Never Die Alone

From the corner of his eye he saw her scuttle to the spot where his phone had landed.

No!

Through a veil of raw pain he saw her snag the cell, then clamber ungainly up the damned ladder.

For the love of Christ, why had he left it down? Holding his nuts and willing the pain to lessen, he could only ride the wave of pain and watch her flee. God, it hurt. It hurt so damned bad. But he couldn’t let her get away.

Sucking his breath through his teeth, he rolled to his knees and made the laborious crawl to the base of the ladder. But she was already up and out. Fuck! He nearly passed out again, and paused to drag in deep breaths.

He was trying to breathe through the searing pain when the ladder moved.

What?

The ends of the rails scraped against the floor and then slowly, the ladder started to lift. No! That little bitch was going to take away his only means of escape from this place? Leave him in here to wait to rot? All of a sudden his private sanctuary, where he’d always felt safe from the world, began to close in around him like a tomb. A dark, wet, hopeless dungeon.

Hell, no!

The end of the ladder was moving upward, inching its way through the opening. Christ Almighty!

Forcing himself to his feet, he took a swing at the bottom rung.

Missed.

Up it went a bit farther.

“NO!”

Another swipe.

Another miss!

God, his balls ached. Shit! His heart was thudding, a new fear sweeping through him as the idea that he was going to be trapped like a rat became more of a reality. His groin throbbed as the ladder moved steadily upward.

He coiled, released, and jumped. This time, the fingers of one hand curled around the lowest rung. The ladder stopped—his weight was too much for her—but just then she gave it a shake and his hand started to slip.

No damned way.

With all his strength he grabbed hold with his free hand and then gave a loud, sharp whistle. A second later he heard a responsive bark and knew old Red had heard him.

The dog would come ru

Swish!

His fingers had slid from the ladder and he was falling backward. His feet slipped out from under him as he went down, hard.

Craaack! He landed hard on his back. His head slammed against the cement floor. For a second, blackness swirled around him. He blinked just as the ladder, a massive projectile, shot downward, straight at him.

Reflexively, his arms flew up.

Too late! The wooden missile twisted, the bottom of the side rail, ramming his throat. Pain exploded in his neck. For a split second he thought his Adam’s apple and larynx had been crushed.

The room went dark and he fought to stay conscious. Struggled to breathe.

Overhead he heard the dog’s warning growl.

Old Red had come to save the day. If only it wasn’t too late. Over the throbbing in his body, he felt a moment’s relief. If he could just pull himself to his feet, ignore the pain radiating from his skull, throat, and groin, then he might be able to set the ladder up and—

“Good boy, it’s all right,” Chloe was saying, actually trying to talk to the dog.

No!

“Red, attack! Sic ’em!” He tried to call out to the dog, but his voice failed him, and all that came was a whistle of air from his lungs. Damn! He tried again. “Red! Attack!” But once more all that he was able to do was a whistle.

He hoped the dog would understand and detain her. Even if she managed to get away, Red would track her down. The dog had been trained that way. He found the ladder and started to right it when he heard the dog bark an alarm. Good. Probably had the bitch pi

In the next moment a banging sound startled him as the trapdoor overhead dropped into place.

Wait! She couldn’t . . . wouldn’t . . .

Over Red’s now-muted but furious barking, he heard the trapdoor shut with a heavy thunk. Then, the distinctive click of a lock snapping shut.

Shit!

That fuckin’ little bitch, the girl he thought was a complete wimp, an absolute coward, had not only duped him. She’d locked him in his own damned dungeon.

Worse yet, she had his cell phone.

True to his word, Jonas Hayes had sent over the 21 Killer file via the Internet. For the second night in a row, Bentz sat at his computer, but instead of drinking beer, he was letting a cup of coffee go cold on a side table. Also, tonight he wasn’t staring at footage of Father John exiting the prison where he’d left his last victim, but was skimming the reports and notes on the Diana and Delta Caldwell murders. Trial testimony was included, as well as interviews with Donovan Caldwell, who repeatedly maintained his i

Hayes had also sent information on Lucy and Laney Springer, twenty-one-year-old twins who had been killed more recently in the same ritualistic ma

Not only were both the crime scenes in the Caldwell and Springer homicides nearly identical, down to the way the victims were found hog-tied and naked near their neatly stacked clothes, but the same kind of heavy-duty Christmas ribbon had been found at each scene. The ribbon of choice was red, with wires ru

Bentz’s chair groaned in protest as he leaned back and sorted through some of the images on file, stopping at a series of photos of the victims, their naked bodies bruised with ligature marks that indicated how they’d been held captive before they died.

“Sick son of a bitch,” he said, and felt his stomach turn just as it did when he first visited a crime scene and saw the victims. It was literally a gut reaction, one he couldn’t control, and had been the cause of many a sneering joke from Brinkman.

“What’s wrong, Bentz? Can’t keep your cornflakes down this morning?” Brinkman had asked at one scene where the victim’s head was nearly severed and Bentz’s stomach had roiled. Watching Bentz turn green, Brinkman had smirked and smoked a cigarette. At another gruesome crime scene where a domestic dispute had turned deadly and both husband and wife lay dead in their blood-soaked bed, their flesh turning fetid from the days of summer heat, their bodies bloated, Bentz had fought to keep the contents of his stomach down. But Brinkman had waltzed in, noticed that Bentz was struggling, and said, “Smells great in here, doesn’t it? Makes me want a ham sandwich. How ’bout you, Bentz? Or is your system too delicate for it?”

“Jerk,” Bentz said to himself. He studied the bodies and listened with half an ear to Midnight Confessions as once more Dr. Sam gave out advice over the airwaves. Somewhere, Bentz was certain, Father John was also listening intently. Bentz was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice his wife step into the room.

“Rick?”

He glanced up.

Olivia was standing on the other side of the desk. In her arms was their daughter, Gi