by Lisa Jackson
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Whether the sheriff liked it or not, Santana intended to run his own investigation. Because Regan Pescoli’s disappearance was personal. I’m jangled.
As I always am after I’ve accomplished my mission. But it’s too early and I’m not finished, I think, as I drive into the next storm. It’s barely started, just a few snow flurries of thick flakes, but if the sky and the weather service can be believed, soon another blizzard will roll through.
I hear her crying.
Irritating moans emanating from the back of the truck. Despite her gag and the whine of the engine and the hum of the tires, I can hear her. Because I’m rattled. My nerves on edge. Never have I done two in one day.
“Two in one. Two in one. Two in one.” This becomes my mantra and I say it aloud, in time with the wipers, but she just won’t shut up. Elyssa’s cries have a way of cutting through the noise and burrowing deep in my brain.
Yelling at her through the back window that opens to the canopy won’t help. She’ll just wail all the louder.
And I feel the bite marks on the back of my neck. Inflamed. Angry. Like my building rage.
“Maybe music,” I say and snap on the radio with a flick of my wrist.
But I’m far from the radio towers, deep in the mountains, and all I can hear over the crackle of static is Burl Ives’s voice lilting on and on about a holly, jolly Christmas.
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Not this year, I think and click off the radio. I concentrate instead on the job I have yet to do. I’ve already picked out the area, far from the other one.
Won’t Grayson and his crew be surprised?
“Merry Christmas!”
I have to shift down as I turn a corner and start up the hill, the four-wheel-drive propelling the truck through the drifting snow.
Up, up, up. This one is not going to be left in a valley. I’ve picked this spot with great care. It’s perfect. She lets out another moan.
What a whiner!
She deserves to die.
And she turned so quickly from vowing her love to that loser boyfriend of hers, to wanting me. A slut.
The wipers strain as the storm increases and the engine whines, tires slipping a bit as I drive to the ridge. I should have started earlier, as I knew the blizzard was on its way. I don’t have much time. Come on, come on, I think, as the old truck fishtails just before I round a final corner on this abandoned road. I know the clearing is just on the other side of the ridge. With some difficulty, I manage to turn the truck around, backing up, then pulling forward several times, just enough to point the nose of the vehicle down the hill for a quick escape. I can’t allow myself to become overconfident and get the truck stuck.
Not that the imbecilic cops would ever find it. There is still another vehicle they haven’t located and probably won’t until the spring thaw, a white
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Volkswagen Beetle, crumpled and buried deep in Stone Ridge Canyon. Idiots!
Once my truck is pointed in the right direction, I park, cut the engine, and set the emergency brake. Then it’s time.
She’s shivering in the back, making protesting noises as I open the door and pull her out. She is already covered with goose pimples, yet nervous sweat is visible on her body.
“No,” she attempts to yell through her gag and I hear the word, know the meaning though her voice is garbled and muted.
“Let’s go.”
She is crying now, pulling the limp dishrag routine on me, as if her legs won’t work. Some do this. Others try to flee. One tried to fight. In the end it’s all the same, and as I lift my knife again, she gets the idea.
I loop a length of rope around her wrists; there’s no time for chasing after her in the woods, and with my backpack in place, I prod her forward. She doesn’t want to go.
As much of an idiot as she is, she realizes that this is the end: There is no escape.
She is shivering as she stumbles along, plowing through the unbroken snow, cutting her own death path.
I hurry her along.
There isn’t a lot of time.
I have places I need to be.
“Move it,” I say, as I know the cold has settled into her bones. Through the ice-draped thickets of saplings and over the top of a ridge, I force her to follow a deer trail I’ve used for hunting since childhood. 346
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She’s visibly shaking now, either from fear, the cold, or both. Not that it matters. Down we walk, over a fallen tree where the jagged stump is now softened by the inches of white powder over it. The sky is obscured with clouds and the wind is blustery, blowing in fits and starts.
She contemplates running, I sense it, but she’s an obedient doe, one who has given in to the whims of men her whole life, the way she tells it. A domineering father and then a string of boyfriends who never were quite the Prince Charming she’d hoped for. She’d told me about all of them, including Cesar, the latest, the one she’d wanted to marry. Elyssa, of all the women I’ve hand-picked, is by far the least confident, a mouse of a thing . . . I probably shouldn’t have chosen her, but her name . . . so perfect.
That thought brings a smile to my face as I realize that already my gift for the police might have arrived. If so, the sheriff’s department will be set on its ear.
Chaos is bound to erupt.
The news, today, will be much more interesting than that boring press conference Grayson held. Posed on the steps of the sheriff’s department with his stern expression, trying to appear like a U.S. Marshal on some old T.V. or movie Western. Yeah, Grayson, you boring tool, get real.
“This way,” I say as Elyssa stops at the icy remnants of the creek. I nudge her with the knife and she jumps, starts walking faster across the icy stream and up a rise on the far bank. We’re close now, having hiked nearly a mile. And she’s probably going numb, frostbite setting in.
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I don’t want to carry her, so I say, “Run!”
She’s startled, nearly slips, but catches herself and with my knife within reach, she gallops awkwardly over the hill to the clearing, and there stands the lonely cedar tree. A perfect spot.
