Never Die Alone

“Happy birthday, dear twinsies,” he crooned in his horrid, scratchy voice, still concentrating on his work and not sending a single glance her way.

Good.

“Happy birthday to yooooou.”

Her stomach convulsed. Vomit rose in her mouth, but she fought the urge to spew.

And then he started over, repeating the verse, like a broken, ominous record. She hated to think what would happen when he stopped. Because she knew. As certainly as she knew this day was her twenty-first birthday. He was going to kill her. And kill her sister. This sicko was just waiting for the right moment.

No effing way.

“Do you know what time it is?” Olivia’s voice called softly from the bedroom, and Rick Bentz, seated at his desk where he’d been for the past two hours, glanced at his watch. “It’s after midnight,” she said groggily, and he imagined her in the bed, wild curls splayed on the pillow, her eyes at half-mast. “Come to bed, honey.”

Bentz’s jaw tightened. She was right. The digital display on the face of his watch read 12:14 in the damned morning. And he’d like nothing more than to strip off his clothes and the worries of the day to settle into bed with her. The baby, Gi

Too bad. He couldn’t shut it down for the night. Not yet.

Streaming live from his computer was a radio program with Dr. Samantha Wheeler, who took calls from lonely hearts. Their voices were a soft drone of conversation. Dr. Sam, as she called herself, gave out psychological advice over the airwaves late at night on her show, Midnight Confessions.

Bentz was listening in.

So far it seemed as if all of tonight’s callers were legit: lonely or confused people seeking advice. It hadn’t always been so. Years ago, before she’d married Ty Wheeler, Dr. Sam had attracted the attention of a sadistic serial killer, a man who was sick enough to dress in priest’s robes, pretend to be a man of God, and then with horrifying determination went about his grisly business. She’d been his ultimate target and had barely escaped with her life.

Bentz retrieved a bottle of beer from the six-pack he’d picked up at a convenience store on his way home from work. Hesitating only slightly, he cracked the longneck open and pushed aside all thoughts of days, weeks, and years of sobriety as he twisted off the top and caught a glimpse of the other five bottles tucked inside the cardboard container at his feet.

He wasn’t tired.

“Rick?” Olivia called again, this time sounding a little more awake.

In the darkness, the only illumination in the house came from his computer screen. He stared at the frozen frame of the video link as Dr. Sam’s calm voice ran a soothing counterpoint to the image of a gray prison cell. “Be there in a sec,” he said, turning his head so that his voice would carry into the general direction of the bedroom before he took a long, calming swallow. A balm, the cold beer slid down his throat easily.

Then he turned back to the monitor and clicked on the Play arrow once more, putting the video from the prison security camera in motion for the umpteenth time. This time, maybe he’d see something important. A clue. God, he hoped so. In the days since the prison homicide, he’d been steeped in fury and disbelief. It just couldn’t be.

“You can’t force him to love you,” Dr. Sam was saying in her melodic voice. “But you can love yourself,” she advised. The same psychobabble BS she’d peddled for years.

“But he promised me,” replied the woman, a girl in her teens, Bentz guessed. “Nathan promised me we would be together forever and then . . . and then”—she sniffed loudly—“I saw a picture of him with Rachel. I mean, it was all over Instagram and everyone texted me and were, like, dude, what’s going on with Nathan?”

“I know, but you can’t control Nathan,” Dr. Sam advised. “You can only control yourself.”

Bentz listened with half an ear. He didn’t really care about the caller’s boyfriend problems, but he did want to listen to all of the people who phoned the radio show. Even though the producer of Midnight Confessions had assured him that the calls were being screened and recorded, you couldn’t trust that crew to weed out a psycho.

This psycho. Bentz had watched the damned video from the Department of Corrections so many times, he might as well have it on a loop.

The familiar image showed a prison cell. A female prisoner sat on the edge of her cot as a priest stepped inside the cell, the shadow of the bars striping his cassock. The prisoner looked up expectantly, ready to give her confession to the man of God, whose back was to the camera. As he stepped closer, she bent her head in prayer, probably hoping for absolution or some other damned thing. The priest appeared to say something softly to the confessor and then in one quick, sure movement, he reached down as if to bless her, but quickly, expertly snapped her neck.

She slumped quickly and Bentz noted that the priest didn’t use his trademark sharpened rosary beads to kill her. This time his actions were on camera; his image might be splashed on a monitor in the prison’s security hub, and he probably couldn’t risk his slower signature kill. The guards would have been upon him before he could finish. Instead of strangling the life out of her with a rosary constructed of piano wire and sharpened glass beads, he broke her neck, then left the rosary dangling between her fingers, the blood red beads sparkling as he glanced up at the camera he obviously knew was mounted near the cell door. Smiling triumphantly, he revealed himself.

Bentz’s stomach turned.

The sick son of a bitch actually gri

Bentz’s jaw hardened.

Father John was back.

CHAPTER 2

Biting her lip, Zoe tried to figure out a way to save herself. To save Chloe. Somehow. Some way. First she had to get herself free.

While the whack job worked at his bench, she silently worked on the rope that bound her wrists and ankles. She had to make good her escape. Their escape. She wouldn’t leave Chloe. Not ever.

Once again, she tried to pull her hand to her abdomen. The tension on the rope intensified, so she relaxed. That wasn’t going to work. Think, Zoe, think. There has to be a way.

Again she tried to move. Again the bite of rough cord into her neck.

Damn!

She heard Chloe crying. Softly now, careful not to interrupt the freak from his task, she kept her gaze steady on his blocky body and the shadows he cast on the wall and tried again. This time, almost counterintuitively, she pulled her wrist closer to her naked back and upward toward her shoulders. It allowed her a range of movement, awkward though it was. She had trained as a gymnast in high school and also had double joints or hypermobility in her shoulders, elbows, and fingers—talents she assumed her abductor didn’t realize.

Still, it was hard work. But as she rotated her shoulders she felt the rope around her wrists give just a bit. She tried again, contorting, picking at the knot with her fingers. Noiselessly, knowing that time was ru

Was it her imagination or did the rope move slightly?

Hope swelled. Heart thudding, she worked at the knots and remembered her capture. God, how could she have been so stupid to have been lured by him, to believe that her twin was in trouble?

She’d paid for her mistake, but she wasn’t going to docilely wait for whatever horror he meted out. No way! With an effort, she attempted to think clearly, to goddamned act despite the fear, deep and penetrating, cutting to her soul.