by Lisa Jackson
“What’re you looking for?”
“Whatever’s out there. The storm let up last night.”
“You hear something? See anything?”
“Nothing I shouldn’t.” But his gaze returned to the window. “It’s clear enough that I figure this is our shot. We might just get out of here.”
“Really?” She hardly dared believe him as she pulled herself into a sitting position, wincing a little from the pain in her ribs.
“We’ll see. How’re you feeling?”
“Compared to what?”
His lips twitched. “To normal.”
“Oh, well.” She shook her head. “Not there yet. But I think I’m good enough to ride a snowmobile, if that’s what you’re talking about. I mean, I’ve got a serious case of cabin fever.” She thought about her mother, who had to be worried sick about her. Even her sister, Dusti, was probably wondering what happened to her. And then there was her cat, left for days with the neighbor. And her work. She pushed herself into an upright position and onto her feet too quickly. Pain ricocheted through her ankle. Sucking her breath through her teeth, she almost yelped. “Damn it all to hell!”
In three swift strides he crossed the room and grabbed her, a strong arm quickly around her shoulders for support, his body rigid and stiff, a brace. “Hey,” he said softly, his breath warm against the back of her head. “You okay?”
From his rug near the fire, Harley lifted his head and gave off a soft, disturbed “woof.”
“No,” she snapped, her patience dissolving in an instant. She was angry at herself and her damned body and the fact that she was noticing how decidedly male he was. A tiny bit of her mind reminded her it had been a long while since she’d been this close to a man, felt a male touch. “No, I’m not okay with being stuck here in the middle of no-damned-where with a sprained ankle, cracked ribs, bruises up the wazoo. Trapped in a cabin without electricity or phones with a stranger I know nothing, and I mean nothing, about.” From the corner of her eye she noticed Harley starting to rouse. “Not to mention a dog who hates me.”
“I don’t think Harley hates—”
She turned so that she could look him squarely in his flinty eyes. “Oh, and let’s not forget we think there might be a maniac on the loose, one who shot my car and forced me off the road. So, no, I’m not okay. Not even close to anything resembling okay. In fact, I’m definitely not okay at all.”
“All right,” he said, but a flash of amusement registered in his eyes.
“You’re mocking me?”
“What? No.”
“You think it’s funny?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He was dead serious again, all humor erased.
“Good. Then let’s figure out how to get out of here.” She shifted a little, trying to put a bit of space between their bodies.
“I’m working on it.”
“Then work faster, would you?” she said, hearing the sting in her words.
“Doing what I can.”
“Oh hell.” She tried to calm down, but the truth of the matter was that she couldn’t. “Sorry to be such a bitch. I’m sick to my back teeth of lying down and just being cooped up here and playing the poor, injured victim. It is not my style and…Oh, for the love of God,” she said, trying to ignore the fact that his breath was ruffling her hair and she could actually smell the maleness of him. How stupid was that? “It’s…it’s just that I’ve got to do something, no, make that anything, to get out of here!” It was a struggle to ignore how steel-strong his forearm was, or that his scent was surprisingly clean and subtly male. She turned angry eyes up on him, as if it were his fault he was so sexual in a dark, almost frightening, way. “I’m going nuts. Completely loco. I…I have to get out of here! Today!”
One side of his mouth curved in that sexy, disarming smile she didn’t dare trust.
And in that moment she realized just how bad she must look. She hadn’t showered in days, her face was still bruised, though she was lucky that she hadn’t lost any teeth or broken her jaw. Well, lucky was relative, she supposed, but it was really ironic that when she looked her worst she found this stranger so ridiculously attractive. Which was just plain idiotic on her part.
Angry with herself and her female fantasies—fantasies that were certainly running amok—she pushed herself away from him. Once they weren’t touching, all sense of intimacy between them vanished, she balanced on her crutch and tried to pull herself together. She had to stay focused. They both did.
