by Lisa Jackson
Yes! There was a shift. A little one.
Oh, Jesus, there had to be.
All this effort couldn’t be in vain.
She leaned forward for a second, took in three long breaths, felt her muscles screaming, her ribs aching, but she ignored the seductive urge to give up, to roll back onto the cot and pull the blanket to her chin to shiver alone in the dark. Readying herself, making certain the cuff was over the weld, she threw herself backward onto the cot again. She couldn’t let the bastard win.
Not without a damned good fight.
In her mind’s eye, she saw her children. Bianca, just starting to develop into a woman, a smart girl who’d recently discovered boys. Jeremy. Oh, God. He was headed down the wrong path. Smoking marijuana, dabbling in who knew what, drinking and getting into serious trouble with Heidi Brewster. What would happen if they didn’t have her? Would Lucky and Michelle raise them?
What a disaster that would be.
Oh, Lord, give me strength.
She was gasping now, drawing in ragged breaths, still working at the weakening joint of welded metal. She had too much to live for to end up the victim of some sicko.
In a flash, she thought of Nate and her heart twisted. She’d never believed she loved him, hadn’t admitted it for a second, but oh, God, she might
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have been wrong. His quick wit, His sexy smile. The way he could turn her inside out . . .
Stop it!
She had to concentrate.
Because of the kids.
Because of Nate.
Because there was no way she was going to let this twisted nutcase win!
Tyler McAllister was high.
And it wasn’t even noon yet.
Not that it really mattered, but today, with his mom missing, Jeremy had no time for McAllister’s crap. He sat on his side of the Blazer, tapping his fingers nervously on the window ledge of the door while Tyler lit a cigarette, then with the smoke dangling from his lips, gunned the engine on the empty road, hit the brakes, and sent the SUV skidding sideways. He laughed then, thinking it was hilarious. Jeremy didn’t.
“Cool it!” Jeremy yelled over the bass of some heavy-metal song he didn’t recognize.
“What?” McAllister yelled back as the Blazer straightened and Tyler adjusted the wipers. Snow was falling again. Not big, heavy flakes, but tiny icy crystals that indicated the weather was gonna get worse. The fir trees were already heavy with snow and ice, their branches drooping. Traffic was light, thank God, because McAllister wasn’t driving all that great.
McAllister gunned it up the hill that started the long straightaway to the crest of Horsebrier Ridge. On the other side of the mountain the road twisted, 142
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followed the creek, and turned like a sidewinder, but here, on the near side, at a higher elevation, the road cut like a knife through the surrounding hills.
“Check it out!” Tyler, grinning like a goon, hit the gas again and laughed as the Blazer fishtailed and the music blared. The windows were beginning to fog, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Ha!” Another tromp on the accelerator.
It pissed Jeremy off. “Just . . . just . . .” Jeremy snapped off the iPod. The interior of the SUV was suddenly silent.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t have time for this shit! Just drive to my house, dickhead, and quit fuckin’ around.”
“It looks like somebody got up on the wrong side of bed this morning,” Tyler mocked in a falsetto voice, as if he were someone’s mother.
Which only bugged Jeremy all the more. “Don’t!
Okay? Just . . . don’t! I asked you for a ride home. Nothing else.”
“What the fuck’s got into you?”
“My mom’s missing.”
“Lucky you.” Tyler shrugged. “I’d pay to have my mom disappear. She is such a bitch.”
Jeremy’s fist balled and he nearly slammed it into McAllister’s jaw. “Stop, would ya?”
Tyler pulled a face, like a little kid with an exaggerated frown, his Winston still dangling from his lips. He looked like an idiot. Hell, he was an idiot!
For the briefest of seconds Jeremy wondered if maybe his mother was right, that he should try to find some other friends. But that thought was gone in a flash, disappearing as quickly as it had come.
“Just fuckin’ drive.”
