From somewhere behind him Jase heard Brianna’s voice. “Jase! Don’t! Please.” As if she were actually frightened for him. The same woman who had tried to beat him to a pulp only minutes before, the same woman who had iced him out on the rest of their short journey to this God-forsaken scrap of land. Now she cared?

“It’s all right.” Another voice. Belonging to Rick Bentz. “Stand down,” he told the other cop as he walked from the direction of the cabin toward Jase.

“But—”

“I said, ‘It’s all right.’ Stand the fuck down!” Bentz glowered at the deputy and the younger cop, turning a bright red, holstered his weapon. To Jase, Bentz said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I need to meet my brother.”

“Too late.” Bentz was shaking his head.

“Then to see him.” Jase met the reservation in Bentz’s eyes. “I have to.”

“I don’t think—”

“I have to.”

A muscle worked in Bentz’s jaw and he glanced over at his partner. Montoya hitched his goateed chin toward one of the two ambulances on the grounds. The other was taking off, wheels spinning, lights flashing, siren wailing. The second was in no hurry.

“This way,” Bentz said and headed toward the ambulance where the back doors were still open, a body bag within. With a look to one of the attendants, Bentz said, “We need to open it up.”

The EMT hesitated, then unzipped the bag, the sound a hiss that curled through Jase’s soul as he found himself staring into a face so like his own that if it weren’t for the unshaven jaw, mussed hair, and sightless, fixed eyes he might have been looking into a mirror. Blood was everywhere across a hairy torso and his neck, hell, it looked like it had been ripped apart by a wild animal.

Jase’s knees weakened.

This was his twin? The brother who had been conceived with him, who had grown with him in a bitter womb? A hundred thoughts flashed through Jase’s brain, pictures of a mother he didn’t remember, memories devoid of this person, so like him, so damned opposite.

All the breath left his lungs in a rush and he felt as if he’d been hit, a hard jab to the solar plexus. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, knowing the truth, feeling something stir deep inside him, a connection that was quickly severed with the reality of who this monster was.

His brother, the twin he’d never known, Jacob Bridges was, indeed, the 21 Killer, a psychopath who had killed at least three sets of twins and probably more, a soulless monster who bore his own face.

Bile rose up his throat and he took a step back. With a nod from Bentz, the attendant quickly zipped the bag and slid it into the back of the ambulance.