Born To Die

by Lisa Jackson

  “Must be something,” Alvarez said.

  “I don’t get it. I’m going to have to grab this and go check on the kids.”

  “I’m going to work on finding the ex–Mrs. O’Halleran. See what she has to say.”

  “Okay. It’ll be interesting to hear why she dumped her kid with O’Halleran and took off, if she really did. So far all we’ve got for it is his word.” She shouldered open the door of the small deli. Warm air and the smells of spices and roasted meat hit Pescoli full force. Her stomach growled as she and Alvarez took their place in line to order their takeout.

  It took a while as the older couple ahead of them were in no hurry. The man had trouble hearing; the woman was very concerned about her allergies as they finally settled on a tuna melt and ham on rye. But that wasn’t the end of it. To complicate matters, they had their grandson, a kid of about fourteen who wasn’t in school but was definitely plugged into his music, as he either texted or played a game on his cell phone. For him to grudgingly order a turkey sandwich—“ no tomatoes, no lettuce, no onions, but an extra bag of chips”—and convey that message to his grandmother as he fiddled with his phone and listened to music was excruciating.

  Eventually, as customers stacked up behind Alvarez, the patient woman behind the counter got the older couple and their grandson what they wanted, then rang them up. Finally, Pescoli was able to place her order. A chickenspinach salad for Alvarez and some kind of healthy bottled tea, while Pescoli had a Reuben with extra sauerkraut and a diet cola. They carried lunch back to the station, where they parted ways, Pescoli heading out, while Alvarez ate at her desk, checking her e-mail. The DNA report from Jonas Hayes popped up, so she sent it on to the lab.

  An hour later Pescoli returned, and she signaled Alvarez to join her in the lunchroom, where, true to her word, Joelle’s fruitcake stood proudly on a cake stand. About half of it was missing, a few slices had already been cut, and the rest, complete with candied pineapple rings and bright red cherries, was ready to be hacked to pieces and devoured. Crumbs littered the table, where napkins decorated with smiling Santas had been placed.

  “So, how was it?” Alvarez asked as Pescoli unwrapped half her sandwich.

  “Bianca was sleeping. No Chris Schultz so far, thank God for small favors. Jeremy was playing video games and wanted half of my sandwich.”

  “Did you give it to him?”

  “Not on your life. I ate half there, brought this back. I made a grilled cheese for Bianca and showed him how he could make one for himself. He’ll probably eat hers, but at least she’ll tell me. I gotta do something about that kid.”

  Pescoli bit into the Reuben and ignored not only great-great- great-grannie’s cake but also the Christmas decorations and the big sign that Joelle had pinned on the bulletin board. The sign was Joelle’s way of reminding everyone of their Secret Santas and the party she had planned for the week before Christmas. Plenty of time to figure out what special little gift to buy the undersheriff.

  Thank God the limit was ten bucks.

  Still too much in Pescoli’s opinion.

  “DNA report come in?” she asked.

  “It’s at the lab. So, we’ll see. Compare it to Jocelyn Wallis’s. I’ve already told them to put a rush on it.”

  “And did they tell you to shove it?” Pescoli asked. “They’re pretty busy.”

  “They’ll do what they can.”

  “You think the doctor’s a potential target?” Pescoli had trouble wrapping her mind around that. “Just because she looks like the others and claims to have been bugged doesn’t connect her.”

  “Except for O’Halleran.”

  “Back to him.” Pescoli chewed thoughtfully. Some serial killers were known to go after a type. Time and time again, that had proven true. Ted Bundy was a classic case in point. But it was a big leap to think that a killer was after a victim with a certain DNA profile. It was one thing for a wack job to be attracted to long hair or blue eyes or whatever, quite another for him to be looking for women with DNA patterns or common ancestors.

  How would a person even go about that? Geez, it was hard enough for the department, with access to a crime lab, to get a DNA profile.

  If the DNA was important, then it only made sense that the common ancestry was the key.

  “Whether the victims are linked through DNA or an ancestor or whatever, I wonder if we should talk to Grayson about going public.”

