by Lisa Jackson
As if!
She slid a glance at Selma whose eyes were closed, her arms wrapped protectively around her thin body. Was it really possible? Could it be that Selma’s two precious daughters, on the cusp of becoming adults, had been kidnapped by 21?
If so, it was far too late.
The killer would have ended their lives precisely twenty-one years from the time Selma had brought them into the world.
Heart filled with dread, she drove into the city of Baton Rouge and turned onto the street that would lead into the center of All Saints’ campus. Brianna and Selma had decided that they needed to begin their search in the girls’ dormitory. Brianna tried to picture Chloe peering out from under the covers of her bed or Zoe answering the door, telling her mother to mind her own business. She hoped those images were not just a fantasy.
To that end, as the car nosed its way under the archway at the college’s southern border, Brianna sent up a small prayer for the Denning twins’ safety.
At the sound of an outboard engine, Bentz turned toward the water to watch as an aluminum craft appeared, rounding a bend in the bayou.
Leaving a small wake, the boat sidled up to the old pier. Ray Calloway, a barrel-chested African American who was manning the tiller, cut the engine. With a nod at Bentz, he found a rope and looped it over a post sticking up from the dismal dock.
“Ray,” Bentz said, stepping aboard the gently rocking boat. “Thanks for coming.”
“Any time, any time. You know it. Good ta see ya, Bentz.” The boat’s owner was an ex-cop who spent his days fishing these bayous. “No trouble at all,” he said as Montoya took a seat on the bench already occupied by Bentz. “Been too long.”
“That it has.” Bentz made quick introductions, then Calloway unhitched the boat, started the engine, and guided the craft across the murky water. Bentz didn’t like the feel of the area where alligators slid slowly through the swamp and water moccasins made their home.
“I hate this place,” Montoya admitted.
“The bayou?”
“No, this place.” He motioned to the shadowy thicket where Father John had resided during his reign of terror. His eyes darkened to nearly black. “Evil lived here.”
Bentz said, “A long time ago.”
“Doesn’t matter. I figure it still exists.”
Calloway nodded, his bald head speckled with sweat as he guided the boat’s bow between trees rising out of the water. “The spirit stays, you know. It lingers, even after the perp is gone. Y’know, like a bad smell.”
Bentz didn’t buy into Ray’s theory of lingering evil, but he couldn’t deny the sudden coolness at the back of his neck, like the breath of a demon prickling the hairs at the base of his scalp. The chill was at odds with the heat of the day. He told himself it was all his imagination. Montoya wasn’t right. Evil may have existed in this bayou where a musty smell rose from rotting vegetation, but no malingering spirits lurked in the deepening umbra.
The dinghy slipped farther into the woods, where shafts of light glinted through the branches overhead, sparkling the water. An ibis, disturbed by the watercraft, took off. White wings stretched, the bird disappeared in the higher branches.
“Here we go,” Calloway said, cutting the engine. Sure enough, the remains of a cabin came into view in the nest of foliage. Rotting on its pilings, the wooden structure sagged. Its roof had collapsed, and some of the floorboards of the porch surrounding the structure were missing.
“No one living in this mess,” Montoya observed; he seemed relieved.
“Yeah, I figured.” Bentz squinted at the dilapidated building. “This would have been way too easy, and nothing about Father John ever was.” He thought back to the time when the serial killer had been terrorizing the city. Long before Hurricane Katrina had meted out her punishment, Father John had stalked the streets of New Orleans, choosing his victims and leaving them with a necklace of bruises around their throats and a mutilated hundred-dollar bill nearby. A fake priest, serial killer, fan of Dr. Sam’s radio program. Yeah, he was a sick bastard all right.
And now he was back.
From the looks of it vandals had found the cabin. Luminescent paint had been scrawled over the remaining boards, a sleeping bag with its stuffing spilling out hung over what was left of the railing near the stairs, and beer cans and wrappers were visible. A wasp’s nest hung from a low branch, slim black insects crawling on its papery shell. Mosquitoes and dragonflies buzzed near the watercraft.
