The Alvarez & Pescoli Series

by Lisa Jackson

  However, if he were alive, if he’d left her holding the bag, man oh man, did she want five minutes with the guy.

  Even if he tried to kill you?

  Her stomach plummeted. Why would he do that? Some old insurance policy? No way. Then he’d have to admit that he was alive. Once again, there just wasn’t any reason for this.

  “Tell me about Aaron,” MacGregor said, twisting the key in the ignition. With a rumble, the old engine ground to life. “You said a few things, but let’s pick the man’s life apart. I’ll buy you a beer and you can spill your guts about your first husband.” He hitched his chin toward a tavern on the other side of the street. Long and low-slung, built sometime in the twentieth century and sporting a faux-western front, it was called the Elbow Room. Its windows were stenciled with a family of happy sledding snowmen in top hats and red and white scarves, ringed in stenciled holly. Behind the snowmen, in pulsing blue, pink and yellow neon, beer signs beckoned.

  “You really know how to treat a girl,” she said as he drove around the gas station and sped across two lanes of traffic before finding a parking spot near the front door.

  “Only the best for you.”

  “Oh, you charmer,” she murmured, feeling her heart beat warm and deep. What was it with her? She always got involved with the wrong men, Aaron Caruso and Mason Rivers being two prime cases in point.

  She decided to leave her damned crutch in the rig.

  Leaning on MacGregor but walking better than she’d anticipated, she made her way through the scratched red door to the tavern, where peanuts covered the cement floor, a dart game was in session, a TV turned to some basketball game mounted over the bar. Only a few patrons were lounging in the Elbow Room today, so a waitress was Johnny-on-the spot to take their order, flipping out coasters like Frisbees, before Jillian had really settled into the booth.

  She thought about the pain meds she was taking and, though she longed for a beer, decided to play it safe and keep her wits about her.

  “How about a diet cola?” she told the girl.

  “Lightweight,” MacGregor teased.

  “He’s right. Make it with a slice of lime.”

  “Walkin’ on the wild side.”

  The waitress, a middle-aged woman with over-permed hair and an expression that said she’d seen it all, nearly rolled her eyes. But within two minutes, their drinks and a bowl of party mix were deposited on the glossy faux-marble tabletop.

  “Tell me about the first Mr. Jillian,” he invited.

  “God, he would have hated that.” She laughed and pushed at the wedge of lime with a thin black straw. “I fell hard for Aaron,” she admitted. “Too hard and way too fast. It was like the romance was turbocharged, at least in the beginning.”

  She told MacGregor everything she could remember about her first husband. How she’d thought she was in love. Crazy in love. Blindly in love. How they’d hiked and camped in exotic places. How the outdoors had been their home and wanderlust their way of life. Aaron had been a mountain climber, an extreme skier, an avid boater and a general adventurer. He’d thought the world was his home and wanted to see every inch of the planet, or so he’d said. That’s how they’d ended up in South America.

  Jillian and Aaron had planned to take the trip together and had been signed up as part of a tour group, but she’d taken ill right before their flight and Aaron, reluctantly, had gone alone but had been delayed and had missed connecting with the tour. When he’d reached Suriname, he’d gone off hiking by himself and disappeared.

  Jillian had been devastated but had clung to hope for over a year that he’d return—even after learning that he’d embezzled half a million dollars from investors who had trusted him. She’d borne the brunt of the investors’ wrath and the scrutiny from the SEC and insurance companies, the press and the victims. Everyone had assumed she was in on the plot and had inherited a fortune in life insurance, which hadn’t been true at all. She’d slowly had to believe that the man she’d loved had been a crook, and she’d been sick over the betrayal.

  “Do you know how that feels, to have everyone think you’re a part of something so ugly?” she asked, then wished she could call the words back when she saw the flash of anger in his eyes and remembered his own history. “Sorry. Of course you do.”

  “Go on,” he said, his jaw tight.

