Ready to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  She was just starting up the steps when the front door of the Brewster’s house flew open and Jeremy stepped onto the concrete porch. His face was grave, nearly ashen, his eyes round as if he were shell-shocked.

  Oh, God.

  Then she spied Heidi, who looked so incredibly small, even frail. Her face was red, tears still visible, her makeup a mess. Placing an arm around her slim shoulders, Jeremy automatically assumed the role of protector.

  Pescoli thought she might be sick. “Hi,” she said.

  “Come inside.” Jeremy stepped aside from the door and Heidi started to sob.

  “Whatever’s going on here, we’ll figure it out,” she assured them, feeling, for the first time in her life, sorry for Heidi Brewster. She was, after all, just a teenaged girl in trouble.

  As she stepped into the landing, where stairs split to go either up or down, Jeremy pulled the door shut. Pictures of the Brewster girls lined the walls, from all ages, as if every school shot of each of Cort’s daughters had been framed and mounted.

  “We’ve got a serious problem,” Jeremy said, and Pescoli braced herself for the news she expected.

  “I figured.”

  “It’s Heidi’s dad. The undersheriff.”

  Heidi was bawling loudly now, her shoulders shaking, tears running freely.

  This is about Cort Brewster?

  “Show her,” he said as Heidi reached into the pocket of her jacket to withdraw her phone. She handed it to Jeremy, who messed with it for a second, then, lips tight against his teeth, turned it around so that Pescoli could see the picture on the phone’s tiny screen, a picture of Judge Kathryn Samuels-Piquard, completely naked.

  Pescoli’s stomach dropped.

  “There’s more,” Jeremy admitted and scrolled through a few more, enough to show the judge and undersheriff in compromising positions. “And there’s a tape.”

  “They made a sex tape?” Pescoli said, wondering at the stupidity of people. Heidi slid to the bottom step of the upward-leading staircase. Burying her face in her hands, she continued crying softly.

  “I . . . I can’t believe this,” she whispered, hiccups interrupting her. “This . . . this”—she waved at the phone—“will kill Mom.”

  “She doesn’t know?” Pescoli asked, though it was clear her son and Heidi had brought the evidence of Brewster’s infidelity to her first.

  Sniffing loudly, Heidi looked up at Jeremy. “I should have erased all of it. I found it on a computer in the basement and sent it to my phone and then . . . then it was stolen by that horrible man, that killer, and he was probably blackmailing Dad or something. But then I showed it all to Jeremy and he said I should tell you and . . . and now I think I’m going to be in big trouble.” She was gulping for air, winding herself up. Obviously what had been worrying her for weeks had finally come to the surface, probably because of Jeremy’s insistence that Heidi tell Pescoli. Worse yet, the girl suspected something more sinister, a suspicion that had probably been growing for days. “Mom’s going to be home soon. I don’t know what to tell her.”

  Neither do I, Pescoli thought, but couldn’t tell the poor girl that her father was a suspected serial killer. “Look, Jer, why don’t you take Heidi to our place. Leave Mrs. Brewster a note.” Then she bent down on a knee so she was closer to the girl. “You’re going to be okay. And so is your mom.”

  “And . . . and my dad?”

  “We’ll see, but he’s tough.” That much was true. She glanced at the screen once more and looked beyond the subject matter to the backdrop. Wherever the film had been taken, it was unfamiliar territory to Pescoli. “Do you know where this is? Where the pictures were taken?”

  Heidi was nodding, her blond head bobbing. “It’s at the mountain house.”

  “You have one?”

  “Yeah . . . it was my grandparents’.”

  “Do you know where it is?” Pescoli asked.

  “Sure.” She blinked. “Why?”

  Just then Pescoli’s phone rang and she picked up.

  “All clear here,” Alvarez said. “Grayson’s the same. I’ve got a guard coming. Now, we just have to find Brewster.”

  “I think I’ve got that covered,” Pescoli said, and armed with this new information, she was convinced that Verdago, the sap, had been set up.