Yawning, Harley climbed to his feet, stretched and trotted over to MacGregor’s side.
“Time to go out?” MacGregor patted the dog’s head, then, with a final look at the ever-lightening landscape through the large window, said, “Come on, then. Out the back.” He snagged his jacket from its hook, then walked to the kitchen, the spaniel trotting eagerly behind him.
Watching as he disappeared through the archway separating the kitchen from the living area, Jillian tamped down her temper. She had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, or, in this case, the couch. It wasn’t his fault that she’d been in the accident.
Not his fault….
Then whose?
She shook her head. No one she knew. If MacGregor were a killer bent on hurting her, he would have done it already. True, there was no reason to restrain her, as she couldn’t walk far on her own, but he hadn’t so much as hurled a harsh word at her or even done anything that suggested he wanted to harm her. He’d left her with a loaded gun, hadn’t he?
She wondered about him, this person who had taken another man’s life. Why had he chosen to live here all alone? Who was the boy in the picture? Did he have a wife? A fiancé? A girlfriend tucked away somewhere? Or was he one of those true loners who didn’t need the companionship of other people, a mountain man?
Sighing, Jillian made her way to the bathroom. A bucket was filled with water, so she was able to use the toilet despite the fact that the pump wasn’t working. Each night, MacGregor filled several buckets with snow and dragged them into the house so that the snow would melt and they would have water to drink and use to cook and wash. Hot water was at a premium, heated in a pot on the woodstove or a kettle nestled in the coals of the fireplace. But with that water he’d cooked everything from instant oatmeal to pre-packaged soup and dehydrated casseroles. He’d even managed to bake cornbread in the oven of the woodstove. It had been burned around the edges, but Jillian had been so hungry, she’d devoured two thick slabs.
Despite their isolation MacGregor had been prepared and they hadn’t gone hungry. But still, the cabin was a long shot from a five-star hotel, or even a one-star hotel, for that matter.
Jillian glanced longingly at the tub shower and imagined how it would feel to have hot water cascading over her sore muscles or streaming through her hair as she shampooed it.
Now that would be pure heaven.
She imagined herself up to her neck in warm, scented water, candles burning, her skin soft with fragrant bath oil. She would close her eyes and…MacGregor would take a cloth and gently bathe her, his fingers grazing her skin, touching her breasts and lower, until her nipples would pucker and her breath would get lost deep in her throat as he worked over her slick skin….
She made a sound of frustration low in her throat.
What was she thinking?
Cabin fever was addling her brain, making her dream of sex with a virtual stranger.
Angry with herself, she hitched back to the kitchen, found a saucepan and dipped a little water from the pot simmering on the stove. Balancing the pan carefully, she returned to the adjoining bathroom, mixed a little cold water from a bucket into the hot water, then, using a cloth, washed her face, hands, then the parts of her body that felt the worst. Her hair would have to wait, though she did run a little water through it, using a bit of soap to work up a small lather, then rinsing it as best she could. A salon shampoo it wasn’t, but she felt better having clean hair. She finger-combed the tangles and found a brush to separate
the strands.
“Bitterroot beauty at its finest,” she told her reflection, where bruises still lingered beneath her skin.
Opening the door, she found MacGregor and the dog in the kitchen. He must’ve been there a while, as he was dressed only in his sweater and jeans, his jacket nowhere in sight.
“Someone cleaned up,” he observed.
“About time, don’t you think?”
He nodded. “You look good.”
She nearly laughed. “Compared to what? Quasimoto or Jabba the Hut or Mr. Hyde? Are you kidding?”
“Not kidding, especially compared to what you looked like when I found you in the car, after the accident.”
“Not a high standard, MacGregor.”
“Maybe not, but really, you look…a whole lot better. Now, I thought you could use some coffee,” he said as calmly as if they were an old married couple with nothing to do but read the newspaper together.
“Sounds like heaven.” As she heard herself, she inwardly cringed. Dear God, was she actually flirting with him? What in the world was wrong with her?