  Alvarez tried to show no emotion at the mention of their boss. How could she? Like it or not, they worked for the guy, but something wasn’t right there. “I think we should,” she said now. “Talk to Grayson.”

  “But it’s iffy,” Pescoli said. So far all they really knew was that someone had been trying to poison Jocelyn Wallis. The other potential victims were an actress in Southern California and a woman whose minivan had slid off the road with a little help, probably by a hit-and-run driver. Nothing concrete to tie the crimes to one killer. Maybe they were getting ahead of themselves. They couldn’t even prove that they had a serial killer in their midst, hadn’t alerted the FBI.

  Alvarez eyed the cake and, as if she’d read Pescoli’s mind, said, “I’m checking with other departments, not just statewide. Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and California to start. See if they have any recent suspicious deaths where the victim has connections here or to Helena. I’ve also got a call in to Elle Alexander’s parents to find out if she was really born in Idaho.”

  “It all sounds kind of thin, doesn’t it?”

  Alvarez shook her head, unwilling to be sidetracked. “If Shelly Bonaventure is part of this, then our guy moves around a lot. Could be he has a job that takes him to other parts of the country. If so, there might be a trail of victims. Individual accidents.”

  “And if Bonaventure, who the LAPD are still claiming offed herself, isn’t one of our guy’s victims?” Pescoli asked, finishing her sandwich.

  Alvarez scowled. “Then we’re back to square one.”

  At two o’clock Herbert Long’s wife called to say, with a heavy dose of disgust, that her husband was going to have to cancel his appointment. Kacey, who had been unable to get Dr. Martin Cortez to take the appointment as he was already double-booked, pumped her fist in the air. She could drive to Missoula earlier than planned, and though dark clouds were gathering along the ridge of mountains surrounding the valley, the heavy snowfall had abated, just as Heather had said the forecasters had predicted.

  After grabbing a bottle of water from the staff room’s small refrigerator, she donned her coat and headed for her car. She had managed to choke down a tuna sandwich for lunch but had no real appetite. She’d put a call in to Trace, ostensibly to talk about Eli, and learned that he’d talked to the police about the microphones. “I think they’re planning to sweep your house,” he said. “Probably dust for fingerprints.”

  “I should remind them about Bonzi.”

  “They want you there, too.”

  “Good. I’ll call them later.”

  She didn’t tell him what she had planned, though it was on the tip of her tongue. But he would try to talk her out of it, or join in, and she really wanted to do this herself.

  She’d decided to meet Gerald Johnson face-to-face, see what her newfound dad had to say for himself, and try to figure out why her mother held him in such reverent esteem.

  Theirs, it seemed, at least in Maribelle’s nostalgic mind, was an affair that transcended all others, a star-crossed, tragic love story that was equal to or more intense than Antony and Cleopatra, or Romeo and Juliet.

  The incredibly pathos-riddled tale of Gerald and Maribelle.

  “Give me a break,” she muttered under her breath as she moved her all-wheel drive onto I-90. In her head she mapped out what she might say to the father who, according to Maribelle, had never known she existed.

  Great.

  Some of her courage seeped away as the tires of her Ford ate up the miles. She’d done her research. All Gerald’s legitimate children lived within fift
y miles of their parents. No offspring going to college on the East Coast and putting down roots, or marrying and taking a job in San Francisco or Birmingham or Chicago.

  No, all of those who had survived still lived close to Daddy and, she suspected, the fortune he’d amassed. She chastised herself mentally for her suspicions as she reached the city limits of Missoula, but she’d done her research: Gerald Johnson was a very wealthy man.

  As she’d gathered information on him, Kacey had also learned that most of his surviving children worked for him. The oldest, Clarissa, had an MBA from Stanford, and she was in charge of marketing. Married, with a couple of kids, she’d been with the company for years. After Clarissa, Gerald had sired two sons in three years, Judd and Thane. Both of them were lawyers: Judd worked for the company, and Thane consulted from his own firm. Neither was married. Then came the twins, Cameron and Colt. Kacey hadn’t found out much about them, but they, too, lived in the area, and she would bet they were on the company payroll in some capacity. The last of Gerald’s children had been the ill-fated Kathleen, who’d died right before her pending marriage.

