Absolute Fear. Lisa Jackson

lips flat against his teeth.

      “Hell.” Montoya wanted Cole Dennis so bad he could taste it. He tugged at the diamond stud in his ear. Though he felt a bit of satisfaction that Dennis had been cuffed and shackled, then spent nearly ninety days in lockup, had been forced to wear the stiff cotton of jail attire long enough to wipe the cocksure grin from his face, it wasn’t enough. The bastard had spent most of his adult life wearing designer-label suits, hanging out at all the right golf and tennis clubs, and managed to get some of the biggest, wealthiest scumbags off on crimes ranging from tax evasion to assault. It was well past his time to pay.

      But the damned case had fallen apart.

      Even after Dennis had made bail, walked out of the jailhouse then been busted again for failing to adhere to the rules of his bail, the damned case had fallen apart. Montoya shook his head. The guy had lost a cool million, but he was still going to walk. Montoya scratched more vigorously at his goatee then caught Bentz watching him, and scowled. “What?”

      “Let it go.”

      “I can’t, damn it. Dennis was there that night at Roy Kajak’s cabin. There was a footprint outside the door, size twelve and a half, same as Dennis.”

      “So where’s the shoe or boot?”

      “Ditched. Along with the clothes. Had to have been a lot of blood from Kajak, slicing his throat like that. We caught Dennis in the shower, you know.”

      “And we tore his house up looking for something—the shoes, clothes, blood. Nothing there.”

      Montoya lifted a shoulder. The forensic team hadn’t found any evidence of blood, not even in the pipes. But there had been traces of bleach…. The bastard had known enough to cover his tracks. And fast.

      Bentz, always playing devil’s advocate, said, “Maybe Cole didn’t kill Roy. Just shot Eve Renner.”

      “Then who slit Roy’s throat?” Montoya asked for the hundredth time. He and Bentz had been over this same conversation daily. They got nowhere each time. Every once in a while they’d come up with a new idea, only to run headlong into a dead end. And what the hell did the number 212 mean? Written in blood, for God’s sake, with the index finger of the victim’s right hand.

      And tattooed into his forehead. The same numerals. When they’d cleaned up the victim, they’d found that chilling surprise. Was it some kind of code? A number for a post office box? An area code? A password on a computer? A birthday? The police had come up with nothing.

      Same as with Faith Chastain. She had been murdered years before at Our Lady of Virtues Mental Hospital. And a tattoo had been discovered beneath her hair…. Coincidence? Hell! He could use a smoke about now. Maybe a drink too.

      Who would go to the trouble and time of tattooing a victim? The thought of someone inking dead flesh…weird. Just the idea made his skin crawl.

      Montoya glanced again at Bentz. The older cop’s flinty gaze was trained through the glass. His lips were pulled into a thoughtful frown, creases sliding across his brow, and he was chewing a wad of gum. He might show a calmer exterior than Montoya, but he was aggravated. Big time.

      For now, they had to release the son of a bitch.

      Through the glass, Montoya watched as the release officer entered the interrogation room to literally hand Cole Dennis his walking papers.

      Hell.

      His stomach clamped. This was wrong. So damned wrong.

      A few strokes of a pen and that was that.

      Cole Dennis was once again a free man in his wrinkled T-shirt and faded jeans. He might be a million dollars poorer, his license to practice law in question, but he couldn’t be locked up any longer.

      Shit!

      Montoya, his eyes still trained on the glass, hooked his leather jacket from the back of an unused chair.

      As he walked through the door, Dennis had the balls to look over his shoulder at the two-way mirror, but he didn’t smile. No, his eyes narrowed, his lips compressed, and the skin over his cheekbones stretched tight. He was pissed as hell.

      Good.

      Montoya only hoped the bastard was angry enough to make another mistake.

      When he did, Montoya intended to slam his ass into jail for the rest of Cole Dennis’s miserable life.

      Hands curled around the steering wheel in a death grip, Eve rolled the kinks out of her neck and tried to ignore the headache that had only intensified as she’d driven south toward New Orleans. The rain had come and gone, spitting from the dark sky in some spots, pouring in sheets a few times, and then disappearing altogether when she’d driven through Montgomery and the sun had broken through the clouds to bask the hills, skyscrapers, and the Alabama River in a shimmering golden glow.

      At that point poor Samson had given up his hoarse cries and, if not sleeping, had grown silent.

      The good weather and Samson’s silence had been fleeting, however. Now, a few miles outside of Mobile, the clouds had opened up again, drenching the Camry in a loud torrent. The wipers struggled with the wash of water, Eve’s stomach rumbled, and Samson whimpered pathetically.

      Nerves stretched raw, Eve noticed a road sign for a diner at the next exit and decided, since her progress had slowed with the storm, to grab a quick sandwich and wait out the deluge. She pulled into a pockmarked asphalt lot littered haphazardly with only a few vehicles. Using the umbrella she always kept in the car, she skirted rain puddles, her nostrils picking up the acrid scent of cigarette smoke. A couple of teenagers who obviously worked at the place had lit up and were puffing away under an overhang near the back door, and one lone guy was seated in a dark pickup, the tip of his cigarette glowing red in the dark, smoky interior.

      Eve didn’t pay much attention, just shouldered her way past a thick glass door into the horseshoe-shaped restaurant, where an air conditioner wheezed and fryers sizzled above the strains of a Johnny Cash classic. The smells of frying onions and sizzling meat assailed her as she slipped into one of the faux-leather booths that flanked the windows.

      A waitress carrying a large tray whipped past, muttering, “I’ll be with y’all in a sec,” before flying to another table. Eve fingered a plastic-encased menu, scanning the items before the same waitress, a breathless, rail-thin woman with her hair pulled into a banana clip, returned to take her drink order. A U-shaped counter, circa the sixties, swept around an area housing the cash register, milk-shake machine, revolving pie case, and soda fountain. “Now, darlin’, what can I getcha?” the woman asked, not bothering with pen or paper. “Coffee? Sweet tea? Soda? I gotta tell ya, our chef’s meatloaf, that’s the special today, is ta die for. And I’m not kiddin’!”

      “I’ll have sweet tea and a fried shrimp po’boy.”

      “You got it, darlin’.” The waitress left in a rush, only to deposit the tea seconds later. Eve shook out the last three ibuprofen from the bottle in her purse then washed down the pills with a long swallow of tea and prayed they’d take effect soon. She wondered fleetingly if Anna Maria had been right, if she wasn’t ready for this trip.

      Don’t go there. You’ll be fine. Just as soon as you get home.

      She closed her eyes. Home. It seemed like forever since she’d walked up the familiar steps of the old Victorian house in the Garden District. She envisioned its steep gables, paned, watery-glassed windows, delicate gingerbread décor, and the turret…Oh Lord, the turret she loved, the tower room Nana had dubbed “Eve’s little Eden.” From that high tower, looking over the other rooftops and trees, she felt as if she could see all of the world.

      Crash! A tray of glassware hit the floor, glass splintering. “Oh no!”

      Eve nearly leapt from the booth. Her heart pounded erratically as flashes of memory cut through her mind. Blinking rapidly, she was once again standing in that darkened cabin, the muzzle of a gun spewing fire, glass shattering loudly, and Cole’s harsh face glaring at