Chosen To Die

by Lisa Jackson

  In front of the snow-covered cottage was a fourwheel-drive police vehicle, parked right behind Jeremy’s truck.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “No!”

  “Hey, man, I’ve got my stash in here.” Tyler was in a panic, worried like hell about being caught 166

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  with a few ounces of weed or a vial of prescription painkillers he’d swiped from his uncle. “I’m not hanging out. These are cops, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Fine. Go.” Jeremy climbed out of the Blazer and slammed the door shut.

  McAllister pulled a quick, sliding one-eighty and tore out, the back end of his Chevy fishtailing as he reached the bridge, then shot across.

  Jeremy turned toward the house where a path had been beaten in the snow from all of the footand boot prints. A big black dude stood in the doorway, a guy with a weird name who worked for the sheriff’s department.

  “You’re Jeremy Strand,” he said, walking off the porch, his breath making a cloud in the air. “Deputy Rule.”

  Now he remembered. Kayan Rule. His mom had said good things about the guy. Like he was a smart cop.

  “Where’s my mom?”

  “Don’t know, son.”

  “Everyone says that, but I saw her Jeep. It was all messed up. Wrecked. Being pulled out of the canyon up on the ridge.”

  “She wasn’t in it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  The deputy was still walking along the path, his frown hard-edged.

  “Then where was she?”

  “We don’t know. That’s why we’re here.”

  “She’s not here!”

  “You’re right.”

  “She was in her Jeep. On her way to see my step dad, and then she wrecked.”

  “Appears that way.”

  “So what? Is she dead?” he demanded, fear

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  pounding in his temples, his stomach churning. His dad had died; Jeremy knew all about losing a parent. He thought he might pass out.

  “As I said, we don’t know.”

  “But she wouldn’t loan the county vehicle to anyone. She never even let me drive it,” Jeremy said, so frustrated and scared he was sweating. Mom had to be okay. She just had to. “So she was in her Jeep. And if she wasn’t when you found her, then she’s hurt somewhere or in a hospital or oh, God, dead . . . or . . .” The horrible thought that had been lurking just beneath the surface of his consciousness reared its evil head. His stomach turned instantly sour. His mouth was filled with saliva. “You’re not telling me that . . . that what? That the damned killer who’s been around here . . . I mean, they caught him in Spokane . . .” No, that wasn’t right. He’d heard on the news that the killer they’d arrested in Washington probably wasn’t responsible for all the deaths around here. “No way.” He was shaking his head, glaring up at the cop, who looked like he belonged in an NBA uniform rather than county-issued jacket and slacks.

  “As I said, Jeremy, we don’t know anything yet. Now, what’re you doing here? Looking for your mom?”

  “Yeah, and getting my truck.”

  Rule glanced toward the lane down which McAllister’s SUV had vanished. “I guess that’s okay.”

  “Damned straight. It’s my truck.”

  He didn’t say it, but Jeremy had been around his mom long enough to read the guy’s thoughts, that this, his house, his mom and Bianca’s home, could be a crime scene.

  That evil fear, the one that had lifted its head, 168

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  loomed larger. Dark and sinister, it bit into his heart. “I . . . I need to go inside.”

  Rule hesitated, then shook his head. “Why don’t you wait on that?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “We’re trying like hell to find your mother, Jeremy, and we don’t want to do anything that might compromise evidence. Take the truck and go back to your friend’s house or maybe your stepdad’s. You’ve got a little sister, don’t you?”

  Jeremy didn’t answer.

  “You might want to look after her.”

  Jeremy didn’t want to show the guy just how scared he was. “Fine,” he said with all the intent of coming back here as soon as the cop left. His stomach was threatening to lurch again, so he spat the extra saliva into the snow and walked to his truck. He climbed behind the wheel, flicked on the engine, and heard it sputter and cough before catching. Once he’d revved it a couple of times, he turned on the defrost, then grabbed his scraper and went to work on the snow and ice that had built up in the past few days.

