by Lisa Jackson
“I don’t suppose this guy paid with a credit card.”
She smiled, showing off the hint of teeth that weren’t quite straight, as her incisors flared slightly. “We’re not gonna get that lucky.”
“Suppose not.”
“Besides, we think it’s a suicide, right?” Harding prodded.
“Yeah.” He said it without a lot of conviction. He figured he would check into the last few days of Shelly Bonaventure’s life and delve into all her relationships. He was also interested as to whom would benefit from her death. There was talk of her being up for a part in a new television series and a rumor of her nearly inking a deal for a tell-all book. First, though, he’d start with the last person to see her alive.
“So, you’re buying the accidental overdose?” Harding asked, eyes narrowing, and when he didn’t respond, she nodded, as if agreeing with herself and a foregone conclusion. “You’re still thinking homicide.”
“I don’t know what to think. Not yet,” he admitted. “I’m just not ruling anything out. Let’s go talk to the bartender, face-to-face. Maybe we can jog his memory about our mystery man.”
“You’re the boss,” she said, and there was just an edge of sarcasm to her voice.
“That’s right,” he teased her, grabbing his jacket off a hook near his desk. He slipped his Glock into its shoulder holster. “Just don’t forget it.”
“How could I when you remind me of it every day?”
“No reason to cop an attitude.”
“Huh,” she said. “Let’s go.”
His footsteps creaked on the old stairs as he slowly descended to the basement, located under the garage end of the house, which had been built before the turn of the century. The last century.
Cool and airtight, once used for stacked wood and a wood-burning furnace, now its purpose was primarily storage. Crates, old furniture, broken lamps, canning jars, and pictures from bygone eras collected dust.
No one ever ventured down here.
Except for him.
And only when he was alone.
Cobwebs dangled from the exposed beams of the floor above, where the old John Deere sat parked, as it had for the better part of a decade. He ignored the scrape of tiny claws against the bricks of the floor. Let the mice and rats and squirrels, or whatever rodents chose to live down here, be. A rattler or two wouldn’t be bad, either. Anything to ensure that he wasn’t bothered.
He walked past bins of rusted tools to his private room, the old chamber once used for root vegetables and apples to winter over. His great-grandmother’s old milk separator, a device that hadn’t been used in fifty years, still stood guard at the heavy, padlocked door, and there was rust on the walls where pipes had once brought water to and from a wringer washer that had occupied a space in the corner. He had to duck to keep from hanging himself on the lines where once upon a time, long, long ago, sheets had been draped to dry in the winter.
Unlocking the padlock, he pulled open the old door his great-great-grandfather had built before refrigeration. The door was nearly a foot wide and filled with sawdust. When the door was sealed shut, any sounds from within were completely muted.
Once inside, he snapped on the fluorescent lights and locked the door behind him. The room was instantly awash in the unsteady bluish illumination, and it was as if he’d been propelled forward in time by a century and a half. Stainless-steel counters gleamed against three walls; a computer center complete with wireless modem, twenty-five-inch monitor, and all the technology to keep his private business safe and secure filled one corner.
An oversized map of North America stretched over a bulletin board that filled one long wall. It was a political map, showing state lines, cities, and roads. Scattered across its flat surface were red pushpins. Thirty-seven in all. Each indicating the spot where one of the pretenders lived. Like spatters of blood marring the smooth surface of the map, the pins reminded him of how much work he had to do and soon.
They were a worry, those pins, a serious worry.
There were far too many of them, he thought. There were a few other pins as well, ones with black heads, indicating death. Those pins affixed photographs to the map, though the pictures were turned facedown, showing only white squares of paper with dates of birth and death written in solid black letters. There were six of these in all, scattered across the United States.
But he was making progress — steady progress. It was slow going because he could rely on no one but himself; he’d learned that lesson the hard way.