Tyler snorted a stream of smoke and switched on
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his iPod again, cranking it up until the bass was booming and the lead singer screeched at the top of his lungs. Maybe that’s what Jeremy needed: to get lost and forget about all this. A sweet buzz that would dull his anxiety, lift him out of the funk into which he was quickly sinking.
“Hey . . . what’s this?” Tyler said when he saw the detour sign a quarter of a mile from the crest of the ridge. The icy lanes were blocked, cones and a cruiser for the Highway Patrol blocking access. A tall policewoman was pointing to the side road, indicating that they should turn down the secondary road or turn around and go back the way they came. Tyler snorted again. “What the hell do we do now?”
Jeremy’s stomach hit the floor. “Stop.”
“What?”
“No, I mean it. Stop. Stop the car.”
“But that’s a cop!” Tyler said as if he were imparting some vast unknown knowledge.
“I know.”
“Look, man, this is a bad idea—”
“My mom’s a cop, too.”
“I’m tellin’ ya, stopping is a mistake.”
“Just do it!”
“Shit!” As Tyler braked, Jeremy flung open the door and slid a bit as his boots landed on the icy road. He grabbed the handle of the door, righted himself, then used the idling Blazer for support as he walked around the rear through the falling snow. A cloud of exhaust followed him, as the SUV
really needed a ring job.
“Hey!” he called to the policewoman.
She was watching his every move. “You can’t go through here. Road’s closed,” she said, shaking her 144
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head and frowning. Along with what appeared to be a sour disposition, she wore the big-brimmed hat and dark uniform of the Montana Highway Patrol. Sunglasses covered her eyes.
“Why?”
“Accident.” Her expression was stern, her mirrored glasses shielding her eyes as snow caught in the wide brim of her hat and collected on Jeremy’s shoulders. The wind was kicking up, too, whistling softly through the canyon. “Now, move along.”
He looked farther up the hill and stared at the tow truck, its engine almost pressed into the bank on the high side of the pass, its rear end poised near the ravine on the other. “I can’t,” he whispered, his voice failing, his guts twisting. “I think my mom was in that accident.”
Her lips compressed. “What’s your name?”
“Jeremy Strand,” he said, shaking inside. “My mother’s Regan Pescoli. She’s a detective with the sheriff’s department.”
“Pinewood County?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed hard. It was one thing to learn about the accident, another to come face-toface with it. And for the first time he wondered if she could already be dead. If he’d been lied to. He felt sick inside. “Was she in the car?” When he noticed the stonewalling expression of the trooper, he added, “They said she wasn’t. My stepdad got a call this morning. And they said that when they found the car, she wasn’t in it.”
“You should go home,” the officer was saying.
“To your stepdad. Can I call him for you?”
But Jeremy barely heard what she was saying as he looked past her shoulder and saw, through the thick-
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ening snow, the outline of a tow truck parked sideways across the road at the summit of the mountain. People in snow gear were standing nearby while the whine of a straining winch filled th
e canyon. Jeremy stood transfixed, his eyes focused on the crest.
He was vaguely aware of Tyler revving the engine, hinting that they should leave, and the stern-faced trooper’s disapproval, but he couldn’t budge and as his mother’s mutilated, wrecked vehicle slowly appeared, the metal wrenched, the windshield and tires blown, Jeremy thought he would throw up. No one, not even his tough-as-nails mother, could have survived that wreck.
She had to be dead.
This will be an easy one, I think, parking my truck upstream from the property. A simple kill. Different from the others.
Special.
One for which I’ve waited years.
One I will definitely savor.
What’s the old saying? Revenge is always best served up cold? Something like that. Well, it couldn’t get much colder than this with temperatures sliding below freezing and fifteen years of waiting. But now the time is right.
I’ve checked.
Brady Long is alone.
I take my rifle from the back of the truck, then begin the long trek to the main house where, no doubt, he’s already settled in. The prince in his castle. The snow is beginning to fall again. Tiny flakes 146
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that swirl and dance, quietly changing the landscape, distorting the view, muting the sounds of the day.
