by Lisa Jackson
More stomping.
No other voice.
Heavy footsteps resounded along with another sound, a quick click-click scratching sound.
She held herself up by the edge of his big table. The metal crutch was tucked under her arm, her fingers wrapped around the handgrip so hard her knuckles showed white, the handle of the knife hidden in her other palm.
Sweat beaded on her forehead though the temperature in the room was cold.
Okay, bastard, she thought, mentally gearing up for a fight. I’m ready.
He appeared, big as life, in the archway between the kitchen and living area. Tall and rugged-looking, he was dressed head to toe in black ski gear as he filled the archway between the kitchen and living area.
All the spit dried in her mouth.
“Well, look who’s up,” he said without a trace of a smile. Was he talking to her or whoever was with him?
“If it isn’t Sleeping Beauty.”
Chapter Ten
Alvarez offered the woman a cup of coffee and tried to keep her expression bland, as if she believed anything Grace Perchant, the ghost whisperer, had to say. She was alone with the thin, pale woman in the interrogation room, but both of them knew other people were observing the conversation on the other side of the mirror. More were watching the monitor, as the interview was being recorded. “You know, we’re sorry to bother you again. You’ve been a big help, but we just want to make certain we have all the facts straight, that we haven’t missed anything.”
Grace didn’t so much as nod. Sometimes it was hard to tell if she even heard a person. Pescoli always said it was because she had so many dead people screaming inside her head, she couldn’t hear the living. But then, that was sarcastic, never-believe-anything-that-isn’t-hard-fact Pescoli. “Tell me again about finding the car.”
Grace Perchant sat in the straight-backed chair at the table, ignored the steaming cup and stared up with the palest green eyes Alvarez had ever seen. “I already told the other detectives. I was walking my dog, Bane, and I looked down into the canyon and saw the car. It glinted through the snow. Is that so hard to understand?”
“No, I guess not.”
“And would it be too much trouble to get a cup of tea?” Grace asked. “Coffee’s not good for you.”
Alvarez nodded as she took a swig of her own detrimental brew. “Just a sec.”
“With lemon and honey.”
“We don’t have—”
“Fine.” One arched eyebrow lifted a fraction further as Grace said, “Plain will do. Herbal would be better….” Then catching the skepticism in Alvarez’s gaze, she amended her request. “Anything will be fine.”
“Good.” Alvarez scooted her chair back, walked through the door. It shut behind her as she met Pescoli in the hall outside.
“I heard,” Pescoli said, rolling her eyes. “What does she think this is, damned Starbucks?”
“She’s Grace Perchant,” Alvarez said, as if that explained everything.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get her tea. I hate to agree with Chandler but it’s hell to think Grace and Ivor might be our star witnesses in this case.”
If it ever gets to trial, Alvarez thought and hated herself for her doubts as Pescoli headed down the hall toward the break room. Alvarez slipped back inside. “It’ll be just a couple of minutes.” She slid into her chair. “You were telling me about being out there at September Creek.”
Grace nodded, her graying blond hair moving against her shoulders as if it was nothing to be hiking through a blizzard.
“It was below freezing and snowing,” Alvarez said.
“Bane needed to go out.” Grace shrugged. “He’s part wolf; the cold doesn’t bother him. We take that route along the creek every other day or so.”
“What about you? Doesn’t the cold weather bother you?”
“Sometimes.” Grace looked directly at the mirror, as if she could see the sheriff and FBI agents beyond. “It’s often a situation of mind over matter.”
“Did you see anyone else out there?”
Grace shook her head. “No. As you pointed out it was freezing.”
“No other cars?”
Sighing, Grace folded her hands over the metal top of the table and leaned closer, her eerie eyes focusing hard on Alvarez. “If I told you what I saw out there you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
Her face was calm and without the least bit of guile. “Don’t patronize me, Detective. You know about me, that I see spirits.”
“And there were spirits out there?”