  There had been a few mentions of seven children, however, so Kacey had scoured deeper. When she’d looked through the archived obituaries, she’d discovered an earlier daughter, Agatha-Rae, “Aggie,” who had died at the age of eight from a fall. Agatha-Rae’s birthday was exactly one week before her own, so she and Kacey would have been the same age, had she lived. Inwardly, Kacey shuddered and gripped the wheel of her car a little more tightly. No wonder her mother had been vague about Gerald’s children.

  Snow was beginning to fall again, and she flipped on her wipers. Using her portable GPS as a guide, she made her way through Missoula, a larger city by Montana standards that lay in a valley near the river and was rimmed in snow-covered mountains. She drove past restaurants and storefronts, and an old lumber mill turned into several individual shops now, and then finally crossed a wide bridge to discover Johnson Industrial Park. Newly shoveled pathways cut through the low-lying buildings and rimmed a series of icy ponds complete with cattails and ducks. The new snowfall was already covering the cement.

  Though the structures seemed identical, they looked to be built in pods, each grouping housing a different piece of Gerald Johnson’s empire and connected by breezeways edging several parking lots.

  Money, she thought uneasily, easing along the winding road and spying areas marked MANUFACTURING, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, TECHNOLOGY, and finally, ADMINISTRATION.

  “Bingo,” she whispered as she pulled into a parking spot marked for visitors and cut the engine. Giving herself one quick, final pep talk, she grabbed her briefcase.

  Outside, the wind was brisk, carrying tiny, hard snowflakes that caught in her hair and seemed to cut into her cheeks. Quickly, she made her way along the aggregate walkway to the door and stepped inside to a vast reception area where yards of gray, industrial-grade carpet swept across the floor and the white walls were covered with awards and pictures.

  A wide counter separated those who were visiting from the sanctum of inner offices, which was visible through an open doorway leading deeper inside.

  “May I help you?” a girl in her twenties asked. With a pixielike face and short hair that showed off multiple earrings, she was seated at a desk complete with large computer monitor and little else. Her nameplate said ROXANNE JAMISON.

  “I’d like to see Gerald Johnson.”

  The smooth skin of her forehead wrinkled. “Do . . . you . . . have an appointment?” she asked while looking at the computer screen.

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. You need to have an appointment.”

  “Please tell him Acacia Collins Lambert is here to see him. And let him know that I’m Maribelle Collins’s daughter.”

  The receptionist lifted her brows. “O . . . kay.” She pressed a button on the sleek phone and, with more than a tinge of skepticism in her voice, relayed the message. “Yes . . . here in the lobby . . . of course, Mr. Johnson.” She eyed Kacey with new respect, saying, “He’ll see you now. I’ll show you to his office.” She climbed off her desk chair, opened up a portion of the counter that swung inward, then led Kacey down several hallways, past glass doors, and around a final corner to an office with large walnut double doors that were standing open, as if waiting.

  Kacey felt an ache of dread in her heart as she followed Miss Jamison inside.

  Gerald Johnson sat at his desk, his shirt sleeves rolled over tanned arms, his eyes on the doorway, his silver hair combed smoothly away from his face.

  “Mr. Johnson, this is Miss Lambert,” the pixielike receptionist said.

  He climbed to his feet. “Thanks, Roxie. Please, close the doors as you leave.”

  The receptionist did as she was bid, and Johnson, about six feet tall, still square-shouldered, his silver hair just beginning to thin, turned all his attention on the daughter he’d never met. He didn’t bother smiling, just said, “Hello, Acacia. I’ve been expecting you.”

  His hands were tight on the steering wheel, his heart was pounding triple time, and sweat was dampening his shirt despite the snow he saw falling outside the window as he drove, pushing the speed limit, his Lexus flying over the road.

