Afraid to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  “Get out of here, Selena! Run!” O’Keefe yelled, trying to hold Green down. With his one hand rendering the big man’s hand useless, he managed to grab hold of Green’s free, flailing left hand with his own. Grimacing, he forced Green’s meaty fist backward, twisting with all his strength.

  “Yeooow,” Green cried into the concrete.

  “For God’s sake, Selena,” O’Keefe spat. “Call for backup!”

  Alvarez shouted, “I said, give it up, Green!” Adrenaline pulsed through her. “Drop your weapon.”

  Green rolled an eye in her direction. “Shut up, bitch!”

  With one quick motion, O’Keefe yanked hard on Green’s left arm, forcing it farther up his back.

  The big man shrieked in pain. He bucked, trying to throw O’Keefe off him. They slammed against the back of the car.

  O’Keefe, straining, his own face red, the veins extended in his neck, applied pressure, twisting hard enough that Green screamed again.

  Still he held on to the damned gun. Still he was a threat. Still he could, at any moment, toss O’Keefe off his back and turn his weapon on them both.

  “Bastardo!” Weapon pointed directly at the big man, Alvarez hauled back and kicked. The toe of her boot connected with a sickening sound into the side of Junior Green’s head. He let out another squeal of pain, but his fingers loosened on his gun and Alvarez kicked it away from him, the weapon skittering across the concrete and under her car. She was sweating, breathing hard, pumped. Her pistol was sighted on the jerk’s head. With just one pull of the trigger ...

  The sound of sirens screaming in the distance snapped her out of it.

  She prayed that someone had called 911 and backup was on its way to her home, that the sirens weren’t for another call.

  “Don’t move!” she ordered Green, who lay panting on the floor of the garage. “Or I swear, I’ll blow your head off.”

  Green forced an eye in her direction, but the fight was out of him. Blood smeared his face; bruises were already starting to appear.

  O’Keefe, breathing hard, finally released the big man.

  No one doubted for a second that Alvarez would use her weapon, so Green lay on her garage floor, a thick lump of useless human flesh.

  Standing, O’Keefe backed away from the prisoner and allowed Alvarez a clear shot, should she need it.

  Breathing hard, a bruise developing under his eye, he lifted a sleeve to his nose to stanch the flow of blood that stained his shirt as the siren’s screams echoed through the night.

  With her free hand, she found her phone in her pocket, hit a speed dial button and was connected to the station where she identified herself and gave her address and the situation, just to ensure that backup was indeed headed in her direction.

  “I’ve got cuffs in the car. Glove box,” she said to O’Keefe and he retrieved them, doing the honors of handcuffing Green as the ex-football player lay, swearing in pain but surprisingly docile, on her garage floor. Only when he was fully cuffed did some of his old acrimony return.

  “I’m suing your ass,” Green said to O’Keefe. “My fuckin’ arm’s broke.”

  “You’ll live,” O’Keefe said, his eyes bright. “And that’s the bad news.”

  Tires crunched on the snow outside. Red and blue light flashed through the window. “Police,” she yelled toward the partially open door as she identified herself. “Situation under control! Suspect in custody!” To Green, she said, “Get up, you bastard. Get onto your feet and don’t do anything stupid, or I swear, I will shoot you dead and feel real good about it!”

  Pescoli got the call about the shooting at Alvarez’s address just as the timer went off on the tuna casserole she’d thrown together. The sheriff himself had decided to fill her in and she turned off the stove as well as the timer, then listened hard, giving the sheriff her full attention. It seemed that J. R., Junior Green, a pedophile and genuinely sick son of a bitch, had come back to make good on his promise. According to Grayson, he was in custody and Alvarez was fine, or as fine as one could be after being the victim of a near-death shooting. She and Dylan O’Keefe, who had been with her at the time, had been checked out by a nurse and refused to go to the hospital. Green, however, was banged up pretty bad, and Alvarez’s Outback had sustained damage from stray bullets.

  “I’m on my way,” she said, and Grayson didn’t try to discourage her.

  “Good. I’m thinkin’ your partner could use a friend.”

  “Sounds like she’s got one.”

