He felt his lips twitch. “I have a strong feeling you might want to pressure me into joining that twinless twin support group.”

Never,” she said, and laughed, shaking her head. “Trust me, you wouldn’t fit in.”

“Okay. Then it’s a deal.” He told himself he was making a huge mistake, but figured what the hell? She was right. Life was far too short to dwell on the past. “So, what do you say? How ’bout a beer?”

She grinned a little wider, her smile as sexy as ever and one of her eyebrows arched playfully “A beer? Sure.” Then she winked at him. “As long as you’re buying.”

Rick Bentz fingered his badge, turning it over and over as he sat at his desk in his office at the department. It was quiet now, twilight stealing through the slats of the window on the far wall. He still hadn’t quit his job, though he’d played out the scenarios of leaving and staying in his mind a dozen times over.

His quitting the department wasn’t Olivia’s choice, nor was it Montoya’s. It was his alone and, damn it, he was torn. Things had quieted down since their last major case. The 21 Killer, Jacob Bridges was dead. A good thing. Justice served. The one sour note in the case was Donovan Caldwell, who had been, as it turned out an innocent man, just as he’d protested to the very end when he’d written his last plea in blood on his cell wall as he’d bled out. Not that he’d been a great guy, but his end . . . not right. That bothered Bentz. A lot. The Caldwells had not only lost their twin daughters but their son as well, due to a mistake in the system.

Wasn’t fair.

Then again, what was in life?

The other sets of twins who Brianna Hayward had thought were his victims, the brothers in Phoenix and the sister and brother in Dallas had turned out not to have been in the psycho’s path, nor had 21 turned up in New Orleans because of Bentz. But he’d ended up here anyway and at least now he would harm no more innocents.

Thank God. Jacob Bridges had been a nutcase. According to the Denning twins he’d talked constantly to the already-dead Myra, acting as if she were calling the shots when he’d killed her years before. And his fascination with red and ribbons. Hard to believe he was the twin brother of Jason Bridges, who seemed grounded and normal despite his own not-so-great upbringing.

Twins, but diametrically opposed in personality.

“Hey!” Montoya poked his head into the office. “You goin’ home or what?”

“Yeah.”

Montoya’s gaze narrowed in on the badge. “Uh-oh. What’re you doin’? Oh, hell, don’t tell me you’re thinking of quitting again?”

“Always. But I can’t. Even if I wanted to.”