“They’re everywhere.” She smiled, her thin lips twisting a bit. “They don’t mind the cold.”
Was Grace for real?
“Did your dog act strangely? As if he saw anything?”
“He sniffed around, but no more than usual.”
There was a soft knock on the door and Alvarez opened it to find Joelle on the other side. She held a Styrofoam cup of hot water, a tea bag steeping within.
“We only had Earl Gray,” she said. “I think Grace likes those herbal calming ones that they serve over at the Java Bean, but we don’t have anything like that.” Joelle appeared worried, little lines threading between her eyebrows. Her glossed lips, the same exact shade as her jacket and slacks, pulled into a tight knot.
“It’ll be fine,” Alvarez said. “It’s only one cup. If she doesn’t like it, she’ll get over it.” She took the steaming cup from Joelle’s reluctant fingers and slipped back into the stark room.
Grace took a small sip and didn’t complain.
Good thing.
With a little prodding Grace told Alvarez the same story she had earlier, nearly verbatim. She hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary other than the wrecked car in the creek bed. “We were walking along the ridge road, and I could see it in the ravine.”
“You were on the road above?”
“Yes, and I saw the point where the car had gone over the edge, so I hurried back to the house and called. Fortunately the phones were still working. Then I tried to get back to the car myself, to get down the embankment and see if anyone was inside, but the deputy arrived before I did, coming in from the other side. He was in the area, I guess.”
That was right. So far so good. “So you can’t tell us anything else?”
“If I could I would,” Grace said simply, though her eyes darkened incredibly, her pupils widening as she stared at the detective.
Alvarez felt as if a cold, dark wind blew through her soul and it was all she could do to hold Grace’s stare and not look away. “Well…if you think of anything, let us know.” She pushed back her chair to end the interview. Quick as lightning, Grace reached across the table, knocking over Alvarez’s near-empty cup. Strong fingers wrapped around the detective’s wrist. “You’ll find him,” she vowed as the detective instinctively reached for her sidearm.
Concern etched the ghost whisperer’s face and Alvarez let her hand fall from her pistol. “Of course we will.” She carefully pulled her wrist away from Grace’s cold grasp. “The son of a bitch won’t get away with this.”
“What? The man the police are looking for? He’s not who I was talking about,” Grace said, her eyebrows elevating a fraction.
“Then…what?” Alvarez asked, but she knew, deep in her heart, that this woman to whom she’d never before spoken, could see into the darkest reaches of her heart.
“Don’t despair,” Grace said with a calm that Alvarez found eerie. “You’ll find him.”
From the other side of the one-way mirror Pescoli nearly dropped her cup of coffee. She’d been on her way to the door when Grace had grabbed Alvarez, but the sheriff had held her back.
“It’s okay,” he said, and she’d waited, watching the weird scene unfold. “What the hell was that all about?”
“With Grace,” Grayson said, staring through the one-way mirror, “you never know.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph. First Ivor I’ve-been-abducted-by-aliens Hicks as a c
ritical witness, and now a wolf-woman who speaks with ghosts.” Pescoli crushed her coffee cup in her fist and threw it into an almost-full trash can. “You know, Sheriff, I hate to say it, but I’m thinkin’ the odds are stacked against us.”
“Sleeping Beauty my ass.” Jillian glared at the man she’d decided was more her captor than savior.
He must’ve been six feet one or two and, bulked up in his ski gear, he looked all the more massive.
And strong.
And formidable.
At his side stood a black-and-white long-haired dog, some kind of spaniel mix, hackles stiff and raised. Its head was down, dark menacing eyes sparking with distrust.
“Is that dog going to attack me?”
“Not unless you come at it with the crutch.”
She considered putting the metal crutch down, but hearing the dog growl, decided against it.
“Just control him.”
“Not an animal lover?” His face was still hidden by the ski mask, but something registered in his movement, the easy manner as he turned to the dog. Amusement? Cruelty?
