The Alvarez & Pescoli Series

by Lisa Jackson

  “I thought we should talk about last night. The kids.”

  He leaned back in his chair, so far that it squeaked. His face remained grim as he said, “Before you launch into all kinds of reasons or explanations or apologies or whatever it is you want to say, let’s just get one thing clear. You and I have to work together. No matter what happens between your son and my daughter.”

  She felt a bit of relief, until he started clicking his pen.

  “Even so, that does not excuse what happened last night, and I want you to know that I hold your son responsible.”

  Here we go.

  “He’s older, should know better and has no right dragging my girl along on some drunken joyride.” All Brewster’s calm faded away and his face infused with color. “She’s only fifteen, for crying out loud, and as far as I’m concerned your boy is going nowhere, getting into trouble, sliding down one helluva slippery slope.”

  “You’re blaming Jeremy,” she said stonily.

  “Hell yes, I’m blaming him. Those kids could have been killed or maimed or made vegetables for life. You and I see it every day, what happens when booze and kids and cars mix. Hell, even adults! They are lucky, so damned lucky, that nothing happened last night, Pescoli.” His feet slammed to the ground, and he stood tall and angry behind the desk, a scant two-foot barrier between them. “You tell that boy of yours that I won’t stand for this. Got it? If anything happens to my little girl I will hold your son personally responsible. I told her and I’m telling you, I want him to stay away from her.”

  Pescoli remained silent for a long moment. She’d known, of course, that Brewster would be mad, even blame Jeremy, but the hate in his eyes suggested that his feelings ran too deep to try to reason with him. Finally, she said, “Don’t you think we should talk this out with the kids?”

  “Are you insane? No. I laid down the law and I expect you to do the same.” His thin lips flattened on themselves as he leaned across the desk. “You and me, we’re different. We raise our kids differently. I’m a deacon in the church and have been married for twenty-two years to the same woman. I play by the rules of God and country.”

  “So do I,” she said, but she saw that glint in his eye telling her he didn’t believe her. “Look, Brewster, I may not be a cookie-baking soccer mom, but I teach my kids how to live their lives.”

  “Like yours?” he cut in.

  She stiffened, realizing he was talking about her sex life. “None of your business, Cort, and if you make it yours, I’ll file a complaint. I came in here hoping to talk civilly about a problem we both share. I admit Jeremy is not blameless, but I think, in all fairness, no one put a gun to Heidi’s head and dragged her out to the car or forced a can of Budweiser down her throat.”

  “For the love of God! You’re out of your mind to think that—”

  “That what? Your”—she made air quotes—“‘little girl’ is partially to blame? How many kids do you have, Cort? Four, right? All girls? All perfect angels, is that what you want me to believe?”

  He looked as if he might blow a gasket. A vein was throbbing in his temple, and at any minute she half-expected he might have a stroke, right there on the desk. “Your boy is the bad seed, Pescoli. You and I both know it. He doesn’t have a decent father figure in his life and, from the way you’ve been…”

  “Been what, Brewster?” He snapped his jaw shut and she felt her hands clench. “I thought we could discuss what had happened. You know, come up with a plan to set things right, guide the kids, but, apparently, that’s not gonna happen. And you and I, we’ve got a problem, which isn’t going to help either of us, since we have to work together.”

  “You are so out of line.”

  “Out of line,” she repeated slowly, feeling the back of her neck grow hot. They glared at each other, and eventually Pescoli said tautly, “We’ve got ourselves one sicko here in Pinewood County, and we both know he’s not about to stop killing until we catch him. So we’d better put aside our personal grudges and get on with it. You deal with your daughter and I’ll handle my son.”

  “Amen.”

  Pescoli turned on her heel, stinging from his insinuations. Bastard, she thought, holier-than-thou bastard. God only knew what skeletons Cort Brewster had in his own damned closet.

  The woman has to die. I thought she would expire on her own, that there wasn’t the slimmest chance that she would survive, and yet she hangs on, by the tiniest of threads. Enough to worry me.

