Yesterday, he’d left messages with the Phoenix and Dallas police, hoping to get further information about the missing twins whom Brianna Hayward had mentioned. He’d spent nearly forty minutes on the phone discussing the case with Detective Crenshaw from Dallas, who didn’t buy into his missing twins as being victims of the 21 Killer. As ever, the response had been, “LA got that son of a bitch and he’s serving time. And even a copycat wouldn’t be interested in a male. Right?” Crenshaw had asked in a heavy Texas drawl. “What I’ve got here is fraternal twins, one female, the other male, and that’s not 21’s gig.”

“Until now.”

“Yeah, well, I talked to someone about this, a concerned citizen or some such crap, and she . . . let’s see, where’s the note . . . ?” A pause as he either shuffled papers or checked his computer. “Yeah, all right. Here it is. A Ms. Hayward, from your neck of the bayou.” Crenshaw had chuckled at his own joke. “She was tryin’ like hell to string some kind of theory together that ol’ 21, he was at it again, and that the guy in prison, who’s her cousin, by the way—I checked—is innocent.” He snorted. “That what this is all about? She knockin’ on your door now?”

“I’ve met her.”

“Ye-ep, I imagine if you’ve got a set of twenty-one-year-old twins missin’ that you have. Yours are female, you say?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’m not inclined to believe that the January twins are victims of 21. Hell, I believe the LAPD got their man. But yeah, we’re doin’ some checkin’, just in case.”

After further discussion, Crenshaw had promised to share the info his department had collected about the missing twins, Belle and Beau January, as well as keep Bentz updated on any new developments in the case. Bentz had hung up and stared at the phone a second or two. A nagging, uncomfortable feeling had crawled through his gut. He was torn.

Crenshaw made sense, he thought.

Yet the Denning twins had disappeared.

As for the missing men in Arizona, the Reeves brothers, the Phoenix PD hadn’t yet weighed in. But Bentz doubted that the twins missing in Arizona were the work of 21. As Crenshaw had said, the 21 Killer had stalked only women.

So far.

Bentz wasn’t really buying that 21 would take the lives of men as well as women, but then he would never have believed Father John would attack a prisoner in jail, a nun no less. His MO had been prostitutes and, of course, his ultimate target had been Dr. Sam, aka Samantha Wheeler. But he’d changed.

Could 21 have altered his actions, too?

If so, then the wrong man was serving time.