by JoAnn Ross
Her eyes cleared. Narrowed to slits. “Are you trolling for business, Doctor?”
“Of course not.” A tinge of red stained his cheekbones; his jaw tensed. “I was merely attempting to ease your pain, Mrs. Gallagher.”
“No offense, Doctor, but there’s only one thing that will begin to make my life worth living again.” She leaned forward, giving Will an up close and personal view of cleavage that would put the Tetons to shame. “I want you to find the monster who did this, Sheriff.”
“I intend to.”
“Good. And when you do, I want to cut his fucking balls off with a rusty knife.”
28
In room 336 at the Red Wolf Lodge, Fyodor Radikorsky was throwing clothes into an Olympics duffel bag.
A hockey game was playing on TV. The Toronto Maple Leafs had just scored against the Colorado Avalanche when the network broke in with a news bulletin about former champion figure skater Erin Gallagher’s death.
He took another hit from a silver flask, savoring the full-bodied vodka burn as he considered what to do about this latest development in a situation that had seemed so easy in the beginning. But had gotten so fucked-up.
A fatalist to the core, Fyodor was not, as Americans were so fond of saying, going to waste time crying over spilled milk.
Still, to quote another popular Western bromide, it was time to get out of Dodge before the sheriff showed up at his door.
* * * * *
“Well,” Desiree said after Susan Gallagher and her driver/rock left the office. “Keira Knightley and Charlize Theron and all those other actresses who might be Oscar nominees this year may as well not bother shopping for a kick-ass dress, because we’ve just witnessed the award-winning performance.”
“You didn’t believe her?” Will asked with a sardonically arched brow.
“Hey, even if I wasn’t creeped out by the stuff I read about her and her kid, I'd still think the woman is a piece of work.”
Will couldn’t help but agree. He glanced over at Drew Hayworth. “What’s your professional take on the situation?”
“Obviously I’d need more time to make a professional diagnosis. But I certainly didn’t pick up on any real grief that needed counseling.”
“Anyone believe that the girl was going to return to skating?”
“Only in her mother’s sicko, greedy dreams,” Desiree said. “Did you see her bag? It was Chanel. I saw that online for fifteen hundred bucks.”
“Didn’t the gravy train stop when her daughter walked away from skating?” Will asked. “Maybe that’s what had her moved to tears.”
“There’s undoubtedly still some endorsement money coming in she’s managed to glom on to. But that’s probably what had her come to town. To pressure her kid to get back onto the ice.”
“She could’ve honestly been trying to reconcile for family reasons,” Will suggested, not believing it for a moment, but feeling the need to explore all possibilities.
“If that woman has a heart, it’s stainless steel,” Drew Hayworth said. Will figured part of the banked anger in his voice came from the way he’d been personally and professionally attacked. “The only loss she’s suffering from is the loss of an easy income and the reflected fame that comes with being the mother of America’s Ice Princess.”
“There’s always the insurance,” Sam, who’d thus far remained silent, offered.
“Shit.” Desiree slapped her head, immediately jumping onto that idea. “I should’ve thought of that first off. Considering murder for money is one of the top three motives for homicide.”
“Do we even know there was a policy written on Erin Gallagher?” Will asked Sam. “Did you find any legal papers in her apartment?”
“Not a thing.” Sam shrugged. “But the girl was a financial asset. She may have only won silver in the last Olympics four years ago, but a lot of people thought she should’ve won the gold.”
“Didn’t I read something about her mother and coach claiming collusion?” Will recalled.
“It was more than just a claim. There was solid evidence of a scoring fix.”
They all stared at Sam. “You watch figure skating?” Desiree asked in obvious disbelief.
“I read about it in the paper, back when it happened,” Sam responded, somewhat defensively, Will thought, as if Sam didn’t want people to think he might ever watch such a chick sport. “Endorsement-wise, not winning gold might’ve been the best thing that could’ve happened to her, since she picked up a huge sympathy vote. Before she walked away from skating this year, you couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing her pitching something. My initial point was that most people, especially ones as into conspicuous consumption as that mother seems to be, insure their assets.”
“That’s cold,” Trace Honeycutt, who’d been standing at the back of the room soaking in the murder discussion, said. He colored a bit as every eye in the place turned from Sam toward him. “Well, it is.”
“Don’t look now, Honeycutt,” Desiree said, “but with the exception of temper-fueled rage killings, murder usually is damn cold. And whoever killed Erin Gallagher has a stone where their heart should be.”
“There are Native American tribes who believe that the conscience is a three-cornered stone residing in the middle of the chest,” Drew Hayworth volunteered. “Each time you do something wrong, the stone turns. The more wrong you do, the more the stone wears down, until finally the edges are completely worn off, then the stone is smooth and no longer hurts when it turns.”
“Well, if that’s the case, Erin Gallagher’s killer’s walking around with a stone as smooth as glass,” Desiree said.
Will couldn’t disagree. “All the more reason to get him before he decides to branch out.”
“Why don’t I run over to the lodge and ask Susan Gallagher flat out if she had a policy on her daughter,” Desiree suggested. “Maybe the element of surprise will cause her to spill the beans.”