  “I’m talkin’ female friend. You know, so you can talk it to death.”

  “Yeah, I do know.” And it was more than Grayson guessed, as Pescoli didn’t think he, or anyone else at the station for that matter, knew that the runaway who had broken into her house could be her kid, though that was likely to come up. The sheriff understood that Alvarez would need some moral support. Though a private person, this kind of trauma needed discussion, with either a shrink or family. In Alvarez’s case, Pescoli was the closest she had to either, at least within a hundred-mile or so radius.

  She hung up and opened the oven door. Cisco, thinking there might be a treat for him somewhere, hurried into the kitchen and stared into the oven as well. Inside, the casserole bubbled, melting cheese beginning to brown on the top.

  Shaking her head, Pescoli told the ever-hopeful mutt, “I don’t think so.”

  The kitchen was already warm from the heat of the stove, the smell of melting cheese filling the air. Using kitchen mittens that showed burn marks from earlier mistakes, she retrieved the glass casserole dish and set it on the stove. It, too, had a chip or two from around twenty years of abuse. Idly, she remembered that her aunt had given her the damned thing at a shower thrown for her, just before she’d married Joe, when she’d been pregnant with Jeremy.

  She glanced down the hallway leading to the back stairs. Her son was holed up in his bedroom, where he’d been for the better part of the last thirty-six hours. Though he’d claimed to have taken his final later in the day yesterday, she wasn’t certain she believed him.

  She didn’t want to think about how her life had come to this, from the promise of a new life and showers where baking pans were given to the expectant bride to a boy who couldn’t quite make the necessary steps to be a man nearly twenty years later. Down the stairs she went and tapped on the door.

  No response. However, she knew he was inside.

  Pushing open the door, she found him seated on the side of his bed, game controller in hand, earphones over his head, gaze trained on the television screen where some kind of bloody army game was being played. Currently, mazelike rooms of some kind of concrete bunker flashed and snipers appeared around corners before Jeremy deftly vaporized each one in a blood spray that turned the set a fiery red.

  “Hey,” she yelled and he, as if mesmerized, didn’t so much as look up at her. “Rambo!” She touched him on the shoulder and he jumped ten feet.

  “Mom!” he cried, his concentration blown. “Oh, shit! Look.” He flung an arm at the screen. “I’m dead!”

  Cisco, sensing the excitement, yapped and hopped onto the unmade bed.

  Scowling hard, as if he wanted to rage at his mother but thought better of it, Jeremy asked, “What?”

  “I have to run out.” She was dead serious and he, calming a bit, caught on.

  “Why?”

  “There was a shooting over at Alvarez’s place.”

  “What? Is she okay?” For the first time in weeks, she saw a glimpse of the caring boy he once was, a glimmer of the man he could become.

  “Oh, sorry. I said that wrong. Guns were fired, but no one was hit. Everyone, including Selena, is okay, the suspect in custody, but, still, I need to see her, talk to her.”

  “Oh, uh, yeah.” He was nodding his head, the earphones sliding to one side. “I get it. Sure.”

  “That means family dinner will have to be postponed.”

  “That’s okay.” He righted the headset.

  “Tuna noodles a
re done. So go ahead and eat it when you want. I’ve even got salad in a bag in the refrigerator. It comes with its own dressing.”

  “Okay.” Absently, in the illumination of the television screen and oddly shifting glow of his lava lamp, he petted the dog, who put his chin on Jeremy’s jean-clad thigh.

  Pescoli doubted her son would even open the bag. Greens just weren’t his thing. “Don’t know when I’ll be home.”

  “I’m going out later, anyway.”

  “How much later?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Jer?” she chided, and thought she caught a whiff of marijuana. Quick as it came, it disappeared, as his window was cracked just an inch. For now she ignored the scent. “It’s snowing.”

  He actually grinned, looking so much like Joe that her heart melted. “Yeah, I know. Mom, this is Montana. In the winter. It’s always snowing.”

  “Guess you’re right.” She left him with the dog and his game, then made her way up the stairs, where she saw the hole in the wall that had been there since Jeremy had put his fist through it a few years back. She’d left it, hoping that the gaping opening would be a reminder for him to control his temper, but he never seemed to notice it. Sooner or later, she’d have to patch it ... or find the right-sized picture to cover it.

