Born To Die mtd-3

by Lisa Jackson

  She hoped that she could exercise her muscles and relax her ever-spinning mind. Today her routine would be a cardio workout of forty-five minutes on the elliptical machine, then another half hour of weight lifting on different machines dedicated to toning and strengthening specific areas of her body.

  Usually, somewhere in the middle of her routine, she would zone out, and whatever issues she was trying to work through on a case would start to unravel, but today, as she made her way through a series of arm, leg, and torso machines, no answers came on the Jocelyn Wallis murder. Alvarez had spent hours going over the woman’s phone records and through her bills, even her garbage, but nothing had leapt out at her as odd or suspicious, no blinding lightning bolt of insight had illuminated her mind. The ex-boyfriends had alibis. The paperwork was benign.

  No will had been located, at least not yet, nor had any life insurance beneficiary been uncovered.

  Jocelyn Wallis was a schoolteacher who didn’t have a lot of friends and had no known enemies, with no link to Shelly Bonaventure, aside from where she’d been born and her looks. The case was frustrating as hell.

  Swiping her forehead with the towel, Alvarez settled into the seat of a leg press and upped the weight. Her muscles were loose now, and she was able to do three sets of fifteen reps, though she strained. When she was finished, sweat dripping from every pore in her body, she still knew no more than she had when she’d taken her first step into this two-storied, state-of-the art gymnasium.

  Heading for the showers, she told herself the truth would appear. She just had to dig a little deeper. Work a little harder.

  Kacey rubbed the kinks from her neck as she glanced at the clock in her office. Two fifteen in the afternoon. The day had flown by with appointment after appointment, and, again, with a few extras squeezed in. The fact that it was a holiday weekend, the shopping weekend of the year, didn’t deter flu viruses, chest colds, infections, or thumbs from being dislocated.

  She’d looked down enough throats and into enough ears for a full day’s worth of work. On Saturdays the clinic was scheduled to close at three, but rarely did that happen, not when so many working parents arranged doctors’ visits around their job schedules.

  Fortunately, Kacey worked only every other Saturday, while Martin took the other weekends. They also alternated on Fridays, so that they each had two consecutive days off each week, a plan that worked for the entire staff.

  Now her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since a banana at six in the morning. The three subsequent cups of coffee hadn’t been enough to sustain her. Reaching into her desk drawer, where she kept her stash of granola and candy bars, she found a Snickers and promised herself a healthy tuna salad with tons of vegetables for dinner.

  Maybe.

  Practice what you preach, she told herself, invoking one of her grandmother’s, Ada’s, timeworn bits of advice as she peeled off the wrapper. How often had she suggested her patients eat healthy, balanced meals, drink eight glasses of water a day, and avoid too much sugar? “Too often,” she said aloud, then, ignoring the stacks of files on her desk, bit into the chocolate and caramel and sighed contentedly.

  She’d felt a little off all day and attributed it to a restless night filled with worries about intruders and dark pickups, along with the more pleasant fantasies about Trace O’Halleran.

  She reminded herself that he was her patient’s father, strictly off-limits, but after running into him at the veterinary clinic yesterday and spending time with Eli and him, she’d had trouble pushing the rugged rancher from her mind.

  She’d just taken the last bite of her Snickers when there was a tap on the door and Nadine, the weekend receptionist, poked her head inside. “Your next appointment called, a new patient, Mrs. Alexander. She’s running fifteen minutes late, but Helen Ingles is here and asked if you would work her in.”

  Kacey nodded.

  Nearing sixty, Nadine was trim, her jaw strong, and her eyebrows were plucked to a fine line. She wore little makeup, lavender-framed glasses, and let her gray hair feather around her face. Her pale lips were pursed into a knot of disapproval.

  “Something else?” Kacey asked.

  “This morning I was the first one in, and that damned circuit breaker had tripped again. Not a light on in this place!”

  An ongoing issue. “Would you put in a call to the landlord?”

