by Lisa Jackson
“Nobody’s that great,” Pescoli said under her breath before pushing back her chair and checking her e-mail again. Two of the four pawn shops within a sixty mile radius had responded. Neither one had Sheree Cantnor’s missing engagement ring.
Maybe it had been fenced. Or kept for a trophy by the killer. Or was still in Sheree’s attacker’s pocket a thousand miles from Grizzly Falls. It’s early yet, she told herself. If the maniac who’d done this had his wits about him, he’d wait, but if he needed money fast, for instance in order to score drugs, then he might try to get cash for the ring ASAP.
Then why leave the earrings? Did he know they weren’t’t valuable? And why hack off her finger instead of just yanking the ring off ?
Because robbery isn’t the motive.
Alvarez was right. It was personal somehow. Cutting off the finger was making a statement to the victim or someone else.
Pescoli glanced down at her own engagement ring and twisted it a little, thinking hard. The earrings bothered her, but she told herself that they were just lucky the sicko hadn’t sliced off the woman’s ears and stolen them along with the fake diamond studs. Would he have known they were of little value? How? Not unless he was an expert or Sheree, or someone else, had told him so.
Despite the fact that Sheree was “beloved by all,” Pescoli wondered who might hate her so much that they wanted to torture her before killing her. Or, had the severing of the digit been postmortem? The case was troubling, that was for sure.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the case file Jeremy had hauled down on Bart Grayson. “Later,” she said to the box of notes and evidence reports. Hattie’s wild theories about some connection between the Grayson brothers’ deaths would just have to wait.
Pescoli had enough on her plate, personally and professionally, to last a couple lifetimes.
Chapter 13
Ryder sat in his truck, not running the heater, staring through the windshield and falling snow at the Midway Diner across the street. He’d parked in the shadows, avoiding the pools of light from the street lamps, and every once in a while he turned on the engine long enough to clear the snow from the glass.
It had taken him a few days to find her, but he’d done his homework, whittled down his options by focusing on job opportunities that didn’t require too much of a background check, and rooms for rent around the area. He’d also checked out Cade Grayson, who was already involved with another woman, one who had been married to his brother Bart, a victim of a suicide. Ryder wasn’t really surprised. Cade Grayson was a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy, though taking up with his dead brother’s wife seemed low, even for the likes of him. So far, it seemed Anne-Marie wasn’t in the picture.
Yet.
After learning that this particular restaurant had advertised for a waitress about a week earlier and the job had been filled, Ryder started watching the place. Just today, he’d caught a glimpse of the new hire through the windows. The pudgy waitress with the blond hair and full lips didn’t look much like the woman he’d known in New Orleans.
His jaw slid to the side and he had to give her mental kudos for the transformation. The new woman appeared matronly, at least ten, maybe fifteen years older than Anne-Marie Calderone.
Then again she was a mistress of disguise, something he’d learned the hard way. It had been a slow realization on his part that the woman he was with was more fantasy than reality, but by then, he’d been caught in the pure heat of her, willing to let inaccuracies slide, uncaring that the facts didn’t add up.
Idiot, he thought and flicked a glance at the rearview mirror, catching sight of his own gaze. Troubled hazel eyes glared back at him.
The restaurant was closing down. He could tell as the final patrons were leaving, the parking lot thinning out.
Lights were dimming in the diner, and the SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED sign was visible. Ten minutes passed. He flipped on the wipers again, then cut the engine. Another five minutes and then he saw her, the woman he thought was Anne-Marie, as she headed to an SUV, an older model Chevy Tahoe. He watched her climb inside. The headlights flashed on, the engine sparked to life.
He waited as she drove out of the parking lot, then pulled out when another car was between them, following a couple blocks behind.
The streets of the godforsaken little town were nearly empty, only a few cars moving cautiously around corners or along the storefronts. He didn’t bother with headlights until he was certain that, if she had been looking in her rearview, she wouldn’t notice him joining traffic about the same time. He kept his truck behind the car between them, a Volkswagen Beetle that had seen better days. When the Bug turned a corner and only the snowy street stretched between their vehicles, he lagged back until she, too, turned off, heading out of town away from the businesses and through a residential district with widely spaced houses on large lots. At one stoplight, two vehicles turned onto the street behind her, pulling between them. One was a bulky delivery truck and he couldn’t see around it for a time, but it turned onto a side street. The other was a smaller compact that didn’t block his view and he could easily keep her in his sights.
Eventually the compact turned onto a residential street but Anne-Marie kept on, leaving the residential district and turning onto a county road that wound its way past farms with large snow-covered fields and into the hills where the farmland gave way to wooded foothills.
He smiled to himself. For once, rather than hide in the throng of a city where she could get lost in a crowd, Anne-Marie had chosen isolation. Her mistake. Though he had to slow down and make certain the curtain of snow between them hid his vehicle, sometimes losing sight of her, it was still better that she was away from prying eyes.
