Afraid to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  O’Keefe shifted, his hand moving across her body, and her breasts reacted, nipples puckering expectantly. He made a noise deep in his throat and she smiled. Don’t fight this. Just let things happen as they happen. It’s not your nature, but for once, just ...

  From the nightstand, her cell phone shrilled.

  O’Keefe groaned as she picked up. “Yeah?” she said, seeing that Pescoli was on the other end of the call.

  “Rise and shine. Guess what was found up on Sawtell Road, near Keegan’s corner.”

  “I couldn’t,” Alvarez said, tossing off the covers, her legs already swinging over the edge of the mattress.

  “Lissa Parsons’s car.”

  “Anyone in it?”

  “First report, no, but the kids who were up there messing around with their four-wheel-drive trucks nearly hit it, looked inside and called it in. Had the presence of mind to give the make and model and plates. Looks like it’s the missing Chevy Impala. First deputy on the scene was Rule and he’s confirmed.”

  “I’ll meet you at the station. I’m on my way,” Alvarez said, and finally noticed that O’Keefe was fully awake, sitting up, eavesdropping on the conversation. “We think we found the missing car of one of the victims,” she said as a way of explaining, and found her jeans left, as they never were, in a pile at the foot of the bed. She grabbed a fresh pair of underwear from her drawer, then pulled on the jeans. O’Keefe was watching her and she was suddenly aware of her bare breasts. “This isn’t a reverse strip show, you know.”

  “No?” His smile was an engaging bit of white against the beard that was starting to form on his face. “Depends upon your viewpoint.”

  Finding her bra, she slid her arms through the straps and hooked it behind her deftly. “You’re such a pain.”

  “And you love it.”

  “Hardly.” She was already locating socks and boots.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No way. Police business.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “How so?” She zipped up a boot and looked up at him.

  “I’m looking for a kid who stole an earring from you, darlin’, and then it shows up on a victim, right? The victim whose car has just been located.”

  “Convoluted thinking.”

  “Straight thinking.”

  “Police business. FBI’s sure to be there.”

  “Bring ’em on. Besides, you remember, don’t you, that you don’t have a car? I’m your ride.”

  “Crap!”

  He was already yanking on his jeans.

  “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that, don’t you?”

  “It’s been pointed out a time or two.”

  She didn’t have time for arguments, just pulled on her sweater, shook her hair free, then scraped it back in a ponytail. “Okay. Fine,” she finally acquiesced. Unless she wanted to call Pescoli back, he did have a point. She strapped on her shoulder holster, retrieved her sidearm from the locker in her closet, then checked the clip before pressing her weapon into place. “Just don’t get in the way.”

  The scene was a mess. Frozen car, piled snow, FBI, deputies from the sheriff ’s department, crime scene techs and a snow-covered pile of brush that had hidden the car from the seldom-used logging road.

  “So he parked it here, behind a thicket, and no one noticed in all this time,” Halden said, eyeing the area.

  “Private property borders this area. Owned by Long Logging, but no one’s logging now,” Pescoli said. “Brady Long died a while back—you remember the case—and he left nothing to any of his wives, didn’t have children, at least none that have come forward, and the major heir, his sister, Padgett, spent years in a mental hospital, got out and disappeared. Hasn’t been seen in almost two years.”

  “I do remember,” Halden said.

  “You tell me. Isn’t the FBI supposed to be expert on that kind of thing? How come you haven’t found Padgett?”

  He ignored the jab. “Long Logging? Same as in Long Copper?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But Long didn’t live here all the time as I recall. That right?”

  “He spent most of his time in Denver. His lodge was just for vacation use.” She didn’t add that Nate Santana was the foreman and, as such, had inherited a nice bit of the Long estate. If Halden wanted to know, he could figure it out easily enough, and once he made that connection, he’d realize that Pescoli and Santana were in a relationship. There would be a lot of questions thrown her way at that point and she wasn’t ready to deal with them, just like she wasn’t ready to take that relationship to another level.