Montoya gave a wasp a swat as it hovered near his head. “Jesus, I hate the swamp.”
“Bayou,” Calloway corrected.
“All the same.” Montoya swore, slapping at his neck. “Shit, that fucker nailed me.” Sure enough, a red welt showed just above his collar. “God damn it!”
Over the idling of the boat, Calloway said, “Should never swat at ’em.”
“Yeah, right.” Montoya’s lips were pressed tight.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Bentz said.
“Not much to see.” Giving out a raspy chuckle, Calloway jammed a cigarette into the corner of his mouth and circled his small craft around the cabin. He didn’t bother lighting his Pall Mall, but headed to the opposite shore where Montoya’s Mustang was waiting.
Bentz was sweating heavily as he climbed out of the boat one step behind his partner. He paused on the dock. “Thanks,” he said to Calloway.
“Any time.” The ex-cop flicked his lighter to the end of his cigarette. “Seriously, Bentz, you should come back. And next time, not on business. Spend the day out here. You could catch yourself and the missus a mess o’ catfish.”
“She’d love that,” Bentz said with more than a trace of irony as he pictured Olivia cleaning a bunch of fat fish at the kitchen sink. She’d done it all her life, of course, growing up with Granny Gin, but still she wasn’t fond of gutting and filleting the whiskered bottom-feeders.
“I’ll bet she would.” Chuckling again, Calloway eased his boat into the bayou. Cigarette clamped firmly between his teeth, hand on the tiller, he sped through the murky water to disappear around the bayou’s bend.
“Now what?” Montoya asked, rubbing the red mark on his neck as he and Bentz made their way along the overgrown path to the car.
“Haven’t figured that out yet,” Bentz admitted as he slid into the passenger seat and rolled down the window. “But I will.” He’d already pulled the file on Father John from the Cold Case Archives and had made inquiries. It wasn’t as if the police department didn’t know his identity. Of course, they had a contact list of his friends and family. So far none of those who had known the killer had admitted to seeing the man who disguised himself as a priest and used a rosary as a murder weapon. Every contact had expressed surprise that Bentz was asking questions again; they insisted that Father John had to be dead.
Were they lying?
Time would tell.
“The bastard’s taunting us, you know.” Montoya fired the engine and hit the A/C, then backed onto the overgrown gravel road.
“Yep.”
“Daring us to catch him.” He found a wide spot where the grass was mashed down and turned around, the Mustang bouncing on the uneven ground.
“We will.”
“Not by doin’ what we just did. The boat ride out to the old lair? That’s what we professionals in the business call a wild-goose chase!”
“I just wanted to get the feel of him again.”
Montoya slid him a glance. “Feel of him?”
“Yeah.” Bentz couldn’t explain it, not even to his partner, but he had a strange connection with the killer.
“I’m tellin’ you that sumbitch is evil, that’s the feel of him he left me with. Shit.” He shot his partner a glance. “Here’s a news flash: Father John wasn’t there at his old cabin. Probably hasn’t been there in nearly a dozen years. So, again, I’m sayin’ a bust, and not in the good, we-got-your-asses prostitution or drug ring bust. I’m talking a bust like in Vegas when you lose everythin
g and get your ass kicked out of a penthouse suite.”
“Sounds like the voice of experience.”
“Maybe.” Montoya rubbed at the welt on his neck, his lips tightening as he eased onto a county road and hit the gas.
“Nothing lost,” Bentz said, staring out the windshield.
“Just a couple hours of my life.” But Montoya was settling down, his volatile anger subsiding. “Hell, I can’t believe the psycho’s back. Why now? And why kill a nun?”
“Who was as bad as he is.”
“Yeah, well, maybe. It still gets my back up. She was unarmed, man. Trusting,” Montoya said as the car’s wheels hummed over the pavement. “I don’t go to mass anymore, and hardly ever pray, y’know, but hell, I was raised Catholic and I hate the fact that the twisted son of a bitch impersonated a priest. What kind of sick bastard does that?”
“He isn’t a man of God.”
