Chosen To Die

by Lisa Jackson

  Lisa Jackson

  the small radio she sometimes wore at her shoulder was lost in the backseat. She hadn’t thought she’d need it in confronting Lucky.

  Jaw tight, she tried to reach into her pocket where she kept a pocketknife with a serrated blade, one that could saw through the seat belt.

  She struggled to push her right hand into her pants and tried vainly to tamp down her panic, the feeling that any second she might go into shock and render herself useless.

  Don’t even think that way. Just keep working. You can do this, you can.

  Swallowing back terror, she felt the knife with her fingertips. Come on, come on. She eased her hand farther into the pocket, all the while listening above the pounding of her heart and the wintry rush of the wind for footsteps or snapped twigs or any noise that didn’t fit in this frigid wilderness, any human sound that would warn her of the predator who stalked her. She would be found by her colleagues; she knew that. Eventually. Given enough time, the sheriff’s department would locate her vehicle. Though not equipped with a computer, there were devices within the vehicle that would send out signals and the Jeep would be located. By the good guys. But with the department stretched thin, and her own request that she needed some time alone, she would either be captured or freeze to death before anyone came looking.

  Fear and fury swept through her just as her fingers clenched around the knife. Finally!

  She concentrated on pulling the small weapon up her leg, out of the pocket, away from the pain.

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  Hands shaking, she finally extracted the knife. Painstakingly, she opened the blade, then madly slashed at the air bag, which hissed and slowly collapsed. She pushed it aside and then began to saw at the seat belt. Her cheeks were numb, her fingers unresponsive as they began to freeze.

  If she were uninjured she could have sliced through the belt quickly. As it was, it took all of her strength. She began sawing and felt rather than saw that she wasn’t alone.

  Holy shit.

  She froze. The fingers of her left hand were clenched around her semi-automatic Glock. Cramped as she was, she needed the flexibility of the pistol. Once she was free of the wreckage, she could try for the shotgun again, see if she could get the catch to release.

  She heard nothing save the scream of the wind and her own panicked heartbeat. She saw nothing but white on white, millions of furious snowflakes falling from the sky, creating a shifting curtain where only shadows and her own imagination created images. Her heart was racing wildly. I know you’re out there, you prick. Show yourself. Nothing.

  She licked her cracked lips, told herself that she was imagining things. She usually didn’t take much stock in “gut feelings” or “women’s intuition” or “cop’s instincts.” But now, in this lonely frozen canyon . . . Was that movement? In the thicket only ten feet from the vehicle?

  Heart drumming, she squinted as ice crystals peppered her face.

  Nothing.

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  Lisa Jackson

  No! Yes, something was definitely moving . . . She dropped the knife and put both hands on the pistol, training it through the shattered windshield. Another shadow.

  She pulled the trigger as the image leaped. Bam!

  The bullet hit the bole of a snow-blanketed pine. Bark and chunks of ice and snow exploded. A great buck leaped out from behind the trees and sprang up the hill, a frightened gray shadow disappearing into the whiteout.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, adrenaline spiking through her bloodstream. A deer. Only a damned deer. She let her breath out slowly, started sawing again, and had convinced herself she was overreacting when she saw something move in the fragments of her rearview mirror.

  She looked again and it was gone.

  Get over yourself.

  One last swipe with the knife and the seat belt released just as she felt a sharp sting against her nape. What?

  She slapped the back of her neck, felt something cold and metallic, a small missile lodged near her spine. Her heart turned to stone as she yanked a dart free.

  Her insides liquified.

  She nearly dropped the damned thing. Someone had shot her with what? Any kind of drug or poison could be inside the slim silver canister with its short needle and hidden charge that forced the foreign substance into her body.

  She wanted to throw up.

  Don’t! Keep your wits! The bastard’s near . . .

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  Again there was movement in the reflective shards of what remained of the mirror—a blurry shifting.

  She blinked hard, brought up her pistol as she turned toward the window, but it was too late. Her fingers were already not responding to her brain’s commands, the images in her mind scrambled, a tingling spreading through her.