  She knew!

  That bitch understood.

  She’d realized the maggot who had spawned her was Gerald Johnson, and now they were having a showdown.

  He should have killed her sooner!

  All of his work ... about to be destroyed.

  All of his planning, how careful he’d been, about to be exposed.

  Taking several calming breaths, he told himself that this was just another small challenge, a bump in the road. He could handle this, he could.

  He blinked his eyes.

  But he didn’t let up on the accelerator as he passed a long, nearly empty van marked ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL heading the opposite way, toward Grizzly Falls.

  Within minutes he was forced to slow for traffic as he guided his Lexus through the streets of Missoula.

  Pull it together, he told himself as he stepped on the brakes and waited at a light for a woman on a cell phone who barely noticed the waiting traffic as she crossed to the far side, where a storefront, decorated with mannequins dressed in red and green for the season, beckoned.

  Inside his driving gloves, his hands were clammy, and nervous sweat dampened his shirt though the temperature in the car read only sixty-seven degrees and outside snow was beginning to stick in earnest on the roads again.

  Glancing into the rearview mirror, he saw no car hanging back, as if following him, no sinister driver hiding behind aviator shades. Nor was there anyone in a long trench coat leaning on a lamppost while observing him, no man on a park bench ostensibly reading a newspaper, while, in fact, surveying his every move.

  Of course not!

  That was just the stuff of movies!

  He counted his heartbeats and punched the accelerator the second the light turned green.

  The rest of the drive was excruciatingly slow, while his thoughts were flying through his head a mile a minute. Short, sharp bits of mental movies of those he called his siblings, of those who were now dead, and of the bitch who was currently hell-bent on destroying it all.

  Forcing a calm he didn’t feel, he drove the Lexus into the parking lot of his father’s business and spotted her car parked near the administration building.

  His stomach clenched, and he had to remind himself that all was not lost.

  Yet.

  CHAPTER 28

  “ You were expecting me?” Kacey stared at the man who, if only by the chance of genetics, was her father. Hadn’t Maribelle said Gerald Johnson didn’t know about her? Then again, hadn’t her mother been known to lie? To keep secrets? “So you know I’m your biological daughter? I thought it was all a big secret.”

  “Is that what Maribelle said?” He almost seemed amused as he waved her into the large office with its oversized desk, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a sit
ting area complete with leather couch and matching side chairs. Through the glass wall behind him, she saw another duck pond and beyond, rising in the distance, the mountains, where the ridges seemed to scrape the graying sky. Snow had already begun to obliterate the view. All that was clearly visible was the edge of the parking lot, where she caught the noses of a Cadillac SUV, a BMW, and a Jaguar.

  Not just a parking lot, she thought, but the executive lot.

  “She told me that you didn’t know that I existed,” Kacey said.

  “And you believed her.”

  “Well, yeah. Now you’re telling me something else.”

  He waved her toward him, where two visitor’s chairs were positioned on one side of his desk. Kacey removed her coat and draped it over one chair, settling cautiously in the other. On the side wall were awards, certificates, and his medical diplomas, prominently displayed.

  “I assume my mother called and warned you that I intended to find you,” Kacey said.

  “She did.”

  “So all her secrets, her insistence that you be kept out of it, that was all just what? A smoke screen? Why?”

  “Your mother tried to act as if the baby—you—were Stanley’s. I didn’t believe it, of course. She’d been trying to have a baby for years, and then, after we got ... close, she became pregnant, so I assumed the truth.” He drew a breath and exhaled it heavily. “Our affair was winding down at the time. I was going to move the company from Helena to here and ... so,” he said, leaning forward, hands clasped, forearms on the desk, “I saw no point in trying to keep what we had going. We were both married, neither wanted a divorce, and so . . . we let it die, and I allowed your mother the fantasy that I didn’t know about you. It was just simpler.”

  “For whom?” she asked carefully.

  “Everyone. Including you.”

  “How thoughtful,” she said, hearing the anger rising in her own voice. “You don’t know anything about me.”