“Not if the animal is acting as if it wants to tear out my throat.”
“Harley? Hear that? Stand down.”
The dog growled.
“Great control.”
“Sit!” he said sharply and the dog placed his back end on the plank floorboards. But he didn’t let Jillian out of his sight.
“Better?” he asked.
Was he joking? Really? This whole situation was something out of a bad dream. For all she knew he could be a psycho of the worst kind, a killer. Hadn’t Ted Bundy, a notorious sexual predator and serial killer, been considered charming, good-looking and intelligent? Wasn’t one of the first things neighbors said about some of the worst murderers in history, “But he was such a nice guy”? Oh, there were killers who were outwardly crazy, or secretive or so weird that their psychosis was evident to those close to them from a young age, but the victims, those who didn’t know the killer intimately from childhood, thought only they were “odd” or “loners.” But that didn’t always hold true. And in this case she wasn’t about to trust her “savior,” not yet anyway.
“So I’m Sleeping Beauty, he or she”—Jillian pointed the rubber tip of her crutch at the spaniel mix—“is Harley.” The dog growled again. “So, that leaves you.”
“I’m Zane MacGregor, and, for the record, Harley’s a he.”
“How long have I been here, MacGregor?” she demanded.
“Three days.”
“Three days?” she repeated, horrified. She’d known, of course, that time had passed. But three days? She’d lost seventy-two hours of her life?
“Storms have been rolling in ever since. Roads are impassable. Electricity out. It’s a mess.”
She was stunned, still trying to piece together what had happened, while MacGregor took off his ski cap and mask and unwound a scarf that covered his neck. His hair, black, glossy and curling slightly, stuck up in weird-looking tufts, and three or maybe four days’ growth of whiskers covered what she thought was a tight, strong jaw. His eyes, beneath thick dark brows, were an intense shade of gray. “You plannin’ on smackin’ me with that?” he asked, nodding toward the crutch.
“Maybe.”
One of his thick eyebrows cocked, as if the idea was insane, as if he could rip the damned thing from her hands before she got in a blow. “Hear that, Harley? She’s going to try and whack me.”
The dog cocked his head, waiting for another command. One side of his face was black, the other white, his coat mottled and rough.
“Watch out, she might have it in for you, too,” MacGregor warned the dog as he walked to the fire, pulled the screen away and, on one knee, tossed in a few pieces of wood. Flames crackled and licked at the moss. The dog didn’t move. “How are you feeling?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. “I didn’t expect you to be up.”
“I needed to use the bathroom. And I feel like hell. I think I should be in a hospital.”
“I know you should.”
“Then why—?”
“Couldn’t get you to one. Believe me, I wanted to.” He glanced over his shoulder. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not really set up here as a hospital ward.” His gaze moved from her face to lower and she felt suddenly naked. He hitched his chin at her ankle. “You should be in bed.”
“Sounds like I’ve been in bed a while.”
“But you need to lie down, keep the ankle elevated, protect your ribs.”
“So now you’re a doctor?”
He grabbed a poker from a nearby stand and pushed the pieces of fir around until he was satisfied and the room was brighter, gold shadows moving against the walls. “Medic. First Gulf War. When I got out, I became an EMT for a while.”
“But you gave it up?”
He slid her a glance. “Until three days ago.” He seemed slightly irritated, but she didn’t care. For all she knew he was a lying dog. He then flashed her a smile that was surprisingly engaging. His teeth weren’t perfect, just the slightest bit crooked, enough to give him character, which, she thought, was probably an illusion.
Don’t trust him. Do not!
“Harley,” he said. “Let’s have dinner.”
The Lab mix, who had seemed so ferocious only minutes earlier, jumped to his feet and started prancing and heading to the kitchen, all the while keeping his head turned so that he could watch MacGregor as the big man walked through the archway. “Hungry?”
Harley gave out a loud, excited bark.
