Текст книги "Never Die Alone"

Автор книги: Lisa Jackson

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

CHAPTER 28

He drove like a madman. When he’d seen that his shots had missed, that Zoe was getting away in the pickup, he’d run back to the cabin, left that miserable Chloe locked in the basement, and jumped into the car that he’d brought from town. He’d ditched the van, hidden it in the garage until he could repair it, but he still had the car . . . Myra’s car. The 2001 Ford Focus had barely been driven and blended well with other vehicles.

The good news was that Zoe hadn’t gotten far. She’d been too stupid or delirious to realize that she’d doubled back. He doubted it had been a ploy to get him off the track; it was easy enough to get turned around with all the bends in the river and the forest blocking one’s sight. She hadn’t known that the river itself was like a snake, twisting and turning on itself, so she’d only ended up a quarter mile away from the cabin. He’d whistled to the useless dog, jogged back to the canoe, and had been in his car within fifteen minutes.

He’d even managed to make the call.

Sure, he was a few minutes behind her now, but he was willing to bet that she would head straight to mama’s condominium, which, because he’d planned it, was only a stone’s throw from his own place. He thought of his house in the city, the little place with computers and phones. A respectable spot. The best part about it? The city house was far from the cabin that was titled in Myra’s name, where that bitch Chloe was waiting for the end she knew was coming. Damn, though, he needed Zoe.

Myra had been adamant when he’d called her. Their conversation, if that’s what you wanted to call it, had been hot. Angry. It ricocheted through his head, over and over again

“Get her!”

“But she’s seen my face.”

“All the more reason to stop her before she can identify you. What kind of cretin are you?”

“It’s too late.”

“Too late?” she’d said in a low voice that was more chilling than when she screeched. “It’s never too late. Now, find her, capture her, take her to the cabin, and finish what you started.”

“But—”

“Don’t argue with me. You know I’m right. I’m always right.”

He’d tuned her out then, just as he often did. He hadn’t even had to disconnect the phone. He’d learned over the years how to deal with her when her demands and accusations had bruised his brain, burrowing deep. It wasn’t as if she had to keep repeating herself, he heard her day and night. Until he’d learned how to ignore her voice as it rattled through his brain. He wondered if he’d made a mistake. Maybe she was the one who needed to die. But . . . no! He couldn’t think that way. Remorse was just as sudden and hot as his anger. Resolved to stay on track, he pressed the accelerator and headed to the city.

Miraculously, Zoe thought, the shot had missed.

No glass had shattered.

No tire had blown.

No metal on the body of the truck had been pierced.

But the driver, a farmer-type complete with trucker hat, plaid shirt, worn jeans, and boots, had finally gotten the message through his thick skull that the beast was hunting them down. Now the farmer was scared shitless, just like Zoe.

“For the love of God, what kind of trouble are you in?” he demanded as he took a corner too fast and the pickup skidded into the oncoming lane. They narrowly missed a brightly colored Volkswagen bus filled with screaming, happy kids and balloons flying from the open windows, a birthday party that had nearly become a disaster. Fortunately, he didn’t careen into the bus. “Why is that son of a bitch shooting at you? At us?”

The truck shuddered as he righted it, tires screeching.

“I don’t know why!” she screamed, bracing herself and believing that any second she would feel the sting of a bullet piercing her skin or exploding in her brain. “All I know is that he wants to kill me and my sister in some weird ritual that involves zero clothes and red ribbons and being hog-tied and all kinds of weird crap. He’s probably got Chloe and . . . oh, Jesus, I didn’t think he would kill her first, it all has something to do with birth order, I think, but now that I’ve gotten away, God only knows what he’ll do.” She didn’t want to think about it.... Now was the time for action, not worry.

The farmer shook his head, eyes on the road. “This is all some kind of crazy.”

At least he didn’t want to talk her ears off for the twenty minutes it took to reach the outskirts of town. Now, with the city of New Orleans rising before them, her heart leaped with joy at the thought of seeing her mother again, and relief to know that the psycho was far behind her.

But most likely so was Chloe.

And that leaping heart turned to stone.

Zoe didn’t want to believe that she had sealed her sister’s fate by escaping. But then, she didn’t know what had happened to Chloe. Maybe, just maybe, her twin had escaped, too. There was always the chance! Not for the first time she sent up a desperate prayer for her sister’s safety.

The phone jangled in her hands and she let out a sob when she saw her mother’s number.

“Mom!” she answered, her voice cracking.

