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She was blinking, light-headed, blood pouring from her throat.
Her knees buckled.
As she dropped, she saw blood bloom on his shirt, then she fell backward.
Bam!Her head banged hard against the cold Italian marble of the floor. She heard the crack of her skull.
With difficulty she looked up at familiar, intimate eyes. He smiled and said, “Yes, dear? I think you wanted something? What was it? Another glass of wine? I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
And then the blackness consumed her.
* * *
The swamp closed in on them.
Bentz and Ty Wheeler were with several deputies in one boat, a reluctant Bobby-Dean and Clive in the other as they knew the bayou like the back of their collective hands and could navigate the dark waters. Bentz had argued against Sam’s husband being a part of the team, but Ty had been insistent and there had been no time to argue, so Bentz had broken protocol again.
The boats moved slowly through swamp that was thick with duckweed and salvinia in the water, cypress trees rising like pale totems to the starlit sky. Spanish moss dripped and danced overhead and Bentz couldn’t help wondering what it hid in its folds. Rat snakes were known to hang from branches, and though not deadly, not something Bentz wanted dropping on his head.
He was already tense at what was going down.
He only hoped they weren’t too late and that Samantha Wheeler was still alive. Oh, God, please.
He felt the weight of his sidearm in the shoulder holster beneath his thin jacket and strained to see in the surrounding darkness, just a few flashlights illuminating their way. They’d cut the engines of the boats and now were drifting, oars aiding as they moved in closer to the target, the area where Samantha Wheeler’s watch indicated she was being held.
Now that they were this close, Bentz wondered how the killer had slipped up. Such a simple mistake. But maybe Father John had been out of the mainstream so long, off the grid if he’d been living with Maizie and Willard Ledoux as it now seemed, that he wasn’t aware of all the technological advances that had exploded exponentially over the past decade or so.
Whatever the reason, they were closing in and Ty, who had been watching the face of his iPhone, held up a hand and pointed ahead of the boat, fifty yards or so, where a huge tree leaned out over the water, thick branches creating a canopy over a portion of the bayou.
Bentz glanced at the phone’s screen, then nodded, and Ty dimmed its light. The hastily created plan was simple:
Divers would slip into the water, reach the hideout, and attempt to break in, just as Bentz identified himself and they flooded the lair with blinding light. It was risky. Bentz had no idea if Samantha Wheeler was dead or alive, or hanging by a thread.
He wanted to be the one to nail Father John, would have loved to go into the bastard’s hiding spot, weapons drawn, guns blazing, but he’d agreed to this plan because it was the safest for the captive. He motioned to the next boat and the divers silently entered the water.
Now, the true waiting began.
It would all be over in ten minutes.
The longest ten minutes of Bentz’s life.
* * *
“Hello?” Kristi knocked on the front door of the huge home owned by Reggie and Hamilton Cooke. She’d jogged the few blocks to their house and seen the lights aglow, the gate unlocked. Cautiously she’d walked up a sweeping drive and walkway to the wide front porch where large pots of colorful flowers were still in bloom and palm trees swayed far above the two-storied home. However, unlike all of the other houses on the street, the Cooke estate showed no signs of the season, no pumpkins or jack-o’-lanterns on the front porch, no fake headstones or zombies digging up from underground decorating the neatly trimmed shrubbery and understated lighting.
She pounded louder, and pressed the bell, hearing the dulcet sound of chimes from within. Yet no answer.
Maybe they realized who was knocking on their door and chose to ignore her, though that wasn’t exactly Reggie’s aggressive style. She peered in one of the sidelights surrounding the door frame and saw no movement inside, just a two-storied foyer where a huge, crystal chandelier winked high overhead, and to one side, through a wide arch, the living area where Kristi saw neatly spaced and expensive furniture, a white couch flanked by floral chairs surrounding a marble-faced fireplace.
She waited, tried the bell again, and after a few minutes with no response, not any sound from within, took a lit pathway around the side of the house, past locked French doors to the rear, where a long lap pool stretched across the back patio and a breezeway connected an older, detached garage to the main house.
The door to the garage was partially open and she peered inside.
Two cars: Hamilton Cooke’s black BMW and his wife’s sleek Mercedes were parked side by side.
So it appeared the happy couple was at home.
Kristi didn’t hesitate.