Few cars drove in the opposite direction, nor did he see a glimpse of headlights in his side mirrors. The snowfall became thicker, visibility lessening. As he crested a rise, he caught a glimpse of red taillights, burning brighter for a second, then the road dipped again and they disappeared. When he reached that next hillock, the lights were nowhere to be seen. He hit the gas and drove a little faster, hoping to close the distance, to catch another glimpse of her. As he rounded a corner, he expected to see a hint of red through the thick snow, but there was nothing. Just curves and bends making it difficult to speed in that section of the forest. Gritting his teeth, he pressed down on the accelerator, feeling his tires slip a little as the truck rounded the sharper curves. Still, no hint of her Tahoe.
He drove another four miles, but had the sinking sensation that she’d gotten away.
“Damn it,” he muttered, traveling another mile even faster, his tires struggling for purchase. Finally, he realized he’d lost her. He ground his teeth. Rather than drive endlessly on the road, he turned around in a wide spot in the road and with the wipers flicking off the snow, retraced his tracks. No cars met him on the way back. The woods were dense, only a few lanes veering off the main road. He slowed when he thought he’d come near the spot where he’d seen her brake lights flash, squinting into the darkness, searching the snow pack.
The ditches on the sides of the road were buried, brush barely visible in the mounds of icy white powder. There were no mailboxes. He’d thought he’d lost her for good when he noticed a drift and then another, realizing that they were actually ruts in the snow, fresh tire tracks, with only a trace of fresh snow covering them.
Bingo, he thought but kept driving, making note of the landmarks, a split tree across the road, the snag knifing upward, and a huge boulder about a hundred feet closer. He also pressed the button on his odometer so he could track the distance to his room at the River View, then he made a note of the location on his GPS and cell phone. He’d come back once he was sure that she was at work. There was no reason to confront her now.
Not until he was certain that she was, indeed, Anne-Marie.
He had work to do.
“I really have to go,” Pescoli said. She was lying in Santana’s arms, his naked body spooned agai
nst hers in the downy folds of a sleeping bag in the master bedroom of their new, unfinished house. The musky scent of their recent lovemaking still hung in the air and perspiration was evaporating on her skin.
He gazed out the French doors to the night beyond. It was peaceful there. Serene. Snow falling, the lake a mirror, the world and all its problems seeming far away. “I’d argue with you, but I’ve tried that before.”
“And?”
“I’m not saying you’re mule-headed . . .”
“But,” she prodded.
He chuckled deep in his chest, kissed the back of her head.
“So you are saying it.”
“Maybe.”
Twisting in the bag so that she faced him, she said, “So . . . there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Shoot.”
His eyes, dark with the night, held hers. Unflinching. His lips had twisted into that sexy smile that had a way of burrowing into her heart.
“I’m pregnant.” She let the words hang in the air and the silence was suddenly deafening.
He was still as stone. “You’re kidding.”
“As serious as I’ve been about anything in my life.” Clearing her throat, she added, “I haven’t been to the doctor yet, but I took an in-home test a while back and then, of course, three more. They all turned out positive. We’re going to have a baby.”
His gaze searched her face and she knew he still didn’t believe her. They’d been lovers for years and had always been careful. Though they’d never discussed children, the unspoken understanding was that they weren’t going to be parents, at least for the present. All that had changed, of course. For a second, he didn’t say a word. She was aware she was holding her breath and her heart clutched.
Finally, he said tautly, “You mean it?”
“I wouldn’t make this kind of bad joke. I’m having a baby; it’s a fact. I know it’s not ideal, but it happened. I didn’t plan it, but I realize some people aren’t cut out to be parents and—”
“Whoa. Wait a sec. Give me a minute to catch up. Okay?” He was staring at her in wonder. “You’re for real?”
“Yes. For real. Near as I can tell, I’m due late summer, or probably early fall.”
“I thought you didn’t want any more kids.” He pulled her into a sitting position, the sleeping bag falling open.
“I don’t know how I feel. My kids are nearly grown and though it’s been great, it’s also been a pain and now . . . just when they’re about out of the house . . . to start all over? With diapers and breast-feeding and late night feedings, and then toilet training and preschool and bratty friends and snooty mothers, most of whom are fifteen years younger than me?” She shivered and pulled the sleeping bag over her bare shoulders.
He froze. “Are you saying you don’t want the baby?”
“No, no, of course not! But you and I never discussed kids. You had a hard enough time getting me to say I’d marry you, and now we’re talking about sleepless nights and colic and teething and bottles, then baby food. It’s been so long since I’ve been through it, it’s probably all changed.”
A slow smile was spreading across his jaw, his teeth white against his skin in the half-light, his arms surrounding her more tightly. “You’re sure?”
“Four pregnancy tests. Four. I wasn’t going to tell you until I was certain.”
He suddenly grabbed her shoulders and kissed her again. Hard this time. “This,” he said once he lifted his head, “is the best damn news I’ve ever had.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She held him at arm’s length. “Honestly? I just want to make sure. If you don’t see yourself as a father, if this isn’t what you had planned for your life . . . Raising kids is a major responsibility, and I—”
“What do I look like?” He was grinning like a fool.
Her heart soared. “Happy?”
