by Lisa Jackson
“No,” Alvarez said. “She called and left me a message. Something came up. Family.”
Grayson looked tired. Worn down. He nodded. “Well, I guess she put in enough overtime,” he said, squaring his hat on his head. “We all need a break on this one.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to make one,” she said.
“Bad news about the Estes woman,” he said, and he rubbed his jaw, the sound of his five o’clock shadow scratching under his fingers. “The only person we know of who could ID this son of a bitch.”
“I know.”
“Heard from the Feds?”
Alvarez nodded. “Chandler called in. I took the call. She’ll be back in the morning.”
“We all will,” Grayson said, and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Go home, Selena.” He showed the hint of a weary smile. “We’ll catch this guy tomorrow.”
She smiled. “In a bit.”
“I mean it.”
“Gotcha.”
He looked as if he didn’t believe her, but whistled to the dog and headed toward the exit. She wondered about him, the recently divorced and elected sheriff. At times she thought him an odd choice of the people. Affable and smart enough, he was a bit of a loner, not one to glad hand or attend any event the least bit political; he left that to the higher-ups and to his undersheriff. Cort Brewster loved the limelight that seemed more of an unwanted duty to Grayson, an obligation rather than a privilege.
The press was still camped out around the building, looking for new angles, hoping for something they could print or air. They were smoking, drinking coffee, being coddled by Joelle whenever she showed up. It was all a freak show in Alvarez’s estimation, and if the damned goody-two-shoes receptionist didn’t stop feeding the entire press corps, they’d never leave. Not that they were all bad. The news helicopter had helped locate one of the victims, and the sheriff had used the press in order to seek the public’s help in identifying the killer. But so far, they were striking out.
Grayson would have to pass by a straggling reporter or two on his way to his rig. But he could handle it, Alvarez believed, glancing toward the doorway as he left with the dog on his heels.
Yes, he was an interesting man, she thought, and even smiled at herself. Off limits, off limits, off limits.
But then, weren’t they all?
Leaning back in her chair, she rubbed the kinks from her neck. The department needed a break in this case in a big way. If they didn’t nail this guy’s ass and soon, there would be more victims. She knew it. The knot in her stomach was her constant reminder.
Ignoring the headache that pounded behind her eyes and the fact that she couldn’t stop her nose from running, she went over the notes one last time and all the things that should make sense: Orion’s belt, “BEWARE THE SCORPION,” the hunter. They were all jumbled in her mind as she looked at the pictures of the victims for the umpteenth time. Beautiful women who had been terrorized in near-fatal car accidents, then kidnapped and kept alive. For what? Not sexual pleasure. It must be just so the monster could exert his power over them, bend their will to his and then, eventually, when the time was right, usually around the twentieth of the month, leave them in a frozen forest to die.
Her throat was really hurting now. No amount of lemon water or throat lozenges eased the pain, not really, despite all the claims she’d heard on television. It was time to call it a night; all too soon, she’d be calling it a morning.
Her muscles ached but not from working out, and she felt a little bad that she couldn’t spend an hour on the elliptical machine or treadmill, then go into the gym’s sauna and sweat out this crud that seemed lodged in her lungs.
Tonight she would have to settle for a bitingly hot shower in her own apartment, more tea and hot lemon water and some send-you-into-a-near-coma cold-symptom medicine for the night. Just to knock her out until the morning.
The room was quiet, only a few people left, including Zoller, dutifully manning the task force phones until her relief showed up in a few hours. God, they needed to get this guy, before he killed again.
She picked up her purse, wrapped a scarf around her neck and slipped into her jacket. She was a little worried about Pescoli and had expected her to call in. But then, she was having trouble with that loser Lucky Pescoli, as well as her kids.
Who could blame her?
Alvarez thought about leaving a message but decided not to bother. It wasn’t as if she had any news anyway. They’d connect in the morning.
Throat aching, Alvarez walked out of the sheriff’s department and saw the shiny letters that Joelle had strung near the door: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Well, maybe for someone, she thought, coughing, as she crossed the parking lot, her lungs thick, her breath fogging in the night. Snow fell lightly all around her as she made her way across the parking lot. She saw large footprints and pawprints in the fresh snow and thought of Grayson and Sturgis, cutting through the lot after dealing with the press, the only set of fresh prints disturbing the snow.
She couldn’t help wondering if Grayson was going home to the house he’d once shared with a wife. Or was he stopping off for a meal at one of the local places? Nah. He wouldn’t leave the dog in his rig, not in this cold weather. He was on his way to his rustic cabin in the foothills.
As she unlocked her rig’s door, she thought about her bare apartment; she hadn’t even bothered with a small tree this year. It would be empty and cold.
Sliding behind the wheel she decided, yeah, she really should get a pet.
“A four-star hotel,” Jillian commented, taking in the grand façade. “Trying to impress me?”
“You only live once,” MacGregor told her as he handed the keys of their beater of a truck to a valet.
In the reception area, the marble inlaid floors and crystal chandeliers looked to be over a hundred years old. MacGregor had no change of clothes, just the laptop he’d procured from this friend, Chilcoate, who seemed to be some kind of local techno geek to the nth.