“You got that right. Being a priest, a holy man, takes years of study and commitment and dedication and piety and honor, y’know, and a rosary. It’s holy. Sacred.” His hands tightened over the wheel. “It pisses me off.”
“Me too,” Bentz admitted, drumming his fingers against the passenger door. “Me too.”
She would never get the chance to escape again. Chloe knew it, as surely as she was locked in this windowless basement, alone and naked. At least she was no longer hog-tied. Instead, he’d bound her wrists in front of her and left her with a pail to pee in and a night-light that gave off a weird blue glow from a battery-powered disk on his worktable. He’d been bloody and covered in dirt, but had found some clothes, a plaid shirt and old jeans that he’d thrown on.
Then he’d taken off with the final words. “I’ll find her, you know. I’ll find that bitch and bring her back here. And then . . .”
He’d never finished his threat, leaving her to guess at his sick plans. He had climbed the ladder, hauled it up after him, and slammed the trapdoor closed behind him. She had heard his heavy tread cross the floor above, and then silence.
Chloe figured he hadn’t decided what to do with them now that his original plan had been thwarted. She didn’t know what kind of macabre rite he’d dreamed up, but it certainly would have involved pain and the twins’ eventual deaths.
So now she needed a plan.
Either he’d return and hurt her, or leave her in this miserable basement to die. Both scenarios were terrifying, so she had to find a way to free herself. That was what Zoe would do. She would find some way to either climb out of here or wait until the whack job returned and somehow get the drop on him. That would be harder than ever, now that Zoe had done it once.
And, she told herself, she wasn’t Zoe. She wasn’t brave or strong or athletic. She didn’t have Zoe’s fire and edge. She’d always been content to let her twin be the leader in their lives, but now, she had no one to rely on but herself.
Worse yet, Zoe was counting on her.
But it was an impossible situation.
She was trapped in this prison.
Blinking back tears, she curled into a fetal position on the cool stone floor and tried to calm her racing thoughts. She needed a plan. Something clever, like the thing Zoe had done. She tugged at the binding on her wrists, which was tighter this time. It was no use. Her twin would have to find a way to save them both.
Brianna paced to a window of the college’s admin building and stared out at the pathways cut through well-manicured lawns. The windows in the stone building were small, reminiscent of a medieval monastery, but they allowed her a sweeping view of the campus grounds. How she would have loved to recognize Zoe or Chloe among the handful of students and faculty crossing the campus, heading off to a dorm or summer session classes. Behind her, Selma sat silently. Waiting and waiting to meet with the dean of students. After a tough morning spent searching this campus, they were more frustrated than ever.
They had fast-talked and finagled their way into the twins’ rooms, appealing to a very annoyed-looking resident assistant who’d been taking advantage of the summer break to catch up with her shows on a laptop at the reception desk. Zoe’s room had been unremarkable, with clothes strewn over the twin beds, books scattered, posters of sunsets and pop stars pinned to the walls. Chloe’s room had been more of the same, though a bit tidier.
Distraught to find another empty room, Selma had collapsed on Chloe’s bed and buried her face in the pillow before Brianna had been able to stop her. “We can’t disturb anything,” she’d reminded the twins’ mother. “You know, just in case . . .”
“The police investigate.”
“Yes, I just thought we needed to check their rooms, but . . . let’s move on. ”
Selma had stiffened. “I told you they weren’t hiding from me or sleeping it off or whatever.”
“Right. I know. I’m sorry.” Though contrite, Brianna had known it was no time to deal with Selma’s overly raw emotions. “Come on.”
They’d stopped at a McDonald’s near campus for lunch, but Selma had picked at her Big Mac, barely touching it in favor of a Diet Coke and cigarette. Afterward, they had talked to a few of the girls’ friends who lived nearby and confirmed that their last contact with Zoe or Chloe had been around nine in the evening.