  On the main level, she tapped on Bianca’s door and pushed it open. Her daughter was seated at her makeup table, applying another layer of mascara while simultaneously texting God only knew how many friends. Her hair was braided, the red highlights visible in her thick strands. She’d dyed her hair every color under the sun, but now, gratefully, it was back to what was near her natural color.

  In the reflection, Bianca’s gaze found her mother’s. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got to go out for a while.”

  Bianca rolled her eyes, concentrated on making her lashes longer and stronger and all gunked up. “What else is new?”

  “We’ll have family dinner tomorrow. I promise.”

  Bianca lifted a shoulder. “Whatever.”

  “Look, Alvarez was nearly shot tonight. Attacked in her garage.”

  Bianca’s mascara wand stopped in midair. She didn’t so much as look at her phone for the next text. “Is she okay?”

  “I think so. But I’m going to make sure.”

  “Oh, God, Mom.” Bianca blinked, then spun on her tufted stool to look directly at Pescoli. “This is awful.”

  “I know, but she’ll be fine.”

  “You should give up being a cop!” Her perfectly plucked eyebrows drew together over her large eyes. “It’s too dangerous. Dad and Michelle, they think so, too!”

  “All part of the job.”

  “But you could retire and ... and work in a bookstore ... Or if you don’t like that ... somewhere else.”

  “I’m a little young to be retiring. It’s okay, Bianca.” She walked into the pink room, where Christmas lights were wound year-round on the posts that supported the canopy of her bed. “But I think I’d better make sure she’s okay.”

  Bianca nodded, and just like she had with her son, Pescoli caught a hint of the woman this girl would become and it wasn’t all braids and pink ribbons and boys and nail polish. “Dinner’s on the stove,” she said, giving her the same rundown as she’d said to Jeremy five minutes earlier. “I should be back in a couple of hours.” And again, as she had with her son, Pescoli heard that Bianca had plans to be out with her friends at a movie and that Candi’s mom was driving them, as none of them yet had their licenses. “Just be back before midnight,” Pescoli had instructed as Bianca had swiveled back to the mirror and picked up her cell phone, her fingers dancing over the keys.

  Spoiled, Pescoli thought. You’ve spoiled them.

  “But they’ll be all right.” She said it under her breath as much to convince herself as anything.

  “I’m fine. Seriously.” Alvarez glanced from her partner to Grayson and back again. “Other than tired and hungry, that is.” They were standing in Grayson’s office with O’Keefe, his face discolored from his emerging bruises, scrapes visible on his cheeks and nose. His lip was split, and soon, he’d have a shiner, as the area around his left eye was darkening. Still, he’d refused to go to the hospital or receive any serious medical attention. “I’ve filled out a report,” Alvarez insisted. “Green is in custody, and there’s nothing more to do once the crime guys are done with my garage and car.”

  “Shouldn’t take long. We’ll process everything and get your wagon to a shop at the beginning of the week,” Grayson said, though the sheriff was clearly troubled. He looked tired, the result no doubt of the emergence of yet another serial murderer in Grizzly Falls. “I just don’t like how this all went down.”

  “Neither do I.” O’Keefe folded his arms over his chest. “How the hell did that son of a bitch find you?”

  “Matter of public record,” Alvarez said. The problem was that records were so much more accessible now with computers, smartphones and all the data on the Internet. “It’s not rocket science.”

  “That’s the problem,” Grayson said, shaking his head. He’d allowed O’Keefe to be a part of this conversation at Alvarez’s insistence, but it was obvious he wasn’t comfortable with the fourth person in the room. O’Keefe wasn’t a working cop and he’d made no bones about the fact that he’d been spending time with Alvarez. Though, Alvarez thought, O’Keefe had insisted that his relationship with her was strictly professional, everyone in the room knew that wasn’t quite true. Grayson hadn’t become sheriff because he looked the part of a roguish cowboy-type lawman. He had the degrees and work experience to back him up and a natural cunning that saw through BS when he encountered it. That quality, along with his easygoing cowboy allure, had all but captured Alvarez’s heart. He looked at her now. “I don’t like you going home alone.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She was serious. “Green’s behind bars.”

