by Lisa Jackson
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And then there was the lovemaking.
Hard and fast.
Or sensual and slow.
But never enough, no matter how sated he’d felt after one of their sessions at a local motel. And never boring. He loved to stare down at her as they made love. It excited him to see her beautiful nipples harden and her eyes grow dark as her pupils dilated with desire. He couldn’t get enough of her.
She was one helluva woman, he’d decided long ago, but one he’d never thought he couldn’t leave. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Now he was scared to death, and Nate Santana wasn’t one to frighten easily. In fact, he’d sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with him. In a case of fight or flight, he always chose fight. And it had landed him in some tough spots. Hadn’t always been his smartest option. Nor was getting involved with Pescoli such a great idea.
Everything about her should have warned him to stay away. She’d been married twice. She had two hellions of teenagers. She was a damned homicide detective, for Christ’s sake. Yep, he should never have gotten involved with her, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she’d actually challenged him in a bar one night, first to pool, then to arm wrestling, and then to shots of whiskey, he might not have noticed the smell of her, the fire in her eyes that matched the flame in her hair, or the fact that she seemed slightly amused by him. Being attracted to her, playing her game, had been his first mistake. Ending up in bed had been his second.
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And now, his third: actually giving a damn about her. Caring about her. Missing her.
“Damn it all to hell.”
He drank two cups of black coffee, thought about carving himself a second piece of bread but decided he couldn’t force down another bite. Watching the weather report, only half paying attention to “more of the same,” he finally surfaced to learn another storm was on the horizon. Great.
Time was inching by. He glanced at the clock mounted over the sink and scowled. Still an hour until daylight. “Oh, hell,” he said under his breath. He couldn’t stand not doing anything. He whistled to his dog and walked to the door where he began putting on the layers he’d so recently peeled off.
“Come on, Nakita,” he said, as the dog yawned and stretched. “Let’s go into town.”
It was well past time to track Pescoli down. After a miserable night, Alvarez rolled out of bed, stumbled through the shower, and dispensing with makeup, dried her thick hair, snapped a rubber band around a high ponytail, and wound the whole mess into a tight knot on her crown. She checked her image in the mirror, saw her eyes were watery from the damned cold, her skin lacking luster, her nose red.
“No beauty pageant for you today,” she told her image before she brushed her teeth and swilled some sharp-tasting antibacterial mouthwash inside her mouth.
She couldn’t afford to be sick.
Not now.
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After pulling on silky long johns, she dressed in a sweater and department-issued slacks. Soberly, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and wondered what had happened to her. As a teenager, she’d been proud of her good looks, flaunted her slim figure, applied more makeup than she needed to her large eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. But that was a lifetime ago.
When life had been filled with laughter and promise.
Frowning, dispelling the image, she found her shoulder holster and snapped it on.
She was no longer all those things that had been important to her in her youth. “Hot.” Or “cool.”
Whichever was in vogue. Even “tight” or “sexy” or
“naughty” didn’t appeal to her. Probably would never again.
Which was fine.
Except that she was alone.
No husband or lover or boyfriend on the horizon.
“No big deal,” she said to herself while warming water for tea in the microwave. After all, she’d been thinking about getting a pet. Why not? Something living to come home to.
A bird would be good . . . maybe a parakeet or macaw or . . . who was she kidding? A bird? In a cage? Spreading seeds and crapping on newspapers lining the cage floor? Or perching on the curtain rod with its wings clipped?
Fine for someone else.
Just not Selena’s style.
She was fine. Alone. Matter of fact, that’s just how she liked things.
She glanced at her desk where more images and 92
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notes about the series of murders were strewn over the desk in the tiny apartment where she lived alone. No man had ever slept in her bed. She’d been in Grizzly Falls for over three years, ever since leaving San Bernadino. “A loner,” she’d been called, or an “ice princess.” She’d even heard Pete Watershed, a coworker, suggest to a group of officers that she “probably swings the other way.” Even now, feeling rotten, she smiled at that one. If they only knew.
Not that she gave a damn.
Besides, Watershed was a dolt.
Alvarez figured that the less her coworkers and acquaintances knew about her, the better she could do her job. And she was all about her job. The microwave dinged and she pulled out the cup of near-boiling water, then dunked a bag of tea into it. Her grandmother had insisted that honey and lemon be added to the tea in order for the concoction to “shake the cold loose,” but Alvarez had neither item in the small kitchen of her studio. Orange pekoe would have to do.
“Citrus is citrus,” she told herself, blowing over her cup and gingerly tasting the hot tea. It nearly burned her tongue, but did soothe her throat. Her cell rang and it sounded dull, as her ears were still plugged. She scrounged it out of her pocket and flipped it open. “Alvarez.”
“She’s not our killer.” Sheriff Grayson sounded disgusted. “Nothing adds up. A copycat, it looks like, though how she knew enough about the crimes to try and kill Jillian Rivers in the same manner, we haven’t figured out yet.” He let out a long, angry breath. “I was really hoping she would be the doer
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and we could close the case, but that’s not gonna happen.”