  “I already left a message on his answering machine and shot him an e-mail,” she stated primly. Once in the military, Nadine Kavenaugh was a stickler for detail and didn’t like anyone who, as she put it, “couldn’t get their act together.” Routines were not to be changed.

  “Good.” Whirling her desk chair around, Kacey tossed the candy wrapper into her wastebasket, then grabbed her lab coat. As the chair stopped, she saw that Nadine’s skinny eyebrows had dipped below the rims of her glasses. Obviously, she didn’t approve of the changes in the schedule or much of anything else, for that matter.

  “I’ll put Mrs. Ingles in room two,” she said with a bit of bite, “and when Mrs. Alexander gets here, in one.”

  “I’ll be in as soon as Randy takes vitals.”

  Huffing her disdain through her nose, Nadine closed Kacey’s door, but through the thin panels Kacey heard her sharp footsteps marching back to the main reception area.

  Slipping on her lab coat, she checked her pocket for her stethoscope, then paused to take a look at her e-mail. She’d hoped for some word on the birth records she’d asked about, even though she knew no state offices had been open for the past three days. Her grandfather’s warning, Don’t be gettin’ the cart before the horse, there, Missy, echoed in her ears, and as expected, there wasn’t a response. Then again, maybe she was tilting at windmills. Just because a couple of women who resembled her had died, and her mother was a little weird about her family, weren’t reasons to go off the deep end.

  She clicked out of her account and headed down the short hallway to the examination rooms. Helen Ingles complained about being tired all the time. “Goddamned fatigue, it’s killin’ me,” she admitted, though she swore she was monitoring her glucose levels religiously and eating right and exercising. “Then again, maybe it’s because my daughter and her eight-year-old moved in. She’s separating from her husband and doesn’t have a job.” Worry shadowed Helen’s eyes.

  “Let’s talk about that,” Kacey said and spent the next ten minutes listening. After determining that worry was as much a part of Helen’s problem as her diabetes, Kacey ordered more lab work for the following week and suggested a consultation with a family psychologist.

  “A shrink?” Helen said, horrified. “I’m not crazy.”

  “You’ve had a change of lifestyle. That’s always hard. Here, take the doctor’s card, and make an appointment, if you want to.” When she saw her patient’s hesitation, she added, “What would it hurt?”

  “My pride, I guess. I’ve always thought I could handle all my problems.”

  “We all need someone to listen sometimes.” Kacey left her to mull it over, then plucked the new patient’s chart from the basket on the door of exam room one. Elle Alexander was thirty-five, fifteen pounds overweight, and complaining of a persistent cough that was keeping her up at night. Her previous physician was located in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

  Knocking on the door, Kacey was still skimming the chart. “Mrs. Alexander? I’m Doctor Lambert.”

  The patient was seated on the examination table, her legs swinging over the edge. A little plump, with short red hair and rosy cheeks, she smiled broadly.

  Kacey’s heart nearly stopped because the woman resembled her enough to be noticeable. Again? she thought in disbelief.

  “Hi,” Elle greeted her.

  Kacey tried to tell herself that she was imagining things, that she’d been too caught up in Heather’s conviction that Shelly Bonaventure was her twin, or Nurse Rosie Alsgaard’s fears that the Jane Doe patient lying near death in the hospital was Kacey, before Trace O’Halleran
had identified her as Jocelyn Wallis. She might have blown it all off as coincidence, but now, staring at Elle Alexander and seeing Randy Yates’s expression as he was removing the blood pressure cuff from her arm, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Are you two related?” Randy asked, and Elle laughed as she eyed the doctor.

  “Oh, no,” Elle dismissed. “I’ve just got one of those faces, you know. I remind everyone of someone.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess it’s just my curse.” She grinned. “Besides, we really don’t look that much alike. Way different body types, for one thing.”

  That much was true. Kacey was three inches taller and twenty pounds lighter, but the bone structure of Elle’s face, the slope of her cheeks, point of her chin, and shape of her eyes, mirrored Kacey’s. Elle’s hair was lighter, redder, but that could be changed, and Elle’s eyes were more blue than green, but there was just something. . and she was around the right age.