  At least she didn’t think she was.

  “Here we go,” Halden said, and motioned toward the private road where a tow truck was chugging up the hill.

  She and Alvarez had already double-checked the car, but it was clean, nothing inside, of course. The area around the vehicle had been roped off and was now being searched. Snow was carefully cleared and sifted through as the techs searched for any piece of evidence, any sign of a struggle, anything that might help them nail the bastard.

  Alvarez had shown up with Dylan O’Keefe, the PI, lawyer, ex-cop and hunk that Pescoli didn’t trust. Obviously her partner had needed a ride, as her own car was still at the department’s garage, but why the hell had she dragged O’Keefe up here? Why not have Pescoli pick her up, even if it was out of her way? Whatever the reason, Pescoli couldn’t worry about it at this moment in time when, at least for the moment, the snow had stopped falling, dawn had broken and the sky above the pine and hemlock branches was a brilliant shade of blue that could be found only, she thought, in Montana.

  Maybe now, they could catch a break. Maybe.

  From the looks on everyone’s face at the scene, it was evident they needed one.

  “You and O’Keefe?” Pescoli asked hours later at the office as they walked out of the task force room. O’Keefe was being questioned by the FBI agents again, as Chandler and Halden were trying to determine if Gabriel Reeve’s disappearance was connected to the recent murders, the link, of course, being the damned ear/nipple ring. They’d already spoken with Alvarez and now wanted to find out what, if anything, O’Keefe knew.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, come on, Alvarez. You show up with him before dawn. I don’t think you called him to pick you up. He stayed over.”

  They had made their way to Alvarez’s work area. “And this is your business ... how?”

  “Oooh. Touchy.”

  She wanted to say that she hadn’t had much sleep, but that, of course, would only fuel the fires of Pescoli’s curiosity, so she didn’t reply. “How’re your kids?”

  “Ghosts.” Pescoli rubbed the knots from the back of her neck. “But then, I am, too.” Closing one eye, she twisted her neck. “It’s not a great situation, but there it is; nothing more to do.”

  “Until we nail this guy.”

  “Right.”

  But they were getting nowhere, spinning their wheels, finding little evidence to trace back to him. There was hope, though, the tiniest drop of blood in the ice of the first victim was being analyzed, and in the vacuuming of Brenda Sutherland’s car, a hair had been found, one that was being compared to strands from her brush as well as samples from her kids and ex-husband, which he’d grudgingly given, after a considerable amount of grumbling about harassment. The hair hadn’t been a match to anyone in the family.

  “I have the feeling we’re going to get another call, another body found somewhere,” Pescoli said.

  “Brenda Sutherland.”

  “She’s on deck in the ice-queen batting order,” Pescoli said, then said, “Sorry. That didn’t come out right. I just wish we’d find her before Jack Frost does his thing with her.”

  “Probably too late.” Her cell phone rang and Alvarez, seeing it was someone calling from the department’s garage, answered. She’d called in all her markers, reminding Andy, the manager, of all the favors she’d done for him over the years
, and asked that the techs go over her vehicle quickly, so that she could have it back. She figured they didn’t need to do much. Junior Green was behind bars, the evidence pretty clear, pictures taken, slugs removed, the case, in her mind, a slam dunk. The bottom line was: She wanted her wheels back.

  However Andy, on the other end of the line, reminded her that it was Sunday, and though he was working “round the clock these days, even God took a day of rest, you know.” The upshot was that the earliest she would be able to pick up her Subaru was the next day, around five.

  “Thanks.” She hung up and said, “Great.” She had access to the department’s vehicles, of course, and like it or not, she’d have to drive one of the county’s Jeeps until Andy and “the crew” were finished with her car. She reminded herself it was for a good cause, a very good cause, if that creep Green could be put away forever.

  “Let me guess, your car’s not ready.” Pescoli said, as she’d eavesdropped Alvarez’s side of the conversation and pieced together the rest.

  “Your powers of detection are astounding.”

  “Pissed, are we?”

