Afraid to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  If Grace heard Pescoli’s remarks, she didn’t react. Thin and pale, dressed in a long, white coat that seemed to billow around her, Grace walked slowly and steadily toward their table. Her pale green eyes were fixed on Alvarez with the intensity of someone incredibly determined.

  “Detective Alvarez,” she said, her voice low.

  “Yes.”

  Almost as if in a trance, Grace grabbed Alvarez’s hand, and from the corner of her eye, Alvarez noticed Pescoli reach for her sidearm. With a slight shake of her head, Alvarez silently told her partner to stand down. She wasn’t in danger.

  “What is it, Grace?” she asked.

  “Your son needs you.”

  “What? I don’t have a son.”

  Grace’s fingers tightened. “He’s in grave danger.”

  “Who are you talking about? I don’t have a son.” Her gaze locked with that of the kook’s.

  “He needs you,” Grace repeated, and then, as if suddenly realizing how awkward the situation was, that people in the surrounding tables had stopped eating to stare, Grace released Alvarez’s hand as quickly as she’d gathered it.

  Then, looking straight ahead, she walked out of the restaurant.

  Pescoli snorted. “I told you, nutcase with a capital N.”

  “Yeah.” Alvarez flashed a bit of a smile as she pulled on her gloves.

  Sandi scurried over. “Geez, I’m sorry about that,” she said. “Grace is a bit off, I know, but she usually keeps to herself.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Alvarez said and was already on her way to the door. “It’s no big deal.” Which, of course, was a lie. Another one. Inside she was shaking, the old familiar pain taking hold of her, but she wouldn’t think about it, not now.

  You have to someday; you can’t just shove this into a dark corner forever.

  Okay, fine. Just not today. And though Grace was a bona fide oddball who thought she could talk with ghosts, Alvarez couldn’t just shake off her warning. Even though Alvarez didn’t believe in all that psychic nonsense Grace tried to peddle, it was true that the strange woman had helped the department in the past. Several times. If nothing else, she brought a calmness, an equanimity to some of the most brutal and barbaric cases. It was weird. And bothered Alvarez.

  Still she couldn’t brush off the woman’s concerns out of hand and Grace’s dire warning chased after her for most of the afternoon, drifting into her brain while she was trying to concentrate on something—make that anything—else.

  Even when she discovered that Ray Sutherland had taken out a life insurance policy for two hundred thousand dollars on his ex-wife only six months earlier. Long after the divorce. Alvarez hung up from the insurance company and leaned back in her chair. What the hell was that all about? Alibi or not, the man had serious motive to have his ex-wife killed. The insurance proceeds coupled with gaining full custody of the kids was more than enough motive.

  Except you’re not sure she’s dead yet. Don’t jump the gun.

  Even now, while her mind was occupied with the mystery of Brenda Sutherland’s disappearance, Grace’s chilling words reverberated through her mind:

  Your son needs you. He’s in grave danger ...

  Oh. Dear. God.

  Chapter 6

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Dylan O’Keefe muttered as he took off after the punk kid in jeans, jacket, watch cap and boots. A backpack swung from one thin shoulder as the boy sprinted easily through the drifting snow. Running down side streets, cutting through alleys and across yards, ducking around corners, climbing fences and creating a zigzag path toward a residential section of Grizzly Falls, Gabriel Reeve ran.

  Where the hell was he going?

  A bad feeling stole over O’Keefe as he rounded a corner and heard a dog barking frantically from somewhere in the darkness. He dashed across a deserted street. Barely eight in the evening, and this part of town was quiet as hell. Despite the earlier plowing, the snow was collecting again, his boots sinking into three inches of accumulation, snow falling past the street lamps to pile on a handful of cars parked near the curb.

  He followed the fresh tracks across a side yard, and thankfully the dog he’d heard didn’t come bounding across the snow, so O’Keefe kept running, squinting through the curtain of snow. Icy air slapped him in the face and chilled a path to his lungs as he zeroed in on his quarry again, a punk of about sixteen, tough as nails and wanted for armed robbery.