I follow the path of the stream easily, from memory, having run this course dozens of times in the past.
Quickly.
Moving through the thick pines and hemlock, I spy the house, a hundred yards away, the roof thick with snow, dormers protruding, windows dark. But on the main level there are lights, glowing warmly in the gray morning, inviting me inside. It’s all I can do not to smile, but I warn myself not to savor the kill until it has happened, until Brady Long has taken his last, rattling breath. Only then will I be able to relish my success, as justice will finally prevail. Through a thicket of naked aspens, I move along a deer path and spy the helicopter sitting still as death, long rotors unmoving, the windows of the cockpit already showing a thin layer of snow. Closer to the house, I turn and head toward the garage at the far end of the building, away from the windows in the den and living area. Though I’m dressed in white, I’m certain I blend with the landscape, I must be careful. The element of surprise is necessary.
At the door I listen.
Sure enough, music is emanating from the speakers inside the house. If nothing else, Brady Long is a creature of habit. Which makes my job so much easier. The back door is unlocked, so I don’t have to bother with a key. I walk softly and quickly through
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the kitchen to the main hallway. In the foyer, I peer into the living room.
Empty.
My heart is beating a little more quickly now. I’m sweating inside the house in my ski suit and I flip my goggles onto the top of my head as the amber lenses are starting to fog. I have to have complete visibility. It’s necessary that I be accurate and deadly.
I make my way to the open door of the den. Sure enough, Brady is there. Sitting in a big leather recliner, feet up, cigar in one hand, drink resting on the desk. Bourbon, I’m guessing. A fire is burning in the grate, and there are papers strewn over the desk. Of course. Hubert’s will. Brady Long is so damned predictable.
His eyes are closed and he’s singing along to some rock tune from the eighties, mouthing the words like he’s some famous hard-rock band frontman. Idiot.
My rifle is already at my shoulder. I take aim. But I want him to have a moment of fear, to see me and realize that justice, long overdue, is being served.
“Long!” I yell and his eyes fly open.
In a split second he recognizes me and forgets all about the song. “What the hell?”
But he knows.
His startled face says it all.
He starts to move, to leap from the chair. Too late!
I pull the trigger.
Chapter Eleven
Using his walking stick, Ivor Hicks stole across the property line separating the federal land from that of Hubert Long, a miserable S.O.B. if there ever was one. From what Ivor had heard, Hubert wasn’t long for this world and that was just fine by him.
And yet, he didn’t like tromping across the government’s land or into Long territory, for that matter, but he felt compelled this morning and he knew why.
The aliens. General Crytor, the damned Reptilian leader who had transported Ivor to the mothership back in the seventies, was still using him for experiments. To do his bidding. Like a goddamned slave. The invisible chip those alien bastards had implanted in Ivor’s body forced him to do Crytor’s bidding and was probably the reason his arthritis was so bad. Well, that and the damned cold. Even
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with his thick jacket and a stocking cap, boots, and gloves he felt the bone-piercing cold that his little nips of Jim Beam hadn’t been able to ward off. Damned orange two-legged freaks with their lizard heads and snakelike eyes. Crytor, he was the worst of the lot, the leader, but there had been others, too, who had cocked their heads like vile orange crows as they poked and prodded him with their needles and probes. It was amazing he’d survived. Those lipless extraterrestrials had done experiments on him, examining everything ranging from his lungs to his testicles.
Ivor doubted, after the abduction, that he could father any more children.
“Reptilian sons of bitches!” he hissed into the cold winter air, and the wind seemed to laugh and shriek at him, as if it, too, thought him crazy. Maybe that was good. He wasn’t sure how much Crytor knew of his thoughts, but the general surely could hear his words, and Ivor had felt the wrath of the Reptilian’s punishment many times before—headaches that would take a grown man to his knees. Crack!
The sound, like the blast from a rifle of a poacher hunting in these woods, or a car backfiring up on the country road, reverberated through the forest. Damned idiots with their guns.
