Never Die Alone (A Bentz/Montoya Novel Book 8)

by Lisa Jackson

  “I told you I called them.”

  “I know,” she said, guiding Selma toward her beat-up Honda. “But it’s time to see them in person.”

  At the station, they encountered the same lack of concern they had sifted through all day. They found their way to an officer in the Missing Persons Division, Crecia Brown. A fit, African American woman, Brown gave off waves of self-importance and bureaucratic weariness. In her midforties, with clipped hair and a no-nonsense attitude, she listened somewhat impatiently to Selma, who stood with Brianna on the opposite side of a glass-enclosed counter.

  “You called earlier.” Her lips flexed a frown as she checked her computer.

  “That’s right.”

  “I just have a little paperwork for you to fill out.” Her chilly demeanor thawed slightly as she found some forms. “But we’ve already started checking with the necessary agencies. And we put out BOLOs on both girls.” Her dark eyes had given Brianna the impression that Officer Brown had seen it all and, right now, she was simply going through the motions.

  Selma, though, seemed heartened. Maybe it felt good to know that the alerts were out, even if no one seemed to be taking them seriously. Selma filled out the forms, providing as much information as she could. By the time they returned to the car, the older woman was beat. She slid into the Honda’s warm interior and closed her eyes. “I feel like I could sleep for a hundred years, and yet I’m so keyed up and worried . . . oh hell.” She checked her phone for what had to be the hundredth time as Brianna started the engine. “We may as well go home.” There was sadness in the deep lines on her face as she cleared her throat and stared out the window. “Thanks for all you’ve done.”

  Nothing. I’ve done nothing but drive you here and help you file an official Missing Persons Report. It’s not enough.

  Brianna eased her little car into traffic that was heavier now. She’d started out the morning trying to convince Selma the girls would return, but as the day had worn on with no news from the twins, Brianna had begun to believe the horrifying possibility. Her hope was waning, her anger at the people who had put the wrong man behind bars increasing. She knew Donovan Caldwell was imprisoned falsely, and that meant the real killer, the maniac who targeted twins, was still at large.

  Worse yet, she suspected he was hunting again, his killing ground having expanded from Southern California, heading east, if her theory was correct. And then there was the fact that Rick Bentz was now a working detective in New Orleans, where Zoe and Chloe had gone missing.

  Her stomach twisted and her fingers tightened over the wheel as she fought her fears.

  Where the hell were Zoe and Chloe?

  CHAPTER 8

  “I don’t have any comment,” Bentz said. He finished the last swallow of cold coffee and glanced at the clock mounted on the wall of his office: 4:57. Time to be thinking about heading home, and here he was cornered by Jase Bridges, a reporter pounding the crime beat for a local paper.

  Bridges was all over the Father John case.

  “You know the identity of the killer,” Bridges pointed out. Seated in a chair at Bentz’s desk, the reporter stared at Bentz as if watching for weakness, looking for a crack in Bentz’s responses.

  Bentz nodded. “It’s just a matter of finding him. That’s all I have. Hopefully that will change soon. The public information officer will release a statement with any new developments.” He held the younger man’s gaze. They both knew the current PIO was stepping down. Jase Bridges was one of the few candidates for the job.

  The reporter hesitated, then appeared to realize that he wasn’t going to get anything more from Bentz. “Good. Keep me posted.” Bridges placed a business card on Bentz’s desk, nodded, then ducked out the door.

  Bentz swept the card into the trash. He knew Bridges by reputation—a wild, tough-ass kid who had somehow turned himself around and landed the crime beat for the Observer, a local paper still hanging on despite the downturn in the print newspaper industry.

  Bentz had never had much use for the press. Sure, fine, the public needed to be informed or when the department needed the public’s awareness and assistance. But as for the reporters who made something out of nothing, creating a story when there was none, Bentz wasn’t interested. Was Jase Bridges one of those, so hungry for drama that he blended truth and fiction, or a real hard-nosed, truth-seeking reporter?

