The Alvarez & Pescoli Series

by Lisa Jackson

  BAM!

  Pain exploded through her brain and she crumpled to the floor.

  CHAPTER 36

  Trace held fast to his pitchfork. His heart was hammering, his muscles tight as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The smell of dung and urine filled his nostrils. The lights had gone out while he’d still been in the barn, still wrapping the damned pipe. He’d finished the job though it had taken longer than anticipated, then headed to the stable.

  He’d noticed the house was dark, getting colder by the minute and he felt the urge to hurry, to get back to Kacey and Eli. He’d hoped she would have drawn the water and brought the boy downstairs, near the fire for warmth.

  Then he’d stepped into the stable and felt something was wrong.

  More than the damned electricity being out, or the worry of frozen pipes.

  No, this was a danger within.

  The horses were restless, almost spooked, shifting in their stalls. He heard the sounds of rustling straw, nervous snorts, and every so often an anxious whinny.

  Sarge, too, was out of sorts. Stiff. He’d growled once and stared at the windowless rooms where the oats and other grains were stored. Bonzi, not knowing the drill, hadn’t been all that concerned, but his ears were up. At attention. Aware of an unseen being hidden in the darkness.

  The back of Trace’s throat went dry.

  An animal?

  Or human?

  His skin prickled under the collar of his jacket and he knew the answer. An animal would elicit a different response from his dog. This threat was definitely a person skulking in the shadows.

  He thought of shouting out. Maybe it was just someone who’d come in for shelter from the storm. But why not stop at the house? Someone on the run? Someone scared?

  Or someone intent on doing harm?

  His heart grew stone cold.

  He thought of his rifle, hidden deep in his closet, the ammunition locked away in an overhead cabinet in the kitchen. Then his mind went to Kacey alone in the house with his son.

  Sarge growled again and Trace heard a noise ... the tiniest squeak of the stable’s floorboards. Every muscle in his body tensed.

  Blood pounding in his ears, he held his pitchfork like a spear and began moving slowly through the darkness.

  “You can’t die, damn it!” a female voice whispered harshly. “Who’s going to take care of Eli? Who?”

  Oh, Lord, now she was imagining things, hearing the voices of angels, Kacey thought, pain surging through her body. She fought back the urge to vomit, and when she opened a bleary eye, she saw only darkness. Lying on the kitchen floor, the room spinning , she tried to pull herself to her knees.

  Agony ripped through her skull. Get up! Pull yourself together.

  The house was still, aside from the wind outside. Her attacker had fled. But he would be back. She knew it. Just as she knew Eli and Trace were in danger.

  If they were alive.

  She listened for the voice in her head again.

  Heard nothing.

  And tried like hell to get to her feet.

  At the Johnson estate, Alvarez glanced out to the frigid night. Where was he? Where was the killer who had wreaked so much damage? What was he doing?

  “And Kathleen?” Pescoli pressed, bringing up the other Johnson daughter who had died.

  “She . . . she was killed in a skiing accident,” Gerald said, scowling, as if his own words tasted bitter.

  “Skiing accident,” Alvarez repeated. “Any of her brothers present the day she died?”

  “What?” Noreen blinked and fiddled nervously with her collar. “What are you suggesting, detective?”

  Pescoli’s smile held zero warmth. “Let me guess. Was it Cameron?”

  “No!” Noreen said, her face shattering as tears came again. “I mean, yes, he was there. But ... but so was most of the family!”

  “Convenient.” Pescoli was irritated as she glowered at this couple whose entire married life had been shrouded in secrets.

  Cameron? One of the twins? He was the one Pescoli was zeroing in on? Alvarez thought of the two men who looked so much alike, whose jobs took them throughout the country. Handsome and smart. But deadly? To his mother she asked, “Do you know exactly what happened the day Kathleen died?”

  Noreen glanced at her husband and then worried her lip. “Of course ... Cameron was skiing with Kathleen on that last run, but that doesn’t mean . . . there were hundreds, probably thousands, of people on the mountain that day.” She sounded as if she were trying desperately to convince herself.

