Never Die Alone

“Go ’way,” his father grumbled, and rolled onto his side to face the back of the couch.

“Dad—”

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Ed burrowed deeper, yanking the cover over his head.

“I have to go to work.”

“Then go already! Who the hell’s stoppin’ ya?”

“Fine. But I’ll be back, and then we need to talk.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Jase turned away, then paused. “You said that I was the right one to keep.”

“What?”

“That’s what I’m asking. What was that all about?”

“Hell if I know. I was drunk. Or didn’t you notice?”

“I noticed.”

“Fine,” his father said from beneath the blanket, “then you know nothin’ I said made any sense. Now, just leave me alone. For the love of Christ!” He pulled the pillow over his head as if he were a three-year-old child trying to avoid a scolding.

Jase let it go.

For now.

With a final glance at the man who had sired him, Jase grabbed the keys to his truck from a table where his cell phone was charging. He yanked the phone from its cord, pocketed the cell, and then left his apartment. He could let his old man sleep it off, though it wouldn’t be so easy to leave behind the remark about Jase being the chosen one. What the hell was that really about? The drunken ramblings of an old, forgetful man, or something deeper? A slipup? He should just let it go, but knew he wouldn’t.

He thought about the check he’d written to his father but never mailed. He’d intended to post it today, but now . . . oh, hell, everything had already started blowing up.

Making his way down the exterior stairs at the end of the building, he wondered what he would find when he came home. Would his father still be in the apartment? Still sleeping it off? Parked on the couch with no intention of leaving? Or would he be gone? According to Prescott, Ed’s truck was parked at the farm, so he’d have to find a way to retrieve it, unless Prescott brought it into town.

No doubt fireworks would explode when Edward and Prescott came face-to-face again and Pres started going on about Ed and rehab, which Jase agreed was necessary for their father to function and survive. The trouble was, Prescott seemed to think Jase had unlimited funds, first to buy the farm and then to send their old man into some kind of treatment program. The truth was that Jase did have a bit of a nest egg, not that he was getting rich as a reporter. He’d purchased a small two-bedroom, utilized his carpentry skills to renovate, and then sold it when the market was at its peak. After that he’d invested his money in the stock market and hadn’t purchased another house, as he was happy enough in his apartment. Or had been.

So, he could probably get financing and buy out Prescott, and maybe there would be a little left to help out the old man. But then he’d be flat broke, a position he’d become intimate with a couple of times and didn’t much like.

Crossing the parking lot to the assigned spot where his truck was parked, he tried not to dwell on the fact that he soon might own the damned farm, a place he’d sworn to avoid, where his i

Then there was the 21 Killer and the series of articles Jase hoped to write about him. With Bria

Last night’s nightmare flashed through his mind as he settled behind the wheel, a weird dream where one seductive mermaid had really been two women who looked so much alike. Aria

“Get over it,” he told himself. He had no time for self-analysis or anything as ridiculous as trying to interpret his own dreams. He started the engine, then noticed a yellow jacket beating itself against the windshield above his dash. “Get out.” He threw the driver’s side door open and tried to scoop the bee to the side with an envelope sitting on the passenger seat, an envelope addressed to his father and containing the check Jase had promised.

At least now it could do some good.

The bee was buzzing and ru

Again, he had no time for philosophy.

He had a job to do.

Bentz’s stomach turned as he slid covers over his shoes, signed in to the crime scene, and stepped into the tiny apartment off Chartres.

Within seconds a disturbing sense of déjà vu washed over him as he viewed the space with its older furniture and bars on the windows. He noticed paperback books lined up on the built-ins, the coffeepot in the kitchen filled for the next day, the smell of perfume lingering, all surrounding the reason for his being here: the dead body of a thirtysomething female victim.

She was splayed out across the neatly made bed. Half-dressed in a short skirt and open blouse, she lay there with her eyes open as if staring at the gently rotating blades of a ceiling fan positioned overhead.

He clenched his jaw, felt his stomach turn.

Crime-scene techs were busy snapping pictures, dusting for prints, searching every inch of the one-room apartment for trace evidence. None of the others seemed to have the same physical reaction to death that had been with Bentz since he was a kid.

The head tech, Rosarita Gervais, was wearing gloves, her dark hair scraped away from her face. She was leaning over the table where, as Montoya had mentioned, the hundred-dollar bill with Franklin’s blackened eyes had been left. “Don’t be messin’ with my scene, Bentz,” she warned. “You know the drill. Washington will have my ass if you disturb anything.”

She was half-kidding. It was their routine. Broke the tension. But she wasn’t joking about Bonita Washington, the head of the Crime Scene Unit. A brassy African American woman whose IQ was rumored to be at genius level, Washington was tough as nails.

“Got it.” He gave Rosarita a nod but continued to stare at the odd C-note. He had always found the desecrated bills disturbing. Then again, what wasn’t disturbing about a serial killer who dressed as a man of God and killed his victims with a rosary?

“You really got yourself a sick one here,” she observed, then snorted. “Hell, they’re all twisted bastards.”

“Can’t argue with that,” he agreed. He spied O’Keefe, the cop who’d responded to the call, and turned his attention to the burly man rumored to be able to bench press 300 pounds. “Who’ve we got here?”

“Teri Marie Gaines.” A tough cop and a family man, O’Keefe only used his six foot four, 250-pound frame to his advantage if seriously provoked. “At least that’s who she was during the day. It’s the name on her driver’s license. She worked as a waitress at Sylvia Black’s down in the Jax Brewery,” he added, mentioning the huge old brewery that had been transformed into a shopping mall. “But at night,” O’Keefe continued, “she was Tiffany Elite.”

“The super tell you this?” Bentz asked, his stomach roiling as he viewed the victim more closely. With smooth mocha-colored skin, Teri Marie Gaines had dark, tightly curled hair with a few golden streaks. Spread-eagle upon the bed, she was half-dressed in a tiny skirt, a bra that barely held her breasts, and a sheer blouse that was open, draped over one shoulder. Around her neck, dark ligature marks were a combination of bruising and tiny abrasions; little cuts in a distinctive pattern that Bentz suspected came from a rosary made of sharpened beads linked with piano wire or something just as strong.