  Cort Brewster was the killer and man, oh, man was he going down.

  Chapter 35

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  He felt time running out.

  There was a chance that Grayson would pull through. After all he’d planned, all the risks he’d taken, all the sacrifices he’d made, the damned sheriff might just make it. He’d been reading up on wounds like Grayson’s, which were so often fatal, but sometimes, like in the case of that politician from Arizona, the victims made a nearly full recovery.

  He just couldn’t let that happen.

  Taking a long swallow of his drink, he felt the calming effect of icy vodka running down his throat. In the full-length mirror, he examined his naked reflection. Still muscular. No flab. Just a little gray in his hair and a few wrinkles near his eyes to give a nod to Father Time.

  He was sweating from his workout, his muscles warmed, his uniform pressed neatly and hanging on the door. He’d come here, to his hideaway, to settle himself down. The pressures of being sheriff were more than he’d imagined, but he assumed they would ease off and he would calm down once things were settled, once Grayson kicked off and he was totally in control.

  He’d covered his tracks, meeting with people in Missoula, playing his part, then before returning to Grizzly Falls, making a last trip to his sanctuary.

  It wasn’t the same without his beloved pictures, but he had to leave them, wiped clean of prints and DNA, of course, at the cabin where that cretin Verdago had holed up. It had been so easy to coerce him into playing along, the smell of money had always been an enticement to Maurice, in the army, years before, and while he was a private citizen. It didn’t hurt that Brewster had figured out that Verdago had iced Joey Lundeen and had used that knowledge as added incentive for the fool to go along with his scheme.

  The woman, though, Brewster hadn’t counted on her, so he’d had to take her down. What he hadn’t expected was that she would open the door dressed as some kind of cheap porn star. He’d felt an exquisite pleasure at pulling the trigger on her, even though inside the cabin he took a major chance with ricochet. But that hadn’t happened.

  Not with his aim.

  She’d dropped the second she’d recognized him, her eyes widening, fear just beginning to show.

  He licked his lips at the memory of her quick, horrified expression.

  When Brewster had told Verdago to find a hideout, he’d thought the man would have more resources and wouldn’t use a cabin owned by his damned girlfriend’s family. Nor should he have ever brought her along.

  That was the trouble: Maurice always thought with his dick, and that was a sure way to get a man into trouble.

  You should know, his brain taunted, and he thought about the tape he’d made with “Kitty.” That woman had been a wildcat in bed, unlike his frigid wife who seemed to think that sex was just an act to make babies. Whenever he’d suggested anything a little outside of her comfort zone, she’d started quoting Bible verses against fornication, even though they were married.

  It all stemmed from her ultimate humiliation at being two months’ pregnant with Jane at their wedding. As if anyone cared.

  The upshot had been that while she’d been a horny little hellcat before the nuptials, after their wedding, she’d turned stone cold.

  It was her damned fault that he took up with Kathryn after all those years of masturbating in the shower and trying to stay faithful to an ice goddess.

  Years of it.

  And his life was all too quickly playing out.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  He was about to don his uniform, when he heard it. Far in the distance. A vehicle’s engine.

  Probably on the road a good two mil
es away.

  And yet.

  The engine passed and he decided to finish his drink. Then he’d return to his real life and find a way to ensure Grayson’s death. There would be others to dispose of as well, but those would have to be the victims of accidents.

  Soon, he thought. Very soon.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Faster! Faster! Faster!

  She couldn’t make the miles pass quickly enough. Heart pounding, determination pushing her, Pescoli drove like a madwoman. Passing tractor trailers, cutting corners, speeding through yellow lights, all the while her light bar flashing brightly, she headed into the hills.

  Again.

  Though she told herself to slow down, she couldn’t. She felt time passing, and it seemed to her that every second she wasted was another chance for Brewster to wreak his havoc, either on the sheriff or someone else on his hit list.

