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Hell no.
Because Cruz had come here looking for a place to stay. Because he couldn’t hide out at the motel any longer.
So why didn’t she just blurt it out? Tell her father her suspicions?
Because, damn it, he’d brought Dave to her. Because he’d been willing to tackle getting an angry water moccasin out of her trash bin.
She was sure he hadn’t been playing her.
Okay, pretty sure.
But she wasn’t ready to give him up.
Yet.
Montoya tapped at the slider and she jumped. Again she thought of Cruz and how he resembled his brother. Same dark hair, same strong jaw, same attitude.
She unlocked the door, letting him inside.
“You okay?” Montoya asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Just still trying to settle my nerves,” she lied, and Montoya’s eyebrows drew downward.
“I thought you’d, you know, gotten a hold of yourself.”
“I did, but then . . . well, I’m fine now.” She drew in a long breath and told herself to be cool.
“Find anything?” Bentz asked as he disconnected and pocketed his phone.
“Nah.”
“Just got a call from the motel where Stacy Parker was staying. No one saw anything, of course, but there are a few MIAs—one guy in particular. Left the day it all came down, didn’t return, and had prepaid in cash, of course. And get this, he drove a Harley and kept it in the room with him.”
“Huh.” Montoya said, and Kristi saw that he, too, was digesting the info and probably wondering about his missing brother.
Bentz went on, taking a seat at the island. “I called the lab. They’re picking up the garbage container and this.” Bentz pointed to the envelope and card with its damning rose drawing and Bible verse, tape still intact, now wrapped in a plastic bag. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe he left a fingerprint on the tape or the card.”
“He hasn’t before,” Montoya pointed out.
“Yeah, well, maybe this time he was careless.” Bentz scowled and Kristi saw that he didn’t believe it for an instant.
Neither did she.
CHAPTER 35
Montoya was too wound up to end the day and for once he didn’t have to rush home. Abby and Ben had spent the day with another new mom and infant and both were exhausted. She’d called to say Ben was asleep, she was turning in early, watching a movie in the bedroom. “You’re on your own for dinner,” she’d told him. “And if I’m asleep when you get in, don’t wake me, okay? Ben, either. He was getting fussy tonight. Needs his sleep.”
Which worked for Montoya because he wasn’t ready to shut down for the night. Not after coming so close to a writhing, scary cottonmouth. So who would have access to a large snake? Who would handle a water moccasin? He’d checked the Internet and had come up with an answer:
Ned Zavala.
As much as Montoya had dismissed the big man earlier, he kept coming back to all the reasons Zavala could be behind the attacks. Zavala lived near the bayou, was used to dealing with reptiles, so he was Montoya’s first guess. The trouble was the person in the footage he’d seen from the camera pointed at the container at Kristi’s house was much slimmer than Zavala, who was a bear of a man.
Still, the man hunted alligators and creatures of the swamp. If anyone could capture a water moccasin, it would be good old Ned.
Montoya decided to pay the Bayou Butcher a visit.
* * *