“You’d better reserve judgment until you’ve had a taste.” Opening a cupboard near the stove, he found a plastic tub of dark ground coffee. “Pre-roasted, pre-ground and vacuum-sealed,” he explained. “Can’t beat Folgers, no matter what the boutique shops would like you to think.” He looked at the coffeemaker, sitting uselessly on a scarred wooden counter. “Since we’ve got no power, we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“Sounds perfect,” Jillian said as his eyes caught hers. Her breath caught in her throat at the mysteries deep in his eyes.
I’m in trouble, she thought, but she wasn’t afraid.
Her cell phone rang as Alvarez locked the door to her Jeep and headed into the office. One glance at the digital readout and she braced herself as her mother’s number appeared on the screen. She thought about not answering, but that would only put off the inevitable.
“Good morning, Mom.” Carrying her laptop in one hand and feeling the bite of the wind, she hurried toward the brick building.
“Hi, honey.”
Despite the phone at her ear, Selena found her mind skipping ahead to her work day. At least it wasn’t snowing, and overnight, the plows had made significant progress on the roads. Maybe the helicopters could fly today, get airborne and survey the surrounding area. Maybe, just maybe, today was the day the case would break wide open.
Then again…
“You’re working today, aren’t you?”
Alvarez didn’t answer.
“Dios, Selena. It’s not even eight in the morning. On a Sunday. The Sunday before Christmas. You should be in bed or getting ready for mass.”
“I don’t work by the clock, you know that.” She shouldered her way into the building, nodding to the single clerk from the night shift who was manning the front desk.
“You work too much.”
“So you say.”
“So everyone says. Your brother Estevan, he’s a policeman, decorated, and he says you don’t have to work the hours you do.”
In Alvarez’s opinion Estevan was lazy, but she wouldn’t say so to her mother. “What’s up, Mom?” she asked as she made her way to her cubicle and flipped the switch on her desk lamp.
“I was hoping that you’d changed your mind. That you were coming home for Christmas.”
In her mind’s eye Selena flashed on “home”: the two-storied house four blocks off Highway 99 in Woodburn, Oregon, where she’d grown up with five brothers and two sisters. The three girls had shared one small room under the eaves of the sloped roof. The boys had been spread out, three in the room across the hall, the two eldest in separate rooms in the basement. Her parents had been on the main floor. The house had been noisy and crowded, and for the first fourteen years of her life, a haven.
And later, hell.
But at Christmas, the house had been decorated with lights on every eave and gutter, a hand-painted life-sized creche displayed in the front yard, a live tree filling the space in front of the living room window, her aunt Biatriz pounding out carols on the piano while her grandmother and mother cooked traditional Mexican fare along with a turkey dinner. Everything from mashed potatoes and roast beef to steamed tamales.
“I’m sorry,” Alvarez lied as she sat in her desk chair, “I can’t get away.”
“It’s Christmas, niña.”
“I know, Mom, but we’ve got a serial killer on the loose here. I thought it would have made the papers there.”
“But you must get a day off.”
“Not this year.”
“You’re telling me that no one’s going away for the holidays? I don’t believe it.”
“I just can’t this year. Give my love to everyone,” Alvarez said, refusing to let her mother guilt her into it.
“You always put up the piñata for the little ones.”
“Not this year. But Lydia, she’ll do it.” Alvarez did feel a little pang of regret when she thought of her younger sister. Lydia, she would miss, and maybe Eduardo. Maybe. “I’ll call and talk to everyone.”
“From where? What will you be doing?”
God only knows. “I’ll be with friends.” Again a lie. She didn’t have any plans for the day. She figured she’d work here, be paid overtime and celebrate at home in her pajamas with a movie and bowl of popcorn. That alone sounded like heaven, even if she had no one to sit beside her.
“You need your family, Selena,” her mother cautioned.
“Of course I do. I love you, Mom, but I really have to go.”