  Alvarez was trying to remember everything about Cameron Johnson. He worked for the family business, lived on the outskirts of Grizzly Falls, on the way to Missoula. . .

  “Poor, poor Kathleen.” Sighing, tears filling her eyes, Noreen added, “She’d finally found a man who loved her despite . . .”

  “Despite what?” Pescoli asked.

  “Nothing.” Noreen shook her head quickly. “Nothing at all.” She beseeched her husband silently but he threw up a hand, his own face a mask of sadness.

  “Kathleen battled bipolar disorder,” Gerald admitted sadly, one of his hands actually trembling. “I was a doctor, wouldn’t believe it. At the time we really didn’t know what to call it. We said, ‘She had spells’ or she was ‘manic,’ or ‘depressed.’ I couldn’t really accept that she was suffering so.”

  Seriously? Alvarez wondered. The second child who’d died from an accident had mental issues? Was there a connection? Seemed unlikely. Then again, everything about this case was slightly askew.

  “Gerald, don’t you see?” Noreen interjected. “They’re . . . they’re saying anything they can. Grasping at straws!” Glaring at Pescoli, her nostrils flaring, she added, “They’re insinuating that Cameron killed Kathleen! Can you believe it? Cam!” She was shivering in rage. “And that’s not the end of it, they’re also trying to pin those other accidents, where the women died, on him. As if he were able to . . . This is unbelievable!” Noreen started pacing again, growing hysterical. “But it’s not true. It just can’t be!” Spinning on a heel, she pointed at Pescoli. “Get out! Now! Get the hell out of my house. You’re despicable. Both of you!” She was crying in earnest now, her eyes trained on the large window facing the drive.

  “This isn’t over. We’re not done,” Pescoli said, rising to her feet.

  Alvarez took her cue, checking her cell phone and starting for the door, just as headlights pierced the paned windows, washed against the walls. Over the whistle of the storm, the roar of a powerful engine surged through the night.

  Noreen’s shimmering eyes widened. The faintest of sad smiles tugged at the corners of her lips. “Oh, thank God!” she said, dropping a relieved hand over her heart. “Judd’s here!”

  Judd?

  The oldest son?

  Why?

  As Gerald got to his feet and tried to stop his wife, Noreen raced into the hallway, her heels clicking on the marble floor as she flung open the door. A tall man, broad in the shoulders, his expression grim, entered. The family resemblance was unmistakable, Judd’s bearing and facial features almost identical to his father’s. He gave his mother a quick, almost obligatory hug as he surveyed the group in the den.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded, his voice low, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as snow melted on the shoulders of his black overcoat. With his mother still clinging to his arm, he strode into the den.

  “It’s the police,” she said as if he were the damned cavalry, sent to rescue her. “They’ve come here asking all kinds of questions about those women who died . . .” Noreen was talking fast. “The newest accident victim is ... is Karalee . . . Rierson. From the clinic. Oh . . . oh . . . no . . .” she was shaking her head as she connected the dots. “I, uh, oh God, I tried to set her up on a date with your brother . . .” Stricken by her thoughts, she looked as if she might buckle. Licking her lips, one hand at her throat, she whispered, “But it ... it can’t be . . .”

  “Mothe
r,” Judd warned. “Stop talking.” To the police: “I’m an attorney. I don’t want you to speak to my parents without counsel present and it can’t be me. I assume this is something criminal, or you wouldn’t be here. I’ll get in touch with Herman Carlton, a friend of mine and I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

  Herman Carlton hailed from Spokane, but practiced in Montana as well. Of course they’d heard of him. In Alvarez’s opinion, Carlton was a prick of a defense attorney and a miserable human being. But he would be trouble in a court battle, big trouble.

  “Hold on,” Gerald said. “No one’s accusing anyone of anything.”

  Pescoli interrupted and said to Noreen. “The son that you set up with Karalee Rierson? Which one is he?”

  “Mother, don’t!” Judd was adamant and Noreen snapped her mouth shut.

  “It was Cameron,” Gerald said gently, his gaze on his wife’s stricken face.

  And all the pieces of the puzzle started locking into place.