Smiling to himself, he removed a red pin from the Southern California area, then walked to his printer, where a digital picture had already been printed. Shelly Bonaventure’s frightened face stared back at him, and he grinned again, satisfied by the look of pure terror on her countenance. She’d known at that moment that she was about to die. He’d snapped the shot with his cell phone just before exiting the back door of her apartment, then sent it wirelessly here.
He’d taken too much time with her; he’d heard the sound of sirens fast approaching as he’d let himself out and dashed across the street.
But he’d managed to get away.
Again.
Using the scissors he kept in a drawer, he cut the small picture from the paper, trimming away the excess, then carefully placing her date of birth and death on the back of her picture before pinning it, facedown, with a black pushpin. No longer could he see the small Photoshopped head shot she’d used as her publicity picture.
Perfect.
He surveyed his work, noting the others that had died before Shelly, and the raft of faces of those still alive, those waiting to serve out their sentence. They were in their own ways striking, all between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-six. Mostly brunettes, though there were a few bottle blondes in the group and a couple of redheads.
The pictures were clustered mainly in the Northwest. Two in British Columbia, both near Vancouver Island, one in Alberta, several in Washington State, a slew in Oregon, and some scattered in California. Three in Nevada, two in Arizona, and a handful in Montana. One lived as far away as Delaware, and there were six in the Midwest. Three in Chicago.
The ones who lived within the same district or state worried him as the deaths could be considered suspicious if he wasn’t careful. Shelly’s “suicide” was a risk. The others, so far, appeared to have died in accidents, no questions asked.
All of which was perfect.
Meticulously orchestrated.
But there were so many more.
He glared at the cluster of pins that swarmed around Missoula and Grizzly Falls. Access to each of those pretenders would be easy as they were nearby.
But when so many people in their late twenties and early thirties ended up dead, the authorities would take note.
Unless there was a huge catastrophe and they all died together, along with others, of course, to throw off suspicion. And he’d have to either distance himself from the tragedy or, more likely, be a part of it and escape, not entirely unharmed.
That would be tricky; but it caused his blood to sizzle a bit as he thought how clever he was. He’d baffle the police and turn out a hero and be revered… but no! He had to blend into the woodwork, couldn’t afford to have any kind of light shined upon him, couldn’t allow some idiot member of the press to start digging….
He walked to a file drawer and pulled it open. Inside were neat folders, information gathered over time on each of the pretenders. Some were thick, others slim, but it didn’t matter.
He opened the first one, and his gut twisted as he glared at the picture tucked within his notes.
Dr. Acacia Lambert.
She was special. A small-town girl from Montana with enough brains to send herself to college and medical school. Married briefly to Jeffrey Lambert, a heart surgeon who still worked and resided in Seattle, Washington.
Until the mistake.
When he’d gotten too bloodthirsty, too hungry, too eager to destroy the one person who could ruin everything.
And the job had been botched.
Kacey had lived.
Her marriage had fallen apart, though, and after the breakup Kacey decided to become a small-town doctor in the same town where her grandparents had resided all their lives.
Touching.
And perfect.
After escaping his original plan, she’d nearly fallen right into his waiting hands.
This time, there wouldn’t be a mistake; this time he’d take care of her for good.
A slow-burning fury ran through his veins as he studied her picture. His jaw tightened as he noticed her thick red-brown hair, high cheekbones, full lips, and green eyes, which seemed to spark with intelligence, even in the small snapshot.
He’d watched her.
Followed her.
Learned her routine.
She lived in her grandparents’ old home just outside of town. The house was hidden from the road, down a long, tree-lined lane, which would make things a lot easier….
But she would have to wait.
Unfortunately, there were others he had to deal with first.
And when he dealt with Kacey, he intended to take his time, to make certain she realized her sins.
He flipped open a few more files and sorted them. None of the people he was surveilling realized that he was watching them, collecting all the ones that were in close proximity to Kacey.
He wondered if any of them had run across each other.
If so, they hadn’t guessed the one thing they had in common.