“I thought they were going to meet us at the Watering Hole,” Annie Rolands had told them. “I mean, it’s our place. All the students kick it there.” A petite brunette in frayed denim shorts and a tight sleeveless T-shirt, Annie had come out on the porch of her apartment, blingy cell phone in hand. “I was, like, ‘Come on, let’s go to the Watering Hole now,’ and they were, like, ‘No way, we want to party on Bourbon Street,’ and I was, like, ‘Whatever.’ I thought they’d show up at the Hole after a bit, but no.” She shrugged, checked the phone’s screen. “But they’re okay, right?”
“We hope so,” Brianna had said, and Annie had promised to text everyone she could think of to locate the girls.
“Social media, too,” Brianna had instructed. “Facebook, or whatever it is you guys connect on.”
“Sure.” Annie had bobbed her head. “I’m all over it.”
Once they were back in the car, Selma had confided: “I don’t think I can trust her to find the twins.”
“It’s a start,” Brianna had assured her. “It’s good to put the word out with someone tied in to their social network.”
Now, at last, the dean of students appeared in the reception area, his hands clamped to his chest, as if in prayer.
“I apologize,” he said with the barest hint of a brogue hinting at his Irish roots. “Summer is our season of retreats, and that keeps me busy. But come in, come in.” A fortysomething priest dressed in black slacks and shirt and a stark white clerical collar, Father Crispin was friendly, though harried, as he guided them up a curved staircase and into an office with tracery windows, coved ceiling, and a carved bookcase filled with well-worn tomes. Checking his watch, he waved Selma and Brianna into side chairs before taking his seat at the massive table serving as his desk.
“Now, then, what can I do for you?”
“It’s about my daughters. They’re students here. Zoe and Chloe Denning,” Selma said. As the priest listened, she explained about the twins’ disappearance, her worries for her girls, and her fears that a monster serial killer was at large in Louisiana.
As her story went on, the dean’s cocked head rose to alert, and his ruddy face clouded. “Murder?” Caution flared in his eyes. “Here?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Selma answered. “All I’m sure of is that my daughters are missing.”
“But a serial killer?” Father Crispin glanced at Brianna for verification. “We had a situation—” He caught himself. “There was a time when students were at risk here, but that was years ago. We’ve had no trouble since then. And your daughters, they probably are just late; you know how kids are when they turn twenty-one.”
It was time for Brianna to step in. “Father, we believe they may have been targeted by a killer.”
/> The priest’s dark brows drew together as he listened to Brianna’s account of 21 and her theory that the killer was still at large. His expression of concern was heartening, until he spoke again. “That’s a frightening account, but if this is true, you ladies need to speak with the police. This is a matter beyond our campus.”
Brianna’s heart sank in disappointment. This was a waste of time.
“Of course, there will be full cooperation on our end,” he said, glancing pointedly at his watch. “We’ll do everything we can. I assure you, All Saints is a safe haven for all students.” Then he stood, indicating the meeting was over. “Please, try not to worry,” he suggested while opening the door and effectively ending their discourse. “LA’s a long way from here and, as you said, the police think they’ve got their man. These other. . . incidents are disturbing. Unfortunate. But your daughters are adults now, ma’am. It’s time to let them make their own choices and hope that they choose wisely. Now, come along, walk with me. The afternoon workshops are about to begin and they’re on the other side of campus. Can’t keep our guests waiting.”
Selma and Brianna kept up with his long strides as he crossed the grassy quad where a few students were sprawled, books open, iPhones in hand. The sky was a silky blue, not a breath of wind, the day filled with the warmth of summer. And yet Brianna felt a chill as cold as all of December. As each hour had passed without a word from Selma’s daughters, her own fears had increased.
At a juncture in the paths, Father Crispin stopped and touched Selma lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll do what I can,” he promised. “God be with you.” He turned on his heel toward another cathedral-like building facing the manicured lawns. Taking the steps two at a time, he rose up the stone staircase and disappeared behind a massive door.
“He’s not going to do anything,” Selma said in a hollow voice. “He thinks I’m a nutcase. An overprotective mother.” Her skin was pale, her demeanor laden with weariness.
“He’s passing the buck.” Brianna slid an arm around the older woman’s waist and propelled her toward the student parking lot. “But he was right about one thing. It’s time to talk to the police.”