Born To Die

by Lisa Jackson

  “I was afraid of this,” Judd said. “You know he’s never been right, Mother. Even from the start. When he pushed Aggie down the stairs.”

  Alvarez held up a hand, stopping her partner from yanking on the door handle.

  “It was an accident,” Gerald said, sinking into his chair again as Alvarez stepped back into the den with its cheery fire, fresh-cut flowers, and simmering lies.

  “It was,” Judd insisted. “Of course it was an accident. But essentially, that’s what happened.”

  “You told me,” Gerald reminded his son, looking up to meet Judd’s narrowed eyes, “that Aggie got tangled in her blanket.”

  “I know. That’s right,” Judd said smoothly, almost as if he’d practiced the line. “And then Cam ran by and knocked her down. She got wrapped up in her damned blanket and fell.”

  Noreen shuddered.

  “To her death.” Gerald glared at his son.

  “We’ve got to go,” Pescoli said tersely. Alvarez rejoined her as she opened the door and the breath of winter blew through the room, rattling umbrellas in a nearby stand. To Gerald, his wife, and oldest son, Pescoli added, “You all stay put! Don’t go anywhere.”

  “It’s not Cameron,” Noreen wailed, but Judd Johnson’s tense face said it all. His mother, appearing far frailer than she had just half an hour earlier, collapsed in his arms. Tears rolled from her eyes and she sobbed against his expensive coat, her voice muted as her shoulders shook. “It’s . . . it’s not Cameron. It can’t be!”

  Pescoli was already out the door.

  The last look Alvarez caught of Gerald was of the big man seated in his leather recliner near the fire, holding his head in one hand, reaching for his glass of scotch with the other.

  “I’ll drive.” Pescoli was already out the door and Alvarez was only a couple of steps behind. As she climbed into the passenger seat, Pescoli engaged the engine and threw the rig into gear. The Jeep lurched forward. Alvarez pulled the door shut as they reached the end of the circular drive and she’d barely gotten her seat belt connected when they were heading onto the slippery road winding down the hillside.

  “What the hell happened?” Pescoli asked.

  “Something going on at the O’Halleran place,” Alvarez said, thinking of the man whom she was now certain was the killer. “Looks like Cameron Johnson is escalating. And he’s starting with the people there.”

  “And killing his sperm bank sisters?”

  “Or anyone who’s in his path.” Alvarez repeated what she’d heard on voice mail.

  In the dark car, her face pale, Pescoli muttered, “The bastard’s a raving lunatic!” She drove as fast as she dared, past the lodge and gatehouse, then cast Alvarez a glance as they reached the main road. “Don’t suppose you have a cigarette on you?”

  Alvarez sent her partner a “dream-on” look, then punched in Kacey Lambert’s cell phone number again and waited.

  The call went directly to voice mail once more.

  Trace’s fingers tightened on the shovel’s handle.

  “I wondered if you’d show up,” the killer said, and there in the doorway, silhouetted against the white drifts, Kacey stood, feet wide, a gun in her hands. But she couldn’t see into the darkness. Couldn’t guess where they could be.

  Click. The bastard cocked his gun.

  What was Kacey thinking?

  “Get back!” Trace screamed. Frantic, he yanked the shovel from the nails that held it to the wall. Twisting the blade of the shovel in front of him, he started scrambling backward to the door to save her, push her away, use his body as a shield, any damned thing to protect her!

  “Too late.” A brittle, hollow laugh echoed behind him.

  “Watch out!” Dragging his useless leg, sensing the streak of blood he was leaving on the floorboards, he forced himself to the doorway. “He’s got a gun!”

  “So do I,” she said calmly. Too calmly. “Stay down!”

  Blam!

  Her gun’s nose sprayed fire, her silhouette slipping away, behind the exterior wall.

  Trace had flattened to the floor even before she pulled the trigger, the room spinning around him, his neck twisted as he stared at the doorway.

  Craaack! Click! Craaack! Click! Craaack!

  The killer fired in rapid succession, sending the timbers of the stable shaking and the horses squealing and snorting, rearing in sheer terror. Steel-shot hooves pounded the walls of the stalls.

  The dogs, too, were barking madly.

  Over it all, he heard a single heart-stopping cry.

  Kacey!

  He rolled over and tried to get to his feet, to stumble forward, but his leg wouldn’t work. The best he could do was drag himself through the smoke and fear that rose to the rafters.