  “There’s not much left to tell. I went to Suriname to find him. I even got in the face of the local authorities, which was stupid. I think now I’m lucky that I wasn’t arrested. But it didn’t matter. After three months of getting nowhere, I came back to the states, and about two years after I’d reconciled myself to being a widow, his backpack was found by a couple of German hikers. They located it in the wilds of the high mountains. It was speculated that he’d taken a fall, dropped down to the bottom of a canyon covered in tall trees, his body hidden by the steep terrain and dense foliage. A search team was sent but he was never found.” She drained her drink, leaving only ice and the bit of lime. “Eventually I had to accept that he was dead, that he’d died up there on that ridge, and, you know, I felt guilty for not being with him.” She let out a derisive breath. “Even the insurance company finally paid me his life insurance benefits, which I used to pay off the investors, pennies on the dollar, but it was something. Then there were the attorneys.” She offered him a twisted smile. “Let’s just say I didn’t end up a rich woman.”

  “Then a few years later, you married Mason Rivers.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Another great idea.”

  “Who lives in Missoula.”

  “Right.”

  MacGregor reached over and plucked the cell phone he’d given her from her jacket pocket. “What do ya say? Let’s give him a call.”

  Deep in her cubicle, a bottle of water on her desk along with a cooling cup of tea, Alvarez stared at the computer monitor. Her throat was scratchy and dry, her nose running, but the symptoms of her impending cold or flu or whatever-the-hell-it-was-going-to-be were forgotten when she put the sentence together:

  BEWARE THE SCORPION

  Whatever that meant. She told herself it was probably wrong, but she got that little sizzle in her blood, the gut feeling telling her she’d stumbled onto something.

  From the corner of her eye she noticed Pescoli, stuffing her arms through the sleeves of her jacket as she started for the exit. “Hey, look at this,” Alvarez called, plucking a tissue from the box on her desk. She blew hard and tossed the tissue into an already-overflowing trash can as her partner backtracked.

  “What?” Pescoli paused at the opening of Alvarez’s tidy desk area as she slid her remaining arm into its sleeve, all the while looking at the screen. “Beware the scorpion?” she said, reading from the monitor. “What the hell does that mean? Oh hell…”

  So her partner saw it, too. “All the letters we found at the crime scenes are in this message.” Alvarez pointed to copies of the notes left by the killer, spread upon her desk. The most recent note was nearest her:

  WAR T HE SC I N

  Regan shrugged so that her jacket settled over her shoulders. Her brow was furrowed.

  “I noticed how the letters in the notes were spaced, like a fill-in-the-blanks. So I just put in the missing letters: beWARe T HE SC orp IoN.”

  “You think that’s the message?” Pescoli asked carefully. “All the letters are there, in the right order, the initials from the victims’ names, plus more than a few extra. Pretty crafty of you, but so what? He calls himself Scorpion?”

  “Ever since hearing Halden’s theory about Orion’s belt, I’ve been doing research on the constellation and the mythology surrounding it.” Sniffing, Alvarez pointed to Craig Halden’s constellation charts, which were piled neatly next to a cup holding pens. “In Greek mythology, in some of the versions of the whole Orion story, it’s said that Orion was killed by a scorpion, then cast into the sky.”

  “Those Greeks. Imaginative people.” But Pescoli now eyed the screen like she was looking deep into a cryst
al ball for some sort of clue to her own murky future. “What does it mean? Beware of him? I think we got that.”

  “He’s trying to tell us,” Alvarez said. “If the stars on the notes left at the scenes and the ones carved into the tree trunks are all part of the Orion constellation, and the letters of the victims’ names are meant to be part of this intricate note, then…”

  “There are a lot of victims we haven’t found or a lot more that have yet to be abducted.” Pescoli sounded as tired as Alvarez felt.

  “And Jillian Rivers isn’t one, as we already thought. Just another confirmation that she’s got her own private whack job.”

  “Who’s still out there. I wish Jillian Rivers had stayed put.”

  “Yeah, right.” Alvarez, too, didn’t like the fact that Jillian had taken off from the hospital, and though she’d called and checked in, getting the news that she wasn’t considered a victim of the Star-Crossed Killer, she was still in danger. Alvarez had told her as much. The police, however, couldn’t stop her from leaving the county.

