by Lisa Jackson
Her gaze flickered and he wondered if she was going to lie to him. “I was out there visiting relatives. Including Donovan Caldwell,” she admitted. Then quickly added, “The point is, 21 is still at large. He didn’t just land in Louisiana, Detective. He came here with the express intent of flaunting the fact that he’s smarter than the first detective in the case against him.”
“You think you can see inside the mind of a serial killer?” he asked.
“Maybe.” She was suddenly defensive, her patience obviously wearing thin.
“Why’s that?”
“I’m a psychologist.”
Holy Mother Mary. A shrink. Just what he needed. “Criminal psychologist?”
“Crime isn’t my speciality, but I’ve taken classes—”
“Perfect.” A shrink, but also a student of criminal psychology? And related to Donovan Caldwell? This was going nowhere and fast.
As if reading his mind, she said, “My credentials aren’t important. If I’m right, it means that the 21 Killer is still out there and he’s got Zoe and Chloe Denning and we have to find them. ASAP. I need your help, Detective.”
He felt the chill of déjà vu run through his bones. Hadn’t another woman, one he thought might be a lunatic, come raging into this very office years ago? Swearing she could “see” the crimes of a killer, she’d ranted in front of his desk. Hadn’t he scoffed at her, written her off as a nut job, and then eventually become swayed that she knew something? That woman, Olivia Benchet, was now his wife.
“Unfortunately, Ms. Hayward, if you’re right, those girls are most likely already dead,” he said, deciding that there was no way to sugarcoat the truth. “According to you, the exact time each twin turned twenty-one has already past.”
She winced as if in pain.
“21 is precise. So let’s hope you’re wrong.”
A knot appeared in her jaw and her fingers stretched and curled on the arms of the chair. “All the more reason not to waste any time.” Frustration yanked her eyebrows together and she appeared to lose what little control she’d had. “The way I see it, Detective Bentz, a homicidal maniac is walking around free because your partner and Bledsoe arrested the wrong man and trumped up their case against him. Not only is the wrong man serving time in a hellhole of a prison, but the real killer is at large.” She was angry now, at the end of her rope, and she wasn’t holding back. “Any other victims who die at his hand, including Garrett and Gavin Reeves, Beau and Belle January, and now probably Chloe and Zoe Denning, will be dead due to police negligence. I was hoping you would be different from the other detectives I talked to, that you might actually give a damn since you’re some sort of hero cop around here.”
“I’m no hero—”
“I’ve read about the cases you’ve solved, how you’ve put your life on the line, nearly got killed a while back. But maybe they’ve got it all wrong about you here in New Orleans. Maybe that bad shooting, the incident in LA that has been conveniently swept under the rug, is what you’re really made of.” Her color was high now, her ire palpable. “I was hoping that you would actually give a damn about the 21 Killer, the fact that the wrong man is in prison and that twins have been kidnapped. I thought you would care, Detective, but I guess I was wrong!”
“Hey,” Montoya said, suddenly filling the doorway and taking in the scene. “Is there a problem here?”
Bentz scowled as he glanced at his partner. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Then do something!” Brianna said.
“Whoa!” Montoya was inside Bentz’s small office in an instant. He was bristling, his shoulder muscles bunching under his shirt.
Bentz lifted a hand to silently calm his partner. “I’ve got this.”
“I hope so, because I expect you”—she jabbed a finger in his direction—“you and every man on the force here and in Baton Rouge to find Zoe and Chloe Denning before it’s too late!” She flung a business card onto the desk, hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder, and then motioned to the papers still in his hands. “Those are your copies.” She turned, giving Montoya the once-over as he stepped out of the way. “I’ve got my own. If you need to get in touch with me, my cell’s listed on my card.” With that she left, striding out of his office as quickly as she’d stepped inside moments before.
