Never Die Alone

“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 Gra

“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 co

“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 everything 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.

Bria

They had fast-talked and finagled their way into the twins’ rooms, appealing to a very a

Distraught to find another empty room, Selma had collapsed on Chloe’s bed and buried her face in the pillow before Bria