Chosen To Die

by Lisa Jackson

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  “Yep. No response yet.”

  “They won’t find her,” Alvarez predicted as she unwillingly stuck a pin into the map, indicating the location of Pescoli’s Jeep. “It’s not time. The son of a bitch waits. Helps them heal before . . .”

  “Yeah, I know.” Zoller was nodding, her mop of dark curls shining under the fluorescent tubes mounted in the ceiling.

  Selena eyed the map critically, trying to come up with something, an area they’d overlooked where the bastard could be holed up, a spot where they would likely find his next victim.

  She glanced to the blown-up copies of the notes found nailed to the trunks of the trees over the victims’ heads. They were similar with their star pattern, each just slightly different. Star-Crossed was trying to tell them something, but what?

  “Has anyone called O’Leary’s parents?” she asked Zoller.

  “Not yet.”

  “Let’s hold off on that until we look through the car.”

  Disturbed, feeling as if she were missing something, Alvarez headed back to her desk and scanned the missing persons report again. In his statement, the father, Brian, swore that no one on earth would want to harm his child, except for her boyfriend, Cesar Pelton, a divorced father of two and “hoodlum who couldn’t hold a job.” Pelton, according to Elyssa’s father, had “knocked her around” a couple of times, though no police reports had ever been filed. Elyssa’s mother, a meek woman, had stayed silent, neither agreeing or disagreeing with her husband. 128

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  The nightmare just kept getting worse, Alvarez thought as she glanced outside and noticed the first few flakes of snow beginning to fall.

  Dr. Jalicia Ramsby had seen it all in her fifteen years of practice: A full spectrum of psychological diseases. Everything from clinical depression to bipolar disorder to schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder, more commonly known as multiple personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress syndrome, to name a few. She’d tried to help patients who were alcoholic, suicidal, manic depressive, autistic, you name it. She’d worked in clinics, in hospitals, in shelters, even in a prison. And she could readily spot a fake.

  Or so she thought.

  However, the patient in room 126 gave her pause.

  As she sat in her new office at Mountain View Hospital, a bright room with a breathtaking view of the Olympic Mountains in west Seattle, she drummed her fingers on her desk and ignored an unopened bottle of Diet Pepsi, her usual jolt of caffeine in the morning. Something was off. Something she couldn’t quite define. Yet. She glanced at her tidy desk. Aside from the bottle of soda sitting on a woven coaster, there was a glass half filled with ice, a picture of her daughter at her eighth-grade graduation, a bud vase with a single white rose, and the open file. Fifteen years of notes, diagnoses, pictures, medical reports, and interviews.

  Jalicia had read them over twice, trying to get a handle on Padgett Renee Long, and couldn’t. The other patients in her care she understood. They didn’t

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  necessarily fit into neat little psychiatric boxes, but at least their conditions were consistent with other cases and gave her a frame of reference from which she could work.

  Padgett was different.

  She twirled her desk chair around and searched the bookcase, a virtual wall of tomes on every subject she’d found interesting. As she scanned the familiar titles, she thought of the quiet woman in 126. Not a word uttered other than prayers.

  For fifteen years.

  And yet there was intelligence behind Padgett’s cornflower blue eyes; Jalicia sensed it. Not finding a title that would help, she turned back to her desk, cracked open the soft drink, poured it carefully into a glass with ice cubes, and watched the foam rise then fall, little bubbles bursting and creating a soft, tiny spray. She carried her drink to the window and stared outside.

  Rain was spitting from the gray sky, clouds obscuring her view. Christmas lights twinkled in the row of fir trees lining the drive, a cheery reminder that the holidays were near.

  Sipping her soda, Jalicia watched a sedan roll up the drive and take a parking spot marked for handicapped drivers. A man in a thick coat and fedora climbed out of the car, stopped at the trunk, and pulled out a wheelchair. He opened the chair and eased it close to the passenger side, then helped a portly woman into it.