As Olivia had years ago. Olivia, too, had been spouting outrageous ideas as well, theories he’d disputed but had proved true. On first meeting Olivia Benchet, he’d thought her a bona-fide nut job and tried to dismiss her. So, who was to say that Brianna Hayward was wrong? Hell, was it possible the LAPD had made a mistake? That the 21 Killer was still at large? And here, in New Orleans. Nah, that was crazy. Right? The evidence, though circumstantial, had been sufficient to sway a jury to convict the brother of Delta and Diana Caldwell for their murders.
His jaw slid to the side and he didn’t like where his thoughts were carrying him.
“What the hell was that all about?” Montoya craned his neck to peer out the doorway and watch her leave.
Bentz reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a near-empty bottle of antacids with his free hand. “Something I’ve got to look into.” He popped the pills, jammed the cap back onto the bottle, and pushed back his chair. As he stood, he stole a glance at his computer screen and noted the leering image of Father John freeze-framed in the security video from the prison.
Great, he thought.
It looked like two of his most difficult cases, both of which he’d thought were closed and nailed shut, had suddenly reopened to converge at this point in time.
What were the chances?
And why had the 21 Killer or a copycat struck right here in Louisiana? “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Montoya asked.
Bentz grabbed his jacket from the hall tree in the corner. “Probably on our next wild-goose chase.”
Zoe opened a bleary eye.
Where was she and why was she so damned wet? Oh, crap! She was only partially wet. The other part of her was covered in mud. Half of her body was in the water, half out on the riverbank. Her arms still hugged the branch that had carried her to this spot, where she must have gotten hung up as the tree limb locked with other snags protruding into the river. Water lapped at her legs. The water, along with the dappled shade provided by the tangled tree limbs, had probably saved her skin from burning in the intense sunlight.
She tried to think past the ache in her forehead. She noticed that the sun was lying low and figured that she’d lain here, from the early morning hours of last night until now when it seemed to be late afternoon. Her thoughts went to Chloe and her heart cracked. Surely she’d gotten away from the madman. Surely she was somewhere safe and alerted the cops. This very minute there were probably hordes of police and volunteers, along with Zoe’s own family and friends, looking for her.
Zoe raised her head.
Pain exploded behind her eyes.
“Ouch! Crap!” Slowly lowering her head, she let out her breath. Geez, that hurt. Even staring upward burned her eyes. Her bare skin was red; though painful as it might be, a sunburn was the least of her problems. As far as she knew the sicko was still after her. After them.
Oh, God, she hoped not. She hoped that psycho was dead.
Nonetheless, she couldn’t just lie here, exposed to the elements, waiting for that creep show to appear. If he wasn’t dead or incapacitated, he’d be looking for her, and he would realize that she had drifted downstream.
Dear God, he could be nearby for all she knew.
Paddling a canoe. Driving a motorboat or hiking through the swampy forest.
“Damn it all to hell.” She watched as several pelicans drifted on the air currents high above, beaks long and wings wide against a sky where clouds moved slowly . . . Or was it her head swimming? She tried to roll over and felt a shaft of pain sear through her ankle. Oh, God, she couldn’t move. She was stuck in this muddy shoreline of twisted tree roots and weeds, a veritable haven for alligators and
snakes and God knew what other slithery, dangerous creatures.
But the gators and cottonmouths, copperheads and rattlers were far less dangerous than the beast who had captured Chloe and her just hours before midnight. Had it been yesterday? Or the day before? Surely she had only been “out” for less than a day. Right?
Did it matter?
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her it had been forever since she’d eaten, and her bladder suggested she might want to find a place to relieve herself.
“Great,” she muttered.
More slowly this time, she lifted her head and closed one eye as she suffered through the throbbing beneath her skull. Trying to ignore the worst headache of her life, she surveyed this bend in the river. Surely there would be fishing boats or pleasure craft passing? Even one of those jet boats that roared up and down the slow-moving river, bayou, and inlets.
She squinted, searching through the brush and trying to determine where she was and how she could get out of these swampy woods and back to civilization. She must’ve passed the spot where she’d seen lights in the night. Now there was no sign of civilization. She had to get moving, couldn’t hang around with the vague hope that someone other than the freak would find her. No, she had to find a road, steal a boat, locate someone in a farmhouse or a cabin, or flag someone fishing from a dock. Anyone who could help her.