  The jury was still out.

  And the thought that Bridges might end up working for the department didn’t sit well with Bentz. His innate distrust of reporters had been honed years ago when he’d been working for the LAPD. Bentz had made the tragic mistake of shooting a kid who had a gun aimed at his partner. Turned out the gun had been a toy, and the press had ripped into Bentz.

  “I’m looking for Detective Rick Bentz.” A woman’s voice out in the hall caught Bentz’s attention.

  “Just a minute. Do you have an appointment?” demanded the higher-pitched voice of Nellie Vaccarro, a recent hire in the department. “Hey! Wait! What do you think you’re doing?” Petite and bristly, Nellie was the secretary and receptionist for the department, and she took her duty of guarding the gates to the inner sanctum to heart. “Did you hear me? Detective Bentz is—”

  “In?” the other woman guessed, footsteps now rapidly approaching.

  Bentz rolled his chair away from the desk and stood just as a thirtyish brunette stepped into his office.

  “You’re Bentz,” she guessed without any preamble. “Right?” She wore faded jeans and a gray T-shirt, the strap of an oversized bag slung over one shoulder. The woman was slim, around five eight or nine, and serious as hell. No humor sparked in her eyes, no smile tugged the corners of her mouth.

  “That’s right.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Nellie, barely visible in the doorway behind the newcomer, lifted her hands, then dropped them in frustration before wedging her body past the visitor. “I’m sorry, Detective,” she said, glossy lips pursed into a frown. In a short dress, heels, her straight, blond hair framing her heart-shaped face, Nellie always appeared ready for a surprise photo shoot. “I tried to stop her, but—”

  “You checked my bag and practically frisked me,” the woman cut in, sending Nellie a withering glare. “I just need to talk to Detective Bentz.”

  Spine stiffening, Nellie wasn’t about to be dismissed. “But—”

  “It’s fine, Nellie,” Bentz said, raising a hand. “I’ve got this.”

  She hesitated.

  “Really,” Bentz nodded.

  Her suspicious gaze skated from Bentz to the intruder, then back. Obviously unhappy, she said, “If you say so, Detective.” Not pleased in the least, she let out her breath and walked away, high heels clicking curtly down the hallway.

  “I think you ticked her off,” Bentz said.

  “Probably.” The woman stared at him. Her hair was piled loosely on her head, and if she was wearing makeup, it was invisible. “But I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay. What about, Ms.—?”

  “I’m Brianna Hayward.”

  He turned her name over in his mind. It rang distant bells.

  “Two girls are missing,” she said, her face etched in worry. “Zoe and Chloe Denning. They just turned twenty-one today, and no one’s heard from them since before midnight.” Before he could ask, she said, “We filed a Missing Persons Report in Baton Rouge, where they live, but they were last seen celebrating in New Orleans.” She slid a page across his desk. On it were three pictures. Two were head shots of nearly identical women, each with a big smile and streaked blond hair. One was marked Zoe, the other Chloe.

  “Twins?” He felt his stomach tighten. “Just turning twenty-one?” Memories of other cases came to mind, double homicide cases of twin sisters who had been ritualistically murdered the moment each became a legal adult.

  “Yeah.” She didn’t mince words, but met his gaze and he felt a cold knot of dread tighten in his gut. Not that there was any connection. There cou
ldn’t be. He turned his attention to the photographs.

  The third photo showed the two young women dressed in short dresses and tall high heels. It was a glamour shot, their streaked hair pulled away from their identical faces to fall in loose curls down their backs as they hugged each other.

  “Where’d you get these?” he asked, pointing at the images.

  “Internet. The photo of the girls together is the last picture they posted, taken last evening. From the daylight in the shot, I’m guessing it was probably taken around eight last night, an hour before all communication was lost. And from the landmarks, it looks like they were on Bourbon Street, near Toulouse.”

  He agreed. “I guess I don’t understand why you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Because I’m . . . I’m afraid this isn’t just a matter of girls going missing,” she admitted and again her gaze held his. “I think it’s probably worse.”