  Jalicia’s desk phone rang and she turned away from the window. “Dr. Ramsby,” she said, glancing at the file, then the clock. One of her men’s groups was scheduled to meet in ten minutes.

  “Yes, Doctor, I just wanted to alert you that a 130

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  Mr. Barton Tinneman has been calling. He’s the lawyer for Padgett Long.”

  Jalicia crossed to her desk and flipped open Padgett’s file to the first page. Barton Tinneman’s name was listed.

  “Did you get his number?” she asked, glancing at the clock again.

  “Of course.”

  “E-mail it to me and I’ll call him back as soon as I can.” She wanted to ring up the attorney right away, but decided she needed more than ten minutes for a conversation about Padgett Long.

  “Will do.”

  Jalicia hung up and finished her soft drink. Maybe after talking to the attorney, she’d gain some insight into the mystery that was Padgett Long. He was gone.

  There wasn’t a sound emanating from the other rooms and the firelight that usually glowed under the door was fading. If Regan was ever going to escape, now was the time. Short of somehow sawing off her hand, however, she was screwed. There was no way to get the damned handcuff off her wrist.

  Damn it, Pescoli, think. Don’t give up. This is your opportunity.

  She was hurting, her ribs aching painfully, her shoulder reminding her that she needed medical attention, but she’d always had a high tolerance for pain, which had helped her excel in high school and college sports. Once, she’d played basketball on a sprained ankle and still made the winning

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  shot. But this pain was all-enveloping and she had to concentrate to think beyond it.

  She couldn’t get out unless she somehow extricated herself from the damned bed. Rolling slowly to her feet, still chained to the leg, she studied the makeup of the cot. The frame was steel and could be folded up, but the leg she was chained to was bolted down to the floor. Without a key to the handcuffs or bolt cutters, her situation appeared useless . . . Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Her father’s words echoed through her head.

  She ran her fingers over the leg of the cot. It was welded to the piece screwed into the floor. The only possible weak place in the contraption was either the screw or the weld. Since she didn’t have a screwdriver or a knife, she had to attack the weld. Examining it as best she could in the dim light, she took heart. It looked hastily done. A weak point if she ever saw one.

  Maybe there was a chance.

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Once again her dad was speaking to her. She tried kicking the leg free, but in her handcuffed position couldn’t get any power. She decided it would work better if she flung herself onto the cot, hard, over and over again, hoping to weaken the weld. So she did. Throwing her weight onto the cot, jerking with her arm at the same time.

  Pain rattled through her body.

  She had to bite down to keep from yelping. Five minutes later, exhausted, she collapsed on the cot. No . . . this wasn’t the way. She had to think of something else . . .

  In her mind’s eye she saw an image of Nate San-132 Lisa Jackson

  tana, his smile twisted and devilish, his eyes twinkling as he lay across a bed. “You can do it, Detective,” he said. “Once you set your mind to it, you can do just about anything.”

  Now, lying in the cold room, she felt tears begin to well. If only she had the same faith in herself as he had.

  Try again.

  Setting her teeth against what she k
new would be blinding pain, she struggled up, threw herself onto the cot again, and yanked up with her arm. Pain screamed through her body, rattling her ribs. Like knifes slicing through her muscles. No, this wouldn’t work. Slowly she rolled off the cot again, swiped a kick at the leg with no results, took in a long, deep breath, then, holding on to the handcuffs with her free hand, she set her bare heels on the floor and heaved herself backward. Nothing.

  Oh, God. She had to do it again.

  Setting her jaw, she threw herself backward with all her strength.

  Was it her imagination, or had she felt something give?

  Yeah, all the tendons and ligaments in your shoulder. That’s what gave.

  “One more time,” she said under her breath, her forehead beading in sweat despite the cold temperature. Gathering herself, she counted to three, then gave it her all, trying to hurl her weight backward as the handcuff attached to the cot yanked hard against the weld.

  There it was, that feeling that something would give.

  She just had to keep trying.

