AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She bit her lip and told herself to think. She’d been in tight jams before. You didn’t grow up on a working cattle ranch in Wyoming and not get tough. But this—this was different, way different from rounding up strays in the middle of winter, or mending fence, or chopping wood for the fire, or dodging passes from drunken ranch hands.
This was pure evil.
All dressed up in a priest’s robe.
But he wasn’t a man of the cloth, that much was evident, and she should never have gotten in the car with him. Big mistake. She was far from defenseless, but she put on the sniveling, frail act so his defenses might come down, but now as they were walking through the swamp, she in high heels that sank deep into the soggy, wet ground, she felt real fear. This sick dick was a psycho and he was going to hurt her.
And then he would kill her.
She was sure of it.
Swallowing back her fear, she stumbled forward, bracelets jangling, felt his fingers on her relax a little as the brackish waters lapped at her ankles. Cool water. Filled with creatures. Deadly creatures. But not as dangerous as the man prodding her from behind.
As he swung the flashlight’s beam over what appeared to be a rotting dock, he edged her forward up two sagging steps, the wood so soft it gave under her weight, her heels sinking.
“Move it.” He gave her a rough push. She stumbled, falling so that her knee scraped over the rotten boards with their rusted, protruding nails, her fingernails splitting and breaking as she caught herself, her palms skating over the wet, weak wood, one shoe sliding from her foot.
“Get up!” he ordered.
He was looming over her, his face pale in the weakest of the shifting moonlight. And in his hand, she saw something winking. Glass? Jewels?
God, no.
Her heart nearly stopped as she recognized the rosary draping through his fingers, bloodred stones barely visible.
* * *
“I told you he was back,” Bentz said to Montoya. They were at the station and it was after two in the morning, a lot of the surrounding offices’ lights dimmed for the night.
“Seems as if.”
“Seems? Seems?” Bentz repeated, jazzed. He was at his desk, the quiet of the station at night a balm. No footsteps clattering in the hall, no loud voices, no barks of laughter or constant ring of cell phones, no screaming saws from the construction crew, just a peaceful silence interrupted occasionally with conversation drifting in from the late-night shift. Outside lights glowed through the windows; this city rarely slept, and there was plenty of activity for cops outside or elsewhere in the building, but tonight in their department, it was blissfully quiet.
“It still doesn’t fit.” Montoya was on his feet, pacing from the window to the door, obviously trying to force the pieces of the puzzle together. “Why would he reappear now? Where’s he been? Why is he after Kristi?” He stared out the window and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I don’t know what triggered him—maybe the fact that Dr. Sam’s show is going off the air. Maybe not. And I sure as hell can’t figure out where he’s been. If he had been locked up, I think we would have heard.” Bentz leaned back in his chair, felt his back pop as he stretched. “And he’s after Kristi to get back at her for writing the book, or me for nearly killing him. Or whatever.” He stood. “It doesn’t have to make sense. He’s a whack job.”
Bentz walked to the bulletin board where they’d put up pictures of the two known victims: Teri Marie Gaines and Helene Laroche. A map of the area was also pinned on the board and the spots where the bodies had been located marked in red. Places of interest—the bayou by the cabins owned by Cyrus Unger, “CU,” the radio station, even Our Lady of the Grove Church were marked, along with the home of Hugo and Helene Laroche and even Vince Laroche’s apartment in JAX Brewery noted. Montoya was right, nothing was gelling.
But they were getting closer; Bentz could feel it, that little tingle of anticipation that fired his blood whenever they were close.
He only hoped they could nail the psychotic son of a bitch before anyone else got hurt.
Especially his daughter.
Make that his pregnant, recently widowed daughter.
Yeah, he agreed with Ty Wheeler, and wished that his shot that night in the bayou long ago had found its mark. Next time, Bentz silently vowed, he wouldn’t miss.
* * *
“I said, ‘Get up!’” the man ordered.
Through the hair that had fallen over her face, Stacy stared up at him, dark above the bright beam of light from his flashlight. He was going to kill her. If she let him, he’d strangle her with that damned fake rosary while the bullfrogs croaked and mosquitoes hummed in this godforsaken swamp.
“Now!” he yelled, and something in the bracken behind him rustled, an animal of some kind scurrying or slithering through the woods. For a second he was distracted, glanced over his shoulder, and she caught sight of her dropped shoe. Her fingers wrapped around the narrow arch of the stiletto as she stood, keeping her right hand out of sight.
He swung his gaze back to her and, satisfied that she was obeying, looped the rosary of death over her head.