  Trouble was, Gabriel Reeve, the JD in question, just happened to be his cousin’s kid. Aggie had begged him to look for Gabe and O’Keefe had reluctantly agreed, even taken money to start his investigation. Now, he was in it deep. All in all, a bad situation.

  Too bad! Like it or not, he’d ended up in Grizzly frickin’ Falls, and so far, he thought, the boy didn’t realize that he was being tailed. But that was about to change. Now that he was this close, O’Keefe wasn’t going to let the kid slip through his fingers again.

  Down an alley and along a path, the boy ran, with O’Keefe, hopefully, just out of view. But he didn’t like it; Reeve was just too damned close to Selena Alvarez’s home, and she was one woman on this planet he meant to avoid at all costs.

  Just damned luck the kid had led him here.

  Right?

  He didn’t have time to think about it. The kid vaulted yet another fence and took off on the other side. O’Keefe, less than ten seconds later, did the same, landing hard. He found himself smack dab in the side yard of a group of town houses; the complex that Selena Alvarez now called home.

  He knew where she lived, of course.

  Had kept track of her and realized she lived in Grizzly Falls and worked for the sheriff’s department, but he hadn’t known her street address until he’d checked with DMV before driving into the city limits.

  Great. Just ... frickin’ great. What were the chances? he wondered as he watched the kid slink past a hedgerow of arborvitae, a few branches bending under the weight of the snow. The boy flattened himself against the side of a garage, glanced over his shoulder, then crept quickly around the corner of the end row house.

  Alvarez’s unit.

  “Son of a bitch,” O’Keefe muttered under his breath. He hadn’t crossed the damned state of Montana, chasing Gabriel Reeve to Grizzly Falls, only to lose him. No way! It was time to snag the kid, haul him back to Helena and make Reeve face the music before O’Keefe had to deal with Alvarez.

  He unbuckled his sidearm from its holster but left the safety engaged. He wasn’t going to use the Glock. No. It was only insurance. He just wanted to scare the kid and get him out of the area quickly. Besides, he figured Reeve was armed and didn’t want to round a corner only to end up on the business end of a pistol without his own weapon ready.

  A fresh blast of arctic wind swept through the buildings, slapping his face and cutting through his jacket with a bite as sharp as all of December.

  You should call the cops; let them handle this—just tell them where the kid is.

  But he didn’t and he had his reasons, even if they were flimsy as tissue paper. For one thing, the kid was a relative, his cousin’s boy; for another, he wanted answers himself before the cops got to the boy.

  He followed Reeve around the corner and found himself at the garage side of the town house just as twin beams cut through the night and the sound of an engine reached his ears. A small SUV turned onto the street running past the town house, and somewhere nearby—from inside the condo—a dog barked wildly. O’Keefe stopped dead in his tracks, hoping the driver of the car wouldn’t notice him as the Subaru passed.

  No such luck!

  Instead, a grinding noise filled the night as the garage door began rolling upward. The Outback, sending snow flying beneath its tires, zipped into the driveway, the beams of its headlights splashing up against the building and, no doubt, throwing his silhouette into relief.

  Great.

  In the drive, the Subaru skidded to a stop and Selena Alvarez, all fire and ice, flew out of the driver’s side. Her
service weapon was drawn and her dark eyes, glittering with suspicion, zeroed in on him. “Police! Freeze!” she ordered, two hands on her pistol. “Drop it!”

  He let go of his gun and it fell into the snow.

  “Hands over your head!” she ordered, moving around the open door as the car dinged in protest. But the dog had stopped its frantic barking ... “Wait! What? Dylan O’Keefe?” she whispered in disbelief, and some of the starch in her spine seemed to leave her. Confusion clouded her features. Damn, she was beautiful. Still. In that intriguing, intelligent way that he’d found so damned fascinating and nearly deadly. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Chasing a suspect.” He tamped down the cold, blue fury that burned in his gut by just staring at her, and for a few seconds, he was thrown back to another place and time. The San Bernardino stakeout that had changed his life forever.