“Very happy. God, Pescoli, I’m stoked. What do I have to do to show you, run outside naked, whooping in the snow?”
“That I’d like to see,” she said.
He kissed her, his arms wrapping around her shoulders and dragging her close. Sighing, she let her worries slide away.
“We need to get married,” he said. “Soon.”
“Don’t worry, my father’s not around and I don’t even know if he ever owned a shotgun. It’s not as if this is the first time this happened. You’d think by now that I would know how to keep this from happening.”
“You do.”
“What?” She hit his chest.
“I’m just saying that at some level we both wanted this without saying so, and we became less vigilant. And I’m glad. I love you,” he added gently.
“Hmmm,” she said, mollified. “Wait until I’m eight months pregnant and big as a whale or when we’re at a soccer game for Little Santana and they think I’m the kid’s grandma.”
“Football, and you’ll be the sexiest damn old lady rooting on the sidelines.”
“Nice,” she mocked.
“I’ve always had a thing for older women.”
“You’re digging yourself a deeper and deeper hole, you know.”
“Why don’t we elope?” he suggested. “This weekend.”
“Nope. I still have to tell my kids. Once you have your own, you’ll understand. I hope. And I don’t want to leave until after Grayson’s funeral. That’s a week from tomorrow.”
“Immediately after, then. Las Vegas. No arguing.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, you know. The first couple times I said ‘I do’ didn’t turn out all that great.”
“Third time’s a charm.”
“What an optimist.” But she was smiling.
“Come on, Regan. Take a chance on me. On us. You’ve already said, ‘yes,’ and are wearing the ring again—glad to see it—so let’s just do this thing.” He was so sincere, her heart nearly melted.
“It’s a matter of timing, that’s all.” She thought about the cases that were outstanding, especially Sheree Cantnor’s murder, then decided she, too, deserved a life. After all, she was going to be a mother again. “Just let me get through the funeral and take care of a few things, including telling my kids, then . . . then it’s a go.” She said the words and felt a little trill of excitement. Or was it trepidation?
“I’m holding you to it.” His grin was a devilish slash of white.
“All right, Santana,” she finally agreed and he gathered her close. Nose to nose, they smiled at each other in the darkness.
The next morning, Ryder waited in the snow flurries outside the Midway Diner until he saw the Tahoe drive into the customer lot at the front of the building. The SUV bounced a little at the curb where the snow was piled high, then disappeared beyond the building to the employee parking area around back. It was early, not quite six and still dark outside, but he recognized Anne-Marie through the glass as she appeared inside the restaurant a few minutes later. Her wig was in place as was the extra padding, hiding her figure enough that she had a little trouble tying her apron around her thickened waist.
Itching to move, to sneak to her vehicle and plant a small GPS device, he forced himself to wait. He’d seen the owner, two waitresses, and a couple of cooks show up, then finally another girl who worked as a busboy. Usually a kid in a souped-up Accord was the last to arrive and Ryder wanted them all inside before he started near the Tahoe.
A few minutes later, he heard the sound of after-factory exhaust pipes ripping through the winter air as the kid wheeled into the lot, his car nearly taking flight over the berm of ice and snow, the bass from his radio so loud it throbbed.
That should be it, Ryder thought. He gave the kid five minutes to get into the parking lot. Still, he had to be careful. The security lamp was illuminated and with all of the snow, the darkness was incomplete. Nonetheless, once he caught a visual of the Honda’s driver tying on an apron and working at the service counter, Ryder climbed out of his truck. Staying to the shadows, he walked down
a side street, then through an alley, and landed at the Dumpster behind the restaurant.
The back door was closed, thankfully. With one eye on the building, he slipped between the parked cars and tucked the tiny device on the undercarriage of Anne-Marie’s SUV.
Headlights flashed, the beams washing over the Dumpster.
He froze, his heartbeat accelerating. For a second, he thought he’d missed an employee and would get caught.
Crap. How would he explain himself?
Fortunately, the beams disappeared quickly and he realized that the flash of illumination was from a vehicle turning into the front lot, a customer who’d shown up before the diner was open.
About to leave, he took a step toward the alley when the back door of the diner opened suddenly.
Ryder ducked down, hiding behind the Dumpster, certain he’d been seen. Damn!
Footsteps trudged through the snow.
“Shit, fuck, damn! Goddamn bitch,” a male voice growled as the lid of the trash bin creaked open. Then, a falsetto voice, “Marlon, take out the garbage. Marlon, get your butt in here. Marlon, do this. Marlon do that!” Thud. Something landed on the metal bottom, then the lid slammed down so forcefully it clanged and the entire Dumpster shuddered. “Fuckin’ goddamn bitch,” he said again.
Ryder didn’t so much as move a muscle. Getting found out wouldn’t be good.
“Wish I could throw your scrawny ass out with the trash!”
Noiselessly, barely breathing, Ryder waited, listening hard as snow collected on his shoulders and hat. He heard Marlon’s heavy footsteps thump through the snow and fade away, then the sound of the back door creaking open to slam shut again. He held fast, mentally counting to thirty before he peeked over the top edge of the Dumpster to assure himself he was alone.