  His cell phone chirped and he checked it. A text from Heidi. His heart did a stupid little leap.

  Where R U? Grounded? Come C me.

  Oh, yeah, right, and risk being killed by her father, the damned undersheriff, his mom’s boss. No thanks. Not today. Not with Mom missing. Heidi was hot. Though she was a tease, she was about to put out; he could tell. And Jeremy was always horny. Man, oh, man, could he use that kind of release.

  But not now.

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  Not today.

  He didn’t text her back, just put his strength into scraping off his damned windshield so he could make tracks.

  All of a sudden doing it with Heidi Brewster wasn’t quite so appealing.

  From far in the distance Santana heard the wail of sirens. The cavalry was on its way. Not that it would do much good. At least not for Brady. His soul was on its way straight to hell. It wasn’t coming back.

  Santana had turned off the music, put the cigar that had fallen to the floor from Brady’s fingers into an ashtray where it still smoldered, and was sure he’d catch hell for disturbing the crime scene. Well, hell, he couldn’t save Brady Long’s life, but he could keep the place from burning down. Holy Mother of Christ, what went on here? His jacket and hands covered in blood, Santana sat on the long leather couch opposite the desk and thought morosely that this was the longest time he’d been in a room with Brady Long where they hadn’t argued. It had taken the man’s death to accomplish that feat. It was a wonder he’d stayed in Brady’s employ.

  He eyed the room. No sign of a struggle. But someone had killed him.

  Who knew Brady Long would return today? Clementine, obviously.

  Her son, Ross, no doubt.

  Neither one was capable of murder. Clementine was nothing if not subservient, to the point it almost made Santana sick, and Ross, he was a big, 170

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  quiet kid who helped out around the ranch, oftentimes cleaning the tack, or mucking out the stalls, or feeding the stock.

  Yeah, he was a hunter.

  Yeah, he had a rifle with a scope.

  But murder?

  What if Ross walked into the room while Brady was trying to get Clementine into a compromising position? How would the kid react to his mother being treated like her boss’s mistress?

  No, it didn’t wash.

  But the kill was too neat.

  Almost professional.

  Not quite. The bullet went into his chest, not his head. A pro would go for a head shot. As Santana reconstructed the scene, it appeared that Long had been at his desk, rocking out to Guns N’ Roses and whatever else was in the CD changer, having himself a cigar and a drink, when someone got the drop on him.

  Who?

  Why?

  Dozens of people, lots of reasons. Brady Long had made as many enemies as friends in his life. Still . . . murder?

  “Who did you piss off so bad?” he asked the dead man as the sirens screamed louder and he heard Nakita barking from his truck.

  Long’s drink, ice cubes melting, was still on the desk. But then the man himself, dead and staring sightlessly, was still in his chair.

  He heard something else.

  A footstep?

  Then a soft thud and another footstep, the un-

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  mistakable sound of leather scraping against the
floor.

  The hairs on the back of Nate’s scalp prickled. Could the killer still be in the house? Was he coming back to make certain the job was finished? Maybe Santana had interrupted him.

  Don’t jump to conclusions. It could be Clementine; her son could have taken her car. Or she might have left Ross inside when she drove off. Neither scenario changed the fact that someone had killed Brady Long.

  Stealthy as a cat, Santana climbed to his feet, then slipped silently to the side of the room to hide just inside the doors, out of view to anyone who passed. Someone would have to take a step or two inside the room before he would be visible. The only weapon he had on him was the jackknife he used to cut baling twine. Not much good against a pistol or revolver.

  He waited.

  Thunk.

  Step.

  Noiselessly he opened his knife. Hearing his own heartbeat, he tensed, ready to spring, his eyes glued on the open doors.

  Closer and closer.

  The sirens kept screaming and suddenly emergency vehicles, lights flashing, shot into view through the window, spraying snow from their tires in all directions.

  “What the—?” a male voice asked, just on the other side of the door.