  “But ... wait ... you’re chasing a suspect here?”

  “That’s right. And he’s gonna get away if I don’t nail his ass. No time to explain.” Not that he could. What were the chances that he’d end up here? What the hell was that all about? Coincidence? Or just bad luck?

  “For the love of God.” She was shaking her head, her hair as black and shiny as a raven’s wing and in stark contrast to the whiteness of the snow falling around them. He’d hoped he’d never see her again. But here he was. What was it his old grandma had said? If wishes were horses ... and so on and so forth.

  Now that she recognized him, she slowly lowered her weapon. “Dylan effin’ O’Keefe.”

  “Stay here,” he said, “and call for backup.”

  In one swift motion, he pulled his Glock out of the snow and started rounding her building, wiping the barrel on his jeans as he followed the broken trail Gabriel Reeve had left.

  “Wait! I don’t understand.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Get back in the car!”

  “No way! This is my house!” She was already slowly closing the door of the Subaru.

  “And my collar.”

  “Fine. But I’m coming with you since you are chasing someone breaking into my house. I’m involved.”

  He repeated, “Just stay out of the way, Alvarez, and call for backup.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “Shhh!” He lowered his voice. “No. Stay here and make that damned call.”

  “Who is it?” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “The guy inside? Who is it?”

  “A kid. Gabriel Reeve.”

  “A kid?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Who’s he?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “Trouble. One of those computer hackers who live for anarchy. Now he’s wanted for armed robbery. He’s moved to the big time.”

  “And he’s in my house?”

  “Go figure.” Did Reeve know he was breaking into the home of a cop? Probably not. Otherwise the kid had more balls than O’Keefe gave him credit for. “Just dumb luck.”

  He was at the back corner of the house, she a step behind. Another damned fence! And the trail of footprints had ended at the unpainted boards and a spot of snow about three feet up where the kid’s boots had hit before he’d hauled himself over the top.

  Alvarez hadn’t paid a lick of attention to him. She was at his side, her damned weapon drawn, as sexy and hard edged as he remembered, not that he had time to think about it.

  “There’s a gate. Just around the corner.” She motioned with the nose of her gun. “I’ll take the front door.”

  “No! Call for—oh, hell!”

  Too late. She was already backtracking. This was all wrong. Going sideways. Just like before. In a moment of déjà vu, he was transported to another chase, another frantic night and the blinding pain of betrayal ...

  No time to think of it now. He circumvented the fence, ending up at the back of the property where the ground sloped downward to a frozen creek. Carefully reaching over the top of the gate, he lifted the latch and gently pushed the gate open before slipping into the yard. Snow fell silently. No lights glowed from within and the back door, a slider, was open, a curtain billowing through the darkened open space. The enclosed yard with its small patio and a few scattered pots was covered in a soft white blanket and empty. No one hiding in the shadows. He heard his own heart beating in his ears and nothing else, not even any street noise. Tense, his fingers tight over his Glock, his gaze still scouring the yard, he moved along the fence line through the falling snow.

  Eyes trained on the doorway, ready to lunge, he expected the kid to burst from the house.

  But nothing happened.

  He heard Alvarez open the front door. God, he wished she hadn’t shown up. “Police!” Her voice echoed through the open door. “Gabriel Reeve, show yourself!”

  O’Keefe waited, ready to spring, certain Reeve would run.

  Still nothing.

  Not a sound.

  Interior lights snapped on, illumination pouring through the windows to reflect on the unbroken snow.

  “Gabriel Reeve, drop your weapon and come out, hands over your head!” Alvarez yelled again and O’Keefe stepped into the dining area of the town house. Inside, Alvarez, sidearm clutched in her hand, was mounting the stairs.

  She didn’t so much as glance in O’Keefe’s direction as he crossed the dining area, nearly knocking over a pet’s dish. A step behind, he followed her to the second floor, where she opened the door to an office/guest room, then the bath, and finally her own bedroom, all of which was very neat. The beds he’d seen were made to military precision, pillows placed perfectly over matching quilts, a desk without so much as a stray paper clip on its smooth surface.