  When Judd tried to say something, Gerald held up his hand, as if to stop the barrage of denials. In a softer voice he said to the detectives, “I overheard my wife talking on the phone with Clarissa about a potential date.” As Noreen bristled, her spine stiffening, he added, “It’s over, honey. We can’t bury our heads in the sand any longer.”

  “You’re a bastard, Gerald,” she shot back. “You know that, don’t you? A number-one bastard! And I never called him.” Noreen shook her head. “Cam didn’t know that I’d spoken to Karalee.”

  “Of course he did, because Clarissa would have told him. They’re tight,” Gerald said. “And if she told him, I’m willing to bet the whole damned family knew!” He stared at Judd. “You?”

  Judd’s jaw slid to one side; he didn’t answer. It was admission enough, at least in Alvarez’s mind.

  “Come on, son,” his father implored.

  “Judd?” Noreen pleaded.

  With a shrug, the attorney reluctantly said, “Okay, I’d heard.” His lips twisted into a deep line of disdain. “Clarissa doesn’t know how to keep a secret. Never has.”

  Noreen, broken, let out a little gasp.

  Gerald’s sigh was deep with despair. As the fire crackled and the snow continued to fall outside the window, where the gaslights glowed, he said to Judd, “You can’t protect him anymore.”

  “Where is he?” Pescoli demanded.

  “I don’t know.” Gerald shook his head. “He keeps to himself.”

  Pescoli ordered. “Call him!”

  “I tried on the way over here,” Judd admitted. “He’s not answering.”

  “Try him again!” She wouldn’t budge, but Alvarez knew they would get nowhere further. They’d learned more than they’d expected and now they had to act. Fast. To prevent Cameron Johnson from killing again. She said to Pescoli as she pulled out her phone, “We don’t have time for this.”

  “You’re right.” Her partner threw the Johnson family one last angry look, but she was already starting for the door. “Let’s find the son of a bitch!”

  Click!

  Trace heard the distinctive cock of a gun and froze. No one could see him in the dark. Whoever was inside the stable wouldn’t be able to draw a bead on him. He had the advantage. He knew his way inside and out of this old building.

  Unless the prick has night-vision goggles. Or a scope.

  Damn it!

  Sarge growled again, low and throaty.

  Trace felt the dog tense. His own grip tightened on the pitchfork. He eased toward a post where, at least, he’d have some protection.

  Show yourself, you sick son of a bitch.

  Then he saw it. The tiniest movement, a shadow in the deeper umbra of the stable. His eyes narrowed, his gaze searching, trying to make out the person. He drew the pitchfork back, ready to launch it through the air, then stopped.

  Eli.

  What if somehow his son was in the darkness? Hiding? Or ... what if whoever it was had kidnapped his boy and was going to use him as a shield? His insides turned to water. Then he thought of Kacey and that made it worse. She could be inside, held with a gun pointed at her head, watching the horror unfold.

  Heart thudding, he tried like hell to make out whoever it was, but the stygian darkness was impossible to pierce.

  “What’re you waiting for?” The voice was deep and male. It taunted. “You think that stupid pitchfork can do any real damage?” And then laughter. Deep. Cruel.

  So the bastard could see him. Trace’s blood burned.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, his weapon still ready to be hurled.

  “Does it matter?” A snide, sickly question.

  “Eli?” he said.

  “No! I’m not Eli . . . oh, your kid?” A pause. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

  So he didn’t have the boy. Good! “Let Kacey go!”

  “Now that wouldn’t make sense, would it? Not after I waited all this time.”

  Trace crumbled inside. The madman had her! Intended to kill her, if he hadn’t already! A new fury took hold and he searched for something, anything so he could see. But there was nothing, not so much as a match!

  “She’s waiting for you. So that’s why I think it would be better if I kill you up at the house with her. Make it look like she did it! An accident, you know.”

  She was still alive? “You crazy son of a bitch.” But not crazy enough to fire a rifle in a closed space where it could ricochet. Maybe.

  Sarge growled again from somewhere nearby.

  “Tell that mutt to back off!” the voice commanded, “or I’ll blow his mangy hide to kingdom come.”

  “Show yourself!” Trace demanded.

  “Not on your life.”

