Текст книги "Never Die Alone"

Автор книги: Lisa Jackson

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

CHAPTER 9

Brianna figured she’d blown it.

Big-time.

Lost her cool as well as her perspective. And now, probably any chance for help.

The police department was teeming with people. Uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, clerical workers, suspects, or people like herself needing assistance jammed the place, inside and out. Conversation buzzed and echoed off the tall ceilings. Cell phones rang and the slightly musty smell of the old building couldn’t be hidden by the acrid odors of floor cleansers, perfume, and human sweat.

“Crap!” she whispered as she left Bentz’s office and squeezed past a hefty man who was heading in the opposite direction.

Angry with herself, Brianna still held on to the hope that the Denning twins were alive as she made her way through the homicide department. She’d come on too strong, had gotten Bentz’s back up, just as she’d warned herself she might. The trouble was, she thought as she hurried down the stairs, the heels of her boots ringing, she was too passionate about this case, too personally involved despite what she’d told Bentz.

Scared to death for Chloe and Zoe, she was heartsick and frustrated and wanted to scream and rail at the heavens. Instead, she’d taken out her anxiety on a detective who hadn’t investigated the 21 Killer for years. Still, she was certain 21 was here because of Bentz. Call it a hunch. Or an educated guess. It didn’t matter; Brianna was certain she was right. Hence her overreaction.

“Idiot,” she whispered under her breath, and was vaguely aware of other footsteps on the old steps behind her.

Telling herself she wasn’t going to let her own paranoia get the better of her, she wended her way down the battered old staircase where, suddenly, she was swimming against a tide of officers and visitors moving upward. Crowds had always bothered her, but she fought a surge of panic as she descended to the main floor. There she wended her way through a wide hallway to the front doors.

Outside she felt as if she could breathe again even though the sun was intense, heat still rising from the streets where late-afternoon shadows lengthened. She’d blown it with Bentz. She knew that and mentally kicked herself for the way she’d handled the meeting. Maybe she should have come to him first rather than head to Baton Rouge, but she’d thought she could gain more information at the college and offer it up, maybe set some wheels in motion. She’d thought she could help.

She’d been wrong.

“Fool,” she told herself as she walked along the sidewalk. Her meeting with Bentz had been a disaster.

A breath of wind chased through the magnolia trees, rustling the leaves and bringing with it the scent of the river, thick and musty, and reminding her that New Orleans wasn’t her native home. She, like so many others here, was a transplant.

She’d been born and raised in Bad Luck, Texas, until middle school, when her father had gotten a job at Tulane University and packed up his wife, twins, and family dog to move to New Orleans. Since that time she’d called Louisiana home. Now, of course, she felt as if she’d lived here forever.

She loved this town. But with each passing hour of not hearing from the Denning girls, Brianna was more and more certain the 21 Killer was right here in her backyard.

Her stomach squeezed at the thought as she jaywalked across the street. She’d found 21 terrifying as well as fascinating from a purely psychological point of view. What was his need to kill twins on their birthdays, the very date they became adults?

She couldn’t help but wonder if his journey to New Orleans had something to do with her rather than Bentz. After all, she’d started rattling the cages of the LAPD not long ago, when he was already on the move.

Ridiculous! He knows nothing about you. Nothing. How could he? And why would he be interested? You’re far older than twenty-one, your twin sister long dead. You aren’t his type.

But she had been stirring up a hornet’s nest. He could have easily found out that she was fighting to get Donovan Caldwell released, that she was determined to see the real killer hunted down.

Even so . . . you don’t fit his victim profile. You are not the reason Zoe and Chloe are missing.

So she was back to her theory that Rick Bentz was the audience the killer was playing to. But even that theory was a stretch. Why not stay in LA and stick it in the police department’s face that he’d gotten away, that they’d imprisoned the wrong man?

After her meeting with Bentz she wondered if she, in her freaked-out, impetuous state, had come to the wrong conclusion. Hopefully. Then there was a chance the Denning girls were alive.

As she rounded a corner, she pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and checked her messages. Nothing. Selma had promised she’d call or text the moment she heard anything, so no news wasn’t such good news, contrary to the old saying.

So now what? Deep in thought, she slid her phone into her bag and found her sunglasses. The sun was low in the sky now, afternoon slipping into evening, the glare still bright, so she slipped the pair of retro Ray-Bans over the bridge of her nose. Calmer now, she contemplated her next move as she headed toward her car parked one street over.