  Santana’s hand tightened over the hilt of his knife.

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  “Brady? Holy Mother of God!” The warbling voice rose an octave. “The Yeti, he did this to you?”

  Yeti?

  A second later, Ivor Hicks, using a cane, hobbled into the room.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I don’t care what you say, I’m not running this investigation using psychos, whack jobs, and/or nutcases!” Sheriff Dan Grayson was in a foul mood as he stalked down the hallway to his office. It didn’t help that one of his best detectives was suggesting the irrational.

  “Grace Perchant knows something,” Alvarez, at his side, insisted.

  “Trust me, she doesn’t know up from sideways.”

  He’d been in Spokane going over the notes and records of the copycat killer who’d been captured by the Spokane authorities and had been up most of the night. Early this morning he’d returned to find that not only had Pescoli’s wrecked Jeep been located, but now there was another car impounded that could be part of a possible crime, a red Saturn registered to another missing woman. And Alvarez, one of his most down-to-earth detectives, was sug-174 Lisa Jackson

  gesting they take advice from Grace She-Who-Talksto-Ghosts Perchant. Christ, this was a mess.

  “Grace called. She’d had a dream—”

  “Oh, for the love of God, that’s it? A dream. Look, I don’t give a damn if she hung upside down by her toes like a sleeping, rabid bat! She’s a nutcase. Everyone in town knows it! Maybe you can convince the FBI to talk to the local loonies, maybe they have some kind of pseudoparanormal division like you see on TV, but not here, not in my department!”

  “Not exactly P. C.,” Alvarez pointed out.

  “I’m not interested in being politically correct,”

  he said, irritated. “I’m just trying to hunt down a sick serial killer who has decided to use my jurisdiction as his personal playground.”

  “So we should use any means possible.”

  Is she really suggesting we talk to Grace Perchant? A self-proclaimed ghost whisperer or some such non- sense? In Grayson’s estimation Grace was an odd duck, nothing more. Harmless, but an odd duck, all the same. “Next thing I know you’ll be wanting to take statements from Ivor Hicks and Henry Johansen.”

  “If it would help the investigation.” Fire in her dark eyes. “I just got a call from the deputy who supervised winching Pescoli’s Jeep from the canyon. Looks like a bullet went through one of her tires.”

  Grayson’s deepest fear was realized. “That son of a bitch!”

  “Exactly.” Selena was furious now, her cheeks flaming. “So I don’t think we should discount any statement. I just want to see what Grace knows.”

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  “She was already interviewed.”

  “Before Pescoli went missing.”

  They were at his office door now and stomach acid was burning a hole in his gut. His thoughts were on Pescoli, a woman he’d worked with for years. Who was he to tell Alvarez, one of his smartest detectives, what to do? It wasn’t as if he had any better ideas. “Do whatever it is you think you should.”

  He waved her off and knew he was being ornery, but he didn’t care.

  Her cell phone rang, and she picked it up, turning and heading toward her desk. Damn, he didn’t need a fight.

  Inside his office, he hung up his hat and jacket, glanced out the window to the view of the lower part of the town and the nearly frozen river, then dropped into the desk chair and scowled at the stack of messages awaiting him. Whether he liked it or not, it seemed that Pescoli and Elyssa O’Leary were the next intended victims of Star-Crossed. There had to be a way to catch the bastard, Grayson thought as he cracked his knuckles. He just had to figure out how. And fast. In his mind’s eye he saw Pescoli, a tall, strong woman with a wicked sense of humor who was tough enough to do a damned good job while raising two kids on her own. She was unconventional, bent the rules way too far for his liking, but she always got the job done. And now she was a victim? His jaw tightened as he remembered the other women who’d died naked in the elements, left to freeze to death. Pushing aside his dark thoughts, he clicked on his computer, read his e-mail, then sent out an e-blast ad-176 Lisa Jackson

  vising everyone working the Star-Crossed Killer case of a meeting at four P.M. in the task room. Maybe by then Agents Chandler and Halden from the FBI would have tied things up in Spokane and be back in Grizzly Falls. If not, he’d carry on without them. He couldn’t wait.

