Never Die Alone

“That’s not the way it works,” Jase said, though he did get it. Their father’s portion of the inheritance had been small, and Ed had blown through it within a year.

“Look, Jase, I’m in a bind here. You know I hate to ask, but I got no choice. My back’s in a corner.”

“Okay, so I send you the money. What happens next month?”

“Hell, next month won’t be a problem. I got a side job that’ll pay out and by then my checks from the government will be comin’ steady-like, so I’ll be good.”

He shouldn’t do it. Jase knew he should stay strong. But suddenly he remembered his old man with a shovel, Edward’s hands so dirty you couldn’t see his nails as he stood beneath the spreading branches of that single tree visible from the living room of the house where Jase and Prescott had grown up, the house that it seemed he might soon own.

“I’ll pay ya back, son, I promise.” A pause. Heavy with portent. “I know things,” he said around a cough.

Now it was Jase’s turn to be silent, but his fingers clenched tightly over his phone and his shoulder muscles tightened.

He heard a lighter click and then a long intake of breath. “I’d hate to tell the family’s dirty little secret, but . . .” A long sigh. “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

Jase thought about his own reputation, how he’d battled to lose the stink of the poor, tough kid who’d been at odds with the law, maybe even society when he thought about it. His jaw slid to one side as he considered Prescott, now playing the part of a religious man, a pillar in his church, a husband and father.

Trinity and Caleb’s i

They didn’t deserve this. Jase had lived with the threat of his whole life unraveling, but he couldn’t face his niece and nephew carrying that burden with them. They knew nothing of their family’s secrets and shadowy past. It was best to keep it that way.

“You’re resorting to blackmail now?” Jase said, and heard his father take another deep intake of breath, remembered how the tip of Edward’s Camel glowed fiery red as he’d stood in the doorway of the farmhouse, staring into the night while rain had peppered the tin roof of the porch and gurgled down the gutters.

His father replied, “As I said, ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.’”

“Bullshit, Dad.”

Another pause. Another drag on the cigarette. Would Jase’s old man really do it? Actually go to the authorities, bring up a decades’ old crime? Or was Ed just blowing smoke? That was the problem with the past, it never really was over and gone. Long-dead misdeeds, buried and forgotten, had a tendency to rise up and sting you.

“I ain’t kiddin’, son.”

Jase felt as if he were being squeezed in his grandfather’s old vise, the one in the barn. Slowly and deliberately his father was turning the handle, making the jaws dig farther and farther into his flesh.

He caved.

Hated himself for it.

“Fine, Dad,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll send the check.” God, he was weak. He should have called the old man’s bluff. “It’ll go out tomorrow, but it’s the last time.”

“’Course it is, but I was hopin’ you might be able to wire it, y’know. Through Western Union. It’s faster. Or I’ll come get it.”

“I’m sending a check. That’s it.” He hesitated, then added, “And I’ve recorded this conversation. I’ve got an app that does that. So, when you call next month, I’m going to play it back to you.”

“What? For the love of Christ! I swear it. Aren’t you listening? You won’t need to, Jase,” Edward insisted. “And you’ll get your money back, you’ll see.” Ed hung up then. Mission accomplished.

Jase clicked his phone off and closed his eyes. He leaned his head against the wall and then banged it a couple of times, groaning. The problem was unending. His father had a love affair with the bottle; that was the long and short of it. And though he’d get sober and stay that way for months at a time, even landing jobs, Ed always broke down. Something or someone set him off, and he was soon cozying up to Jack Daniels or Jim Beam all over again.

Never once had he considered rehab. Jase had tried to get him into treatment, but after Ed’s flat-out refusals to enter any kind of program, Jase had eventually given up. His grandmother’s old adage came to mind: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Especially if it’s a stubborn old mule!”

Edward Bridges had the stubborn part down pat.

And so Jase enabled him, a bit at a time. Sporadically his father called, always about something else, but the bottom line was that Ed ended up pleading for money and making Jase feel like a heel for putting the old man through it.

Jase glanced outside to his deck that ran the length of his one-bedroom unit situated three stories above the street. A moth was beating itself up near the window where, on the inside, a lamp was glowing. “I feel ya, pal,” he said. His whole damned family needed counseling, but it wasn’t going to happen. At least not tonight.

Ignoring his own sudden need for a beer, he pushed himself away from the wall and walked into the living room, where he flopped onto the couch with his laptop. His flat-screen mounted over the fireplace showed highlights of the week’s sports events on ESPN, the sound muted. He clicked onto the Internet through the newspaper’s server and started his search for information on the 21 Killer.

He’d heard more of Bria

Victims of the 21 Killer?

Or just a coincidence?

Identical twins in the first case, but male.

Fraternal twins in the second, a man and a woman.

Not 21’s MO.

After printing out the information on each of the missing sets of twins, Jase added his own notes, including what he’d overheard about Zoe and Chloe De

If they are victims of 21. Remember, the police and the criminal justice system think they got their man. There’s a chance this is all just Bria