  The police and the FBI aren’t giving up, not that I expected them to, but I can’t let this one mistake ruin everything. There is just too much yet to be accomplished!

  So I’m taking a chance, my adrenaline whistling through my veins as I drive to the restaurant, my hands precise on the wheel. The plan is simple. Once I arrive, I’ll put on hospital scrubs, colored contact lenses and a toupee. I will stuff my jowls with cotton and wear padding under my clothes. I have a set of false teeth that slip over my own. I’ve had them for years—bought long ago in California from a man who made costumes for the film industry before he fell victim to an ugly meth habit. He is long dead, but some of his costumes, including the oversized shoes I wear, are still a part of my arsenal of disguises.

  It’s a simple plan: slip into the hospital, cause a Code Blue to occur down the hall from Estes and, when all hell breaks loose, slip into her room and turn off the life support. She’s too weak to be resuscitated. I’ve learned that much from reading between the lines in the news stories.

  But I can’t take a chance that she’ll survive.

  I just have to make sure the cop left to guard her is distracted.

  If he won’t leave his post, then he’ll have to be disposed of, which I would like to avoid. He’s not meant to die, not one of the chosen.

  But if push comes to shove, well, so be it.

  I drive to a restaurant and change in a stall in the bathroom. No one at Denny’s really notices, as I’ve left a substantial tip for my piece of Christmas Cherry Pie and cup of coffee. By the time I am out the door, my table’s been cleared and a couple of men in their seventies have slid into the booth.

  Good.

  I drive two blocks from the hospital and then walk briskly inside. There are a few reporters hovering near the front door, a cameraman smoking under the portico, but I pass unnoticed and the security, for all of the press about this case, seems remarkably lax.

  No doubt a decision by the hospital administration to make things appear normal, to not disturb the other patients, to soothe concerned friends and relatives. I already know what floor she’s on; I’ve learned this bit of information from drinking coffee and having lunch in the cafeteria and picking up bits of information. In each case, I appeared distraught, a worried husband or boyfriend. No doubt my image was caught on the security cameras, but again, thanks to my old meth-loving costume-making friend, my identity was hidden and I know where the cameras are, am able to turn my face away from those prying lenses.

  Today I make my way to the second floor and the west wing. Now things are interesting. Yes, there is a guard posted at the woman’s door, and the room itself is not isolated, but opens to the nurses’ station. A tougher act than I’d anticipated.

  But still easy enough.

  I stroll into a room down a hallway and spy an old woman gasping for air, on a ventilator. I walk into the room and, as she stares at me with curious, worried eyes—this woman who is drugged and not entirely aware—I unhook her from the machine.

  Before the monitors can react, I hurry down the hall, nearly tripping on an aide pushing a man in a wheelchair.

  “Excuse me,” I grunt.

  “Hey—” the aide says as I round the corner, and there in the hallway is my salvation. Without a moment’s hesitation, I pull the lever on the fire alarm.

  Within a heartbeat, sirens and alarm bells are ringing crazily.

  “Code Blue!”

  “Room 212! Mrs. Bancroft!”

  I hear the panic and smile as they all co
me running. I duck into a closet and strip off the lab coat and wig, then hurry back toward the fray. In the ensuing chaos, I work quickly, slipping into a suddenly unattended room, glancing down at the woman who had been my prisoner for nearly a week. This part of my mission isn’t what I live for. The actual taking of life has little meaning. It’s the gaining of their trust, making them feel love, knowing they will give themselves to me and I won’t take what they offer—that’s what appeals. The ultimate thrill is to see the despair and fear in their eyes when they realize that I’ve tricked them, that I am not a would-be lover but their ultimate doom.

  So this yanking of a cord has no appeal. It’s the diversion that’s thrilling. Forcing the others into a panic mode, creating pandemonium—now that is a sweet, succulent drug, one I enjoy.

  But I must not tarry.

  Again I look at the weak, unconscious woman and wish for just a second she would open her eyes, catch a glimpse of me as I so easily take her life. If only I could witness that quick understanding, the first gasp of true, brutal fear.

  It is not to be.

  And time is running out.