“God be with you, child,” Juanita said, and whispered a quick prayer in Spanish before hanging up.
“Guilt trip, guilt trip, guilt trip,” Alvarez told herself as she fired up her computer and clicked onto the images of the dead women and the letters left with their bodies. Using a computer program, she aligned the letters one over the other and saved the positions of the stars. What if this guy were trying to tell them something not only from the precise letters, but from the stars, as well?
Once she’d placed the stars on one screen, she used a computer program to help her identify which constellation, if any, the stars could be a part of. Unfortunately there were dozens of potential constellations.
“Because we don’t have enough data,” she thought, wincing inside. The more victims, the more clues left behind. Eventually, if the stars were part of an astrological grouping, they would be identified, just like, given enough letters in the message, the police would be able to figure out what the killer was trying to say.
Given enough time, enough letters and enough dead women.
“Damn,” she muttered, pushing her chair back from the desk. It was all so sick. For the first time since walking into the nearly deserted room, she heard the sound of music drifting from the speakers. The notes of “Let It Snow” wafted around her and she almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation as she heard Bing Crosby’s voice croon the final words of the song.
She glanced through the windows to the white parking lot. Yeah, the weather outside was sure as hell frightful, but there wasn’t anything the least bit cozy or warm about being in the office at Christmastime.
Balanced against the counter, Jillian observed MacGregor as he went through the motions of making coffee “the old-fashioned way.” He started by tossing some ground coffee into a lined basket that he balanced over the glass pot from the coffeemaker. Then he grabbed a tiny saucepan, dipped it into the hot water in the pot on the stove, and poured slowly streaming scalding water through the ground beans and filter.
Within seconds, dark liquid dripped into the waiting pot.
“Camp coffee,” she said as the scent of brewing coffee filled the room.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, a spark of humor in his eyes. “I do this on the trail a lot. It impresses all the city women.”
“Of course it does,” she said, and couldn’t help but smile. “I’m impressed.”
He chuckled and for the first time she saw a different side to this intense man. When all the water had soaked through the grounds, he poured them each a cup. “I’ve got sugar and powdered creamer.”
“I’m good with black. Cheers,” she said, and clicked the edge of her chipped mug to his.
“Here’s lookin’ at ya.”
The tension of the last few days seemed to evaporate for a few minutes. Even Harley, who had been ever-watchful, relaxed in a ball on the kitchen rag rug and closed his eyes. “I think he’s accepting me,” she said of the dog, and bent down to pet his scruffy head. The dog opened tired eyes and yawned, but didn’t growl or pull away.
“He’s really just a lover,” MacGregor said, then, as if noticing her balancing on her crutch, added, “let’s go into the other room. I’ll carry this for you.” He took the cup from her hand and followed her into the main living area of the cabin.
“Did you check outside again when you took out the dog?”
He nodded. “Nothing to indicate anyone was out there.”
“You’re sure?” she asked, and stared for a second through the icy panes. The storm had abated, the snow in thick drifts, even having blown onto the porch.
“I’m not sure of anything. If someone was there last night, the snow would have covered their tracks. But yeah, I think we’re alone.”
Which didn’t mean she should be comforted, she reminded herself. She had to trust him. Damn but she wanted to trust him, but she still had to be wary. Harley, toenails clicking on the hardwood and stone, returned to the living room and his spot near the hearth.
MacGregor handed her back the mug of coffee and she cradled it in both hands, its warmth seeping through her skin and into her bones. She propped her foot on the coffee table.
He nodded toward her bound ankle. “It’s not broken.”
“So you said.”
Their eyes locked as she remembered the one-sided conversation when she’d feigned sleep.
“So you were awake,” he prodded.
“Yeah.” She saw no reason to lie now; he knew the truth.
“I thought so.” He took a long sip, but his gaze, over the rim of his cup, never left her. “But you did a pretty good job of faking sleep.”