  “Then go to hell!”

  He drew the pitchfork back. Stepping out from behind the post, he threw all his body weight behind his shoulder and let it fly. It hurled through the darkness as he jumped behind the thin post.

  “AAAWwwwwooh!” A horrifying scream echoing through the building. “You fucker!”

  Crrraaack!

  A blaze of light flashed in front of Trace’s eyes. Thunder crashed through the stable, rolling through his brain in harsh, loud waves. Panicked horses screamed! The dogs barked and howled!

  A pain as hot as the fires of hell seared Trace’s thigh, the impact of the bullet so powerful he fell backward. Hard. His head hit the floorboards with a thud and he momentarily lost consciousness, a soothing blackness luring him under, away from the horror and the chaos within.

  Don’t give in. You’re a dead man if you let the blackness take you! Think of Eli! Of Kacey!

  Dust and the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder filled his nostrils as he blinked himself awake. The dogs were going nuts, barking and growling like crazy. Horses still kicked and squealed in fear, scrambling in their stalls while the scent of fear hung heavy, mingling with the thin odor of burning gunpowder wafting from the direction of the killer.

  “You fucking son of a bitch!” he growled. Trace heard him writhe and swear somewhere near the grain chutes. The dogs ran in circles while Trace hoped beyond hope that his pitchfork had done serious, tissue-ripping damage.

  “You’re gonna die, O’Halleran, and it’s not gonna be easy!” the killer snarled. “You hear me? You’re a dead man, cocksucker! You and your bitch girlfriend!”

  Kacey staggered to her feet, swaying, struggling to think straight. Her mind was sludge, her face on fire, her head thundering in pain. She held the door jamb for support. Trace is out there somewhere and so is Eli and . . . and the psycho . . . Gasping, she dragged in deep breaths of air to clear her head.

  Craaack!

  Outside, the sharp report of a rifle split the snowy night.

  What? Kacey cut back a scream.

  Trace? Oh, God. Eli?

  In the darkness, she fumbled across the kitchen table for Trace’s cell phone. Please, oh, please ... her fingers hit something that jangled and fell. His damned keys. But next to it ... yes! She found his cell phone and dialed the
last number in her brain, that of Detective Alvarez.

  The call went directly to voice mail.

  Damn it! She left a quick message. “The bastard’s here! We need help ... oh, God, please send . . .” She tried to tamp down her rising panic, found the control she’d used with patients. “Detective Alvarez, this is Kacey Lambert. I’m at Trace O’Halleran’s place on Old Mill Road. He’s here. The killer is here, somewhere. He’s attacked me and I just heard gunshots coming from one of the outbuildings. Both Trace and Eli are missing. Please, send help. STAT! I, uh, I don’t know the address, but it’s only about a quarter of a mile west of . . . of . . . Red Wing Corner, a mile from the county road. Please, send officers!”

  Heart clamoring, she dialed 9-1-1. She couldn’t wait for Alvarez to respond. When dispatch picked up, she tersely explained the situation and the operator insisted she not go forward. “Keep me on the line,” the female voice ordered. “I’m dispatching deputies right now. They’re ten minutes away.”

  “Ten minutes is too long!” Kacey spat. “Tell them to hurry!”

  She knew in her heart that there was no way they could make it in time. She clicked off, anxiously peering through the darkness of the house. She didn’t dare go into the stable without a weapon. But she didn’t want to take the time. What if Trace were wounded? She was pretty sure Trace hadn’t fired the gun. No. It was probably the sick son of a bitch who had Eli, who had taunted her with his rifle barrel.

  Oh, God, was it possible that either one of them was hurt ... or worse?

  Don’t go there. You don’t have time for recriminations. Move! Save Trace! Save his son!

  In her search for Eli, she’d discovered Trace’s rifle, hidden in a closet. Now, pain screaming through her brain, she hurried forward, then up the stairs in the dark, using Trace’s cell phone’s weak, bluish light as a guide. Fumbling, cursing, determined to save them. Into Trace’s room. She cracked her elbow on a dresser corner as she stumbled her way to the closet where she pushed aside clothes and a suitcase. It was here! I know . . . there!