  Pescoli shook her head. “Maybe your interpretation of the note is meaningless. It could be a mistake. The result of too many over-the-counter pills and a flu-addled brain.”

  “It’s not the flu.”

  “Fine. Even so.”

  “I know it’s not concrete. And I suppose other letters could be interjected, other phrases created. But I just have a feeling that this is what his message means.”

  “Okay.” Pescoli crossed her arms. “So if your guess is right, that means he’s already targeted future victims, right? He would need to kidnap women with initials that match the missing letters in the note.”

  “True. But it’s not as if we can warn women within ten square miles. You can’t really say, ‘If your name begins with B or E, then get the hell out of Dodge.’”

  “But we could look at missing persons reports and see if there are any victims whose initials match…” Pescoli glanced back at Alvarez’s doodling, “B, E, E, O, R, P or O.” She scrawled the letters in the margin, then grinned. “Beeorpo. Sounds like one of the aliens who abducted Ivor Hicks.”

  “Checking the initials against missing persons is not a bad idea,” Alvarez said. It might help determine if her idea for the note was correct.

  “Hey, wait.” Regan’s grin faded as she squinted at the letters she’d jotted down. “Did you know there’s an R and a P in here?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  Pescoli grunted. “No S or A, so I guess you’re safe.”

  “It’s just a theory,” Alvarez said.

  “This after crazy Grace Perchant sees ghosts dancing on my head.” Raking her tumbled curls from her neck, Pescoli sighed. “Can this day get any worse? I’m outta here.”

  Alvarez felt deflated and picked up her teacup, only to realize the orange pekoe had gone stone cold. She set it back on the desk and tried not to feel discouraged. “It’s not much,” she admitted, and lunged for a Kleenex, snapping one in front of her nose just before she sneezed, “but it’s something.” She dabbed at her nostrils.

  “Still, he hasn’t told us jack shit,” Regan zipped her jacket. “Even if your fill-in-the-blanks is right, we still have one big question. Who the hell is the scorpion?”

  “Vodka tonic,” I say to the waitress, who smiles at me, hoping for a big tip. “On the rocks.” I’m antsy, waiting for the drink, watching the damned television screen, where there is footage of Jillian Rivers, the imposter, being sent to the hospital. The scene is a few days old but it’s cut into a montage of other bits of film, pictures taken of the various “killing sites” and images of the victims with their names; Theresa Charleton, Nina Salvadore, Wendy Ito, Rona Anders, Hannah Estes and Jillian Rivers.

  But they’ve got it wrong.

  Again.

  Fools!

  Who is this imposter? He can’t know what I do, can’t copy my careful plans. Surely the police know there’s a difference. Or do they? Is it something they are withholding from the press or are they just that damned moronic?

  My drink is placed in front of me and I take a long, calming sip, feeling the vodka slither down my throat before it coils in warm anticipation in my stomach…soothing. Soon, thankfully, it will seep into my bloodstream.

  I’m angry that there’s an imposter, taking over my work, no, ruining my purpose. What kind of idiot is fucking with my plan? Who is he? And why are the police fooled?

  After all the time I’ve waited, perfecting every detail, now some moron comes in clumsily and erroneously, making a mess of things. I feel a headache coming on and take another drink, allowing a small ice cube to slide past my lips. Once it’s in my mouth, I crush the damned thing with my teeth.

  “Another?” the waitress, Taffy, says, surprised that I’ve already tossed back a drink I usually sip. She’s new to this place, only been at the job a couple of months, but she recognizes me.

  I nod, my gaze riveted to the screen.

  Jillian Rivers has been released from the hospital, but she’s giving no statement. Instead there is footage of some older woman…her mother! She looks as if she just came out of a beauty salon. She’s blubbering about how happy she is that her daughter’s safe, that she’d been so worried and blah, blah, blah.

  Don’t they understand?

  Jillian Rivers is a fraud.

  The person who left her in the forest is a fraud.

  This is all wrong!