  “Sorry, Hannah,” I say without conviction as the ventilator forces air into her lungs. “Sweet dreams.”

  With a quick, hard jerk, I pull the plug.

  And then it’s over.

  Judging from Pescoli’s expression, Alvarez concluded that her partner’s discussion with the undersheriff didn’t go well. She’d holed up at her desk for the rest of the morning, and only hours later, on her way back from the ladies’ room, did she stop by Alvarez’s cubicle. “Are you buying all this Orion and hunter crap?” Pescoli asked, blocking the opening to Alvarez’s small desk area.

  “It’s the best we’ve got.”

  “Then what’s with the letters? Why not just spell out ‘Orion’ or ‘hunter’? Why the big puzzle?”

  “Because that’s what the guy is all about,” Alvarez said. She’d manned the phones for a couple of hours, gone through all the notes from each of the crime scenes and autopsy reports and spoken to several of the victims’ family members who had called in, hoping for closure, pushing the police into arresting the monster who was terrorizing the area and had killed their daughter or sister or niece.

  “Let’s get some lunch,” Pescoli said, and slid a glance toward Cort Brewster’s office. The department had quieted down since the morning meeting, and while the road deputies were patrolling, some of the detectives had headed home rather than put in for more overtime. Agents Chandler and Halden had left an hour earlier, but the sheriff and his dog were tucked into his office and Brewster, too, had given up his church duties and family life to stay near the center of the investigation.

  “I’m with you.”

  Alvarez grabbed her jacket and sidearm, then followed her partner outside. Without a word she climbed into the passenger seat of the Jeep. Pescoli started the engine and put the rig into gear before Alvarez had fully closed her door.

  “In a hurry?” Selena commented.

  “Things are a little tense in there.” Pescoli glanced in the rearview mirror at the office.

  “They always are.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I take it things didn’t go well with Brewster.”

  “Depends. On whether you mean crappy or really crappy. Take your pick. Wild Wills?”

  Alvarez grunted an assent.

  Pescoli drove to the restaurant, parked on the street, and together they walked inside, passing Grizz, the dead bear, still dressed in his angelic garb, long teeth bared, claws visible despite his fake wings and halo. “Can you believe this?” Pescoli asked, but strode into the dining area, where the after-church crowd had gathered. They found a table near the back, removed their jackets, and Alvarez took a chair with a view of the front door, while through the speakers a woman’s voice warbled “Silver Bells.”

  “Is that Dolly Parton?” Pescoli asked.

  “No.”

  “Whitney Houston?”

  “No,” Alvarez assured her partner as the song was drowned out by the rattling of a cart of dishes. “I don’t know who she is but it’s not Dolly or Whitney.”

  “You sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I’m about silver-belled, wished a merry Christmas and herald angeled out this season.”

  “Bah, humbug,” Alvarez said as the scent of coffee mingled with the aromas of cinnamon and sizzling bacon. Alvarez’s stomach rumbled and she realized how hungry she was.

  “You know, I could use a beer. Or maybe a shot of Jack Daniels on the rocks.” Pescoli looked tired. Her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed by dark circles that testified to too many sleepless nights.

  Alvarez lifted a shoulder, but by the time Sandi came around, Pescoli had thought twice about it and ordered a Diet Coke, hamburger and curly fries. “Live a little,” she advised Alvarez.

  “I’m thinking more like ‘live a little longer,’” Alvarez said, and ordered a spinach, apple and hazelnut salad with broiled chicken in lieu of bacon and hot tea with lemon in lieu of alcohol.

  “Still fighting a cold?” Pescoli asked.

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Whiskey might help.”

  “Couldn’t hurt.” But she stuck with tea, adding extra slices of lemon when Sandi delivered the drinks.