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  No matter how painful it was.

  Before the son of a bitch who’d trapped her here returned.

  The wail on the other end of the line said it all. Alvarez thought if she lived to be a hundred that shriek of horrified denial would be with her forever.

  “Noooooo!” Marlene O’Leary had cried, sobbing, while her husband, on the extension, had been cold.

  “But you just found the car, not Elyssa,” he repeated, trying to squeeze a drop of hope out of the circumstances.

  “That’s true.” Alvarez had explained the situation, knowing she was destroying these people’s lives.

  “Nooooo . . . Nooooo.”

  “Shh, Mother!” Brian O’Leary cautioned, though with a hint of compassion. “We don’t know what’s happened to Elyssa.”

  “But . . . But . . . oh . . . Oh, God . . . No, no, no.”

  She sounded as if she were hyperventilating.

  “Marlene. Calm down. Look, Detective, I’ll call you back.”

  “My baby, no, no, no,” the desolate woman cried. Alvarez heard the sound of O’Leary shushing his wife and imagined the burly, gruff man wrapping his beefy arms around his frail wife, holding her steady while his very world collapsed.

  There was a final click as they hung up the phone.

  “I’m sorry,” Alvarez said and felt sick to her soul. She was supposed to be tough, to have a thick skin so that she could deal with the horror and tragedy 134

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  of homicides, the taking of a life by another human being. Mostly, she could handle it, but dealing with grieving loved ones, giving them bad news, that was the part that ate at her and caused her to sometimes second-guess her career path. She hung up the phone and sat at her desk, staring at the picture of Elyssa O’Leary smiling into the camera at some DMV office in Montana.

  She might not be dead yet.

  But there was no report from the crew of the helicopter that had gone searching earlier, and the snow was beginning to fall in earnest again. Chapter Ten

  “Hello, Mr. Tinneman, this is Dr. Ramsby at Mountain View Hospital in Seattle, returning your call. I’m Padgett Long’s psychiatrist.” Seated in the chair in her office, Jalicia had waited five minutes for Tinneman’s secretary to roust the lawyer up, and now that he was finally on the other end of the line, she had trouble biting back her irritation.

  “Oh, good, good. I was hoping you’d call,” the man said in a rush. “I just wanted to let you know that Padgett’s father’s health has declined substantially in the last few weeks. He’s been in a care facility, a great facility, Regal Oaks, the best in Denver, but he’s failing and a few weeks ago hospice was called in. I’m afraid it looks like Mr. Long’s failing and, unfortunately, probably won’t last out the month, possibly the week.”

  “I’m sorry. Thank you for the information.” Jalicia waited. There was more to the attorney’s message, she was sure of it. 136

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  “You don’t have to worry about Padgett’s care; Hubert was very careful to see that she will be taken care of for the rest of her life. A trust has been established, so nothing should change. As always the bills can be sent or e-mailed here and we’ll pay them promptly. But—”

  Here it comes, Jalicia thought.

  “Well, Padgett and her father were extremely close before her accident and . . . and I was wondering how exactly to break the news to her, or if it’s a good idea.”

  “We don’t lie here, Mr. Tinneman.”

  “Oh, no, no. Of course not. But, well, I haven’t seen Padgett in a while.”

  That was the understatement of the year. Jalicia had pulled Padgett Long’s records and Tinneman’s name was not on any of the visitor lists. The only people who had seen Padgett in the last eighteen months were her brother, Brady, over a year earlier, and Liam Kress, a family friend whose visits had been fairly regular. No one from the firm of Sargent, McGill, and Tinneman had ever set foot here.

  “What is it you’re suggesting?” she asked, checking her watch.

  “That Padgett might be upset if she learns about her father. That she might even want to come to the funeral, if that’s possible.”

  Dr. Ramsby considered the patient in room 126. Would she even know? Register to the news that her father was dying? She flipped through the records. Padgett Long had come to Mountain View voluntarily. There was no court order. She could leave any time she wanted to, though it was doubtful she understood her rights.