  For what?

  “You know, though, I think I could start a lookalike club,” she went on. “Since I’ve been in this town, I’ve met a couple of people who look a lot like me.”

  “Is that right?” Kacey asked carefully, her pulse elevating.

  “Oh, yeah, well, take that poor teacher who died, and then there’s a woman at the gym I go to. She’s one of the trainers, I think. Her name is. . Oh, what is it? Gloria, maybe.” She puckered her face in annoyance. “Well, I just started at Fit Forever, so I’m not sure, but now there’s you.” She shrugged, as if it were all a normal occurrence.

  As Randy made notes to Elle’s chart on his laptop, Kacey tried to ignore the alarm bells jangling in her mind, alarms that said, Something here is just not right, and continued the examination, listening to the woman’s lungs, hearing about how her cough had persisted for the past three months despite several rounds of antibiotics, swabbing her throat twice. “You were under a doctor’s care in Coeur d’Alene?”

  Elle offered up the physician’s name, then searched in her purse and handed Kacey a business card for a doctor and clinic in Idaho. “I saw him before we moved here,” she explained.

  “Did you have any chest X-rays?”

  Elle shook her head. “No.”

  “Let’s start there, rule out strep and pneumonia, if we can.”

  “Pneumonia? Oh, I can’t have. .” She looked stricken. “I mean, I’ve never had pneumonia in my life! Bronchitis a time or two, but. .”

  “Let’s wait to see what the X-rays show. Our lab isn’t open on Saturdays, but I’ll order it out and you can come by on Monday and they’ll shoot the images over to me. We’ll send the swabs to the lab for the strep test.” To Randy, she said, “Please set up with the X-ray technician.” She slipped the two swabs into individual plastic bags. While Elle was adjusting her gown and Randy’s eyes were on the screen of his laptop, she slid one bag into the pocket of her lab coat. “And this needs to be checked for strep.” That bag she set on the counter next to his computer.

  Not looking up, Randy clicked the information into his keyboard. “You got it.”

  “Good.” Kacey turned back to Elle as Randy swept up the bag and headed out. “Once I look over the films, and we get results back on your tests, I’ll give you a call. In the meantime, I’m prescribing a stronger antibiotic. That should start things working.” She wrote out a prescription, then asked Elle to return the next week. “You can make an appointment at the front desk.”

  “I will,” Elle promised.

  Feeling as if the extra swab were burning a hole in her pocket, Kacey nevertheless asked, “Did you grow up in Coeur d’Alene?”

  “Boise. Why?” she asked.

  “Just wondering.” Kacey lifted a shoulder, as if she were only mildly curious, when her mind was spinning. You’re hypersensitive this week. She doesn’t really even look that much like you. Not like the actress and Jocelyn Wallis.

  “I’ve lived in Idaho all my life,” Elle said. “Born and raised there. That’s what made the move so difficult, I guess. But Tom — that’s my husband — he took a job over here and uprooted us all. The kids had just settled into the school year, and then we had to go.” A trace of sadness colored her gaze. “It’s the economy, you know. It even affects lawyers.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make friends here fast, and the schools are great.”

  “I hope so. My son, he has no trouble fitting in, but my daughter. . It’s more difficult for her. She’s thirteen, just kind of trying to figure out who she is, and, well, it’s tough.” She sighed.

  “Grizzly Falls is a great town.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She didn’t seem convinced.

  “Just give it a little time.”

  “I guess I don’t have any choice.” She shrugged and started reaching for her clothes, and Kacey headed for her office. Then she waited until Elle Alexander, the last patient, had left, the exam rooms were cleaned, and both Nadine and Randy had gone home as well.

  Telling herself she was making a mountain out of a molehill, she locked the door behind her. All her life she’d been fascinated with conspiracy theories, and they’d always landed her in verbal debates and lectures with her mother, in the beginning, or more recently, with her ex. JC thought she was out of her mind, but she was still half convinced that there was more than one shooter in the JFK assassination, that Princess Di was killed by her enemies or someone within the royal family, and that Kurt Cobain did not commit suicide.