  The drug . . .

  Another movement in the shattered, crumpled mirror.

  The shotgun. She needed the shot . . . gun . . . She tried to respond, to look for her assailant, but she was feeling numb all over. Her head lolled to one side, the pistol slipped from her fingers, and the world began to spin in eerie slow motion, images becoming dim and foggy.

  “No!” she said, her tongue thick as she tried and failed to find her sidearm again.

  And then she saw him, his features distorted by the broken mirror, a tall figure in white, ski mask obscuring his face, huge dark goggles shielding his eyes.

  She was beginning to fade, to slip beneath the surface of consciousness as he said, “Detective Pescoli,” in a warm voice that indicated he knew her. He was only a few feet away . . . if she could just aim her weapon . . . “Looks like you’ve had yourself an accident.”

  She rolled her eyes up at him and with one last great effort snarled, “Go to hell.”

  “Already there, Detective, but at least now I won’t be alone. You’re going to join me.”

  Not if I can help it, she thought with a sudden 16

  Lisa Jackson

  burst of clarity. She scrabbled for her pistol, her hands sluggish as she brought it up and fired. A series of blasts echoed through the canyon. But the shots missed. Her aim was off.

  As close as he was, she’d missed him, hitting only trees and rocks and God knew what else. He sighed and clucked his tongue. “You’re going to regret that.”

  She wanted to squeeze off another round but her fingers refused to respond and the best she could do as he came closer was to swipe at him with her hand, her fingernails catching in his ski mask, then tearing down his skin. He let out a surprised yelp.

  “You bitch!”

  That’s me, jerk-wad, and I’ve got your epithelials and DNA under my fingernails. If I’m ever found, you’re as good as dead.

  She noticed blood welling on his skin and he reached into some kind of pack and pulled out something . . . an apron? God, she just couldn’t focus . . . everything was so distorted . . . but she should recognize the piece of clothing dangling from his hand . . . A straitjacket?

  A chilling, mind-numbing fear sliced through her. She realized he wasn’t going to let her die easily or quickly, he was going to keep her alive, torture her, nurture her, but inevitably kill her, just like the others.

  But a straitjacket? Being bound and rendered completely helpless . . . it was as if he understood her worst, most terrifying fears.

  The white blizzard swam before her eyes, his image and that of the straitjacket clouding in the swirling, dancing, icy flakes.

  As she sank into unconsciousness she felt no fear;

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  just a hard-edged determination that if she ever woke up again she was going to take this son of a bitch down. Way down. To a place so dark he would never, ever see the light again.

  She only prayed she’d someday get the chance. Chapter Two

  Today

  Where the hell is she?

  As a brutal storm shrieked through the surrounding canyons, Nate Santana paced in the stable,
his cell phone pressed hard to his ear, no sound emanating from the slim, useless device. “Come on, come on,” he encouraged but he knew it was no good. Regan, damn her, was MIA.

  No service appeared on the phone’s small screen. Frustrated, Santana jammed his cell into the pocket of his worn jeans and told himself to remain calm. He was just keyed up from everything that had gone on in the sleepy town of Grizzly Falls in the last few weeks. No big deal.

  And yet, he felt worry eating at his gut, reminding him that everything that had been good in his

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  life always disappeared and that Pescoli, damned her sexy ass, was the best thing that had happened to him in a long, long while . . . probably since Santa Lucia . . .

  His thoughts took a dark twist as he considered the last woman who had changed the course of his life, then pushed her beautiful image from his mind. Shannon Flannery was past history. Right now, he had to deal with the fact that Regan was ducking his calls.

  Or was she?

  He shoved a hand through his hair and glared at the indoor arena where a particularly stubborn and nervous colt was staring back at him, challenging him.

  Usually Santana could be easily distracted by animals. In his experience they were a helluva lot easier to deal with than people. More trustworthy. More constant. But this frigid morning, he couldn’t concentrate, his thoughts creeping ever to Regan. Hell, he had it bad. And he hated it that she’d somehow gotten under his skin. You let her. You al- lowed a quick, no-strings-attached fling to develop into a full-fledged affair starting to border on a relationship. His jaw tightened at the thought.