  My fist clenches and the waitress, a tiny doe-eyed girl with a small…too small mouth that matches her breasts and hair twisted into an unkempt knot at her crown, eyes me warily.

  Relax. Don’t let anyone become suspicious.

  “Isn’t your drink okay?” Taffy asks, then sees that I’m utterly fascinated by the television.

  “It’s fine. Perfect.” I relax my fingers, manage a smile.

  “Oh. I get it.”

  I bet not. You nitwit. You don’t get anything. Even the difference between a vodka tonic and a vodka collins.

  “You’re upset about that killer.”

  “It’s worrisome.”

  “You bet it is. Me and Tony, that’s my boyfriend, we’re not taking no chances. We’ve got a sawed-off shotgun trip-wired to blast if anyone so much as touches the front door.”

  Tony and Taffy. How cute. “What about the back?”

  “Ferdinand, that’s our dog—he’s part Doberman and part German shepherd—he’s got that covered.”

  “Aren’t you afraid you might injure a friend or someone from the family?”

  Taffy, all of twenty-one, shakes her head and the topknot wiggles a bit. “Everybody knows they’ve got to call us before they come over. If not…they take their chances.”

  “Well, I hope Granny doesn’t forget and decides to pop in with some Christmas cookies,” I say before I catch myself. It’s the vodka talking and the waitress looks at me strangely. “Just kidding,” I add with a laugh. “We’re all a little nervous. Hey, I installed a peephole in my doors and nailed my windows shut.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “God’s honest truth!” I raise my right hand and smile, though I’d love to reach across the bar and slap the bitch. “And,” I add, “I sleep with a forty-four under my pillow. A Magnum.”

  “Loaded?”

  “You bet. What would be the point if it wasn’t?” I take another sip from my glass. “I’m not bluffing.”

  “No shit. I get it.”

  Again, no. You don’t, you stupid bitch. You never will.

  She picks up some half-empty glasses a few spots down on the bar and I take a little longer with the second drink. I have to be careful. I don’t want to raise suspicion. Everyone in the area is being looked at warily. Friend to friend. Lover to lover. Mother to son.

  Because they don’t understand.

  Will never.

  Just like Taffy, they are all too damned stupid.

  But this isn’t a problem. In fact it might be working to my advantage. It’s time to make a st
atement. A big one. Get the damned cops’ attention. I stare up at the screen again, and this time there is footage of the sheriff’s department at one of the scenes, taken from a distance. Most of them are visible: Sheriff Grayson, Pete Watershed…and the two detectives.

  Again I crush some of the ice and enjoy the cold water that mixes with the warmth of the vodka.

  On the screen, the quiet, dark-haired one—Alvarez—is looking over a snowy death scene, the one up at the abandoned lodge. She’s got some Hispanic blood in her, not only her name and warm coppery skin tell me, but also that spark in her dark eyes, which convinces me she’s complicated, holds her cards close to her vest, never lets anyone know what’s really going on behind those dark, Latino eyes. Which is probably a lot. She’s petite, fiery and, I suspect, has her own reasons for keeping people at arm’s length.

  Alvarez is smart and has the degrees to prove it. She’s also sly and, deep down, I bet, ruthless. It’s there in the jut of her jaw, the stretch of that beautiful skin over her sharp cheekbones.

  A worthy adversary.

  Then there’s the other one. Regan Pescoli. My eyes examine her. She’s another interesting woman; almost the opposite of her partner. Pescoli doesn’t hold anything back. Her cards are firmly on the table and she’s tapping them with a strong, determined finger, letting you know just where she stands. Athletic, larger than Alvarez, she’s a bitch on wheels who has a family that’s falling apart.

  Poor thing.

  Of course it’s falling apart, you workaholic of a woman. What kind of mother are you? What kind of wife were you? You’re a loser, Pescoli, and always will be.

  But a beautiful one.

  Strong, smart and oh so predictable.

  Regan Pescoli is a woman who will take a while to break…but everyone has their breaking point.

  I crack the ice and stare at her image before it is replaced by that of a reporter.

  Detective Pescoli.

  Get ready.