“Oh, baby, where are you? I can’t believe you’re safe. Oh, my God, Zoe!” Selma said, her voice broken by a sob.

“I’m almost home. I’ll be there soon. Ten . . . maybe fifteen minutes at the outside?” She looked at the farmer for confirmation. He nodded, then held out his hand for the phone. Reluctantly, Zoe handed him the cell.

“Your mother?” he guessed, and Zoe nodded. Into the phone, he said, “This is Rand Cooligan. I’ve got your daughter with me and she’s fine . . . er, safe. But you’d better get the police involved. There’s some idiot taking potshots at her, shooting at my truck, and she’s got a wild tale to tell . . . yes . . . no, no, as I said, she’s okay . . . Yeah, soon. I know, I know. Just hang in there . . . Yeah, I know the area . . . uh-huh. Ten, fifteen minutes on the outside.... What? . . . No, I’m sorry. Just the one. Zoe. Yeah, sure. Here ya go.” He handed the phone back to Zoe. “She wants you to stay on the line ’til we get there. Can’t say as I blame her. You can talk all ya want. I know where we’re going, and the phone’s all charged up.”

“So all these years I had a twin brother and never knew about him?” Jase stared at the old man as if he’d never really seen him before. His cell phone pinged, indicating he’d received a text message. He ignored it.

“That’s about the size of it.” Ed drew hard on his cigarette, lost in thought.

“So where is he? And where is Mom?”

“Don’t know about the boy. But Marian? She’s dead.” He slid a glance at his son, then continued to gaze through the branches of the trees to the street below. Cars and trucks rolled past and a kid crouching on a skateboard skimmed along the sidewalk. A normal afternoon, for some.

“You kept in touch with her?” Jase was astounded. He thought of the one picture he’d seen of her, the haunted woman getting married.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “She had a cousin, in Pocatello, Idaho. That cousin called me years ago and gave me the news. Marian, she got sick early, don’t know what it was. Ended up in a nursing home. Died there. Buried in that town’s cemetery or cremated, I don’t know and I don’t really care.”

Jase felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Though he’d expected the news. He’d even mollified himself as a child, believing that his mother had to be dead or else she would have returned or reached out to him in some way. Still, the realization that she was really dead came as a shock, as if some part of that little boy still held on to the hope that if she were still alive, he would see her again, feel her arms surround him, smell her perfume. Silly. Stupid. He thought he’d grown out of that fantasy, but hearing that she was actually gone, that he’d never look into her face if for no other reason than to ask, “Why? Why did you leave me?” hit him harder than he’d imagined.

He felt his jaw work and he cleared his throat. “I didn’t find any mention of her death certificate.”

“You were probably lookin’ in the wrong name.”

“I searched Marian Selby and Marian Bridges.”

His father slid him a glance. “Next time try Wilcox. Helen Marian Wilcox Selby Bridges and then whatever else she went by. Probably got hitched a few more times, for all I know, all I care. She was married a few months when I met her. Went by her middle name. Never liked Helen, she claimed. We got together and that first husband, he didn’t like it none, but gave her a quickie divorce and . . . oh, hell, you know the rest.”

“No, Dad! That’s the problem. I don’t. Not by a long shot. And everything I believed, everything you told me, it wasn’t true.” His chest felt tight as bit by bit everything he thought he’d known about his mother was unraveling into a string of lies.

“Well, now you know as much about your mother as I do. Feel any better?”

The bastard. “And your son? What about my damned twin?” Jase asked, and realized he was gripping the railing, his knuckles white.

“I told you. Don’t know where he is, whether he’s alive or dead.” His father dropped his cigarette and crushed the butt with his boot heel. “Don’t care, neither. I did what I could for you and Prescott. Raised you best as I could. Yeah, it wasn’t perfect, not by any man’s measure, but I tried and I was there for you. Stood by you when you needed me. ’Til you were raised. ’Til you inherited.” Ed scowled, and in the disgusted twist of his lips, Jase could see his father’s old disappointment that he’d been skipped over, bitterness over the will that left his father’s money to Jase and Prescott.

“Ah, shit.” Ed stared down. “I can’t change the past, Jason, and I’m not sure I would if I could, but there it is. I don’t know about Jacob, never heard, and really never cared. You and Prescott, you were my sons. I don’t think I coulda handled another.”

“You don’t know anything about him?”

“Nothin’.” He kicked his cigarette butt off the deck under the railing, leaving a streak where the blackened tobacco had swept the concrete. “And that’s the way I’d like to keep it.”