  She was the worst woman he could have chosen to get involved with. The absolute worst!

  He mentally castigated himself, calling himself a long list of names that grew progressively more derogatory. No woman in a long time had infiltrated his brain, or caused him to think about finding ways to get her into bed at all hours of the day. And Regan was a damned detective with the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department, for crying out loud. 20

  Lisa Jackson

  What did that tell you?

  Avoid. Avoid. Avoid!

  But he’d been drawn to her like a dying man in the desert to an oasis.

  A glance through the window confirmed that the mother of a storm wasn’t letting up. Sub-zero wind howled through the deep ravines of this part of Montana. Ice glazed the outside of the panes and the snow was falling so thick and fast, he couldn’t see the lights glowing in his cabin only a hundred feet away.

  Inside, the huge stable with its indoor exercise arena was warm, the heating system wheezing and stirring up the dust of last summer, while the familiar smells of saddle soap and horse dung, scents he’d known all his life, filled his nostrils. Horses shuffled in their stalls; one, the nervous mare, sent out a quiet whinny. Sounds and odors that usually calmed him. Truth be known, he felt far more akin to animals than he did to most men. Or women, for that matter.

  Until damned Regan Pescoli.

  With her two children.

  Two finished marriages.

  Their relationship, basically all sex, wasn’t the least bit romantic or conventional.

  No vows.

  No promises.

  No strings.

  No big deal.

  Right?

  So why was he edgy and restless? What was it to him that he couldn’t reach her? They’d gone days without speaking before, even, upon occasion, a

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  week. Though not lately. In the past few months, they had been in contact nearly daily. Or nightly. And he wasn’t complaining.

  He reminded himself that up here cell phone service was notoriously lousy, and that getting the NO SIGNAL message was nothing new. Even Brady Long, Santana’s pain-in-the-ass employer, heir to a copper fortune and not afraid to throw his money around, couldn’t get a cell tower built anywhere nearby. Which was usually just fine by Santana. A loner by nature, he didn’t have a lot of interest or faith in technology.

  Except for this morning.

  So what if you can’t get in touch with her? You know she’s got to be up to her eyeballs in police business. The damned Star-Crossed Killer is still on the loose and there has to be emergency after emergency in this bliz- zard, homes without electricity, cars sliding off the road, people freezing to death. She’s busy. That’s all. Don’t push the panic button.

  Still, he felt it. That little premonition of dread that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to bristle and stomach acid to crawl up his throat whenever trouble was brewing. Not that he hadn’t caused his own share of heartache and misery, but nonetheless, he sensed bad things coming; had since he was a kid.

  “It’s that damned native blood in ya,” his father had always muttered under his breath when Nate had mentioned the feeling. “On your mother’s side. Her great grandfather—or was it great-great?—was some kind of Indian shaman or some such crap. Could heal people with his touch. Cursed ’em, too. Well, according to yer mother. He was an Arapaho, 22

  Lisa Jackson

  I think, or was it Cheyenne? Don’t matter. He seen him a rattler or somethin’ in a dream once and that did it. He became the medicine man. Prob’ly had the same damned tingling sensation you do, boy.”

  After these tarnished bits of insight, his old man had usually bitten at a plug of tobacco and chewed with great satisfaction, only to spit and wipe his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “All horseshit, in my book.”

  Not that Santana had ever thought for a second his gut instincts had anything to do with his ancestry. But tonight he sensed something outside. Something dark and intimately evil. Something threatening. To Regan.

  Clenching his jaw, he told himself to ignore it. He didn’t like the premonitions and didn’t admit to them, wasn’t going to take the kind of ridicule leveled at Ivor Hicks for his supposed alien abduction or Grace Perchant, a woman who bred wolf dogs and confessed to speaking with the dead, or Henry Johansen, a farmer who had fallen off his tractor fifteen years earlier, hit his head, and claimed he could “hear” other people’s thoughts. Nope, Santana would keep his mouth shut about his sensations rather than suffer the ridicule of the townspeople. As for Regan, he’d catch up with her later, one way or another. He always did. Besides, it wasn’t as if they were married or even an item; that’s the way they both wanted it.