Her eyes round as she spies the tree.
She gets it.
She’s shaking her head, denying the inevitable, but I won’t hear any further protests and while she silently pleads with me, her eyes wide and beseeching, her cuffed hands reaching outward, I ignore her and without any trouble lash her to the tree, pulling her back tight against the rough bark, hearing the muffled cry as her skin makes contact. I can’t take any more time and she’s failing anyway, her body leaning into her bindings, her hair stiff with the snow. As she whimpers, I reach into my backpack for my kit, then nail the appropriate note over her head and carve out the star in the perfect position with my knife.
She’s weak.
Pathetic.
Deserves to die.
Bits of bark drop onto her scalp and shoulders and I let it stay.
She’s not saying a word now, seemingly out of it, and that just won’t do. Hurriedly I pack my things, swing the backpack over my shoulder, and walk to the edge of the clearing. Then I pull my camera out of my pocket. “Hey!” I yell as I focus. Nothing.
Damn it, I took too long!
“Hey! Elyssa!” My voice booms across these canyons. Finally, she looks up and I click off the shot. 348
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Not my best, I see, the digital image distorted a bit, but it will have to do. At least I caught the image of pure terror in her eyes.
Good.
I’m out of time.
And nature will take care of the rest.
I leave her then, jogging back the way we came, snow already filling the trail that we so recently broke through the snow.
This experience wasn’t the best. I like women with some fight in them, a little fire.
Like Padge
tt.
I wonder about her as I jog, my breath fogging the air, my skin breaking out in a sweat under my insulated clothing. Does she know about her brother? Has she heard? Finally she is free again. And the demon is dead.
I cut across the creek, cracking the ice, seeing a trickle beneath it, then head up the hill, along the deer trail, almost slipping once, but catching myself. Though Elyssa’s sacrifice has been less than exhilarating, the next will be one of the best. Better than either of the last two. Regan Pescoli is a worthy adversary, and the pain I feel in my muscles, the bites on my neck, are constant reminders that I must not underestimate her.
That would be an irreversible, fatal flaw. I’m breathing hard as I climb the hillside, following the trail and knowing that even now Elyssa is expiring, the first one probably already dead. Perfect.
A tiny zing sizzles through my blood at the thought that I ended her life. I had that power. This, the way I kill them, is slow. Slightly impersonal. I never feel
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that surge of supreme ecstasy I imagine a killer might feel who wields a knife.
But knowing that I controlled another’s destiny, a woman, I’m sure, who was put on this earth to fulfill my needs, suffices. For now.
Over the final hillock, I spy my truck. Quickly I load up, toss my backpack and kit into the back. Despite my gloves, I feel the cold. No time to waste!
I climb into my truck, spark the engine, then let off the emergency brake. Snow begins to fall as the tires grip and I work my way down the hill, easing down the steep slope, the snow tires digging deep, transmission whining.
It’s slow going, but eventually, around a final corner, I spy the county road in the distance. A few vehicles are traveling at a slow speed through the curtain of snow and I smile.
Once on a level surface, I increase my speed, frown at the clock, and tell myself it’ll all work out. I need to take care of an errand or two, then return to the mine and make sure Pescoli is as broken and needy as she was when I left her last night. My jaw tightens. It worries me a bit that the marks will be permanent; always a reminder that she almost got the better of me.
Almost.
Setting my jaw, I head home.
I need to clean up before I return to town, where, I anticipate, all hell is breaking loose. It’s a good feeling and I turn on the radio once more only to hear Burl Ives’s voice and that irritating melody again. “Oh, by golly, have a—”
I push the button to a country-western station. 350
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For the love of God, what’s wrong with the DJs, playing that insipid song over and over again? Despite Randy Travis’s deep voice, I can’t get the whole holly jolly thing out of my mind.
As the windshield slaps at the snow I find myself humming to the catchy little melody.
It’s a damned curse.
“All I know is that Mr. Long called and told me that he would be visiting the ranch,” Clementine said.
“You mean Brady Long,” Alvarez clarified. An easy assumption; according to all reports, Hubert was on his deathbed.
“Yes.” Clementine’s lower lip quivered and she wrung her hands nervously. Her son, Ross, a tall, sullen kid, looked like he would rather be anyplace else on earth than standing in the vestibule of the home of a dead man and talking to an officer of the law. His head was shaved, a straggly goatee decorated his chin, and a tattoo peeked out from the neck of his ski jacket. Snow had melted on the jacket’s shoulders and Ross’s jeans were wet at the top of his boots, as if he’d been walking through deep snowdrifts. His face was a little red. The cold? Exertion? He nearly sneered at Alvarez and carried the air about him that suggested he would have liked the words Bad Ass inked across his forehead.
“You didn’t talk to Mr. Long?” she asked Ross. He shook his head vigorously, losing a bit of the disinterested, cool-appearing demeanor he was trying so hard to convey.
“You’ve been outside this morning?”
“Yeah . . . I went . . . I was in town.”