  “You think they met with foul play? Were abducted?”

  The fear in her eyes said it all and that knot in his stomach twisted painfully.

  “You worked on a couple of cases years ago, where twins were abducted and killed on their twenty-first birthdays.”

  Bingo. No reason to beat around the bush.

  “You think the 21 Killer is behind this?”

  “God, I hope not,” she said fervently. She bit her lip before adding, “But, yeah. I think so.”

  “He’s in prison.”

  “Donovan Caldwell isn’t the 21 Killer,” she said, shaking her head. “The LAPD sent the wrong man to prison.”

  “Really?” Bentz squinted at her and told himself not to leap to conclusions. “Why don’t you slow down and start over?” he suggested.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she dropped into one of the side chairs and launched into a tale that only caused the knot in his gut to twist. As if she’d been practicing her spiel, she delivered an explanation of Caldwell’s innocence, claiming that charges against him had been trumped up. The case was circumstantial. Caldwell was snagged in a bad sting operation, but since the LAPD needed to make an arrest on the high-profile case, the charges stuck. “And it didn’t help that Bledsoe was the one making the arrest.”

  Bledsoe, now retired from the police department, had been the arresting officer who had put Donovan Caldwell behind bars for the murders of his twin sisters. A thorn in Bentz’s side while he’d been with the department, Bledsoe was adequate at best in Bentz’s opinion.

  “I even went to LA to talk to the police there,” she went on, “but no one was interested. Bledsoe’s retired.”

  “So I heard,” Bentz admitted.

  “So I ended up with Detective Hayes, your old partner. He worked the case with you, before you left, then with Bledsoe, so I figured he’d want to hear what I had to say.” She held Bentz’s gaze. “Turned out he didn’t. No one in the department, including Hayes, was interested. I was told that the case was closed and was politely but firmly given the brush-off.” Her jaw tightened visibly, bone showing through her skin.

  “They’ve got their convicted killer,” Bentz pointed out. “The murders of twins stopped when they locked up Caldwell.”

  “For a while.”

  “You think 21 is killing again?”

  “I know he is, but I hope to God that he’s not behind the Denning twins’ disappearance. Oh, dear God . . .” Some of the starch seemed to leave her.

  Was it possible? Was the wrong man imprisoned, leaving 21 still at large? Bentz was skeptical, despite his own gut fears, the similarities to long-ago crimes. He looked back at the photos of the girls. “Tell me what you know about these young women.”

  Brianna gave him a rundown on the Denning twins’ disappearance, how she was involved, what she and the girls’ mother, Selma Denning, had learned this morning in Baton Rouge before returning to New Orleans, where Brianna only stopped to print out photos of the missing girls. She explained how unlikely it was that they wouldn’t show up for work or respond to phone calls and texts. She told of the lack of concern they’d encountered in Baton Rouge, and why she felt the twin girls were at risk.

  “What’s your personal interest in the 21 Killer?” he prodded.

  She explained that she was a twin herself, as well as a cousin of the Caldwell twins and their brother, Donovan. She’d begun studying the case because of the family connection, and then sort of fell into it. And therein lay the kicker. Not only had she studied the crimes of record; she thought she’d found two more recent incidences of the 21’s macabre activity.

  Reaching into her beat-up leather bag, she found a sheaf of papers and slid them across his desk. “Zoe and Chloe Denning are . . . or might be the latest of his victims, but they’re not the only ones. I couldn’t prove that he was still working when I went to LA.”

  “But you can now?”

  Her gaze drilled into his and silently assured him that she was dead right. At least in her mind. He glanced down at the pages, most of them articles taken from the Internet. Two sets of twins who had gone missing in the past six months, twin brothers in Phoenix, a sister and a brother in Dallas.

  “These kids all disappeared not long before their twenty-first birthdays. To my knowledge none of them has been located.”

