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Bentz felt sick inside.
He’d been duped by Father John.
Again.
And Samantha Wheeler’s life was still very much in danger.
If she wasn’t already dead.
“Rope it off,” he told deputies, both of whom were still in wet suits, the first to have crept up the rickety ladder, a few well-spaced boards nailed into the trunk, and observed the now-empty space.
“How?” one asked, looking around the darkened bayou.
“I don’t know. Figure it out. Get the crime scene team here!” He was angry and frustrated. Played for a fool. Enraged, trying to think straight, he climbed down the rickety ladder and heard a night bird cawing loudly, cackling, as if the swamp itself were laughing at him.
His jaw was so tight it ached. He stepped into the waiting boat.
“Not here,” he confirmed to Ty Wheeler, who had already heard the news a few minutes earlier and had demanded to look for himself when the deputies had told them the makeshift cabin had been empty. Bentz had convinced him to wait in the boat as they couldn’t take a chance on disturbing whatever evidence might have been left behind.
“If not here, then where?”
“Not far.” Bentz was thinking aloud.
“So bring in more cops!” Wheeler yelled. “Light this place up! Find her!” His face was white in the night, his expression haunted, as if he knew the worst was yet to come. “Find her,” he repeated.
“We will,” Bentz promised. Deep in his heart, he wondered if it was too little, too late.
* * *
Emergency lights flashing, Montoya stepped on the gas and his Mustang blew through two amber lights on his way to Kristi Bentz’s house. All the while he was on the phone, nearly yelling into the dash through his Bluetooth connection to the station. “That’s right! I want BOLO on Aldo Lucerno’s car. A 2014 Bentley.” He rattled off the license plate he’d memorized.
“Got it,” the dispatcher acknowledged.
Montoya took a corner a little too fast, skidding a bit, the rear end of his car fishtailing. “And keep trying Bentz. He’s gonna want to know about this.”
“Roger that.”
Montoya cut the connection and swore under his breath. He knew his partner was out in the bayou somewhere chasing his own white whale in the form of Father John, but damn it, Bentz would want to know that Aldo Lucerno was the killer who took Jay McKnight’s life while attempting to murder Bentz’s daughter.
Montoya had seen the evidence for himself. Not only had Ned Zavala admitted that he’d sold a water moccasin to Aldo just the week before, but he’d described the spot where he’d delivered the snake. Montoya had located the place, and without worrying about protocol had broken into Aldo’s sanctuary, his lair.
The small apartment was hidden on the property, not far from Aldo’s grand, Italianate, much larger house with its elaborate, square tower and bracketed cornice, and manicured grounds where palms and magnolias shaded gardens with fountains. Painted pink, and on the verge of ostentatious, the home was at odds with the tiny apartment Montoya had discovered. The apartment had been devoid of life, but candles burned and on an ancient writing desk, he’d discovered writing tools, black ink, and a stack of deckle-edged paper identical to the kind used in the notes to Kristi Bentz.
Montoya didn’t understand the sick-o’s motive or how he thought he could pass biblical judgment on Kristi; he only knew that he had to warn her.
Before it was too late.
With a crank to the Mustang’s wheel, he turned onto her street in the quiet residential neighborhood graced with well-kept lawns and porches sporting Halloween decorations. He shot into Kristi Bentz’s driveway and stood on the brakes, out of the car just as it screeched to a stop. He tried her phone again and was sent directly to voice mail.
“Oh, come on,” he growled, then walked to the front door and pounded, announcing himself. “Kristi. It’s Reuben Montoya.”
Inside, the dog started barking and raising a ruckus.
“Come on, come on!” He waited. Paced. Glanced at his watch, then stared straight up at the camera mounted on the porch’s overhang. “It’s me!”
He texted her.
Again, nothing.