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  “Would her brother or some other family member take her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A caretaker?”

  “There is none. Unless we hire someone.”

  “Someone from your firm.”

  “Oh, well, I don’t think so.”

  “What is it you want me to do, Mr. Tinneman?”

  “I’m just informing you of the situation,” he responded curtly.

  “Okay.”

  They were at an impasse. There was clearly something more Tinneman was trying to impart, but he seemed to be dancing around the subject. Finally, he said, rather coolly, “Do you know Padgett Long, Dr. Ramsby?”

  Jalicia bristled. “I’m her doctor.”

  There was a long pause and the voice on the other end of the connection lost all its country-boy charm. “You’re fairly new at Mountain View. Maybe you haven’t had time to really get to know Padgett. I’ve worked with the Long family for years.”

  “She’s my patient. If there’s something you’re trying to tell me . . .” Jalicia’s own voice was cool. She struggled with people who were too cagey.

  “She has her rights, too,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. “I realize that. And she probably does, too. I don’t know how she’ll react to her father’s condition or his death. As I said, they were extremely close. Good-bye.”

  Jalicia hung up and stared at the phone. What kind of a phone call was that? And what the hell was up with Padgett Long? She opened the thick file and decided to start at the beginning, fifteen years 138

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  earlier, when sixteen-year-old Padgett Long, mute and skittish, the result of a head injury and near drowning, had become a resident at Mountain View. She’d spent half her life here, all of her adult years, behind the locked gates of this private psychiatric facility.

  Her feeling that something wasn’t right had just been compounded by Barton Tinneman’s enigmatic call. Pescoli’s right wrist was raw. Bruised by the handcuff that was welded to the cot’s leg. The skin was scraped and broken even though she’d used the corner of the blanket the bastard had left for her to give her some cushion as she flung her weight away from the cot, trying to weaken the weld. Her left wrist, at the other end of the handcuffs, was relatively unscathed. Don’t think about it. Keep trying. Time is running out. The son of a bitch will be back soon.
You know it. She was sweating. Salty drops running into her eyes and down her back despite the frigid temperatures. But the leg of the cot was giving a bit. She was sure she felt it and if she could just keep at it, she would be able to get free. Right?

  But how long?

  Is there enough time?

  Can you do it?

  Setting her jaw, she threw herself back into her task. She hadn’t come up with a better idea for escape and this would have to work. It had to!

  Over and over again she stood up as much as her manacle would allow, hunched over since there was

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  little play between her right wrist and the weld, then flung herself back on the cot, yanking the cuff, grinding her teeth to keep from crying out. She had no idea how much time had passed, only the lightening of the sky gave her an inkling, but the tiny window cut into the wall high overhead didn’t offer much illumination and the cloud-covered sky allowed her little measure of the minutes and hours slipping away.

  She only knew that whatever time she had to escape, it wasn’t enough. Though whatever drug he’d given her had worn off and she was no longer groggy, that could change when he returned. If he came into her room she would have to act as if it were still in her system. If she was still here when he got back. Oh, God, she hoped not.

  She prayed he was long gone, or better yet, that she could find a way to turn the tables on him, discover a weapon of her own and surprise him. Let the prick know how it felt to look down the barrel of a gun or feel the blade of a knife at his throat. The problem was, even if she was able to somehow get the drop on him, she didn’t know if she could restrain herself from blowing his sorry ass away.

  She knew she should somehow arrest him. Bring him in.

  That way they could find any other victims. Give him his day in court.

  Let justice prevail.

  “Bullshit,” she muttered as she threw her weight against the handcuff again and felt the cold metal bite into her wrist, her arm feeling as if it would be pulled from its socket. Was this justice? Was what he 140

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  was doing to her, to the others, in any way fair and equitable?

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she dug in and was sure, oh, God, please, that the weld was starting to give way. “Come on, come on,” she whispered through gritted teeth.