Though MacGregor was traveling lightly, Jillian did have a small suitcase filled with her things, and then there was, deep in each of their pockets, their guns. It was odd to be carrying a weapon—make that an illegally concealed weapon—through this stately old hotel. But no one had seemed to notice the bulge in her jacket pocket or the few bruises that remained on her face.
Their room was on the fifth floor and elegant, with its matching four-poster beds, gas fireplace, high ceilings and view of the Spokane River as it rolled by, dark and swollen.
Thick carpeting stretched past an alcove by the fireplace where a desk, small table and two side chairs were arranged in a cozy living area. The beds were positioned in front of an armoire that looked as if it had been carved in the nineteenth century, though it housed a televison and complete game system. Through French doors she found the bath, complete with shining marble, Jacuzzi tub and a tile shower with a clear-glass door.
“I thought we needed a break,” he said as she checked out the room’s appointments. “Besides, it’s safe here. Security guard and cameras.”
“You think someone is following us?” she asked nervously.
“I think we need to keep you safe. Chilcoate agrees. Looks like Spokane is a dangerous place for you.” He walked to her, draped an arm over her shoulders and pressed his forehead to hers, their noses nearly touching.
So close.
So familiar.
So male.
“Should I be frightened?” she asked.
“I’m just being careful.”
“And spending a fortune.”
His lips, close enough to kiss her, stretched into a wide smile. “I couldn’t let you stay in a fleabag, now could I?”
“No, sir, not after that high-end bar you took me to this afternoon. What was it called?”
“The Elbow Room, and it just so happens to be one of my favorite places to get a beer.” His eyes held hers for a heartbeat and she thought that he might just kiss
her, that his lips, for just a second, might brush over hers. He hesitated, then drew back and crossed the room to lock the door. “Order room service. I’ll take the biggest steak they have and a loaded baked potato.”
“I’m willing to bet they have something fancier, like pheasant or veal or—”
“A steak, medium rare.” He was on his way to the bathroom. “I’ll be in the shower.” One eyebrow cocked in invitation. “You could join me….”
In her mind’s eye she saw them together, wet, naked bodies, slick from the soap that lathered between them as hot water washed over their bare flesh.
“I, uh, think I’ll order dinner.”
“Your loss.”
Her stomach did a slow little flip when she thought what might have been.
“Oh,” he called through the open doorway, “and would you mind having these sent down to be cleaned?” He tossed out his sweater, jeans and boxers. So she knew that, on the other side of the door, through the clear panes, if she looked, she could probably see him naked.
She cleared her throat. Licked her suddenly dry lips. “So I take it that money is no object.”
“Not tonight, darlin’,” he yelled through the open doorway, his voice beckoning. “Tonight I figure we owe it to ourselves to let loose.”
“Owe it to ourselves?”
“Something my dad used to say. Will ya call for the maid to pick up?”
“Your wish is my command,” she mocked.
He laughed then, and she smiled as she turned to the phone on the desk. She didn’t so much as peek through the door he’d left open, not even when he started singing slightly off-key in a deep baritone voice.
You’re falling in love with him, her mind warned, not for the first time. Tonight, she didn’t care. She eyed the two beds, a nod to the fact that they weren’t lovers.
Yet.
“Oh Lord,” she whispered, picking up the phone with trembling hands.
The night was still young.
Snow fell all around.
Great, white lacy flakes swirled, danced and twirled in the blue light cast by the street lamps. In the distance carolers sang “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” as traffic moved through the city streets.
The hotel, six stories of nineteenth-century grandeur, a landmark in Spokane, rose high into the dark heavens. Snow was piled upon the gables and dormers, covering the gutters. Lights washed the stone walls with a warm glow and millions of tiny, jewel-like bulbs glittered in the bare limbs of the trees and the arched entrance to the grand old building.
The Spokane River, swollen and dark, rushed by, wind blowing across the swift water, icy and cold. No stars could be seen in the opaque sky; no moon cast its silver glow.
She was inside the hotel.
Jillian Rivers…no, Jillian Colleen White Caruso Rivers.
How long has that name been an anathema, a poison filling the air, suffocating all it touches, forever haunting and teasing and laughing?
Oh, Jillian, you should have died long ago…so long ago.
And now you will.
I stared at the historic building. Though the hotel is a stone fortress, there were ways inside, keys to all the locked doors. Keys I have used many times in the past, keys that I had the foresight to copy, keys that jangle in my pocket like the cold, crisp bells of Christmas.
Thank God this hotel retained all of its “Old West Charm,” which included metal keys and locks and skeleton keys used by the staff. No fancy electronic cards. Not here.
So Jillian was not safe.
Her face came to me and, once again, I spoke to her.
“Yours will be a quiet death, Jillian.
“An intimate death.
“Not by a loud gunshot. No, that would attract attention.
“Ruin everything.
“A knife. Yes, a knife!
“With a razor-sharp and perfectly wicked curved blade.
“Drawn quickly across your neck, a knife will do the trick, exposing a thin seam of blood, which will run hot and red as you gasp.”