Alvarez wasn’t surprised. Last night she’d spent hours double-checking dates, places, and the suspect’s whereabouts before finally going to bed. Nothing had matched up. The woman in custody couldn’t have committed the murders of Theresa Charleton, Nina Salvadore, Wendy Ito, Rona Anders, and Hannah Estes. On top of all that, Alvarez was certain they should be looking for a guy. A big guy, one strong enough to carry women out of snow-covered canyons, one smart enough to hide them away without detection, a sharpshooter with incredible accuracy: under sixty, probably, big, athletic. And then there was the fact of her missing partner. She shivered as Grayson said, “It sure would have been nice to get the mutt behind bars.”
“We will.”
“Any word from Pescoli? Brewster said they found her car.”
“Nothing.”
“Shit.”
Alvarez’s sentiments precisely.
“Find her.”
“We will.”
“Jesus, what a mess.”
“We’ll get this guy and we’ll get Pescoli back alive,” she said, hearing the ring of conviction in her tone, wondering if she were lying.
“God, I hope so.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I’m on my way back. Chandler and Halden are staying on a little longer, wrapping things up with the 94
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Spokane Police, trying to find a link as to how the suspect knew so much about the other murders. I’ll see you at the office and we’ll have a meeting of the task force. I want anything the crime scene has got on Pescoli’s vehicle and her place. Get a search warrant and talk to her kids and . . . Oh, hell, you know what we need to do.”
“Already on it.”
“Good. Later.”
She hung up, finished drinking her cooling tea, then stepped outside where the s
un was rising over the eastern hills and traffic was starting to move through this part of the town.
Pescoli had been missing two nights now. Chapter Seven
That bitch needs to be taught a lesson! I rake my fingers through my hair and try to calm down, but my hands are shaking, my muscles tight as bowstrings as I pace before the fire. All because of her.
Don’t let her get to you. You’re in control here, re- member? You’re the one who’s calling the shots. She’s wounded. Handcuffed. Under lock and key. You’re in charge. You. Not that miserable joke of a cop who doesn’t know her place. Do not lose it now, not when you’ve come so far, not when you’re so close. Not when you have so much to do. Not just here, with these women, with him. He’ll be here soon. You must calm down. You have to be ready. Your aim can’t be off even in the slightest. The shot has to be spot on.
I close my eyes. Count to ten. Then twenty. I feel the stiffness in my shoulders relax a bit and I listen for the sound of the storm, the shriek of the wind, 96
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the pounding of sleet, but there is nothing. Only silence over the crackle of the fire. Peace.
And yet, despite my pep talk and the quietude of the winter day, it’s all I can do to hang on to my temper, to focus on the bigger picture, the greater good. My work is too important to allow myself the luxury of becoming overwhelmed. I must be rock steady. And yet I’m rattled. Deep down. The bitch got to me and I have trouble repressing my anger. Me.
Who is usually so calm.
It’s that bitch of a woman.
Detective.
Regan Pescoli is rattling me and I can’t let that happen. Not now. Not until it’s over.
To find some relief I pick up her pistol, feel the smooth steel in my palm. There’s just something about a weapon that brings a feeling of calm. I run the barrel over my cheek and down my neck, closing my eyes and reveling in the feel of it. I can’t let a pain in the ass like Pescoli unnerve or derail me; not now when I need all my concentration. Slowly I breathe more easily and I walk to my bar and pour a cool glass of vodka. It steadies my nerves, takes the edge off. I have to forget about Pescoli for a while.
It seems I have bigger fish to fry.
I put down the pistol and grab the rifle. It’s time.
I know him.
The thought hit Pescoli hard as she lay on the cot, her arm still handcuffed to its leg.
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I know him, and the whack job is smart enough to re- alize that I might recognize him. Groggy and weak, she forced herself up on one elbow and noticed a bit of light coming through a high window. Morning? Dawn?
For a second she thought of Santana. His image seemed to be with her each time she awoke in this cold, dark room. Her dreams had been rife with images of him, and each time she’d awoken to find herself here, alone and trapped, she’d blinked hard to call him back. Did he miss her? Suspect that something had happened to her? That was the trouble with their damned no-strings relationship; neither knew what the other was doing. She’d told herself that was the way she’d wanted it. Now she knew it was all a lie.
The grim thought that she’d never see him again hit her viscerally.
Don’t go there. You will. You have to. You’re a mother, for God’s sake, you can’t just give up and lie here in a pool of self-pity. For God’s sake, Pescoli, do something to save yourself!
Gritting her teeth, she ignored the throbbing in her head, the dull ache that was her shoulder, and the hurt of her ribs and tried to move. Pain seized her chest but it was bearable. She’d been certain her ribs were broken in the accident, then cracked further when the psycho who had abducted her had sat on her while injecting her with God only knew what. Some kind of sedative, she figured, something to keep her dull and lifeless and maybe even to deaden the pain as she somehow had slept, and now she hoped that her ribs were bruised, not broken. They still hurt like hell, but she could move a bit and each breath no longer killed her. 98
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As near as she could remember, he’d been back once since the time he’d straddled her, to check on her, offering her water and soup, not feeding her, but leaving a spoon and a tin cup of something that smelled like chicken bouillon, and a hospital bedpan—the ultimate humiliation. The bastard had poked and prodded her as she’d lain motionless, unable to lift herself up, her brain mush.