  He walked to the indoor arena where Lucifer, still glaring at him, pawed the soft dirt. A big black colt with a crooked blaze and one white stocking, he had a nasty streak that some would call independence; others referred to it as just being ornery.

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  Nate figured it was one and the same. Now the rangy colt’s nostrils were flared, his eyes white around the rims, a nervous sweat and flecks of lather visible on his sleek hide.

  “It’s okay,” he said softly, when he knew deep in his gut it wasn’t. And the horse knew it, too. That was Santana’s talent, or “gift,” as it were. He understood animals, especially horses and dogs. He respected them for the animals they were, didn’t put any human traits on them and, from years of observation and experience, learned to work with them. Some people called him “weird”; others compared him to a snake charmer or blamed it on his mixed heritage when the truth of the matter was he used common sense, determination, and kindness. He just knew how to work with them. Maybe it was part of the Arapaho in him, but probably not. He grabbed the coil of rope from a hook on the wall, slipped through the gate of the arena, then walked slowly toward the beast as the gate clicked behind him. Another blast of wind shrieked through the canyons, rattling the windowpanes and causing a twitch to come alive in the big colt’s shoulder.

  “Shh.” Santana kept coming. Steady. Calm. Even though deep inside he felt the same tension that the horse was exuding, a fear akin to the panic visible in Lucifer’s wild eyes. At any second the colt would bolt.

  Thud!

  The door to the sta
bles banged open.

  Santana froze.

  And Lucifer took off like a shot. Zero to thirty in three short strides, hooves flashing and thundering, kicking up dirt as he galloped close enough to San-24 Lisa Jackson

  tana that he could hear the colt’s breath, feel his heat as a gust of frigid Montana wind whistled and swirled into the room.

  His dog, a large Siberian husky, sent up a howl loud enough to wake the dead in the next county, and all the horses in the stable snorted and neighed, fidgeting restlessly.

  “Nakita, hush!” Santana commanded and the big dog reluctantly lay down, blue eyes still focused on Santana.

  Lucifer, tail up, eyes rimmed in white, ran back and forth along the penned area. If he could have, the big colt would have jumped the top rail of the enclosure and galloped as far and fast as his strong legs would carry him, clear through the door and across Brady Long’s two thousand acres.

  “Great,” Santana muttered, knowing whatever confidence he’d gained with the anxious colt had been shattered. “Just . . . damned great.”

  He turned his attention to the open doorway, searching for whoever had been foolish enough to let the door slam. “Hey!” he called out as he climbed over the fence separating the exercise ring from the rest of the stable, vaulting the top rail and landing lightly on his booted feet.

  No idiot stomping off snow and shaking away the cold appeared in the doorway. Only Nakita whining and staring outside to the dark night.

  Frost-laden air screamed inside, but no one appeared. Nate yanked the door closed, double-checked the latch as a drip of ominous worry slithered down his spine. The door had been closed tight, the latch secure. He was certain. He’d pulled it shut himself.

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  Or had he been so distracted by his missing woman that he had been careless and a stiff gust of wind had pushed the old door open? The latch had always been dicey. He’d been meaning to fix it; it just hadn’t been high on his priority list. Again, he had the uncanny sensation that someone was with him; that he wasn’t alone. But all he heard was the sound of restless hooves in the surrounding stalls and the snorts of horses disturbed from their normal routines. He trained his eyes on the boxes, noting that the roan mare and bay gelding in abutting stalls were staring at the corner near the feed bins. Lucifer had stopped galloping wildly, but held his head high, his nostrils flared. As he slowed, his dark coat quivered and his gaze was centered dead-on Santana. Nate grabbed a pitchfork from its hook on the wall and took two steps toward the shadowy corner near the oat bin.