  “They’re still considered missing, right?” He narrowed his eyes, the knot of dread in his stomach tightening as he scanned the pages of information. “No bodies?”

  “Not yet.”

  He glanced up.

  “They’re out there, somewhere.” She was nodding, as if agreeing with herself. “He’s hidden them.”

  “Just because they can’t be located—”

  “Twins. Every one of them. Twenty years old. Went missing only weeks or days before they turned twenty-one. Don’t you find that strange?”

  “Could be unrelated.”

  “But not necessarily.” Her eyes darkened a bit. “Look, Detective,” she said. “I wish to God that I believed for even a second that they were still alive. But I don’t. And my guess is, when you dig a little deeper into this, you won’t either.” Her anger washed away into worry. “And now, Zoe and Chloe . . . Jesus, I hope I’m wrong.”

  It wasn’t much, but it was something. Bentz had never been completely convinced that Caldwell had been the killer, but he’d been off the case since he’d moved to New Orleans, long before Donovan was collared.

  “LA was his killing ground.”

  “Was,” she repeated. “He’s on the move. Heading east.”

  She held his gaze for a second as he scanned the news articles again.

  “Now, he’s here because of you.”

  “Me?” He lifted his head to stare at her. “Why?”

  “Because you were one of the first detectives on the case. There was a big gap when he killed, twelve years, right?” When he nodded, she went on. “The first time when you were the lead detective on the case, and then a dozen years later when you went to LA on a different case, something more personal,” she said.

  The muscles in his back tightened when he remembered that trip and the reasons he’d ended up in LA, a place he’d left years before and a place he’d vowed to never return. He met this serious woman’s gaze. So far, she had her facts straight. “That’s right.”

  “And I bet there was some speculation at the time that the reason he’d quit was that he’d moved on, or had been imprisoned or was somehow out of commission. Did anyone suggest that your appearance in Southern California might have spurred the new killings?”

  “There was discussion, yeah. Never any real proof.”

  “So what if that’s right? What if you are the impetus for him to start killing again?”

  “I’ve never worked in Phoenix or Dallas.”

  She waved away the argument. “He was on his way east and opportunity struck.”

  “21 doesn’t leave much to chance.”

  “Whatever,” she said, her gaze level. “My guess is he’s taunting you, but really, who knows?”

  He wan
ted to dismiss her, to believe that she was dead wrong and the killer was locked away forever, but he saw desperation in her eyes. “Okay, so just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right, so 21 does what? Drives to Phoenix to find his next victims?”

  “Maybe he didn’t choose Phoenix. Maybe he found out via the Internet or mutual acquaintances that there were twins about to turn twenty-one, so he drove there.”

  Bentz sifted through the papers and found the Missing Persons Report for Garrett and Gavin Reeves, who had disappeared in early February, three days before their twenty-first birthday. “Men?” he said, staring at the photos from the driver’s licenses of the two brothers. They appeared identical.

  “I know that 21 usually targeted women.”

  “Only women.”

  “That you know of,” she said, then added, “or until now. Sometimes a killer’s MO changes due to outside influences.”

  Unlikely. The homicides had been ritualistic, the victims left naked, a sexual element to them. And yet . . . Bentz shifted the pages and read the next reports. As he scanned the information, the knot in his gut twisted. According to what was written, Beau January of Dallas, Texas, and his twin sister, Belle, had vanished. Beau, who lived in east Dallas, hadn’t shown up for work about a month before his twenty-first birthday. After his family had no luck locating him, his twin sister, Belle, had gone looking for him nearly three weeks later and never returned. “Beau January went missing the middle of April and his twin sister the first week in May?” he said aloud, scanning the reports, then their pictures. “Their twenty-first birthday was May tenth.”

  “That’s right.”

  His jaw tightened. “And the LAPD knows about these?”

  “They do now. I faxed over the information to Detective Hayes last week, once I found out about it.”

  “Wait. You live here, right?” he asked, and she nodded. “So if you didn’t have proof when you went to LA, why did you go?”