  How had she been so foolish as to think he was a decent cop, how had her instincts failed her so badly? She’d always been at odds with him, though mainly over their children, but lately, after he’d saved her life, she’d tried like hell to find the good in him while her gut instincts had warned her.

  Get over it, she told herself as she started winding her way into the hills. She got the light bar and then managed to get a call into Alvarez, who didn’t pick up. Leaving a voice mail, Pescoli kept driving, closer and closer to the cabin.

  With a sense of déjà vu, she found the turnoff to Brewster’s cabin. Not as isolated as Maurice Verdago’s hideout, but not on the main road either. She slowed to view a hand-hewn post of individual signs with arrows and the names of the families who owned recreational homes in the area:

  Miller

  Snyder

  Jamison

  And, at the very top, perhaps the oldest sign, the name Brewster was chiseled and painted into an ancient piece of wood that had been nailed to the post.

  Gotcha, Pescoli thought, her heart racing, adrenaline firing her blood. She parked near the gate of one of the homes, a cabin, that from the lack of prints or tire tread in the snow, looked vacant, then left another message for Alvarez, ending with, “I’m going in.”

  It didn’t matter that she was “a loose cannon” or “a rogue cop.” Not anymore. Not when she had Grayson’s assassin in her sights.

  Clicking off her phone, she turned it to silent mode, then reached for her Glock.

  He couldn’t waste any more time. As sheriff, he would be missed. As a husband, he would be questioned. As it was, there were holes in his days, holes he couldn’t explain, and Bess, somewhere along the line, had suspected he was having an affair. Oh, she’d never guessed the woman involved and had always just hinted around the issue.

  “If I didn’t know better, Cort, I’d think you were involved with someone,” she’d said with a tremulous smile. “Good thing I know you’re a strong, Christian man.”

  That was the problem, he was a man. With needs.

  Another time, she’d muttered, “That mistress of yours really has her nails in you, doesn’t she?” When he hadn’t answered, she’d touched him playfully on the shoulder. “I’m talking about your work, silly. You knew that . . . right?”

  Now, he finished his drink and stretched. He couldn’t afford a divorce and didn’t want one. He just wanted sex. Excitement. And, of course, to be sheriff. Well, maybe a little more than that. In a few years he could see himself entering the political arena . . . first a state senator and then . . . who knew?

  He smiled at his ambitions but didn’t want to get ahead of himself. Dan Grayson was still alive.

  And that was a problem.

  She could see Brewster’s cabin through the trees. Lights flickered in the windows, smoke curled from the chimney, his Jeep was parked outside. He hadn’t been here too long as the Jeep was wet and dirty, no snow accumulating on its warm hood and roof.

  Dusk was settling over the land, so she had a bit of cover. Still, she was careful as she approached, and when she heard the sound of an engine on the road behind her, she smiled inwardly.

  She wasn’t alone. Alvarez had gotten her message.

  Good, she thought, skirting the front of the house to the back exit. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her muscles straining. She thought of booby traps and trip wires, but knew Brewster wasn’t that clever or careful. This was his family’s recreation home, not the hideout of some antigovernment fanatic. Brewster wouldn’t take a risk with his daughters.

  She picked her way over the clearing where a dilapidated swing set collected snow, its rusted chains creaking in the wind.

  She reached for the door handle and turned.

  The cold metal knob twisted in her fingers.

  It was now or never.

  Running his fingers over the smooth wood of his father’s table, he decided he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to leave. His head was a little fuzzy from the drink, but he felt good, pumped, ready to take on the world.

  He walked into the bathroom and, humming to himself, he stood over the toilet and peed like a damned stallion, a heavy, strong stream that was as loud as it was steady.

  Yeah, he had a few good years left, he thought, walking out of the john.

  Regan Pescoli was standing in the middle of his living room, her Glock pointed directly at his head.

  If he hadn’t just relieved himself, he would have emptied his bladder all over the floor.

  His rifle was near the back door. His pistol in his holster.

  As if reading his mind, she warned, “Don’t even think about it. Put your hands over your head and get on the floor.”