Each was born to die long before her time.
And it was his mission to make it happen.
CHAPTER 2
“Your son or daughter did not attend one or more classes today. . ”
Detective Regan Pescoli felt her blood boil as she listened to the dreaded prerecorded message from the high school where Bianca was supposed to have attended class. “Well, why the hell not?” she whispered aloud and clicked off her cell. She’d dropped her kid off at school herself, and Bianca was too young to drive.
Dialing Bianca’s cell, Regan was put through to voice mail. Of course. Neither of her kids ever picked up. She texted: Where are you? The school called and said you were a no-show. Call me!
“Great,” she muttered, sliding her chair away from her desk at the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department. She glanced at her watch as she walked to Selena Alvarez’s cubicle, where her partner was huddled over her desk, her telephone cradled between her ear and shoulder as she sorted through neat stacks of paper on the desk. Alvarez’s black hair was scraped into a thick knot at the base of her skull and shining blue under the overhead lights.
Glancing up, she held up a finger as Pescoli approached.
“Yeah, I know, but we’ve been waiting for those test results for a couple of weeks now,” she said, her voice tight, her lips twisted into a frown. If there was one thing Alvarez couldn’t stand, it was incompetence. “Uh-huh. . yeah, well, we’re all shorthanded. I get it. . What? If that’s the best you can do. . okay… Tomorrow’s fine.” She hung up, fuming. “What do you bet that tomorrow comes and I still don’t know what was in Donna McKinley’s bloodstream?” she said, leaned back in her desk chair, and scowled at her computer monitor, where the picture of the woman in question was visible. “I’d just like to get this off my desk, y’know.”
Pescoli did know. They both wanted to be assured that Donna McKinley’s death was a stupid accident, that she’d fallen asleep at the wheel and run off the road. That her death was not the result of something nefarious by her excon of a boyfriend, Barclay Simms, who just happened to take out a hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy on Donna three weeks earlier. This while he was collecting unemployment.
Alvarez sighed loudly. “Sorry.”
“No problem. Just letting you know that I’m outta here. Gotta track down my kid.”
“She skip school?”
“Looks like,” Pescoli said with a shake of her head. Until a year ago, Bianca had been an A student, always on the honor roll, proud of being “the good one,” as she’d referred to herself often enough, until her grades had started slipping the year before, in junior high. She’d promised to work harder again in high school, “when it really counted.” So far, she wasn’t keeping to her word.
“I’ve got things covered here,” Alvarez said, which was true enough. A serious workaholic, she rarely clocked in during normal work hours. Alvarez was single and dedicated, and it appeared to Pescoli as if the younger woman had no social life whatsoever, which was a shame. But today she didn’t have time to think about it.
“I owe ya one.”
Alvarez snorted. “I’ll remember that.”
Along with about a hundred other times, Pescoli thought as she found her jacket, scarf, and hat, then hurried out the back and past the lunchroom, where Joelle Fischer was opening boxes filled with all kinds of holiday decorations. Silver stars, glittering tinsel, fake candy canes, and strings of lights, even a slightly salacious-looking Santa, which had, year after year, given Pescoli a case of the creeps, were being placed on empty tabletops as Joelle plotted where to put up her “little bit of Christmas” around the department. Why Sheriff Dan Grayson put up with her nonsense, Pescoli had no idea. But Joelle, forever bubbly with her short blond hair, oversized earrings, and three-inch heels, never seemed to notice that the rest of the department didn’t get into the spirit of the holidays with the same fervor and sense of enthusiasm as she did.
“Regan! Hey!” Joelle called, clipping after her to stand in the doorway to the hall. She was already wearing a Rudolph broach with a blinking red nose. “You know we’re having the drawing for the Secret Santa on Monday morning?”
“And you know that it’s not Christmas for nearly six weeks.”
“It sneaks up on you,” she said solemnly. “Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, and why not celebrate the season for as long as possible?”