  She shoved open the closet doors and found no one.

  “He’s not here,” she finally said. “And neither is my dog.”

  “You have a dog?”

  “A puppy, yeah. And a cat.”

  “Is the cat missing, too?”

  “No. She’s downstairs. I saw her hiding under the couch,” she said automatically, and walked to an alcove in her bedroom where a dormer window was wide open. “Escape route.”

  “Son of a bitch.” He stood beside her and looked outside, where the dormer was attached to the roof. Sure enough the snow had been scraped away where, obviously, someone had slid to the edge, then probably swung from the branch of a nearby tree to land on the ground. Footsteps broke through the snow, then disappeared into the night and the tracks in the road.

  O’Keefe didn’t wait. In three steps, he was out of the bedroom and flying down the stairs. He wasn’t about to give up the chase yet. Selena Alvarez or not. Through the open front door, he raced along the short drive to the street, where he hesitated under the street lamp. A pickup rolled past, a dog visible in the foggy window. He hailed the driver, who stopped on the ice and rolled down his window. Smoke from a dangling cigarette wedged into the corner of the driver’s mouth curled out the window. From beneath the brim of a crumpled hat, the driver asked, “What can I do for ya?”

  “You see a kid run by, a kid with a puppy?” O’Keefe glanced across the seat to the spot where the dog, a springer spaniel sat, head turned toward his master and the open window, its dark eyes assessing. Old dog. Not a pup.

  “Nope.” Three days of silvery beard shadow covered a jaw that was somewhere north of sixty. “You a cop?”

  “Was,” O’Keefe said.

  “Well, I ain’t seen anyone tonight. Whole damned town seems to have rolled up and called it a night.”

  That much was true. At least for this street, which was pretty much deserted.

  “Thanks.” He stepped away from the truck, but he did take a cursory glance at the bed, which was empty aside from a toolbox bolted behind the cab and a couple of shovels. The truck rolled away and he searched the street, looking down alleys and in the bushes that lined the yards of several homes along the street. Colored lights and garlands of cedar decorated doorways and eaves while, at one house, a snowman—missing
an eye and covered in a fresh layer of frosting—stood guard near a walkway.

  He didn’t pay much attention, just checked all of the yards and fresh snow, looking for tracks only to come up empty. Down one side of the street and up the other, he searched, swearing under his breath, disbelieving that after three days, he’d actually lost the kid.

  And it would be damned hard to find him with no phone with GPS, no car with plates, no credit cards, no friends in this town that he knew of, not one damned way to trace the kid here in Grizzly Falls. But he’d have to have money and find shelter and eat. Probably fast food.

  He was jogging back to Alvarez’s town house when he noticed a Jeep round the corner of the street and red and blue lights strobed the area.

  Backup.

  Finally.

  About damned time.

  Chapter 7

  Alvarez finally let out her breath. She hoped she’d seemed cool and in command when deep down she’d been scared to death, sweating bullets. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of a dark figure lurking by her garage; O’Keefe was lucky she hadn’t shot him.

  What the hell was he doing chasing some punk to her house? She’d called Pescoli, located Jane Doe and tried to piece together why some criminal would break into her house and steal her dog. For a few seconds she’d thought of the men she’d put away who had threatened her, insisted that they, when they got out of prison, would come back and haunt her.

  “You made a big mistake, cunt,” Junior Green had charged, pointing a thick finger at her, his near-bald head shiny with sweat and reflecting the lights of the courthouse after his conviction. “You hear me. I’m comin’ back for you, just you wait!” She’d dismissed his threat as empty at the time, but when she’d thought of someone breaking into her place, he’d come to mind, no matter that O’Keefe had mentioned a kid named Reeve.

  This was her home, damn it, she thought as she eyed the interior of the town house where a cold wind was blowing, and she dragged the slider door to the backyard closed. Why would the kid take her dog?