  Pescoli stared down at the naked man in front of her, coldly furious, partly boggled. She had him dead to rights, but this was Brewster.

  “For the love of God, Pescoli, let me cover up!” Brewster declared, a look of panic in his eyes. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, what you think you know, but you’re wrong. And you’re trespassing!”

  “I know you killed the judge,” she said in a flat voice. “I know you attempted to kill the sheriff, and I’ll bet my retirement that you shot and killed Carnie Tibalt.”

  “What? You’ve got it all wrong. You’ve lost your grip! The only person I shot was Verdago, and that’s because he was aiming at you!” He looked frantic and embarrassed.

  “Bullshit, Brewster. We know you killed them. Even Carnie. That’s when you dropped off the pictures, after you dropped her.”

  “You’re crazy!” he sputtered.

  “You left the six pictures. Some of them were people you wanted dead. And all of them were ones Verdago wanted to kill. Except you added your picture into the mix, trying to throw us off. One more beyond Verdago’s Dirty Half Dozen.”

  He shook his head violently. “You’re not making any sense!”

  “You figured that we would think Verdago and Carnie got into a lover’s quarrel, so you wouldn’t have to plant her picture with the others, but your count was still off. Seven, instead of six. Six people he wanted dead. Not seven. But you didn’t know, did you? That the magic number was six”

  “I can help you, Regan,” he said desperately, ignoring everything she said. “You need help.”

  “You forgot about sending the picture to Manny Douglas and that’s where you made your mistake. Because Verdago had six enemies, not seven. So you screwed yourself with your damned grandstanding. You couldn’t resist, could you? Crowing about it! Showing off!”

  He blinked rapidly. “I’m innocent!”

  “Save it for the judge! Oh, sorry. She’s dead, isn’t she? You already killed her!”

  “You think you’re so damn smart,” he snarled. “You’re a lousy detective, Pescoli.”

  “Better than you. Always better than you, Brewster. And that’s what matters. Put your hands over your head! Now! I’m not going to ask again. Get down on the floor, you lying sack of shit, while I cuff you and read you your rights.”

  “I’ll have your fucking badge for this!”

&nbs
p; “Hands over your head! Get the hell down!” she yelled, her gun barrel aiming lower, directly at his black heart. She thought about really scaring him and sighting on his nuts, but stayed focused on his chest. She was going to shoot to stop. He wasn’t going to get away. “Get down! Cort Brewster, you have the right to remain silent.”

  “What the fuck! I’m innocent!” he repeated, but his hands shot into the air. He was starting to kneel, when out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement in the window, a bit of blond hair.

  Shit!

  “Get down, now!” she ordered, but it was too late as the front door of the cabin opened and Heidi Brewster appeared.

  “Dad? Oh, God, Dad, I’m so sorry!” She turned red-rimmed eyes on Pescoli. “What are you doing?” she cried.

  “Get out, Heidi!” Pescoli ordered as Brewster sprang upward from the hallway, pushing a coffee table into her shins and vaulting toward the back door.

  Pain screamed up her shins as Pescoli turned, aiming at Brewster’s back.

  Heidi screamed, “Dad!” and took off after him, running into Pescoli’s sight line, crying and calling to the nude man who threw himself off the porch into the snow.

  “Get down, Heidi!” Pescoli ordered.

  “You can’t kill him! You can’t!” she cried. “Just because he had an affair!” She was hysterical now, a drama queen who’d finally found a legitimate stage. Pescoli shoved her aside and took off after him, flying through the back door, following his footsteps around the front of the house to his truck where he stood, still naked, legs braced, rifle at his shoulder.

  Pescoli stopped dead in her tracks and saw him smile.

  From the open front door, his daughter wailed, “Daddy, please, don’t!”

  But Brewster, fired on booze and adrenaline, was too far gone.

  “Your turn,” he snarled at Pescoli. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this!”

  “Drop your weapon, Cort. It’s over.”

  “For you.”

  “You’re really going to kill me in front of your daughter?”