“She didn’t seem to like you very much,” Sam said.
“Boy, and doesn’t that break my heart?”
“Sam’s got a point,” Will decided. “She’s going to be less likely to be on the defensive if we send someone she can better relate to.”
“Honeycutt,” Sam and Desiree said at the same moment.
“Great minds,” Will said.
“You want me to question her?” the deputy asked. “Alone?”
“Gotta get your feet wet sometime.”
Will also decided to get Desiree on the computer and phone and start trying to track down anyone who might know about a policy having been written. Not that it would be easy to find anyone even working this week, but sometimes you got lucky.
“I won’t let you down, Sheriff. Though,” Honeycutt tacked on, “Mrs. Gallagher sure didn’t seem big enough to physically slice anyone’s throat. Even someone as tiny as her daughter was.”
“Ah, but she’s got Chad,” Desiree pointed out. “Who obviously provides a helluva lot more personal service than merely driving Susan Gallagher around the valley. And,” she tacked on significantly, “conveniently happens to have a wandering eye.”
“Not that you’d take advantage of any man’s weakness,” Will said drily.
“Hell, no.” She winked and fluffed her wavy cloud of dark hair. “I already agreed, when we were off getting Her Highness tea, to stop by the lodge for a drink on the way home. I’ll change into some civvies, maybe flash a little cleavage, see what good old Chad volunteers.”
“And how is that not entrapment?” Drew asked.
“All’s fair in the war on crime,” Desiree countered. “Besides, the Supreme Court allows cops to dupe a suspect to get to the truth.”
“Convenient,” Drew murmured.
Desiree flashed a brilliant, expectant smile. “Isn’t it, just?”
29
The man who was once the boy raised by wolves was not happy. He’d prepared so carefully, seeking out his hunting ground, choosing his kill site, stalking his prey, learn
ing her routine, making copious notes of her every behavior, visualizing the kill at least a thousand times until he could probably have slit her slender white throat in his sleep. He’d planned for every contingency. But one.
The unpredictability of human nature.
Frustration bubbled close to the surface. He took a deep breath. Another. Reminded himself that anger clouded the mind. Dulled the senses.
Something he could not, would not allow.
All right. So things with the girl hadn’t gone entirely according to plan. A good hunter improvised. Adapted to his situation while staying cool. Calm.
And most important of all, he stayed focused.
But, of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy his work.
As he raced the black snowmobile across the fields of powdery white snow and through the still and deeply shadowed woods, he imagined how his prey would react when he first cornered her.
She’d be startled. Her amber eyes would go wide. Like a doe in the headlights. A clichéd turn of phrase, perhaps. But one that suited this situation perfectly.
Perhaps she’d be irritated that he’d frightened her. Embarrassed that she’d revealed her fear.
She might even open her lovely red mouth to scream. They usually did. But he was faster, able to slice through her larynx before she could let out so much as a squeak.
One possible problem: he doubted she’d be as passive as Erin Gallagher.
She wouldn’t just go limp—and hadn’t that been a pain in the ass, having to hold the girl up when she couldn’t stand on her own two feet?—and allow her throat to be slashed to the bone.
No. Tonight’s prey was, while not nearly his equal, still a fighter. She would not go gently into that good night.
But go she would.
30
The sun was riding high in the sky when Faith returned home from the studio, planning to finally try to catch a few hours’ sleep before having to return to KWIND for Talking After Midnight.
The drive from the station to her house had taken her by the courthouse, and she wasn’t surprised to see that there were even more news crews than there’d been this morning.
She certainly didn’t envy Will. Always before she’d been on the other side of a news situation, trying to extract information from cops and public officials who were, more often than not, frustratingly closemouthed.
Now, forced to see this situation through his eyes, she realized how difficult his job was. Which was, she assured herself, the only reason she hadn’t leaked Josh’s name yet.
It had nothing to do with the fact that she’d become emotionally involved with both father and son.
“And if you believe that, I’ve got a ski resort on Maui to sell you,” she muttered as she pulled into the garage.
The good news was that there was no sign of Sal.
The bad news was the red light flashing on her cordless telephone’s base unit.
One of the calls was from Fred Handley, actually congratulating her on scooping the other news organizations and suggesting that if she played her cards right and continued to stay ahead of the pack, he might consider giving her Brian Kendall’s spot, now that Brian— or, as Handley put it, “that disloyal, lying weasel sumbitch”—had accepted a job in Boise.
Two calls were from phone companies wanting her to switch her long distance, and three were from Sal Sasone, assuring her that she might be able to run, but she could not hide.
“I’m at the Red Wolf Lodge,” he growled into the phone. “And there’s no point in continuing to try to hide from me, because in case you haven’t noticed, sweetheart, this place only has one stoplight. You’re not going to be that hard to find. And I’m not going away until I settle what I’ve come here to do.”
She did not doubt him.