“Brianna!” a male voice called.

Tensing, she hazarded a quick glance over her shoulder to spy a tall, rangy man striding her way, his hand raised to flag her down. “Brianna! Wait up!” Something about his face was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. He moved fast, closing the distance. Brown hair, straight and thick. A strong jaw. A jagged scar visible near his right temple.

Oh. Dear. God. In an instant, she recognized him.

Her heart beat a quick double-time and she chided herself for her reaction. The man jaywalking, avoiding traffic, was none other than Jason “Jase” Bridges, her first real high-school crush. Though, of course, she hoped desperately that he didn’t know that.

“Jase?” she said, forcing her overactive pulse to slow as a full image of him as a rebellious teenager came to mind. Three years older than her, nearly out of high school when she’d entered, he’d been a hellion her mother had constantly warned her to avoid.

“He’s no good, you know,” Ellen Hayward had told her twin daughters on more than one occasion. “He’s like his father, who, I hate to say, drinks way too much. It’s no wonder Edward’s wife ran off and left him with the boys.” In the kitchen of their home off Royal Street, Mom had carefully cut biscuits from the thick dough she’d flattened over their grandmother’s wooden cutting board. Pausing, she’d straightened, the flour-dusted cutter in one hand, poised over the dough. “Oh, my.” She’d shaken her head and pursed her lips. “I hate to say it, girls, but those Bridges boys? Big trouble.” She set down the cutter and fingered the cross dangling from a gold chain on her neck. “Lord have mercy on their souls.”

“‘Lord have mercy’ is right,” Arianna, the bolder of the twins, had said. She’d sent her sister an amused glance as she’d stage-whispered, “Jase is hot!” Her eyes, the same golden brown as her sister’s, had sparkled with mischief.

“Oh, for the love of Saint Peter,” their mother had admonished. “Girls!” She’d raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if seeing past the plaster and molding she could view heaven. “Why did you give me girls?”

The twins had giggled at their mother’s discomfiture, because truth be told, what would Ellen Mae Allemande Hayward have done with boys? Dealing with all that energy and testosterone? Oh, sure. Hunting, fishing, boxing, and football were not on their mother’s top one thousand things to do. Nope, Ellen wasn’t exactly the den mother or football mom type. She was lucky she had girls. Brianna’s tendency toward being a tomboy was worrisome enough for their mother. As it was, the girls kept her on her knees and praying throughout the week. With boys, she would’ve had permanent scars on her patellas.

So, of course, Ellen’s warnings had gone unheeded and added gasoline to the fire of Brianna’s interest. Now, though, she pushed aside thoughts of her mother, their tidy home not far from the university, and her own fascination with the wild teenager who had grown to become this man striding toward her.

“Jase Bridges,” she said, feeling her shoulders straighten a tad.

“So you do remember.” His smile stretched.

“Yeah, of course.” As traffic passed, she hoped that she hid any indication of her fascination with him way back when. The rebellious kid who had flagrantly disrespected authority was almost gone. Almost. From first glance Jase appeared to have straightened up from the tattered, I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass eighteen-year-old. But something told her that the same rebel lurked beneath the façade of slacks and white dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up, a bit of a tattoo showing above the bend of his elbow. A rattler, she recalled, coiled around his biceps.

“I overheard your conversation with Detective Bentz.”

“How?”

“I was still hanging around after my interview with him.” He flashed that sardonic grin she remembered. “Yours sounded way more interesting than mine.”

“And you were there . . . Why?”

“Business.”

Huh. Who was this new, older, cleaned-up version of the irreverent kid she once knew? “You eavesdropped?”

A twitch of one corner of those blade-thin lips. “For once I didn’t have to.” He leaned a hip against the side of her Accord. “You were pretty loud.”

“I tend to get that way when I’m passionate about something.” She cringed a little, wondering how many others besides Bentz’s partner and Jason Bridges had heard her.

Again, the eyebrow. Cocked. Silently sarcastic. And irritating as hell.

“Is there something you wanted?” she asked, extracting her keys from her purse. “I don’t think you flagged me down just to catch up for old times’ sake or whatever.”

“I want to help.”

“With?”

“Finding 21.”

Her back muscles tightened. Though she’d take any help she could get in tracking down the 21 Killer, this, running into Jase at the station, having him hear her plea to Bentz, seemed off somehow.

“Why?” she asked.