  “Don’t know about you, but I am.”

  “I’m pissed all the time, isn’t that what you said? So when can you get it?”

  “Tomorrow. At the earliest. ‘Five-ish.’ ” Frowning, Alvarez shook her head.

  “Any news on your dog?”

  She made a face, having checked her cell, knowing that anyone who found Roscoe would have called the number on his collar, or if he were brought into a shelter and his tag was missing, someone would check the missing-dog notices. And then there was his ID microchip she’d had inserted with his first shots. If someone found him as a stray, a vet could ID him. “Nothing yet.”

  “Hang in. He’ll show up.” But there wasn’t a lot of conviction in Pescoli’s voice and all Alvarez had to do was look out the window and let the weather depress her. If Roscoe hadn’t been taken in, if he hadn’t found shelter ... “Maybe you should contact Grace Perchant. She knew your son was in danger; maybe she can tell you where the dog is.”

  “Is that supposed to be a joke? Because if it is, it’s not funny.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Pescoli sighed. “You never told me what the deal is with you and O’Keefe. He’s kind of a hunk.”

  “There’s no deal.” She glanced up at her partner. “Sorry to disappoint. Don’t you have something better to do?”

  Pescoli’s grin grew from one side of her face to the other. “Yeah, unfortunately, I do. Always.” As if to prove the point, one of the road deputies who was hauling a scruffy, cuffed man passed Alvarez’s open door.

  “Hey! Take it easy! Keep your fuckin’ hands off me!” the suspect, skinny as a rail, his jeans about to slip off his butt, grumbled. His sweatshirt was wet from melting snow, the hood falling off to expose a shaved head covered with tattoos.

  “Come on, Reggie,” the deputy ordered, leading the offender, a perpetual car thief with a particular interest in imports, down the hall just as Pescoli’s phone rang. She answered, waved at Alvarez, and with the phone pressed to her ear, took off toward her own office.

  Good. Grateful not to have to answer any more questions about O’Keefe, Alvarez turned back to her desk. How could she possibly respond to her partner’s insinuations and speculation and flat-out curiosity when she couldn’t answer her own?

  Once she was alone in her office again and the noise of the station seemed to retreat a bit, Alvarez glanced at her computer screen. Lissa Parsons’s autopsy report had come in and she compared it to that of Lara Sue Gilfry. Nothing out of the ordinary, no bruises or marks, cause of death hypothermia.

  Her jaw clenched and she thought about how many others there could possibly be. God, they had to find this guy and fast.

  She was about to go home when she caught a notation on the first victim’s report. That she’d had a tongue stud and the area around the piercing was a little raw, as if it had been recent. Pulling up the file, she flipped through to the missing persons report and scanned the page. In the area where there was mention of identifying marks, her scar and tattoo were listed.

  No mention of a tongue stud.

  Maybe whoever filed the report didn’t know.

  Maybe it was too new.

  “And maybe it’s nothing,” she said as she flipped through the images on the computer of Lara, her identifying marks and eventually the tongue stud. As she stared at the image, she realized it didn’t look like any of the studs she’d seen before and yet, it was familiar.

  No.

  It couldn’t be.

  Her stomach dropped and she told herself that she was leaping to all the wrong conclusions. But a sick sensation took hold of her as she remembered her hoop earring used as a nipple ring on Lissa Parsons.

  Was it possible? A whisper of dread skittered along the base of her skull.

  Had the lunatic stolen the silver stud in the picture from her own home and then used it to make a statement on Lara Sue Gilfry?

  “No way,” she whispered, but even as the words left her mouth, she was out of her chair, on her way to the evidence room, and knew in her heart the piece of jewelry was hers, stolen from her home, then stuck into the naked victim and left for her to find.

  Somehow, some way, the sick son of a bitch had broken into her place and now was mocking her.

  And he wanted her to know about it.

  Chapter 23

  “Look, I really don’t have time for this,” O’Keefe insisted. Sitting on one of the molded plastic chairs in an interview room, he was slowly going out of his mind.

