Never Die Alone (A Bentz/Montoya Novel Book 8) by Lisa Jackson Page B

murders, and she feared that 21 was killing again, broadening his hunting ground. But here, in Louisiana? She held her tongue as she poured coffee into two cups. “Let’s not go immediately to the worst-case scenario,” she said, even as her mind was leaping ahead.
    “Didn’t you go there? Sweet Mother Mary, they turned twenty-one and I can’t find them!” Selma’s voice cracked. “And what if . . . what if he’s out there? You’ve worked on this for years, right? You don’t believe that monster they call the 21 Killer is Donovan Caldwell. You’ve said as much.”
    Brianna couldn’t argue the fact. Plenty of people knew that she had been studying the 21 Killer and pursuing the possibility of Donovan Caldwell’s innocence. A psychologist, she’d tried to “look into the mind” of 21, at least from a psychological perspective, based on any information she had found on the crimes. What most people did not know was that Donovan was her cousin. The Caldwells were on her mother’s side, a California branch of the family she had barely known growing up. However, when she had learned that 21’s first victims were her own cousins, said to be murdered by their brother, Brianna had felt a personal stake in the case. Over the years she had followed the developing details of the murders, investigating as a concerned family member and twin, and later a psychologist. She had always tried to hide her family connection to the murders.
    That was about to change. It was time to go public with her concerns about his imprisonment and what she now knew. During her last visit to the California prison, she’d told him that she would take care of things. She was going to make sure the truth was known. But her campaign did little to bring Donovan out of his depression.
    “No one will ever believe I didn’t do it,” he’d said morosely on the other side of the thick glass in the prison, the phone pressed to his ear. “It’s true, I didn’t like my sisters. I admit it. But I didn’t kill them. I didn’t!” For a second there had been fire in his eyes. “And the others that they think I murdered?” Phone pressed to his ear, he’d let out a bone-weary sigh. “No way. I didn’t even know them.”
    “I know. I know. I believe you and I swear, I’ll help,” she’d promised, but the look in his eyes had been that of a doomed man, one without a sliver of hope. “You just have to be patient.”
    “I can’t. I’m going crazy in here.”
    “Please, just hang on,” she’d said, her heart heavy at the thought of leaving him penned up for God knew how long.
    “I don’t know if I can,” he’d said before the guard had ended their short conversation.
    With fierce disappointment, Brianna had left California without any real progress on Donovan’s case. The state bureaucracy seemed impenetrable, and the LAPD was not interested in reviewing the case against one of the state’s most notorious serial killers.
    Now, Brianna chose her words carefully as she handed a cup to Selma. “Yes, I saw Caldwell in prison. I hoped to have his case dismissed, or at least appealed.”
    “Because you think he’s innocent, right? And that means the killer is still out there. What if he’s out there and somehow he knew my girls were turning twenty-one and targeted them and . . . oh, God! He couldn’t have found them, right?” Her eyes hardened as she stared at Brianna for reaffirmation.
    “It’s unlikely that the killer would have come here,” Brianna said, though the words seemed a lie. She went to the fridge and pulled out a half-empty carton of milk. “Come on, now. You were going to start at the beginning.”
    “Yes, right.” Selma rubbed her eyes, as if lost for a few seconds. “As I said, it’s their birthday, you know, the big one and”—she cleared her throat—“I was hoping to celebrate with them this weekend, but they had other plans. They were going to meet up with friends, go out on Bourbon Street, and