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All the evidence from the crime had been collected, but the sheriff’s department had roped off the den with crime scene tape, and the hallways and dining area were a mess—fingerprint powder blackening the walls and furniture, footprints tracked throughout the house.
“What can you tell me about that conversation?”
she asked Clementine.
“As I told the other officers, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Every so often, Mr. Brady, he would call and tell me to stock the kitchen and bar because he was going to come back and spend a few days here to unwind. That’s how he usually put it,
‘unwind’ or ‘relax’ or ‘get away from the grind.’”
“Do you know what he was ‘getting away’ from?”
“He never confided in me.”
Alvarez wasn’t certain that was the truth. “You work for him, too?” she asked Ross.
“When I’m not in school. I help out Santana.”
“He’s like the foreman,” Clementine ventured.
“Ross is his helper.”
“Along with some others?”
Clementine was nodding.
“You’ve worked for the Longs for quite a while.”
“Over twenty years.”
“And Ross’s father?” Alvarez looked at the boy, who shifted from one foot to the other.
“He left us. Before Ross was born. I wasn’t married and he . . . he didn’t want a baby.” She licked her lips and looked at the floor.
“His name is Alvin Schwartz and he’s a real asshole. He’s a cop, too,” Ross added.
“Enough!” Clementine said, shushing her son.
“Al? Who works at the jail?” Alvarez pictured the jailor, a part-timer who was in his early forties. A big 352
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guy, ex-football-player type, who wore his hair clipped so short as to be nearly bald. Other than the hairstyle, there was little resemblance between father and son.
“Ross takes after my side of the family,” Clementine commented, as if reading Alvarez’s mind. Ross snorted, “He’s not in the family.”
They talked for a little while about the Long family and Alvarez learned little more than she already knew. Then Clementine said, “Mr. Hubert, he’s near death, I heard.” She sketched a quick sign of the cross over her chest. “And now, Mr. Brady is gone. I’m wondering if I even have a job left. Who will own this place?” She lifted her hands in a sweeping gesture to take in all of the house and surrounding acres.
“I don’t know, but I imagine someone will call and let you know.” Alvarez turned her attention to Ross. “You go to community college, right? And work around here. Can you tell me what you were doing yesterday morning?”
He stared at her. “You think I popped Brady?”
“Ross!” Clementine hissed and looked like she might faint.
“That’s what she’s getting at.” His eyes glittered, as if he had figured out Alvarez’s game. “Isn’t it?”
“Just keeping track of everyone he knew,” Selena said.
“I was at school. You can check with Jamie.”
“Who’s she?”
“He’s my friend. I pick him up.”
She took down Jamie’s number, made a note to give him a jingle.
“Either one of you know Regan Pescoli?”
“Another cop,” Ross said derisively.
“My partner.”
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“She’s missing, isn’t she?” Clementine asked and shook her head. “I saw it on the news.”
Ross lifted a shoulder. “I met her a couple of times. I know her kid. He’s cool.”
“Is he?” She asked a few more questions, but it seemed the connection between Ross DeGrazio and Jeremy Strand was a thin one at best. Acquaintances. Not friends. There were a couple of years between them.
“I heard she was doin’ Santana.
”
“Oh, stop it!” Clementine looked about to die.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized.
Alvarez leveled her gaze at the kid. “Seems as if Ross here has a problem with authority.”
“I just don’t like cops.”
“Because of your old man?”
“Because I don’t like ’em.”
Alvarez asked a few more questions, didn’t get any more information, and decided she’d learned all she could. Whether he knew it or not, Ross DeGrazio was still, in her mind, on the suspect list, along with Cort Brewster.
But the kid seemed too green to pull off something so intricate. It just didn’t quite fit. Just like Brewster; as much as she disliked the man, and as much as some pieces of the Star-Crossed puzzle fit his profile, she couldn’t quite see him as a coldblooded killer who had spent years planning this series of brutal slayings. She supposed smart-ass Ross could be stupid enough to get caught in some kind of gang killing, but even then she didn’t see him as the trigger man. He had a problem with authority, yeah, but Alvarez would bet that Ross DeGrazio would rather run from the police than provoke, taunt, or toy with them. He just didn’t have the 354
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balls. As for Brewster, he might kill in the line of duty or as an act of passion, as was proven by his attack on Jeremy Strand. But Alvarez couldn’t believe either of them had the time, effort, or dedication to have plotted and carried out these killings. As much as she’d worried about Brewster earlier, it just didn’t fit.
Besides, she couldn’t prove that either man had means, motive, and opportunity.
And though she was relieved to knock Brewster off the suspect list, it only meant that Star-Crossed was someone else.
Someone who would love to see her chasing her tail or arresting the wrong suspect, someone who thought he was so much smarter than the police. We’ll see about that, bastard. Don’t count me out yet. Chapter Twenty-Six
Santana shut the stable door and eyed the sky warily. Another blizzard was bearing down on the Bitterroots. Another night had passed with no news of Pescoli.
And he still hadn’t heard one damned word from Chilcoate. Not one.
The guy wasn’t returning his calls, nor had he bothered to phone and give Santana an update. It hasn’t even been twelve hours and here you are jumping out of your skin. Give the guy some time, he told himself.