“I’m a reporter.”

“Not a cop?”

“Not yet, though I do have my app in for the public information officer job that’s coming up.”

“So almost a cop.”

“More like maybe-if-he-gets-lucky a cop,” he admitted. He crossed his arms over his chest, the seams of his shirt pulling as he glanced back at the police station.

“Jase Bridges, lawman?”

“Yeah, hard to imagine. I know.” He snorted at the irony of it all, and she felt the corners of her mouth twitch, her first inclination to smile since she’d found Selma Denning on her porch early this morning.

“But still a reporter.”

“Probably always. No matter what the job description reads.”

Because she was fast running out of options, unable to galvanize Bentz, or the cops in LA or Baton Rouge into action, she was tempted to agree. Why not use this man who was willing to help?

Because deep down, she didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust her feelings for him and heard her mother’s warnings running through her mind. “He’s no good, girls. Not him, not his brother, and certainly not his father.”

So when had she ever listened to Ellen?

She unlocked her car but didn’t get in. “Then you know about 21.”

He gave a curt nod. “It made national news. A bizarre ritual killer usually does. And, of course, I was on the crime beat, so he intrigued me. I was in Savannah at the time, but I kept up.”

“He scared the hell out of me.”

“He scared a lot of people.”

“He still scares me.”

“You don’t think they”—he hitched his chin toward the police station—“got their man.”

“I’m sure of it,” she said, and her thoughts turned dark again. “At least ninety-nine percent. You eavesdropped on the conversation, so you know the details.”

“I heard part of it. Why don’t you fill me in?”

She studied him for a second, decided she had nothing to lose. “The long and the short of it is that I think 21 has come to New Orleans. Why? Probably to show off for Bentz, but who really knows? A couple of girls are missing and we . . . their mother and I, are worried sick that he may have targeted them.” Staring into his eyes, she felt the now-familiar lump form in her throat when she considered the fate of the Denning twins. “But I hope not. God, I hope this is all a mistake and that I’m just a paranoid conspiracy theory nut who’s got it all wrong.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t.” Her cell phone rang and she fished it out of her purse to see Tanisha’s name and number appear on the screen, along with the time. “Look, I’ve got to run.” She let the call go to voice mail. “I’m late as it is.”

“Give me a call.” He pressed a business card into her palm before stepping away from her Accord and jogging across the street.

She watched him go, noticing that despite the khakis and pressed shirt, he still had the pace of an athlete, his hips moved fluidly, his stride long. “Get over it.”

She slid into the hot interior and fired the engine, then hit the A/C. It was giving her trouble, oftentimes blowing hot air, other times working, but she didn’t have the time to deal with it, so she took her chances and today, all day, it had complied. She caught another glimpse of Bridges as he disappeared around the corner of the police station and again felt that accelerated thump of her heartbeat.

“Schoolgirl crush,” she reminded herself as she glanced into her side-view mirror and nosed into traffic. She had twenty minutes to get across town where Tanisha would be waiting.

No doubt it would take her thirty.

“You could just call the Baton Rouge PD,” Montoya said as he followed Bentz through the station. “Wouldn’t that be a helluva lot easier?”

“I will.” Bentz skirted a couple of uniformed officers climbing the stairs as he hurried down. “But I’m heading up there anyway. I want to see what they’ve got on the missing Denning twins. You can come along or not.”

“You know, just because some crazy-ass chick comes in and starts rattling your cage doesn’t mean she’s legit,” Montoya pointed out, but kept stride with his partner as they reached the first floor.

“We’ll see.” Bentz took a hallway leading to the back door and parking lot.

He was heading for his vehicle when Montoya said, “I’ll drive. That way you can make your calls on the way and it won’t take three hours to get to Baton Rouge.”

Bentz wanted to argue, but his partner had a point. Together they crossed the lot to the spot where Montoya’s Mustang was parked. Unbuttoning his collar, Bentz slid into the hot interior. The truth was that Brianna Hayward had hit a nerve, a raw one. He’d never felt a hundred percent certain about Donovan Caldwell as the 21 Killer. Back then the evidence had pointed his way and there’d been no other suspects. The DA had been intent on nailing Caldwell, and Bledsoe had zeroed in on Caldwell as the doer. As Brianna had pointed out, the evidence was highly circumstantial and largely due to Donovan Caldwell’s own Internet presence, where he’d hinted that he was instrumental in his sisters’ murders. He’d been stupidly bragging to what he’d assumed were like minds but, in reality, had been female cops looking to discover what turned him on.