I felt a little thrill at the thought of this. I’ve waited so long for this moment, planned so many times to rid the world of her, to take away the threat of her and finally, with the Star-Crossed Killer, I got my chance.
But now my mind would not let me forget that she had escaped me once before.
You should have killed her in the woods. Made certain she would die. You were foolish then, weren’t you? Do not make the same mistake. This time she must be dead and then, finally, you will be free.
“I will not fail,” I vowed, and I couldn’t help but tremble with anticipation.
Feel the snowflakes kiss my cheeks.
Soon, my torment would be over.
Biting my lip, I fingered my weapon and smiled in the darkness as I spoke to Jillian, my enemy, in a whispered promise. “The slash will be deep. Your blood will pulse out in thick, dark spurts.
“Your lifeblood will stain the crisp sheets, spattering against the century-old walls, pooling beneath your head upon the soft, freshly vacuumed carpet.
“You’ll be silent then. And finally, you will haunt me no more.”
Chapter Thirty
Jillian had forgotten how heavenly civilization could be.
For the first time since leaving Seattle, she dined on a meal that wasn’t cooked over an open fire in a cabin, tasteless from a hospital kitchen or grabbed on the run at a tavern. They ate steak, picked at salads and potatoes, even drank wine, despite the warnings on her pain-medication bottle.
And she noticed Zane MacGregor.
Oh, how she noticed him with his dark hair, wet and curling over the back of the plush white hotel robe that was his only article of clothing. It gapped a little over his chest, black chest hairs visible over olive-toned skin.
And he smelled so good.
Of soap and some cologne and that crisp, clean male scent she’d forgotten about.
They ate and drank from a bottle of smoky Cabernet Sauvignon. She took her wineglass into the bathroom, drew a bath with thick, foaming bubbles and relaxed. She removed the tape from her ankle, which seemed far less swollen than a day ago, and eased into the fragrant warm water.
Sinking under the surface, she wet her hair and shampooed it, rinsing it under the faucet as best she could and thinking, for a second, that out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Zane, his pale reflection in the glass panes as he sat at the desk. Could he see her as well, a ghostly image caught in the elegant old doors?
If so, who cared?
It wasn’t as if she didn’t let her eyes wander to his muscular legs and bare feet.
Afterwards, wrapped in her own robe, her hair drying in untamed curls, she shared the last drops of the bottle with MacGregor, who gestured for her to sit down at the desk.
“Take a look,” he said, all business while the smell of him enveloped her. On the laptop screen blow-ups of the photos she’d received, enlarged by Chilcoate, who had e-mailed them to MacGregor.
“I photo-shopped these myself,” Jillian said, “but I couldn’t find anything.”
“You’re not Chilcoate,” he said, adding, “thank God. I won’t bore you with the details. Bottom line is, he managed to enlarge this parking meter, which seems to read ‘Spokane Municipal Meters’ underneath. That puts the photo in Spokane. Besides that, he got this from the reflection in this store window. The letters SEAU.”
She nodded. “The rest is cut off, but it seems to be a shop sign.”
“Exactly. Which means this man is in Spokane, at least he was for the photo.”
Jillian felt a thread of hope. Was it possible? Were they really going to ID this monster who had drugged her and dragged her into those frozen woods to die?
She stared at the photo, at the image of the man in the cap. Aaron? Or someone else entirely? Was she closing in on the man who had stolen investors’ funds, then faked his own death and left her not knowing for years? Or was she just being pulled deeper into an incredibl
e hoax used for the purpose of killing her?
She felt an anger, deep and hot and dark, surge through her soul. Not only at the man who had abandoned her, but at the person who was trying to ruin her, kill her, and blame her death on another sick monster.
MacGregor, as if he understood what she was feeling, placed a big hand over her shoulder, the warmth of his fingers permeating the thick terry cloth, seeping into her skin. She tried not to think too much about his touch, not when they were so close.
“Don’t tell me,” she said, surprised at the emotion she heard in her voice. “Chilcoate’s already found the shop, located the street corner here in Spokane.”
“Even he has his limits.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He promised that by tomorrow morning. When he gives us the location, we’ll get to this street.”
“And then we’ll be at the spot where Aaron, or someone who looked like him, stepped across the street. We won’t necessarily find him.”
“It’s not the answer, Jillian, I know, but it’s a start.” He rotated her chair so that she could see his face, and for a second she lost herself in his gaze, imagining that he was talking about more than locating her supposedly dead husband. “That’s something, right?”
“Right.”
“And we’re closer now?” he asked.
“To the truth?” she repeated, her voice a little rough because she guessed he was, in fact, not discussing the case any longer. “Yes,” she nodded, meeting the unvoiced questions in his eyes.
One of his brows quirked. A silent invitation.
She smiled faintly.
“Ya think?” he asked, as if to make certain.
“No thinking about it, MacGregor. I know.”
“That’s what I like, a humble woman.”
“Just as I like a weak man.” Her smile widened as she goaded him, and she saw a flicker of desire in his eyes. She was treading into dangerous territory, but then, didn’t she always?