As she attempted to move, pain splintered up her ankle. She lifted her head to survey the damage. Sure enough a baseball-sized knot, blue-green and bulging, appeared above her foot. Broken or sprained, it didn’t matter. She had to leave this spot. But as the sun lowered even farther to the west, she eased her throbbing head back down and closed her eyes.
Just for a second.
CHAPTER 9
Brianna figured she’d blown it.
Big-time.
Lost her cool as well as her perspective. And now, probably any chance for help.
The police department was teeming with people. Uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, clerical workers, suspects, or people like herself needing assistance jammed the place, inside and out. Conversation buzzed and echoed off the tall ceilings. Cell phones rang and the slightly musty smell of the old building couldn’t be hidden by the acrid odors of floor cleansers, perfume, and human sweat.
“Crap!” she whispered as she left Bentz’s office and squeezed past a hefty man who was heading in the opposite direction.
Angry with herself, Brianna still held on to the hope that the Denning twins were alive as she made her way through the homicide department. She’d come on too strong, had gotten Bentz’s back up, just as she’d warned herself she might. The trouble was, she thought as she hurried down the stairs, the heels of her boots ringing, she was too passionate about this case, too personally involved despite what she’d told Bentz.
Scared to death for Chloe and Zoe, she was heartsick and frustrated and wanted to scream and rail at the heavens. Instead, she’d taken out her anxiety on a detective who hadn’t investigated the 21 Killer for years. Still, she was certain 21 was here because of Bentz. Call it a hunch. Or an educated guess. It didn’t matter; Brianna was certain she was right. Hence her overreaction.
“Idiot,” she whispered under her breath, and was vaguely aware of other footsteps on the old steps behind her.
Telling herself she wasn’t going to let her own paranoia get the better of her, she wended her way down the battered old staircase where, suddenly, she was swimming against a tide of officers and visitors moving upward. Crowds had always bothered her, but she fought a surge of panic as she descended to the main floor. There she wended her way through a wide hallway to the front doors.
Outside she felt as if she could breathe again even though the sun was intense, heat still rising from the streets where late-afternoon shadows lengthened. She’d blown it with Bentz. She knew that and mentally kicked herself for the way she’d handled the meeting. Maybe she should have come to him first rather than head to Baton Rouge, but she’d thought she could gain more information at the college and offer it up, maybe set some wheels in motion. She’d thought she could help.
She’d been wrong.
“Fool,” she told herself as she walked along the sidewalk. Her meeting with Bentz had been a disaster.
A breath of wind chased through the magnolia trees, rustling the leaves and bringing with it the scent of the river, thick and musty, and reminding her that New Orleans wasn’t her native home. She, like so many others here, was a transplant.
She’d been born and raised in Bad Luck, Texas, until middle school, when her father had gotten a job at Tulane University and packed up his wife, twins, and family dog to move to New Orleans. Since that time she’d called Louisiana home. Now, of course, she felt as if she’d lived here forever.
She loved this town. But with each passing hour of not hearing from the Denning girls, Brianna was more and more certain the 21 Killer was right here in her backyard.
Her stomach squeezed at the thought as she jaywalked across the street. She’d found 21 terrifying as well as fascinating from a purely psychological point of view. What was his need to kill twins on their birthdays, the very date they became adults?
She couldn’t help but wonder if his journey to New Orleans had something to do with her rather than Bentz. After all, she’d started rattling the cages of the LAPD not long ago, when he was already on the move.
Ridiculous! He knows nothing about you. Nothing. How could he? And why would he be interested? You’re far older than twenty-one, your twin sister long dead. You aren’t his type.
But she had been stirring up a hornet’s nest. He could have easily found out that she was fighting to get Donovan Caldwell released, that she was determined to see the real killer hunted down.
Even so . . . you don’t fit his victim profile. You are not the reason Zoe and Chloe are missing.