“Count me out for Christmas in July.”
“Don’t be such a crank!” She pretended to frown, but the edges of her Kewpie-doll lips twitched. “You’ll be here at eight, then? Monday?”
“With frickin’ bells on,” Pescoli muttered. She couldn’t really get into the spirit when she didn’t know where her daughter was.
“Make sure they’re jingle bells!” Joelle tittered at her own joke and gratefully returned to the lunchroom and her decorating.
Insane, Pescoli thought as she pushed open the doors and strode along a path that intersected the brittle grass. If the clumps of snow didn’t remind her that it was already winter in western Montana, the icy wind that rattled the chain on the flagpole certainly did.
She found her Jeep, slid inside, and didn’t search for the pack of “emergency” Marlboro Lights she kept in her glove box. She’d officially given up the habit last January, after a homicidal maniac had nearly killed her, but once in a while, when things got too hard to deal with, she’d sneak a cigarette. And she told herself she wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.
She didn’t think her kid cutting class was enough of an emergency to break down, but the day wasn’t over yet. Maybe Bianca had gotten herself into more trouble. Closing her mind to the horror she often saw in her work, victims of horrendous accidents, furious husbands, or out-and-out psychos, she threw the rig into reverse and somehow avoided Cort Brewster, the undersheriff, as he wheeled in. Brewster and she weren’t exactly cool with each other, never had been, and when their kids had been hanging out, her son, Jeremy, had been blamed for every bit of trouble that Brewster’s perfect little princess, Heidi, had gotten into.
“Perfect, my ass,” Pescoli said under her breath, not giving Brewster so much as a nod as she pulled out of the lot. In Pescoli’s opinion the guy was a supercilious hypocrite, and she prayed under her breath that she didn’t pull his name out of the hat when Joelle hosted her ridiculous Secret Santa drawing in the morning. No way could Pescoli stomach buying him little gifts and hiding them around his desk or in his vehicle.
What was that tired Valley Girl saying? Gag me with a spoon? Well, in this case, she thought, it was gag me with a damned shovel.
Deciding she was being petty, she turned her attention to the traffic and, using her Bluetooth, tried to call her daughter again. Sure enough, voice mail picked up. “Come on, Bianca, answer,” she muttered.
Night was falling fast.
She called the house, as they still had a landline. It rang four times before being answered. “Hullo?” her son said without a drip of emotion, and Pescoli, slowing for a red light, felt a moment’s relief. Although why Jeremy, who’d moved out over the summer, was at the house was a bit of a question, one for which she didn’t have time. Not yet.
“It’s Mom. Is Bianca there?”
“Yeah.”
Thank God! “She okay?”
“Uh. . yeah, I guess.”
“Put her on the phone.”
“She’s sleeping.”
“I don’t care.”
“Jesus! You don’t have to yell.”
“And you don’t have to curse.”
“Fine.”
As the traffic light turned green and she drove along Boxer Bluff, where the uppermost part of Grizzly Falls was sprawled, she heard a series of muffled voices and finally her daughter’s sleepy “Yeah?”
“What’s up?” Pescoli demanded.
“Me, now,” Bianca grumbled.
“The school called and said you missed class.”
“I didn’t feel good.”
“Well,” Pescoli automatically corrected as she turned onto the street winding out of the town. “You didn’t feel well.”
“Whatever.”
“How’d you get home?”
“Chris.”
The on-again, off-again boyfriend. “He doesn’t have a license.”
“We were with his brother, Gene.”
The seventeen-year-old who already had been involved in a wreck. Pescoli knew all about that one; she’d seen what was left of the 1990 Honda Accord after it had hit a mailbox, then a tree. It was a wonder the kid had survived, let alone got away with only a broken collarbone and a few scratches. “Look, I’m on my way home. We’ll talk then.” Checking her mirrors, she changed lanes to avoid a work crew that had dug up the street.