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

  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.

  “She’s my daughter,” another voice said as a shriek loud enough to wake the dead in the neighboring parishes ricocheted through the station.

  Bentz grabbed his sidearm and ran out the door to the hallway, where a terrified Zoe Denning cowered as she stared, wide-eyed, at Jase Bridges. The girl was a mess, with stringy hair, her skin burned and streaked with mud. But she was alive. And in a panic.

  “It’s him!” she cried. Frantic, she scrambled backward, trying to get away from Bridges. “He’s the psycho who grabbed me! Him! For the love of God, somebody get him!”

  CHAPTER 30

  “For the love of God!” Zoe screamed at the sight of the freak. “He’s the one! He’s the perv who’s got Chloe!” What the hell was he doing here? At the police station? All cleaned up and . . . “For the love of God! Arrest him,” she said, panic flooding through her. This was wrong. So very wrong.

  “Miss—?” The cop who followed him into the hallway looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Are you all right?”

  “Do I look all right? Did you hear me?” she said, her voice rising, anger and rage beating through her.

  “Miss—?” The damned cop again.

  “Where the hell is my sister?” She glared at the cleaned-up version of the psycho. “What did you do with her?” She started to launch herself at the man, attack him, and force him to tell the truth, but Rand, the farmer, stopped her short, restraining her with a big hand suddenly clamped over her shoulder.

  “Slow down,” the farmer said into her ear. “Something’s not right here.”

  “You’re damned right about that!”

  The object of her wrath held up both hands, palms out, fingers splayed, his face earnest. “Not me.”