Now, those were the crazies.
He kept walking. Though no one in Grizzly Falls believed his alien story, not even Doc Norwood who treated him, Ivor knew what he knew. The fact that he’d been found, near naked, with an empty bottle of whiskey near him, had convinced everyone who 150
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knew his tale that he was just a drunk, that he’d been hallucinating.
“Hallucinating, my ass,” he said and winced at a pain in his temple. Crytor again. The Reptilian seemed to have as much objection to swearing as his wife, Lila, had. Rest her soul. He made a quick sign of the cross over his old down jacket and kept on trudging. He wasn’t Catholic, wasn’t even certain about God, but he had his own brand of reverence and it had become a habit whenever he thought about his wife, or spoke her name, to make the sign of the cross over his chest. It made him feel better.
Sometimes those Catholics got things right. The snow was coming down in heavy flurries and his glasses were beginning to steam. Where the hell was Crytor prodding him this time? It worried him because on his last trek into the mountains, when the damned aliens were forcing him into the wilderness, he’d run across a dead girl, stark naked, tied to a tree. Jesus, that was freaky. And about as bad as what he’d feared his fate was to be: that he would be transported to the mothership once again. At that thought his hands began to shake uncontrollably. Hell, he couldn’t go back there. Couldn’t! This time, he might not survive. Using his teeth, he tore off one glove, then reached into his jacket pocket and unscrewed the lid of his flask as the memory of the dead girl crossed his mind. Asian. Probably in life she’d been pretty. But when Ivor had found her, her lips had been purple, her skin blue, her eyes glassy, her black hair stiff and covered with snow. Wendy Ito.
That had been her name.
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He’d been interviewed by the cops, then the reporters. Of course, the whole alien abduction thing had come up, as it had before. In the seventies he’d sold his story to a magazine, but he wonde
red if he could write a book about his experiences. Oh, hell, that would really piss old Crytor off. Ivor glanced around the frozen wilderness. Everything covered in white. The falling snow a veil that made it hard to distinguish anything farther than ten feet in front of him.
He took a couple of long pulls of whiskey, felt the warmth of the liquor slide down his throat. He was about to put the flask away, then took another swallow. Couldn’t hurt. Not out here in this damned snow forest.
Winter wonderland, Lila had called the Montana wilderness. Just like the song. Ivor had never believed it and had kicked himself to hell and back for not taking that roughneck job in Texas he’d been offered thirty-five years before. Lila had pitched a fit. Wasn’t about to leave her ailing mother or pull their son out of a school where he was “doin’ just fine.” So Ivor had stuck it out at the mine, Hubert Long’s copper mine, as long as he could. Until Lila had up and died on him in ’78 and goddamned Crytor had abducted him in ’79. After that, Ivor had lost his free will. Had never been able to move to the Lone Star State or anywhere warm, for that matter.
Now, his skin crawled just being on Hubert’s land.
Nothing ever good came from being close to the Longs; he was certain of it. Had told Lila years ago and she’d pooh-poohed him. “You don’t know what 152
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you’re talkin’ about,” she’d said as she’d climbed into their old Dodge on her way to work as a barkeep at the Spot, their favorite tavern. “Hubert’s okay and he’s not cheap. Always leaves a big tip.”
Ivor hadn’t been convinced. One more swallow of whiskey, then he capped the flask. It was damn near empty. He knew he’d filled it before he’d started on this mission to only God knew where and truth to tell, he felt a little wobbly. Just Crytor and his damned prod. Jamming his glove onto his hand again, Ivor crossed the creek, wondering why he let Crytor manipulate him, why he’d been the one chosen that day.
He didn’t have much time to speculate as he spied the big house. Hell, it would take six or seven, maybe even eight of his little houses to make up the size of the mammoth structure. Pitched gable roofs, three stories, windows that sparkled from dormers. And this was just Hubert’s hunting lodge, one of the homes he had sprinkled throughout the country. Some people were just too rich.