  Unconvinced of her mental state, Grayson stroked his moustache. “There’s always the next nutcase.”

  “Part of the job.” Alvarez voiced the obvious, but everyone in the room knew the risks, had lived them by being members of a law enforcement agency. “Green’s the one who was the most vocal about getting to me.”

  “There are others. Silent ones,” Grayson said. “They could be the most deadly.” His eyes darkened, his crow’s-feet seeming more prominent. “Your home was already broken into, some of your things stolen. Less than a week ago. I don’t think that was Green.”

  “It wasn’t,” Alvarez said.

  “And an earring that was taken from your place ended up at a major crime scene,” he prompted. His hips were balanced against the edge of his desk, hands holding him in place, dog at his feet.

  “That’s right.” Alvarez realized she had to come clean. “The kid that broke into my place, that O’Keefe followed to Grizzly Falls, there’s a chance ... make that a very good chance ... that Gabriel Reeve is my son.”

  Chapter 20

  By the time O’Keefe pulled into Alvarez’s driveway, it was after ten. Enough snow had fallen to cover up a lot of the tracks that had been made by the police vehicles and tow truck, but Alvarez couldn’t shake the image of Junior Green and his gun pointed straight at her as the garage door had slowly closed behind him. If O’Keefe hadn’t shown up when he had, the outcome of the standoff could have been much different. If Junior Green had been successful in his mission, she would undoubtedly be dead.

  Once she’d admitted her possible connection to Gabriel Reeve and the ice-mummy case, both she and O’Keefe had been questioned by the FBI agents. Stephanie Chandler, a model-beautiful blonde whose personality was often described as “icy,” had been all business, as usual. Her partner, Craig Halden, a self-proclaimed “cracker” originally from Georgia, too, had been intense, his good-old-boy smile sadly missing in the two hours they’d sat in one of the interview rooms, going over the case. Like Alvarez, Halden thought Junior Green’s assault had nothing to do with the latest serial-killer case.


  Chandler hadn’t been so sure.

  As snow piled on the windshield of O’Keefe’s Explorer, Alvarez wondered why her world had turned upside down now. Ever since leaving San Bernardino, she’d attempted to keep her life in a neat, if sterile, order. That had begun to change when she’d adopted her cat, or, more precisely, Jane had adopted her. Since that time, Alvarez had softened a little and now ... now disaster had struck. All of her neatly constructed walls had cracked and tumbled down around her.

  “Come on, let’s get you inside,” O’Keefe said as if he could read her thoughts. He cut the engine and grabbed the sack of food they’d ordered from Wild Will’s and picked up on their way home.

  Alvarez had called the restaurant from the station, and Sandi, the owner of the restaurant where Brenda Sutherland had worked, had answered. “Oh, tell me you have news about Brenda,” she’d demanded, the minute Alvarez had identified herself.

  “I don’t.” Alvarez had almost felt the woman’s despair through the phone lines. “I wish I did, and the minute we locate her, I’m sure she’ll want you to know.”

  “You’ve checked into that louse of an ex-husband of hers, though, right? I saw him on the television making a plea for her to be returned safely to him and the boys. Oh, yeah, right, like he gives a flying you know what. He knocked her around, I’m telling you, has a temper that’s hotter’n hell. He’s behind this.” She drew a breath, then let it out slowly. “I know you know all this.”

  “I was just going to order dinner to go,” Alvarez had said.

  “Oh. Sorry. I’m just worried, that’s all, and I hate seeing that loser go around as if he cares. Really chafes my hide, y’know what I mean? Okay, okay, I’ve said my piece. So ... what can I get you? Oh, let’s see, just checked with the kitchen and we’re out of clam chowder and the bison chili. Got some of the special, trout almondine, left though ...”

  They’d ended up ordering sandwiches that they would eat in her kitchen, and O’Keefe had also stopped at a minimart for a six-pack and a bottle of halfway decent wine. “It is Saturday night,” he’d said in explanation.