“Not gonna happen, Dad. I’m gonna find him. Pres will want to know he has another brother, too.”

“Prescott?” Ed snorted his disbelief. “He’s got more’n he can handle with that wife of his. Lena bosses him around like a bitch mother dog and he’s the whipped puppy. Got him gettin’ rid of the farm, sellin’ insurance, and hopin’ to live near the preacher.” His graying eyebrows drew together. “Two kids and a third on the way. What’s he thinkin’?”

“What were you?” Jase demanded. “You had three.”

“Expectin’ only to raise two,” he corrected. “Didn’t know your mo—that she was havin’ twins until about fifteen minutes after you were born and out popped another. Biggest surprise of my damned life.”

“And not the best?”

“Hell, no,” Ed admitted. “The last thing I needed was another mouth to feed.”

So angry he could spit nails, Jase leaned in close. Despite the old man’s recent shower, Jase could still smell the scent of old cigarette smoke and stale liquor seeping through his father’s pores. “This is where it ends, Dad. All of it. The lies. The secrets. No more.”

Ed snorted and raised an unruly, disbelieving eyebrow. “Yours, too, boy? You gonna start tellin’ the truth from now on? Or is it just me that’s got to bare my damned soul?”

“All of us are, old man.” Jase didn’t hesitate. “You. Me. Prescott. A clean slate.”

“All of it?”

“Every last lie.”

Their eyes met. Clashed. Silently accused.

“I don’t know about Pres,” said Ed. “He might not agree.”

“He might not have a choice.”

“You’re up on a pretty high horse, son. Careful now. That’s how the mighty fall.”

“Fuck you, Dad.”

Jase’s cell phone pinged again. Another text. He yanked the phone from his pocket and read the news, from Kennedy in his office.

Assume you saw this about Donovan Caldwell. Guess the guilt finally got to him.

A link was included with the message. Jase clicked it open and quickly skimmed a breaking story about the death of the 21 Killer whose life had ended early this morning in his jail cell. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, and for a second his father and all their family drama was forgotten as he searched for more information about Caldwell’s death. Did Brianna know? What did it mean about the Denning girls? Had Donovan Caldwell been the 21 Killer and if so, who had abducted Zoe and Chloe? His only hope was that, if they hadn’t been taken by 21, if Caldwell had been convicted of a crime he’d committed, that the twins were still alive.

“Look, Ed,” he said, unwilling to give the lying bastard the title of father. “I have to go to the office. But we’re not done here. Just wait. Don’t go anywhere.”

His father found another cigarette in his pack and jabbed it between his lips. “That in there,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen where Jase had left the envelope with the check that he hadn’t mailed. The old man actually smiled and a light of interest flared in his eyes. “That for me?”

Jase didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The old bastard pissed him off too much. He made his way out the door and put thoughts of Edward Bridges and their sorry past behind him as he headed to the stairwell. He had enough time to go to the office, get more information about Donovan Caldwell’s death, and check in with Bentz at the station before he returned and dealt with Brianna.

His guts twisted a little at the thought.

But his anxiety wasn’t due to Caldwell’s death. No, he thought as he climbed into the cab and fired up the engine of his truck. His worries were from a far deeper and more intimate source. He rammed the truck’s gears into Reverse, backed out with a squeal of tires, and threw the truck into Drive.

How was he going to tell her the truth about her sister?

Squinting against the glare of the lowering sun, he slid his aviator sunglasses over his eyes and wondered how the hell he would ever admit that he’d been there the night Arianna Hayward was killed.

CHAPTER 29

Chloe knew she was going to die.

Here, in this hellhole of a basement, all alone.

No one would ever know. Not for years.

The freak had left her for hours, maybe a day, maybe even two, she didn’t know. It was dark and dank in the basement. Water dripped in a rhythmic tapping noise, and the smell of water seeping through the walls was ever present.

And she was alone.

No phone.

No water.

Her hands were tied behind her back and somehow connected to her feet, so the more she moved the more uncomfortable she became. Her muscles were sore from straining, the rope cut into her ankles and wrists, and her joints ached. Sometimes she wished she would just die so that it would be over.

She’d nodded off from time to time, but her fear and anxiety kept her on edge and awake. That and the overpowering sense of thirst. She was hungry, yes, but more intense than the emptiness in her stomach was the scorched bitterness in her dry throat and parched lips. How she wished for a single drop of water. For anything wet. One moment’s relief.

But it wasn’t happening.