  Pescoli sighed. “You know, you get pregnant and bring home a baby, this precious, innocent little bit of life whose whole future is in your hands, and you think, ‘I’m gonna do everything right for this kid. I’m going to be the best damned mother he could want and his life is going to be perfect. I’ll make sure of it.’ He’s little and sweet and inquisitive and crazy about you and…” She shook her head dolefully. “And then life happens to the kid. Little things like scraped knees and slivers and forgotten homework assignments. Then bigger things like being bullied on the playground and teased cuz his mother’s a cop, and then really big things like losing his dad and suddenly gaining a stepdad and a sister and a divorce and…oh hell. Suddenly, and I mean it seems like that,” she said, snapping her fingers, “…he’s seventeen and in trouble. Big trouble.” She leaned back in her chair and took a long swallow from her Diet Coke.

  “But you don’t regret your children.”

  “Not for a second.”

  “And you’d do it again.”

  “In a heartbeat.” Pescoli nodded. “So what about you? Why no kids?”

  “It just never happened,” Alvarez lied, then added in all truthfulness, “I never found the right guy.” That much was patently true. The boys she’d met in high school were unimpressive, and then there had been the “incident,” as her mother had called it, though they both knew better. Alvarez didn’t want to think about it now, what had happened to her when she was seventeen, just Jeremy’s age, but it was always chasing after her, a ghost touching a cold finger against the back of her neck, a faint voice echoing in her ear.

  You have a son. Somewhere. A boy you haven’t seen since he was a few minutes old….

  “You still looking?”

  “What?”

  “For a husband. You’re only thirty-two.”

  “Three. I’m thirty-three.”

  “Not exactly ancient.”

  “Well, yeah, but I have this job,” Alvarez said, trying to lighten the heavy conversation. “It takes up a lot of time.”

  “That it does. And believe me, sometimes husbands are vastly overrated.”

  Sandi returned with their orders and they lapsed into silence, letting the buzz of conversation and the soft strains of music fill the gaps while they ate.

  Alvarez was about half-finished with her salad, though her appetite had waned with talk of children and her headache was back, her nose still threatening to run, when a gust of cold air caused her to look up. Grace Perchant, dressed in some kind of medieval-looking tunic and long velvet coat, walked slowly from the foyer into the dining area. She was about to be seated, following Sandi toward a window booth, wh
en she stopped suddenly.

  “Uh-oh,” Alvarez said. Grace, the woman who saw ghosts, communed with the dead and had found Jillian Rivers’s Subaru while walking her wolf-dog, froze in her tracks.

  Pescoli looked over her shoulder. “Oh Christ.”

  At that, Grace’s head swiveled and her faded green eyes zeroed in on Pescoli.

  “Great,” she whispered, “just what we need,” as Grace walked unerringly to their table.

  Grace’s usually calm expression had lost any trace of serenity as she laid a long-fingered hand over Pescoli’s shoulder before the cop could pull away.

  Pescoli scooted her chair back, out of Grace’s reach, and instinctively reached for her sidearm, before she caught herself.

  A couple with two kids at the next table stopped eating to stare.

  “He knows about you,” Grace whispered, those weird eyes fixed on something in the middle distance, on a point, Alvarez was certain, only she could see.

  “Who?” Pescoli asked.

  “The predator. He knows about you.” Grace’s words were murmured but loud enough to cause every hair on the back of Pescoli’s neck to stand on end.

  “What predator?” But she knew. Alvarez saw it in her eyes. They both knew.

  “The one you seek.”

  “We seek a lot of predators.”

  “This one is different. This one is evil….”

  “They are all freakin’ evil, Grace, but I figure you’re talking about the whack job who leaves women in the friggin’ blizzard. That the one?” Pescoli demanded, but her face, instead of turning red with rage, had whitened. “I sure as hell hope he does know about me, cuz I’m going to nail his ass.”

  “Don’t listen to that, honey,” the wife at the next table warned her son of about ten.

  Grace was unmoved. “He’s not afraid.”

  Pescoli gave her a long look. “The last time we met, I believe you told Alvarez, ‘You’ll find him.’ What happened to that?”

  Grace’s gaze, that faint, watery green, slid to Alvarez, then back again to Pescoli. “I’m speaking to you now.” Again she touched Pescoli’s shoulder with her fingertips, and again Regan pulled away. “You, Detective, are in grave danger.”