Scrounging in a drawer, she found her corkscrew, and opened the bottle of her favorite red. The scent wafted up to her and she remembered dozens of nights sharing a bottle with Jay.
Now she was a widow.
Make that a pregnant widow.
She lifted the bottle to her nose for a better smell, then walked over to the sink and poured, watching as the wine, so like the color of blood, streamed and swirled down the drain. She remembered all the blood that night. Hers. Jay’s. Blending together from a random assault.
At least she thought the attack was random.
Jay’s warning cut through her brain. These people are capable of unspeakable acts.
That thought stopped her short. She assumed that the attack against her was random, someone who’d intended to rob her, or do her harm, but only because she was walking alone on the street that night.
But maybe she was wrong.
Possibly she’d been targeted.
The police weren’t sure.
And neither was she. But it didn’t matter. Whoever had wielded the knife that night had ended Jay’s life. That miscreant’s days were numbered. One way or another, she was going to locate that sick son of a bitch and nail him to the cross.
Justice would be served.
Along with a satisfying slab of vengeance.
CHAPTER 3
“I’ll just be a sec,” Montoya said as he cut across traffic and slid the cruiser into a restricted space where paint was peeling from the curb. The mid-October sun was peeking through a haze of clouds, weak rays piercing the dirty windshield, the inside of the cruiser warm.
Bentz pointed to a signpost. “You’re parked in a loading zone.”
“Only spot available,” Montoya said, his mouth a slash of white. “It’s okay, Bentz. We’re cops. Remember?”
Bentz didn’t argue.
“If anyone gives you trouble, go all Dirty Harry on them and flash your damned badge. You’re still working out, right? Hitting the big bag a few times a week?”
“Yeah.” Bentz rubbed his shoulder. It ached a bit as he’d gone after the sparring bag a little too furiously this morning.
“Good. I’ll be right back.” And he was out of the car and jogging toward the door of a beignet shop where all kinds of pastries were on display in a tiered case behind the window.
As Bentz watched, Montoya pulled open the door, then hesitated, holding it open for a woman coming out of the shop. She was pushing a stroller with twin girls, both dressed in pink, both with curly black pigtails.
Then he disappeared inside.
For donuts? Beignets? Pastries?
What the hell was Montoya thinking? Bentz checked his watch. Eleven fifteen. A little late for a coffee break and early for lunch. Bentz drummed his fingers on the edge of the cruiser’s window, all too aware of how time was passing, slipping away, minute by minute. And in those escaping seconds he felt the itch, that he wasn’t doing anything productive while somewhere in the shadows his son-in-law’s killer was out there.
Doing what?
Planning another attack on his daughter?
Or did he have someone else in his sights?
Was the assault random?
Or had Kristi or Jay been targeted?
And then, why? The question that burned through his mind in restless circles. Why? Why? Why?
His gut churned and his eyes were gritty.
He hadn’t slept in days, not since Jay’s brutal murder. According to Kristi, her husband had saved her life, breaking up the attack and being slain in the process. He might have survived the first wound to his chest, the short blade had barely nicked a lung. But the second gash, across his leg, severing his femoral artery, had cost him his life. The scene, rain drenched and blood soaked, bore out Kristi’s telling of the horrific attack.
But if she was right, then the murderer had singled her out. Again, a random incident—wrong place at the wrong time?—or had she been stalked? Hunted? Had the killer been waiting for her?
So lost in thought was he that he didn’t see Montoya return. The driver’s door opened and his partner slid behind the wheel, handing over a paper cup of take-out coffee as he did. “Here.” The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the interior.
“What is it?”
“Triple shot of espresso.” Montoya glanced his way and dropped a white sack onto the console. “You need it. You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it.” He slid the cruiser into gear and, with an eye to the rearview mirror, pressed on the gas and the cruiser slipped into traffic. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Define ‘a while.’”
“I catch a few hours every night.”
Montoya threw him a disbelieving look, but didn’t call him out on the lie, just said, “Well, you’re not doing anyone any good by draggin’ your ass around as if it weighs two tons.” Bentz started to argue, but Montoya shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Don’t want to hear it. No excuses. I know your kid was nearly killed. I know your son-in-law didn’t make it and I know that it’s all personal. That you’re obsessed with getting the guy so he doesn’t strike again. You keep thinking about ‘what ifs.’ What if Jay hadn’t shown up when he did. What if Kristi had left a little early. And you’re makin’ yourself crazy tryin’ to figure out who did this and why. I get it. I’ve got a kid. I would feel the same way. But I’m tellin’ you, man, you’re not thinkin’ straight.”
“Is that all, Mother?” Bentz asked with more than a tinge of sarcasm.
“Ah, Jesus. Don’t go there.” Montoya sped through an amber light. “And no, it’s not all. You haven’t said it, but I know you think Father John is behind it all.”
Bentz glanced out the side window. Felt his teeth gnash so hard his jaw hurt. Montoya had hit the nail on the head with that. “Father John” was an alias, of course, for a serial killer that had stalked the streets of New Orleans years before, a murderer who had been dubbed the Rosary Killer as the psycho had used the sharpened beads of a rosary to strangle his victims. Bentz had thought that he’d killed the bastard years before, deep in the swamp.
But he’d been wrong.
And now the terror the fake priest had inflicted upon the city so long ago had returned. Already there was one dead prostitute in his wake, his latest victim being Teri Marie Gaines aka Tiffany Elite, the unlucky working girl who had been caught in Father John’s web and ended up strangled. The same marks, unique marks, had bruised her throat, a pattern of little cuts that mimicked the bead pattern of a rosary that had appeared on the victims years before. Also, a hundred-dollar bill, with Ben Franklin’s eyes blackened out, had been left at the victim’s apartment.
Father John’s signature.
A mocking display meant to taunt Bentz and had ended up haunting him.
Now, the “Rosary Killer” was back, a ghost of a murderer who had eluded Bentz in the past, who had disappeared and now resurfaced, Rick Bentz’s own personal white whale.
Or, unlikely as it seemed, was the killer who had staged Tiffany’s body so perfectly a copycat, a killer who had studied his mentor’s methods and style to a T?
Bentz couldn’t help but wonder if that killer had decided Bentz’s daughter would be his next victim.