That’s why he keeps the place dark, she thought now as her mind began to clear, her brain coming into sharper focus. It’s why he rarely enters, why when he does he wears dark glasses, a baseball cap, and a beard—probably a fake one at that. A disguise. The trouble was, she didn’t have any real clue to his identity. At least not yet. She eyed the doorway and the crack of light coming from beneath it. Once in a while a shadow passed, then paused, as if he were on the other side, peering through a peephole she couldn’t see, or pressing his ear against the wooden panels to listen to her.
It made her skin crawl to imagine that he could observe her. Don’t think about it. Concentrate on get- ting out of here. If he’s afraid you’ll recognize him, then he must fear that you’ll expose him somehow. If that were the case, then he had to think she might escape. She didn’t kid herself for a minute into believing that he planned to keep her alive indefinitely or release her, not after all the effort he’d spent in capturing her, not after the way he’d treated his other victims.
Still, he was uncertain.
Otherwise he wouldn’t be afraid of letting her see his face.
Somehow, she decided, as the first splinters of
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dawn cracked through the small window high overhead, she had to unmask him and make good her escape.
And she had to do it soon.
Before it was too late.
Finally! A damned break in the weather!
Brady Long eyed the clearing skies with satisfaction. After a week of this damn bleak, sub-zero forecast, he was finally able to climb into his JetRanger and make the trip between Denver and Grizzly Falls. The ride was a little rough, but Brady had always been up for a challenge, whether it was on the back of a particularly mean-tempered Brahma bull, or climbing the sheer face of a cliff thousands of miles above the valley floor, or helicopter and extreme skiing or skydiving or whatever it was that brought him the next big rush of adrenaline. He lived for it. A daredevil by nature, he never had understood placidity or fear. Life was to be lived on the edge, and those who took the safe road in life, who kept to their boring, secure ruts, were just plain wusses or sissies or pussies. Take your pick.
Maybe he’d been born with too much testosterone running through his bloodstream, but he liked it that way. And so did most women; at least the ones who interested him had said so. Or, he thought now, as he flew his chopper over an ice-encrusted river that ran through the ranch, the women who were attracted to him were really interested in the size of his wallet. The name Long had been associated with copper, then silver, and even gold mines for generations.
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A woman could show interest because he was good-looking, or because he was a challenge, or because he was fearless or because he was “richer than God,” as one particularly buxom young blonde had whispered into his ear early one hot summer night. He didn’t care what turned them on, just as long as they got there.
Yeah, the Long wealth made some flock to him, like vultures on the trail of a dying lamb. And he was the sole heir . . . well, not technically. There was Padgett, but she was in no condition to contest his claim to their father’s fortune, a wealth that was legendary in this part of Montana. And, he knew, his father had sown more than his share of wild oats, so there was always the chance one of Hubert’s bastards, or his and Padgett’s mother’s, might get wise and make a pitiful claim. But if that were the case, he, and a team of lawyers that he would hand-pick, would fight any and all would-be Longs either by exposing them for the frauds they were, or for whateve
r other demons they were hiding in their pasts, or by settling out of court. It was amazing what a few hundred thousand would do in an effort to make an uncomfortable situation disappear. Flying low, the chopper’s rotors whomping in the crisp morning air, he examined the barns, stable, and old homestead house, covered in snow and clustered apart from the main living quarters. Eyeing the terrain surrounding the house, he eased the big bird over the tops of the spruce and fir trees before spying the landing pad, a wide, flat circle not a hundred yards from the main house. Yeah, there was plenty of snow, but his chopper had been built to handle winter conditions and he had
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no trouble putting her down in the thick, icy powder, the JetRanger’s skids holding steady. Perfect.
He loved flying.
Should have been in the military. A pilot. But then he would have had to take orders, and being obedient, or a team player, just wasn’t in Brady’s nature.
He cut the engine and let the rotors slow before grabbing his computer and bag from the back. He’d left Denver on the down-low, not letting anyone there, even Maya, know of his plans. Well, especially not Maya. Pushing open the helicopter door, he hopped to the ground and slogged his way toward the house. He didn’t want to think too much about his fiancée, a beautiful model who refused to sign a prenup and not just any prenup, but a fair one.
Not that he was in any hurry to get married, he reminded himself as he followed a snow-covered path through a thicket of spruce and the house appeared. Brady couldn’t help but smile. He loved this old, creaky lodge, had spent some of the happiest times of his youth here in Montana. He’d bagged his first buck not five hundred yards from the barn, learned to ride horses on this ranch long before he made a name for himself on the rodeo circuit, and lost his virginity up in the old man’s bedroom, to the younger sister of his second stepmother. Yeah, he had some great memories in Montana, and though he’d been all over the globe, whenever he needed to think, he came back. “Home” was what he thought of the stone and cedar house that 102