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“What?” Reuben said, disbelieving. Sure, Cruz had gotten into more than his share of scrapes with the law in the past. But homicide? Never. “Murder?” he repeated. “What’re you talking about? Who died?”
His question went unanswered.
The phone was already dead.
CHAPTER 4
Bentz caught sight of the moon, not quite full, rising high over the city. Then he snapped the blinds shut and checked his watch. After midnight. He cracked his neck, glanced down at the papers piled on his desk and the glowing screen of his laptop, then walked down the short hallway to the master bedroom. Olivia had turned out her reading light and was lying on her side of the bed. He thought she might be sleeping, then heard her say softly, “Give it up, Rick. You don’t have to be a superhero tonight. Come to bed.”
If only it were that easy. “I will in a few.”
She sighed as he pulled on the door, leaving it open just a crack. Then he crossed the hall and peered into Ginny’s room.
Moonlight filtered through the blinds, striping the room, and he was reminded of bars in a jail cell and he pushed that image aside.
His daughter was curled at the bottom of the crib, her springy blond curls on the exposed sheet. On silent footsteps, he avoided stepping on several dolls and blocks and coloring books, crossed to the bed, lifted Ginny up, and kissed her smooth forehead. Her tiny little lips moved and her eyes blinked open for just a second, eyelashes fluttering before she sighed once more.
“Love you,” he whispered, returning her to the crib and watching as she settled into sleep again. “Good night, sweetheart,” he said under his breath, his heart nearly aching at the innocence of her.
How it all changed when life interfered.
His jaw tightened as he thought of his older daughter, a grown woman who knew martial arts as well as her own mind. He’d made sure Kristi was skilled in the use of firearms, but he’d never been able to tame the fearlessness in her. She was beyond courageous to the point of being reckless.
And this one . . . His heart squeezed and he closed the blinds, leaving the room in darkness other than for the fairy princess night-light that glowed near the closet. He left the door slightly ajar as he headed back to his den, making a pit stop in the kitchen where, of course, he found no beer in the refrigerator.
A good thing, he reminded himself as he settled back into his desk chair and heard it creak against his weight.
He went over the case notes on Jay McKnight’s murder and found nothing new. His son-in-law had been stabbed in the chest with a sharp, short blade, then sliced in the thigh, the upshot being that he’d bled out from the wound to his femoral artery. The street cameras that night caught images of the assailant, a man—well, possibly a woman, it was impossible to tell. The killer had been dressed in a black poncho and had been wearing a ski mask and dark glasses to cover his face. Sunglasses with reflective lenses. In the middle of the night in the pouring rain.
Bentz’s eyes narrowed.
He saw no evidence of a clerical collar in any of the footage, and the few witnesses the police had tracked down had only noticed a dark figure running, nothing more.
Bentz stared at a still from a camera located at a pawnshop not far from the attack; it gave the clearest image of the man in the poncho, but it was still grainy, in black and white, the rain a curtain distorting any features that might have been visible.
Leaning back in his chair, he rotated the kinks from his neck to hear his spine crack.
Kristi insisted that the attack was random, just some nut-job, but Bentz wondered. Could she have actually been the target? She admitted that going to the class at night was part of her weekly routine. As for Jay? He’d come looking for her. She didn’t know why except that they’d had a fight and he was probably coming to patch things up. The scattered roses, a dozen red blooms, seemed to suggest just that.
So what if Kristi were the target? Not a random victim?
Bentz’s blood ran cold at the thought.
Who would want to harm her?
Possibly some dirtbag whose story she told in one of the books she wrote. She’d always been fascinated with true crime and spent hours, days, weeks, and years researching a subject, exposing the inner torment of the killers and their victims. Could she have crossed paths with a psychopath who didn’t like how he’d been portrayed, or a maniac who became fixated with a pretty woman asking questions about him?
He made a note to put together a list of her enemies, starting with the felons portrayed in her books. A side note reminded him to check with their families as well. Siblings, parents, and children often took offense at their lives being studied or, as they saw it, dissected and abused for Kristi’s personal gain, their lives exploited. He glanced up at a bookshelf mounted near the window where signed copies of her books were so proudly displayed. Although he worried about her chosen line of work and about how closely she became associated with convicted killers, he took pride in her accomplishments. His gaze scanned the spines, and as he did, he recalled those freaks whom she’d exposed to the world, some of whom he’d helped put behind bars. The Chosen One, a killer who had dubbed himself that not-so-humble name, or Hamilton Cooke, a doctor who had killed his wife. Bentz had nailed Cooke and the bastard had been convicted. Kristi had written about both cases. Recently Cooke’s conviction had been overturned, which really bothered Bentz. The surgeon was a stone-cold killer; Bentz knew it and had proved it.
There were others as well, for example Ned Zavala, the Bayou Butcher, or Mandel Jarvis, an ex-pro football player who “accidentally” killed his wife and blamed Bentz for his conviction.
That just scratched the surface.
To be truthful, it could be a dozen other killers whom Bentz had sent up the river and were now free.
Unless it was more personal.
He chewed on the inside of his lip. Thought hard.