  The weather, as always, was a problem, he thought, sliding a glance out the window where snow was collecting and icicles hung from the eaves. It had been a bitch of a winter. One of the coldest on record. And it wasn’t close to being over.

  Rubbing his eyes, he heard the familiar sounds of the department on the other side of the door: ringing phones, muted voices in conversation, a humming fax machine, the furnace rumbling, footsteps clipping down the hallway.

  God, he was tired. Bone weary. This job that he’d once found so engrossing, that he’d thrown himself into after his wife left him, was starting to wear him down.

  Don’t let it. This is your passion; your duty. You just need a little rest.

  Leaning back in his chair and propping the heels of his boots on the short filing cabinet, Grayson fought a mother of a headache. It had started near his temples when the chopper that had brought him here from Spokane had landed, just before the next storm had begun to shower this part of the state with snow all over again. It was definitely exacerbated by the fact that a killer was still terrorizing the county. The victims’ families were clamoring for justice, the townspeople were scared out of their wits, the media was demanding more information for

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  the public while both constantly airing “updates”

  and trying to get exclusives from the husbands, mothers, fathers, and siblings of the dead women. Not to mention it was the Christmas season. And now Pescoli looks like she’s the next victim. No wonder his head throbbed.

  But still, he shouldn’t have snapped at Alvarez. She was a good cop. Doing a damned good job. And he knew that she would put science and evidence over theory and statements from the resident nut-jobs. So if she wanted to talk to Grace Perchant or even Eleanor Mackey, the woman who not only cut hair but also read palms and held seances or the like over on Corinthian Avenue, so be it. He found a jar of aspirin in his desk drawer, unscrewed the cap, and popped a couple, swallowing them dry.

  He hadn’t eaten since last night—a burger, fries, and beer in a dive not far from the police station in Spokane—but he didn’t really feel hungry. His desk phone jangled and he saw it was a call from Joelle.

  “What’s
up?”

  “I’ve got bad news,” she said solemnly. Was there any other kind? His first thought was of Pescoli. His heart seized. If someone had found her frozen body tied to a tree . . . “Yeah?”

  “Dispatch just called.”

  Grayson steeled himself. Set his jaw.

  “Brady Long’s been killed.”

  Grayson thought he’d heard wrong. “What?”

  “Homicide.”

  “Brady Long?” he repeated, stunned. “Where? When?”

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  “The call just came in. Nate Santana phoned from the Long estate.”

  “Santana? Wasn’t he just here?” Grayson was certain he’d seen the guy pull out of the station just as he was driving in.

  “About an hour ago. Units are on the scene. Deputies Watershed and Connors are there. Ambulance as well.”

  “Good.”

  “And Ivor Hicks is there, too.”

  Grayson closed his eyes and sighed. Could things get any worse? His boots hit the floor. “Does anyone have any idea why Hicks and Santana are there?”

  “I think Santana works for the Longs.”

  “And Ivor?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Grayson’s bad day just took a nosedive.

  “I’m on my way out there now.” He hung up, slipped on his shoulder holster, checked his sidearm, and slid his arms into his jacket sleeves. He’d been back less than two hours, hadn’t even had time to round up his dog yet, and all hell had broken loose. Again.

  Sometimes he wondered why he didn’t resign. Because you love it, Grayson. Who the hell do you think you’re kidding? Muttering under his breath, he grabbed his hat off the coatrack and walked down the hall to Alvarez’s cubicle.

  “You heard?”

  She was at her desk examining copies of the notes taken from the crime scenes where the victims of the Star-Crossed Killer had been found. On her computer screen were anagrams using the initials of the women who had been abducted. He noted that she was already trying to add the initials of Elyssa O’Leary

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  and Regan Pescoli into the cryptic message from Star-Crossed.