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CHAPTER 27
“You’ve been smoking,” Abby charged as Montoya walked into the bedroom. She rolled over and pushed herself up in the bed, her shoulders resting against the padded headboard, her eyes partially open, but catching light from the streetlamp visible through the shades in the shadowy room.
“I quit. You know it.”
“I can smell it.”
Aw, hell. “Just one,” he said, and assumed she could tell that he was lying as he walked to the bed and sat down on the edge.
“You know how I feel about it.” A gentle reprimand.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. Shit—it’s just this damned case!”
She touched his shoulder. “There’s always an excuse if you look hard enough.”
“Okay. Right.” He turned to her. “No more, I promise.”
“Hmmm.” Her hand fell away.
“I swear.”
“You do that a lot.”
“Yeah, I know.” He climbed to his feet. “I’ll check on Ben and shower.”
“Good.” Her teeth flashed into a sexy grin. “Do that.”
“You are so sassy.”
“Only for you, Montoya,” she said as he walked out of the room. “Only for you.”
His son was sleeping in his crib while nearby the dog was curled on a pet bed positioned under the window. Montoya’s head bumped a toy airplane swinging from the mobile hung over Benjamin’s crib. A few weak notes of “Fly Me to the Moon” escaped before he caught the plane and the room went silent again. His son was fast asleep, thumb inserted in his mouth, gently sucking. Montoya’s heart melted. He wanted to pick the boy up, but resisted. Time enough for that in the morning when Benjamin was awake. For now, Montoya was content to stare down at his innocent, sleeping child, a little soul unaware of the pain, hatred, and ugliness in the world, a world Montoya faced every day.
Maybe he should chuck it all. Grab his tiny family and move to Montana or Alaska or New Mexico, somewhere far away.
“There is good everywhere. There is bad everywhere. You can’t have one without the other. Choose your path and stay true. There is more that is sacred on God’s earth than is evil.”His mother’s words came as a reminder, and looking down on his sleeping child, knowing his wife was safe in the next room, Montoya felt the good in the world.
Montoya stripped down in the bathroom and stepped into the shower, letting hot water run over his knotted muscles. He scrubbed his face and brushed his teeth under the needle-sharp spray, a habit his wife detested. Though he tried to concentrate on the good, the sacred that his mother told him about, the evil crept in on Satan’s quiet footsteps.
Bentz was wrong.
Montoya felt it in his gut.
Yeah, it looked like Father John, the infamous Rosary Killer, was back and stalking the streets of the city, creating his particular ugly kind of terror, but there was more to it than that. Something else was going on, he could feel it.
Though it seemed that Father John or a copycat was killing prostitutes, the attack on Kristi Bentz and her husband, the cryptic religious notes left in her house, the invasion of her home seemed detached from the ritualistic murders perpetuated by the fake priest.No,he thought, lathering his back and shoulders,there’s more to the puzzle than first meets the eye.
Serial killers had been known to learn from their mistakes, hone their skills, tweak their MOs, but Montoya doubted they would continue on their old path while starting a new one. It was possible, he supposed, pouring shampoo onto his head and washing his hair, but unlikely.
As he rinsed off, he considered the other suspects he’d studied, those who had issues with Kristi Bentz. Though he found no one person who had an ax to grind with her, he’d come up with enemies in the form of the people she’d written about and exposed to the world, especially those who had threatened her. Zavala, Jarvis, and Cooke to name the most obvious. And then there was Drake Dennison, her reclusive rival who hadn’t published a book in years. Montoya hadn’t forgotten about him as well.
The bathroom had filled with steam as he finally turned off the water and the old pipes groaned in protest. He reached for a towel to dry himself off and felt a hand clasp over his wrist.
“Hey!”
Abby’s face appeared in the vapor. Her eyes were wide, no longer puffy with sleep.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