  With concrete walls painted a nondescript green and a tiled floor circa 1962 that showed wear near the door, the room had a mirror on one wall that was, undoubtedly, a window to a darkened room on the other side, where interviews could be observed in private, not that the glass fooled anyone.

  O’Keefe had been interviewed by Agents Chandler and Halden for the past two hours and they were getting nowhere fast. “I’ve told you all I know about Gabriel Reeve and how I tracked him here.” They’d gone over it several times, as if they thought his story would change if he told it often enough. He’d explained how he’d tracked down every lead, looked into any acquaintances Reeve might have in the area, checked cell phone and computer records, talked with people on the street, searched all the areas he thought a kid might go if he was hiding and scared.

  “Don’t you think it was odd that he ended up in Detective Alvarez’s home and later she discovers jewelry missing that ended up on one of the victims?”

  “Of course.” He’d answered that one before, too. The agents finally seemed satisfied that he was telling it to them straight, then Chandler brought up the past.

  “You and Detective Alvarez, you worked together in San Bernardino, right?”

  Here we go, he thought. “That’s right, and we were involved. Romantically. Look, I’m telling you this so we can cut to the chase, okay? You have a killer to catch and I have a suspect to run down.”

  “We’re working on that, too. Confirmed with the Helena Police Department. Detective Trey Williams. He said you were a deputy of the department, but just for this case.” She waved her fingers as if that information was insignificant. “I’m not exactly sure how that works. It’s a little loosey-goosey for me. Not exactly by the book.”

  “Not exactly,” O’Keefe allowed.

  “And there is that problem in San Bernardino.”

  “No problem. My record’s clean.”

  “Mmm.” She didn’t seemed convinced. “Detective Williams has been advised to keep us in the loop, but he insists you’ve been important to the case; he wants you to work with him,” Chandler said, perusing a file.

  “Good.”

  “We’re all on the same side here,” Halden pointed out. Slouching just a bit in his uncomfortable chair, Craig Halden was the friendlier of the two, almost seemed like the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with. However, that could be all an act, a way to get O’Kee
fe to open up. Halden didn’t have that cold exterior that Agent Chandler worked so hard to exude. From her blue eyes to her platinum hair to the set of her jaw and unsmiling lips, everything about her was about as warm as New Year’s Eve in Alaska. Never displaying any emotion, Stephanie Chandler was as much an automaton as O’Keefe had ever seen in a woman, as much as he’d ever want to see. Halden said, “We’re all part of a team. You, us—” Flipping his hand back and forth to indicate both himself and Chandler, he added, “Grayson and his deputies, including Detective Alvarez, we’re all just trying to nail some bad dude’s ass to the wall.”

  “I agree.” O’Keefe said, reassessing his opinion of the agents. So they weren’t idiots. Nor morons. But they were didactic, it seemed, in their quest to be thorough. And time was ticking by; O’Keefe felt each second as it passed. “So let’s work together. I need to find Gabriel Reeve.”

  “And we need to find ourselves a killer,” Halden said, even offering his good-old-boy smile that seemed genuine enough, though it didn’t quite touch his eyes.

  “Let me get this straight,” Pescoli said to the caller on the other end of the line. She had one arm through her jacket and had been on her way home when her cell phone had jangled and she’d caught it on the fly. “You got my number from Luke Pescoli?”

  “Yeah, uh, he said you were his ex and that you were a detective with the sheriff ’s department.”

  Terrific!

  “And he gave you my personal cell phone number?” she clarified, ready to kill her ex-husband, not for the first time. Resting her hips against the edge of her desk, she shrugged out of her jacket and watched as it fell to the floor of her office.

  “Yeah. Look, I’m worried. Because of my girlfriend, Johnna, uh, Johnna Phillips, she didn’t come home last night. And, you know, with everything that’s happening around here, I got worried, so I called up Lucky and he said I should call you.”

  Pescoli sighed and grabbed a piece of paper she kept near her computer monitor.