Caldwell had pretty much buried himself. The jury had found Delta and Diana’s brother guilty of their ritualistic murders.

As Montoya sped through the city streets, Bentz dialed Jonas Hayes’s cell phone. It was two hours earlier in LA, so Bentz figured Hayes should still be working.

The Mustang’s air conditioner kicked on, cool air starting to stream through the vents as Bentz waited. He watched as the buildings of the city passed by, shadows crawling across the storefronts before Montoya angled the Mustang to the freeway, heading north-west.

His call went directly to voice mail.

It figured.

So far today, nothing had come together. He left his name and number.

Maybe he’d get lucky in Baton Rouge.

Then again, maybe he’d strike out.

CHAPTER 10

The meeting hall smelled of age and disrepair. None of the antiseptic, bleach, or pine-scented cleaning supplies used to freshen up the old floors, walls, and counters could hide the fact that Aubrey House was well over 200 years old. As such, the timbers, bricks, and mortar had endured and survived dozens of disasters including hurricanes, floods, and even fire. Located in the French Quarter, Aubrey House had been built as the home of a baroness; over the decades and centuries it had been renovated and remodeled, cut into apartments, and retrofitted to its original glory. Now, it housed a variety of businesses, everything from a CPA to a psychic who read tarot cards and Brianna’s own business office, where she met with clients who were more comfortable in an office setting rather than in her home.

The original ballroom was now a meeting area, complete with portable walls that could be moved to accommodate different-sized groups. Tonight, the north-west quadrant was home to a twinless twins support group, which Brianna oversaw. Like Brianna, each person who attended the weekly meetings had lost his or her twin. The group provided a community of support to acknowledge feelings of loss over the death or removal of a twin. Discussions ranged beyond grief and separation anxiety to everyday stresses. They talked about jobs and bosses. Another family member, spouse, or significant other. Any topic was fair game, and the information shared here did not leave these walls. The idea was that victims with the shared experience of losing a twin could relate, but sometimes that wasn’t the case due to the many diverse personalities involved.

As the organizer and leader, Brianna usually arrived at the room forty minutes before the scheduled meeting. Tonight, running late, she hurried in to find Tanisha busy making coffee and arranging cups and napkins on trays set on the stage, now used by the group as a serving table. An extension cord snaked from the coffeepot to the nearest outlet, and an Air-Pot held hot water. On the other tray sat a container of powdered creamer and two sugar bowls, one with individual packets of different sweeteners, the other with varieties of tea.

“Where have you been?” Tanisha chided as Mr. Coffee gurgled and sputtered. Dressed as always to the nines, her hair scraped back by a glittering headband that held her tight-knit curls away from her face, Tanisha sent Brianna a smile meant to convey that she was kidding. “It’s not like you to be late.” Plucking a packet of sugar from the bowl, she shook the little package while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

“Delayed. Sorry.” Brianna dumped her purse on the far end of the stage.

“I know what you mean.”

Brianna seriously doubted it.

“I tell ya, I couldn’t get back to sleep last night,” Tanisha went on, her mocha-colored skin looking smooth as silk under the once-upon-a-time ballroom’s chandeliers. Suspended from twenty-foot coved ceilings, the lights gave off a warm glow reminiscent of another era. The old-world charm was definitely at odds with the mismatched twentieth-century furniture and portable “walls” used to separate the huge space.

“That dream I had?” Tanisha continued. “Whooee. So damned real. Lord!” Her eyebrows drew together as if she were still attempting to figure out the nightmare. “Don’t know what it means. But something was off last night. Something big, a separation thing.” As if she realized she was talking to herself, she glanced at Brianna. “What about you? You said you had a bad dream, too. Everything okay?”

“No.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I guess you haven’t talked to Selma?”

Tanisha gave a soft snort of disgust. “Why would I?” Tanisha rolled her expressive, mascara-rimmed eyes. She and Selma had never really gotten to know each other. Whereas Selma Denning was in her midforties and stuck in a rut where her ex-husband was concerned, Tanisha, at twenty-eight, thought Selma should “kick that son of a bitch’s ass to the curb and move the hell on.” Ever forthright, Tanisha had said as much in one session. Of course, Tanisha’s advice had gone over like the proverbial lead balloon.