  Despite all her ex-husband’s arguments.

  Once she was certain she was alone, that everyone had left the clinic, she retrieved the bagged swab from her pocket. Though she realized that she was jumping at shadows, and despite the fact that she was going against everything she believed in, she sent the Baggie to the lab with a special request for Elle Alexander’s DNA profile.

  And there was that trainer at Fit Forever… Gloria somebody, who Elle thought looked like her. Kacey decided she would make a trip over there soon and see if she was “another one” of them.

  “Bizarre,” she said aloud as she turned out the lights.

  CHAPTER 19

  As smart as he was, sometimes fate or God or whoever seemed against him, he thought as he hurried down the rickety old stairs. The scent of the basement, of dust and dirt, filled his nostrils as he unlocked the door and stepped into his private office. Without thinking, he locked the door behind him and tried to calm himself.

  “One.” Breathe. “Two.” Take another, deeper breath.

  Agitated, he slowly counted to ten, then to twenty, but his fists were still clenched, his shoulders tight, his mind a blaze of red. A deep fury that burned bright. Opening a drawer in the desk, he saw the yellowed records that he had collected, soon intended to destroy. The ancient computer from which this information was taken was long gone, the floppy disks of that era already disintegrated into nothing, their files corrupted and irretrievable.

  So all that remained were these papers he’d preserved with such care. And he would burn them, one by one, as soon as each of those he called “the Unknowings” was dead.

  Of course, there was always a chance that one of them could still stumble upon the truth, and that thought twisted his guts. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, let it happen, he thought, anger rising again.

  Wanting to kick something or someone, he made his way to the specialty bar he’d installed himself, slid out of his clothes, and stepped into his pair of gravity inversion boots.

  After strapping himself in, he began doing abdominal pull-ups, curling himself toward the ceiling, feeling his spine decompress, forcing his muscles to work hard.

  He needed the release and gritted his teeth as sweat began to run along his skin.

  He’d plotted out his revenge neatly and spent years slowly taking care of the Unknowings. The pictures he had of them, all taken moments before their deaths, were proof enough of how patient and careful he’d been, the years he’d put into this project. But every once in a while, some of his best laid plans were undone.

&n
bsp; The most recent case in point was Elle Alexander. How could he have predicted that her shyster of a husband would pull up stakes and join a law firm here? In Grizzly Falls of all places? It complicated things, and now that damned Elle was going to ruin everything. She’d already visited Acacia Lambert, and that spelled trouble.

  But you can fix this. You know you can. Think!

  His muscles strained as he pulled up, held the position, then slowly lowered himself to hang upside down for a second or two before repeating the process.

  He couldn’t afford any screwups now.

  There’s still time. Just concentrate!

  Again he pulled upward.

  This time his abs screamed.

  Slowly he rolled downward, and while his muscles protested, he forced himself to do another set and unhooked his boots only when his abs and back felt as if they were on fire and sweat dripped down his body to pool on the floor.

  Good. It’s good.

  Taking a deep breath, he flipped lithely to his feet. He was agile and strong, a high-school wrestler who’d gone to state and later, in college, a member of a competitive crew team. He’d rock climbed, explored caves, scuba dived, and snow skied.

  And he’d never backed down from a challenge.

  Even the biggest of his life.

  So he couldn’t allow anything to get in his way.

  Not even that niggling sensation that caught him off guard once in a while. That someone knew.

  “Stop!” he said aloud, to jar himself away from the unfounded fear that sometimes burrowed into his heart.

  Already he’d had to accelerate his schedule. He’d planned on taking his time, to not arouse any suspicions, but now he felt a tightness in his chest, a sense of dire urgency. Time was running out.

  At least he understood who would be next.

  Finally, his thoughts were clear. He always had a plan B, which was always a little more dangerous, with more chance of being found out, but at this point, he had no choice. Elle had to be dealt with.