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“Right.” Montoya nodded, as if to himself. “Always been in trouble. It just seems to hunt him down and find him. Well, you know. You met him.”
“A few years back.” Bentz remembered Montoya’s brother. Taller than Reuben and more muscular, with eyes as dark as the night and a nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once, Cruz had roared into New Orleans and Montoya’s life on a motorcycle only to disappear again. As far as Bentz knew, Montoya hadn’t heard from him since.
“He called. Last night.” A muscle worked in Montoya’s jaw.
“And?”
“And he’s in some kind of trouble. ‘Deep shit.’ That’s what he called it. Says he’s gonna be arrested for murder and he’s heading my way. Then he hung up. Just like that. I called him back. No answer. I tracked down a couple of my other brothers.” He scowled and gave his head a sharp shake. “No one in the family has heard from him in years.” He broke off another chunk of the chocolate and ate it in one quick swallow. “This is just like him, y’know. Just like him.”
“Did he want you to help him?”
“All he said was that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, including the family and you.”
“But you just did.”
“I’m telling you, but I didn’t explain it to my brothers. Hell, what could I say anyway? Think about it? All they would have would be questions and I don’t have any answers.”
“Where is he now?”
“Wouldn’t say.”
“When is he going to get here?”
“I don’t know! I told you everything he told me, okay? So, let’s drop it.”
* * *
Samantha Wheeler was breathing hard as she jogged to keep up with Rambo, her eighty-pound mutt they’d adopted just last year. Black, shaggy, and energetic, he was a genetic mixed bag, the most obvious breed some kind of shepherd. They’d “walked” near the shores of Lake Pontchartrain but, as usual, the brisk pace had quickly morphed into a jog as the eager dog strained on his leash.
Her heart was pumping, legs feeling the strain as she gazed across the wide expanse of water. God, she loved living near the lake; she took in deep breaths, smelling the brackish scent and watching an undulating V of geese flying high overhead.
Her cell phone hummed in her pocket and, still jogging, she yanked it out and, expecting a text from one of her sons complaining that he’d left his homework or lunch at home, she nearly stumbled. The message was from Detective Rick Bentz of the New Orleans Police Department. He and his partner were on their way to her house.
Her stomach dropped.
This could only mean one thing: another victim of the Rosary Killer had been discovered.Not again! No, no, no!
Years before when she’d been his target, when he’d called in to her radio program, she’d been terrified, a single woman stalked by a sadistic killer, but in the intervening years she’d gotten married, had children, lived a relatively quiet life that she adored.
Now? Her blood turned to ice. Yes, recently Bentz had called her, warned her, asked if she’d heard from the killer. The answer, of course, had been a resounding “No!” and she didn’t want to think that the madman was back.
“Come on,” she said to the dog, cutting their regular route short and heading through the neighborhood of tree-lined streets with large, private homes. Her throat was suddenly dry and the sweat that broke out along the back of her neck was more from a sudden case of nerves than from exercise.
She urged Rambo faster along a side alley to the street where her home, a historic mansion, stood three full stories, and was graced with a wraparound porch on the street level. Above the porch was an upper veranda, and above that, on the third floor, arched windows peered out from a mansard roof.
Ty loved the place because of the security. The grounds were fully fenced with wrought iron and a hedge, and the house and gates equipped with cameras and alarms. Sam called it “the fortress,” which Ty didn’t think was all that funny. Too bad, though, the name had stuck. Both their sons referred to it as such, and she’d even had a small engraved sign custom made and given it to Ty one Christmas.
Nonetheless she had to admit that the over-the-top security might be what they needed. She didn’t believe that the monster who called himself Father John was back after all these years, but why else would Bentz be stopping by? He and his partner Montoya had already talked to her, warned her when Teri Marie Gaines was murdered a few months ago, the crime, according to the police, was a perfect duplicate of the previous homicides when the Rosary Killer had been on his rampage. But then there had been talk of a nun being killed by the man posing as a priest and that seemed out of character for him.
Then again, what did she really know about the psyche of a serial killer?
Was all the terror happening again?
She shivered inwardly at the thought and closed her mind to it. There was no reason to borrow trouble because, as her mother had warned her, trouble was bound to come your way.
But she had to admit, once in a while, she’d thought someone might be following her, had felt unseen eyes watching her every move. She’d told herself that she was just being paranoid, that after what she’d been through and considering the world they all lived in today, she was letting her fears, her subconscious, rattle her. She took several deep breaths and told herself to get real, to live in the moment, to not let the horrors of the past ruin today or tomorrow. Her life was too good to let thoughts of some maniac from the past destroy it.
At the house she pressed in the code to unlock the gates to enter the compound. When she was in the house, she locked the door and waited, unleashing Rambo and hearing him pad to the kitchen where he lapped water noisily from his dish.