So much for the murderous guard dog.
“I thought so,” MacGregor said as Jillian inched along the table until she could see through the doorway and watch as he found a bag of dry dog food in the cupboard. He rattled the bag and Harley went into an exhilarated spin.
“What do you do, starve him?”
“Hardly.” MacGregor measured food into one of the two stainless-steel bowls that were on the floor by the back door, bowls she hadn’t noticed when she’d first explored the kitchen. “But don’t ask him. He’d eat twenty-four seven if I let him.”
Jillian made her way to the archway separating the rooms and brought the conversation back to information she wanted, information she needed. “So you brought me here because it was closer than a hospital or clinic. That means the accident happened nearby?”
“About a mile and a half or two miles west.” As the dog gobbled down his kiblets, MacGregor folded the top of the sack of dog food over itself, creased it carefully and returned it to the shelf, which was as neat as if he expected an inspection from his commanding officer. “The nearest town is Grizzly Falls. About ten miles in the other direction. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get out that far.” He bent down and picked up Harley’s water dish, then tossed out what remained in the bottom of the bowl and refilled it at the sink. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
“How could you possibly travel that far in the snow?”
“The same way I brought you here. By snowmobile.”
That she believed. She had a few splintered, jarring memories of the ride.
“So you live here,” she said. “In the middle of nowhere.”
He replaced the bowl on the floor. “I think a lot of Montanans might take offense to that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yep. You’re talking about God’s country.”
He was making light of the situation? When she was injured, trapped here with him and his damned dog, while a serial killer was on the loose and a blizzard raged outside?
He snagged a towel hanging from the stove and dried his hands. “I’m serious, you should lie down.”
Though she was tired, her face, chest and ankle all dull aches, she wasn’t ready to be shepherded back into the bedroom, not until she learned more. “I have a few questions first.”
“Shoot.”
The single word caused her heart to drop, but she tried to keep focused despite the pain in her body, despite the fact that this
stranger and his dog rattled her, made her nervous. “This place”—she motioned toward the interior with her free hand, nearly dropping the damned knife in the process but somehow holding onto the hilt, keeping the blade tucked up her sleeve—“is too far from a hospital, or clinic or any kind of civilization.”
“You wrecked in a pretty isolated part of the country.”
“Speaking of which,” she said, “I think my tire was shot.”
His head snapped up and his face was instantly tense. “Shot?”
The dog had finished eating and he also lifted his head, sensing the change in atmosphere, the sudden tension in his master. Harley turned intelligent, suspicious eyes in her direction.
Maybe she shouldn’t have told him; if he was the serial killer, she’d be better off playing dumb. But it was too late to call the words back. “I heard a rifle crack just a second before I lost control. It sounded like someone shot something—my tire, I think—because then the car went over the cliff and I kinda blacked out….”
MacGregor’s jaw became rock hard, he tossed the towel onto the counter. “You’re sure about that?”
“No, I’m not sure. That’s the trouble. I’m not sure of anything.” Tamping down her fear, her urge to break down all together, she added, “And the truth of the matter is, I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t know you from Adam and I end up here alone with you…or does anyone else live with you?”
“Harley.”
“Well…great.” She paused, then decided if she was in for a penny, she was in for a pound. “I think I remember that several women were killed up here. It made the news in Seattle.”
He nodded, a muscle working in his jaw.
Had she hit a nerve with him? Above the throbbing in her ankle and chest and the headache returning behind her eyes, she wasn’t as sharp as she should be, couldn’t read the unspoken innuendoes. Was he angry? Or afraid? A little of both?
“I haven’t been into town in a few days, obviously,” he said, making his way into the living area again, the dog on his heels. She moved out of the archway as quickly as possible and was surprised when Harley passed without so much as looking at her. “All communication has been out, but yeah, there have been women found out in the wilds, tied up to trees, I believe. Their cars were located separately, wrecked, a distance from where the bodies were discovered.”