on his cell phone, listening to Myra berate him, reminding him over and over again that he’d failed. He’d left the city in a rush and now was flying toward the cabin, fields and farmland flashing by.

“You’re out of options. You need to kill her.” Myra’s disappointed voice had been cold. Calculating. As if she’d just stepped out of the grave. But insistent, so much so that he heard it even when he wasn’t on the phone with her.

He’d failed. He knew it now. Actually he’d known it the instant he’d missed his second shot and the pickup had sped out of range. He’d made the mistake of thinking he could fix things, that he could still hunt Zoe down, but had realized that returning to New Orleans had been a mistake.