Part of her wanted to run as far and as fast as she could. The trouble with that idea was that she’d already tried it. Unfortunately, what had once made Sal a helluva good cop, and more recently, she suspected, also made him an effective bounty hunter, was that the man was indefatigable. He’d always reminded her of Marshal Sam Gerard, Tommy Lee Jones’s character from The Fugitive.
He simply would not give up the chase.
She’d never foreseen that what she’d once considered his best attribute could turn so deadly.
“Damn you, Sal Sasone,” she muttered. “And the horse you rode in on.”
She went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, in the narrow stall next to the claw-footed bathtub, stripped off her clothes, and stood beneath the pounding hot water, trying to ease out the stress and tension that was tangling with her exhaustion.
She shampooed her hair, then squeezed some liquid soap from the dispenser. When she imagined the hands smoothing it over her body were Will’s, not hers, an entirely different, delicious tension uncurled inside her.
They were no longer the same people. Their lives had drastically changed since that seemingly halcyon Savannah summer. But some things were still the same.
Will Bridger was still able to throw her emotional equilibrium out of kilter with a single look. He could still leave her shaken with a touch, desperate with a kiss.
And she still wanted him more than any other man she’d ever met.
Or, Faith feared, would ever meet.
So where did they go from here?
She’d have to tell him. About the past she’d been so diligent in hiding these past years that he hadn’t even discovered her secret, shameful past back in Savannah. Of course, he hadn’t known where to look. Nor had any reason to go back that far. But now she knew he was an intensely thorough detective. Given a bit more time…
She rubbed her eyes, which, from being up all these hours, felt as if they had sand in them.
You’ll have to tell him the truth, her conscience warned. Soon.
“I know.”
Now she was talking to herself. The ironic thing was that having fallen madly, impossibly in love with him, she’d been planning to tell him the entire, unvarnished ugly truth that night in Savannah.
She twisted off the water with more strength than necessary, wishing she could turn off her guilt so easily.
“Soon.”
Fyodor Radikorsky had just turned off the television when there was a hard, determined rapping on the door.
Surprised that room service had arrived so soon with the elk burger and beer he’d ordered shortly before the news announcement, he went to open the door. No point in wasting good food, and he could always eat the burger on the way to the airport.
“Khuy. ” He ground out the Russian curse on a harsh gargle as he pressed his eye up to the judas hole and viewed the person standing in the hallway.
And wasn’t this just what he fucking needed? Deciding that the Russian proverb about the tongue always returning to the sore tooth was all too true, he opened the door.
Steam was practically pouring from Susan Gallagher’s ears as she stormed into the room and, without any warning, slammed a knee upward between his legs.
A lightning jolt of pain shot from Fyodor’s groin to scorch into his brains. Like a tree downed by a lumberman’s ax, he fell to the floor, where he writhed atop the Indian rug, struggling to extract his balls from his tonsils where they’d lodged.
His stomach roiled, his head felt as if the top had blown off.
The room blurred.
Tilted.
“What the fucking hell have you done now?” his nemesis demanded.
She was standing over him like a blond avenging angel. But not one who’d ever reign in heaven. No, from what he’d witnessed over the past decade, this vicious, ice-hearted female had been created for hell.
“That’s what I get.” She pulled her leg back, then kicked his ass. The wildfire raging through his groin prevented him from fighting back. “Trusting something this important to a fucking brain-sodden alkie!”
Although he outweighed her by a hundred pounds, all he could do was curl into a fetal position and pray for
mercy.
Not that Susan Gallagher knew the meaning of the word.
He screamed when another kick grazed his knee. Retched. Then vomited atop her shiny black boots. “Dammit, now look what you’ve done! These are brand-new Jimmy Choos!”
Still curled into a tight ball on the floor, he watched, unable to move as the soiled boot pulled back. Screeched like a skinned cat as the needle-sharp pointed toe scored a direct hit to the kidneys. He knew, if he survived the attack, he’d be pissing blood for a month.
A moose-shaped lamp with a heavy wood and iron base stood on an end table. She yanked the cord from the wall, snatched the lamp up, and held it over her head. “I know you killed my daughter, you fucking Russian pervert!”
As the lamp came crashing down on his head, Fyodor escaped into a deep, dark void.
31
Faith had just gotten out of the shower when someone began knocking at the door. All too aware that she was naked beneath her thick flannel robe, she grabbed the red bag with the gun from the countertop, and went into the living room.
This time, given it was daylight, she looked out the window. When she saw Will standing on her porch, she felt a little zing of anticipation.
“Hi.” Was that breathless voice really hers?
“Hi.” He was holding the black felt Stetson he’d gone back to in his hands. “KWIND's been running your report about every two minutes. I wanted to thank you for holding back Josh’s name.” He was turning the hat in his hands. Could he possibly be as nervous as she was?
“You’re welcome. But I didn’t do it for you.” Well, not entirely.
“Whatever the reason, I’m grateful. It’s definitely going to have to come out, but I’d like to be able to give the vultures the killer when it does.”
“No one who knows Josh could believe he’d hurt a fly.”
“Well, yeah, but the thing is, he hasn’t been here long enough, and my less than spotless teenage reputation probably isn’t going to help.”