So she was back to her theory that Rick Bentz was the audience the killer was playing to. But even that theory was a stretch. Why not stay in LA and stick it in the police department’s face that he’d gotten away, that they’d imprisoned the wrong man?
After her meeting with Bentz she wondered if she, in her freaked-out, impetuous state, had come to the wrong conclusion. Hopefully. Then there was a chance the Denning girls were alive.
As she rounded a corner, she pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and checked her messages. Nothing. Selma had promised she’d call or text the moment she heard anything, so no news wasn’t such good news, contrary to the old saying.
So now what? Deep in thought, she slid her phone into her bag and found her sunglasses. The sun was low in the sky now, afternoon slipping into evening, the glare still bright, so she slipped the pair of retro Ray-Bans over the bridge of her nose. Calmer now, she contemplated her next move as she headed toward her car parked one street over.
“Brianna!” a male voice called.
Tensing, she hazarded a quick glance over her shoulder to spy a tall, rangy man striding her way, his hand raised to flag her down. “Brianna! Wait up!” Something about his face was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. He moved fast, closing the distance. Brown hair, straight and thick. A strong jaw. A jagged scar visible near his right temple.
Oh. Dear. God. In an instant, she recognized him.
Her heart beat a quick double-time and she chided herself for her reaction. The man jaywalking, avoiding traffic, was none other than Jason “Jase” Bridges, her first real high-school crush. Though, of course, she hoped desperately that he didn’t know that.
“Jase?” she said, forcing her overactive pulse to slow as a full image of him as a rebellious teenager came to mind. Three years older than her, nearly out of high school when she’d entered, he’d been a hellion her mother had constantly warned her to avoid.
“He’s no good, you know,” Ellen Hayward had told her twin daughters on more than one occasion. “He’s like his father, who, I hate to say, drinks way too much. It’s no wonder Edward’s wif
e ran off and left him with the boys.” In the kitchen of their home off Royal Street, Mom had carefully cut biscuits from the thick dough she’d flattened over their grandmother’s wooden cutting board. Pausing, she’d straightened, the flour-dusted cutter in one hand, poised over the dough. “Oh, my.” She’d shaken her head and pursed her lips. “I hate to say it, girls, but those Bridges boys? Big trouble.” She set down the cutter and fingered the cross dangling from a gold chain on her neck. “Lord have mercy on their souls.”
“‘Lord have mercy’ is right,” Arianna, the bolder of the twins, had said. She’d sent her sister an amused glance as she’d stage-whispered, “Jase is hot!” Her eyes, the same golden brown as her sister’s, had sparkled with mischief.
“Oh, for the love of Saint Peter,” their mother had admonished. “Girls!” She’d raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if seeing past the plaster and molding she could view heaven. “Why did you give me girls?”
The twins had giggled at their mother’s discomfiture, because truth be told, what would Ellen Mae Allemande Hayward have done with boys? Dealing with all that energy and testosterone? Oh, sure. Hunting, fishing, boxing, and football were not on their mother’s top one thousand things to do. Nope, Ellen wasn’t exactly the den mother or football mom type. She was lucky she had girls. Brianna’s tendency toward being a tomboy was worrisome enough for their mother. As it was, the girls kept her on her knees and praying throughout the week. With boys, she would’ve had permanent scars on her patellas.
So, of course, Ellen’s warnings had gone unheeded and added gasoline to the fire of Brianna’s interest. Now, though, she pushed aside thoughts of her mother, their tidy home not far from the university, and her own fascination with the wild teenager who had grown to become this man striding toward her.
“Jase Bridges,” she said, feeling her shoulders straighten a tad.
“So you do remember.” His smile stretched.
“Yeah, of course.” As traffic passed, she hoped that she hid any indication of her fascination with him way back when. The rebellious kid who had flagrantly disrespected authority was almost gone. Almost. From first glance Jase appeared to have straightened up from the tattered, I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass eighteen-year-old. But something told her that the same rebel lurked beneath the façade of slacks and white dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up, a bit of a tattoo showing above the bend of his elbow. A rattler, she recalled, coiled around his biceps.