“I don’t know, I thought she might have called you and . . . and some of the others in the group,” Brianna said as the coffeepot gave off a final hiss and the warm scent of java tried valiantly to hide the musty odor of the building.

“Well, she didn’t.” Tanisha’s back was still up. “So what’s up? God, that woman’s a dishrag. No backbone, y’ know.”

“Her twins are missing. Both girls.”

“Missing?” She still wasn’t getting it. Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she frowned. “What do you mean ‘missing’? As in adult kids didn’t come in or call Mommy?”

“It’s more than that.”

As Tanisha doctored her coffee with sugar and powdered cream, Brianna gave her a quick rundown, and as the gravity of the situation sunk in, Tanisha’s face fell. Compassion replaced belligerence. “Oh, my God, that’s awful. You don’t think . . . holy shit,” she whispered. “The 21 Killer?” She blinked, disbelieving. Though she and Brianna had discussed the fact that Brianna thought the wrong man had been imprisoned, Tanisha had believed, or wanted desperately to believe, that 21 was behind bars.

“We don’t know. Yet.”

“This is awful.” Tanisha set her undrunk cup on the tray holding the Air-Pot and glanced toward the entry as members of the group began to stream in.

Lincoln Robinson, a musician, could rarely scare up a smile despite the fact that he was happily married and the father of a fifteen-year-old scholar who was following in her father’s footsteps as a pianist. Still, the weight of losing his brother was a burden Lincoln had trouble shouldering. Survivor’s guilt. Both boys had been in an automobile accident nearly twenty years ago; while Lincoln survived, his brother had been pronounced DOA at the hospital. Tall, lean, and African American, Lincoln was a thoughtful member of the group, offering his stories and opinions quietly. He was the opposite of outspoken and direct Tanisha.

Lincoln lifted a hand in greeting and made his way to a chair he favored, positioned near the broad bank of windows running along one side of this third-floor room. “Evenin’,” he said with a nod as Milo and Desmond walked in.

Milo, in his usual camouflage gear, grabbed a cup of black coffee and found a seat. He was on the quiet side, his connection being the loss of his twin sister when he was in his early twenties. He rarely spoke up and was vague when asked questions, even concerning his twin’s death, but seemed to gain strength just being a part of the group.

Desmond didn’t bother with coffee, and as he lumbered in, Brianna felt her insides twist a little. Desmond Underhill had always made her uncomfortable. She thought of him as a lurker. A big man, fortyish, and a carpenter with meat hooks for hands, he never offered much, even when spoken to. All she knew about him was that he’d lost his twin sister, Denise, when she drowned at age seven. That was why he felt out of step with other people. That was why he was here.

However, Desmond had never connected with the group or anyone who attended. It was almost as if he were an obvious voyeur, one who came and listened to everyone else’s story without adding much of his own. Tonight, he was wearing his plaid shirt buttoned to his neck, his thin hair pulled into a scraggly ponytail, a few cuts visible on his face, which wasn’t unusual. When asked about the abrasions, he’d always shrugged. “Work,” he’d say, or “Huntin’ in the woods.” He beelined for his chair, in this case a faded wingback, pushed into the farthest corner, away from the rest of the group.

In the past Brianna had suggested that he pull in closer and engage in the discussion, but her request had always been met with silent resistance. He maintained his distance, content to watch the others. Despite the weather, he always wore a long-sleeved shirt and a vest with big pockets that oftentimes bulged. She wondered what he was hiding. A bag of jerky? A recorder? A folding knife or gun? Or just his wallet? Her imagination took her to places she’d rather not go.

She told herself not to be so paranoid, recognizing that the situation with the Denning girls had amped her fears upward in the stratosphere.

For the most part, Brianna had given up trying to include Desmond in the ongoing discussion. It was hard enough to get Milo or Elise to participate, especially when Tanisha and Enrique always threatened to take over the meetings. Brianna hoped Desmond would join in when he felt compelled. But she wasn’t counting on it.

Others filtered in. Elise Gaylord, the introspective thirty-five-year-old working on her PhD in history who was never without her knitting, was followed by Enrique Vega. Muttering under his breath, Enrique strutted across the room, found a chair, and plopped down with an energy drink he didn’t appear to need. He worked out daily at a gym, his biceps huge beneath a tight T-shirt. Brianna believed his constant state of anger had more to do with still living “at home” at thirty than the loss of his twin, who might not even be dead. Juan Vega had disappeared, leaving for San Francisco and never talking to anyone in the family again. Enrique didn’t know if his brother was still alive with a new identity, deliberately separated from the family, or the victim of foul play.