At first she’d plotted her revenge and ultimate escape. There were tools on the table and resting on holders in the wall. A knife, she thought, maybe a saw, certainly a screwdriver, any number of weapons to take the freak’s life. And she’d do it, too. If she ever got the chance again. But as the seconds and minutes and hours ticked by in her head, and the pain, discomfort, and despair took over, she thought less about revenge and murder and an eye for an eye, and more about the solace of death, the peace of giving up.

There was her family to consider, but her dad had more children and a new wife, her cousin of all people. Mom would be devastated and heartbroken, but she would have Zoe. If Zoe survived. Oh, God, please. Let Zoe be free of this. If Zoe did escape, she would return for her twin, Chloe was certain, but when? And how? Would she still be alive?

She tried not to think of what might happen, to keep up her flagging spirits, to sing, at least in her mind as her throat was dry as a desert. But in the end she quit trying and just prayed that it would end soon, that her pain would be over, her battle finished.

The people she’d wronged came to mind, and she remembered thinking she loved Tommy. How long ago it all seemed. As if it had happened to another person, in another lifetime.

She closed her eyes and turned her thoughts to Zoe, the twin she loved and sometimes hated. “Be safe,” she whispered, then let out a long breath. Maybe it would be her last.

As she drove, Brianna told herself that she was imagining things. She was not being followed. That truck that seemed to be on her tail as she drove toward Jase’s apartment was probably just headed in the same direction.

“Ridiculous,” she said. But she kept checking her mirror and, sure enough, no matter which direction she turned, a few cars back, or sometimes right behind her, a light-colored pickup, no, maybe a beat-up van, was following her. Sometimes the vehicle hung back, but she figured that was the driver’s attempt to remain undetected. “You son of a bitch.” She recalled the other times she’d thought she was being followed: the night she’d sensed someone looking at her through the bathroom window, the crushed shrubs near that same window, the footsteps behind her on a staircase. So she wasn’t going crazy.

No, it’s worse. Some anonymous jerk is following you.

“Why?” she asked aloud, and checked her mirror again. She turned into a narrow alley where shadows from the surrounding buildings fell over the street. Sure enough, just as she was exiting the alley, the van entered. It seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Hadn’t she seen Elise get into a similar van, when Ashton was picking her up from one of the support group meetings? Or had it been Desmond, the quiet one, whom she didn’t quite trust, his eyes always flat, as if guarding his feelings, his face often without expression? The few remarks he’d made had been slightly misogynistic and had really gotten Tanisha’s back up. She’d made sure to put him in his place on more than one occasion, saying flat out that she didn’t like him. But that was no surprise. Tanisha liked only a few women and even fewer men.

Had Desmond ever married? Had he once mentioned a wife or fiancée or girlfriend? Not that she remembered, though his lack of a relationship would not explain why he might be stalking her. She looked in her mirror again, noticed the van two cars back, and felt her stomach grind. Who was this guy to follow her? Invade her life? Make her uncomfortable?

It had to end.

She was in no mood to have some creep get his voyeuristic jollies from observing her, and who knew how many others.

If she could draw him close enough to see his license plate, take a picture with her phone, then Jase would help her figure out the creep’s identity, enough solid information to go to the police.

In heavier traffic, only a mile from Jase’s apartment, she slowed and switched lanes, all the while hoping he would drive closer, maybe even drive alongside her so she could get a glimpse of his face. No such luck. With the sun slanting against his dirty windshield, she could only make out dark glasses and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.

Sweat beaded on her upper lip as she wound her way through afternoon traffic to Jase’s neighborhood. She had to do something. Now. After a quick maneuver onto Jase’s street, she found a place to tuck the car. She pulled into the space near a fire hydrant in the shade of a live oak with Spanish moss waving from its limbs. Quickly, she climbed out of her Honda and hid behind the tree, where she could take a video of the van driving by. She knew the driver might flee if he got wind of what she was doing. Even worse, he might try to confront her, but then there would be plenty of witnesses on this busy street. Plenty of passersby that she could turn to for help. She’d be fine.

Either way, she had him.

The van pulled onto the street and headed in her direction, then slowed when the driver didn’t immediately spy her Honda.

She was already filming from her iPhone, but catching the numbers of his grimy license plate wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it would be. When she’d finally gotten the footage, she focused the camera’s eye on the driver, but because of the angle of the sun, its rays bouncing off the glass, she couldn’t see who he was.

Until the van stopped in the middle of the street, blocking her Honda from exiting its illegal spot. Then he looked at her full-on and she recognized the man in dark glasses, scrubby beard, and hard expression.