More than anything Enrique seemed pissed that his brother had taken off without him. “If Juan had taken me with him,” Enrique had said on one occasion, his shaved head shining beneath the overhead lights, “he would be alive today. Okay? See what I mean? But he didn’t even tell me he was leaving! What kind of brother does that? And he calls himself a twin! Bah!”

Now, slumping in his chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his eyes sparking with anger, Enrique popped open his drink and glowered as he drank and waited for the meeting to begin. Twice he glanced at the clock, then at Brianna. “We doin’ this, or what?” he asked impatiently.

“In a minute,” Brianna said loudly enough for him to hear. There were still a few others who might attend. Roger, the ex-football player who lived out of town. A big man who rarely spoke, he seemed bottled up and Brianna thought if anyone prodded and poked him too much, he might explode. There was anger beneath the surface of his calm. All Brianna really knew about him was that his twin, Ramona, had died at a campsite and that he blamed himself. Though her fall had been ruled an accident, Roger sensed that everyone, including his parents, thought he should have saved her.

A cell phone rang and Elise jumped, pulled it from her knitting bag, and spying the number on the screen, scuttled out to the hallway to find some privacy as she answered in hushed tones. She glanced furtively over her shoulder, as if she’d been caught in some kind of crime.

That was the thing with Elise. She always acted as if she had something to hide and much of her life was secret, which wasn’t unusual in this group. The call was short and she hurried back inside to reclaim her seat. “Sorry,” she said. “Ashton.”

Tanisha turned her back to the young woman and rolled her eyes. Ashton was, as Elise had said in a moment of candor, the love of her life. But in the few comments Elise had made about him, Ashton seemed obsessive and controlling. Once Elise had received a call from him that prompted her to jump up and leave in the middle of the session. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I just . . . I just have to go. Ashton needs some cold medication . . . he’s not feeling well . . . I have to go.” She’d nearly run from the room.

“That is such bullshit,” Tanisha had said.

Brianna had shook her head as there were supposed to be no judgments in the group.

“You know it. I know it. Even he knows it,” Tanisha had added, hooking a thumb toward Desmond. “That guy she’s with, he’s a control freak.”

Elise had missed the next meeting, but had shown up ever since, never saying a word about her abrupt departure. She simply acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. However, one time when Tanisha had asked how Ashton was, Elise had flinched. Her knitting needles lost their rhythm. “What do you mean? He’s fine.”

“Got over that cold or flu, did he?” Tanisha had asked as if she were truly interested, all the time ignoring Brianna’s stern glance.

“The flu?” Elise seemed perplexed, then got it. “Oh. Sorry. No. He didn’t have the flu or . . . or a cold. No. It was . . . was a rash. He just needed some . . . some cream. We were out.” She’d smiled quickly, an embarrassed grin that hadn’t touched her eyes and faded quickly at her obvious lie.

Now, Enrique scowled and cocked his left wrist, then tapped it repeatedly, even though he didn’t wear a watch. His eyebrows arched as he tried to silently encourage Brianna to get on with it.

Brianna didn’t understand what Enrique expected from the group, but she told herself if he didn’t need the support, he wouldn’t show up each week, which he did, faithfully. As he waited for his turn to speak, his leg bounced nervously, and he stayed attentive, like a racehorse ready to explode through the gate at the starting bell. Some of the members kept to themselves, but not Enrique. Nor, for that matter, did Tanisha, who was ready to tell the entire group about the failings of her family and current boyfriend. Tanisha and Enrique were definitely the firecrackers in the group.

Brianna was about to begin when Jenkins Olander strode into the room. Jenkins was a breath of fresh air. Unlike the other members, he offered a broad grin and lifted a hand in greeting as he made his way to the coffee machine. “How are you?” he asked Brianna, and gave a hug.

“Been better,” she said as he broke off the quick embrace.

“Seriously? Ouch. I’m sorry.” Jenkins pulled a face. “I hope it’s not bad news.” In his midtwenties, Jenkins was blond, with a trimmed beard and quick sense of humor. Gay and in a long-term relationship, he had a job he liked and a supportive family. Still, he couldn’t put behind him the fact that his twin brother had died from a rare form of cancer that even a bone marrow transfer from his identical twin hadn’t been able to destroy.