Milo Tillman.

What the hell? Milo was stalking her? Why?

“Hey!” she called. “What’re you doing, following me?”

The passenger side window was already rolled down, and he motioned for her to come closer.

She did. “I told you I would meet with you later.”

“It couldn’t wait.”

“What can’t? You said you wanted to talk about your twin.”

“I have to,” he said, and he sounded desperate. “I . . . it’s bad.” A car pulled up behind his van, and the driver honked impatiently. “It’s about—” He glanced in the mirror as the car behind him, a silvery BMW, sped into the oncoming lane.

“Hey, buddy!” The driver, a thirtyish guy with spiky hair, yelled, “Drive, asshole! You’re clogging up the whole street!”

Brianna wasn’t interested in the other driver. “I know,” she said, forcing Milo’s attention back to her. “It’s about your twin.”

“Yeah, I really need to talk,” he admitted. “Finally. I’m ready. I need to talk to somebody about Myra.”

Zoe fell into Selma’s arms.

Right on the small grassy area in front of her mother’s apartment building, she dropped the farmer’s phone and held fast to her mother. While Rand Cooligan stood uncomfortably by, she sobbed wildly and clung to her mother, relishing the smells of Selma’s perfume and smoke, the scents she’d grown up with. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and still the tears ran freely. During the phone conversation that had lasted from the second Selma had called back until this very moment with the afternoon sunlight streaming and people staring as they walked past, she’d learned that no one had heard from Chloe. Her twin was still missing. Zoe’s heart cracked. All her hopes that her sister had escaped had been dashed, and now, she was certain that Chloe was still in the psycho’s clutches.

Or dead.

Dear God, she couldn’t, wouldn’t think that was possible. If Chloe had died, Zoe was certain she would sense it. She would just know. Surely.

Her soul ripped a little at that thought, that she, like her mother before her, might spend the rest of her life without the comfort of her sister, the person she’d known since before birth, the sibling with whom she’d grown in the womb. Was it possible that the very part of her that was her center, how she defined herself, would be lost to her forever?

No!

She swallowed back a sob of despair.

“Oh, baby,” her mother whispered, tears running down Selma’s cheeks as she held her daughter in a surprisingly strong grip. “Thank God, you’re safe. Oh . . . honey.” Looking over Zoe’s shoulder as they held each other close, Selma said to the farmer standing awkwardly nearby, “Thank you, thank you.”

He nodded, looked away, then cleared his throat. “She said something about a twin sister,” he said, and Zoe felt Selma’s arms tighten around her.

“Chloe.” Zoe sniffed loudly and blinked against the wash of tears. “We have to save her. He’s got her.”

“Who?” her mother asked.

“I don’t know. The freak. This tall psycho who kept us in a basement out in the middle of nowhere and sang the birthday song and wore nothing but a rubber apron. A psycho freak! He’s got her and . . . and we have to save her.”

“We . . . we will,” Selma said.

“Look, Mrs. Denning, if I can help, I’d like to,” Rand said, looking over his shoulder as if he expected someone to be listening in. “She’s right. There’s a madman on the loose. I saw him from a distance, and he was huntin’ down your daughter, here, trying like hell, er heck, to shoot her. Had a dog runnin’ her down. Now, I know this isn’t really my business, and I don’t understand what the heck’s goin’ on, but I’m a witness and I’d like to see that SOB nailed. That bastard meant business. You’ve called the police?”

Shaking her head, Selma said, “I . . . I was on the phone with Zoe.”

Rand spied his phone and plucked it from the ground. “Yeah, right, okay. But now, why don’t you get her cleaned up and we’ll all go to the station?”

“He’s right,” Zoe said, sniffing. “But we have to go now. I . . . I’ll take a shower later.” It sounded like heaven, but there was no time. If the freak had Chloe, if she hadn’t escaped—

Don’t even think it!

Zoe was still clinging to her mother. “We have to tell them about Chloe ASAP.” Tears clogged her throat again and she blinked hard, tried to think. “If he still has her, she’s not safe. I mean, he kept saying he had to kill me first. It was all part of his twisted ritual and . . . he kept repeating it, when he wasn’t singing the birthday song. First me, then her. I thought she would be safe if he couldn’t kill me first.”

“That’s crazy,” her mother whispered, horrified.

“I know, but he was really a nut job. But now I’m really scared for her. The way he was shooting at the truck. Aiming right at us. Now I’m not sure. It could be that all bets are off. Maybe he’d break his stupid ritual and . . .” She couldn’t say it aloud, didn’t want to admit that the monster might kill Chloe. Didn’t want to think that maybe he already had.

Swallowing back her fear, she tugged her mother toward the apartment. “Let’s make it fast. I’ve got some old jeans here and . . . a sweater or something. I’ll grab them while you grab your bag and the car keys.”

“I told you Detective Bentz was busy,” Nellie Vaccarro’s sharp voice heralded another visitor.

Bentz, who was on the phone with Hayes in LA, glanced up to find Jase Bridges standing in the doorway of his office. “Thanks,” he said into the phone. “Keep me posted.”

“Will do,” Hayes promised, and hung up. He’d called to tell Bentz that according to all outward signs, it appeared that Donovan Caldwell had killed himself. Rumors of suicide had been swirling since they’d found the body, and now detectives and crime-scene techs were beginning to confirm their suspicion. Of course, they would keep it all under wraps pending interviews with prisoners, guards, family, and friends. Also, before confirming suicide, the investigators would want to see the autopsy report, just to make sure there wasn’t any internal trauma to his body that hadn’t been evident, and that there were no toxins or drugs in his bloodstream. None was expected. The prevailing theory was that Donovan Caldwell had found a way to take his own life rather than spend his remaining years behind bars.

“Come in,” Bentz said to Bridges, then pocketed his phone. When Nellie Vaccarro appeared in the doorway, her pink lips compressed, he waved her away. “It’s okay,” he told her.

“It is definitely not ‘okay.’ I take my job very seriously, Detective Bentz,” she reminded him almost primly. She had a lot to learn about how this place ran. One bustling little receptionist wasn’t going to change things.

“I know, Nellie. I appreciate it, but Jase here, he’s okay. Might even end up being hired by the department. So, trust me, this time, it’s all right.” In truth he wasn’t overjoyed at seeing the reporter, but there was no reason to make a stink. After he’d given Bridges and the reporter from WKAM the brush-off at the crime scene, Bentz had determined that he could use a friend in the press. Bridges, being considered for the public information officer position, was as good a choice as anyone.

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

With a final don’t-get-used-to-messing-with-me look at Bridges, Nellie walked quickly down the hallway.

For his part, the reporter didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by her discomfiture and got right down to business. “I need some answers, Bentz.”

“About the homicide off of Chartres?”

“That, too,” Bridges said, “but the reason I’m here now is that I’m working with Brianna Hayward.”

Bentz nodded. Not surprised. “You want to know about the 21 Killer,” he surmised. “I’ve talked to Ms. Hayward, heard her theories.”

“And I found out that Donovan Caldwell died early this morning or late last night. I figure you, as an investigating officer of the original case, might know a little more than most.”

Bentz didn’t respond.

“Tell me about Donovan Caldwell. What happened?” Bridges prodded. “How did he die while incarcerated? An accident? Natural causes? Come on, he was a young man. There’s talk of suicide.”

“Twitter at its best,” Bentz muttered.

“It’s happened before.”

“Look, the investigation is ongoing. I was just talking to Detective Hayes from the LAPD. He was my partner for the years I was on the force. He tells me nothing is certain yet. There will be an autopsy. Lab tests. You know how those things go. The final report could take weeks.”

“Won’t they rush the autopsy?”

Bentz shrugged. “It’s not really an emergency. And they’ll be extremely thorough. Caldwell was convicted of heinous acts, didn’t have a lot of fans in prison. The Department of Corrections will want to make sure everything was on the up-and-up.”

“You’ve heard Brianna Hayward’s theory,” Bridges pressed on. “Do you really think Donovan Caldwell was the 21 Killer?”

Bentz wanted to stick to the company line, that, of course, the LAPD had gotten their man, but in light of recent findings, he wasn’t a hundred percent certain. Before he could come up with a suitable answer, he heard a ruckus out in the hallway.

Once again, Nellie’s sharp voice could be heard over the usual hubbub of cell phones, voices, printers, and the air-conditioning fans.

“I’m sorry, but Detective Bentz is with someone right now.”

“Tough! I have to talk to him. Now.” The woman’s voice sounded close to hysteria. Lately, it seemed, it was the story of his life.

“If you can wait—”

“No way! This is a damned emergency. My name’s Zoe Denning and my mom says Detective Bentz has been looking for me.”

“Denning?” Nellie repeated as Bentz shot to his feet and Jase Bridges, who hadn’t yet sat down, stepped into the hallway.