  Another horrifying moan. As if her soul was being ripped from her body.

  “NO!” He screamed. “NO!”

  A satisfied chuckle crackled from behind him; the killer’s sick pleasure oozing through the aftermath.

  You sick cocksucker, I’m going to get you.

  “Trace!”

  What?

  “Trace!” Kacey’s terrified voice reached him, a distant weak cry diluted by the rush of the wind. As if she were truly exiting this world and he was truly losing her.

  But she’s alive! There’s still time!

  “Hang on!” he ordered brokenly. “Hang the hell on!”

  Using the shovel to drag himself forward, he pulled himself closer toward the doorway, to the frigid air blowing snow into the stable. Somewhere behind him, he heard the uneven footsteps of the killer, but he kept moving, didn’t care that the rifle might be trained on the back of his head.

  Through the doorway he crawled into the night, the cold a welcome slap to his swirling senses.

  He saw her then. Unmoving. A crumpled form lying in the snow just outside the building, strands of her hair being lifted by the wind.

  NO! NO! NO!

  Oh, dear God . . . let her still be alive.

  “Kacey,” he choked out. “God, please ... Kacey.” Again he heard a noise behind him. The wounded footsteps of the assassin. Was the bastard going to kill him now?

  He thought he saw her move. Oh, sweet Jesus! Yes, there it was again: one foot was twitching. He crawled closer, to where he could see the rest of her body, and noticed a terrifying, spreading darkness staining the snow beneath her. “Why?” he whispered, fury tearing through him. Why had she come to his rescue?

  “Too late, lover boy,” the big man behind him was saying, breathing hard. Far in the distance—too far—sirens shrieked over the howl of the wind.

  Exhausted, breathing hard, Trace looked over his shoulder and saw a huge, shadowy shape fill the doorway. The rifle was at his shoulder, night goggles covering his eyes, but he leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. Trace saw dark splotches begin to color the snow beneath the man’s left arm. So the pitchfork had done some damage.

  “You’re dead now, you son of a bitch,” the killer warned, his voice a watery hiss.

  That’s when Trace noticed the gun in the snow.

  Lying at the end of Kacey’s fingers, its barrel pointed away from her.

  Still holding the shovel as protection, Trace lunged, one arm outstretched. He missed, his fingers brushing the gun’s muzzle and causing it to spin, burying deep in the snow.

  The killer laughed, a gurgling, demonic sound that echoed through the night. “Nice try, bastard!”

  Click!

  Trace sprang.

  Swinging his shovel, the blade knifing through the air, he landed in a drift a foot from the gun. Snatching up the weapon, he nearly passed out in the process. All he could think about was Kacey. Sweet Kacey. How she’d tried to save him and died in the process.

  “Say your prayers, cowboy,” the killer ordered, hobbling closer, his rifle aimed straight at Trace. “You’re gonna get to join your girlfriend.”

  A tremendous growl erupted from inside the stable.

  The killer glanced back, momenta
rily distracted.

  Both dogs catapulted through the open doorway.

  Snarling, ears flattened, heads low, fangs showing, they split: one turning left, the other right. They determinedly circled the killer, and snapped and lunged, like hungry wolves ready to bring down prey.

  “Shit.” The killer didn’t hesitate, just took aim at the bigger dog.

  Bonzi!

  “No!” Trace yelled, trying to stagger to his feet and falling backward.

  Bonzi leapt, exposing his big chest and belly, white teeth flashing against his dark lips.

  BLAM!

  The killer jerked. Squealed. His rifle spun out of his hands.

  BLAM!

  Again the assassin’s torso bucked, his arms flying wildly.

  He dropped, falling onto his knees. Blood bloomed over the front of his jacket. His head lolled and he stared at the growing stain as if he couldn’t believe it.

  “Where is he?” a woman demanded, her voice stern in the night.

  Trace, dizzier still, looked over his shoulder. What? Who was . . . She drew closer, a rifle to her shoulder, the sight of her gun—his rifle—centered on the wounded man.

  Kacey?

  But—?

  He looked down at the woman he loved—Kacey—lying pale as the snow that was beginning to cover her as the sirens shrilled more loudly.

  “Where the hell is Eli, Cameron?” this new Kacey demanded, holding her rifle on the flailing, injured man. Trace thought he might be hallucinating. Two of them . . .

  The newcomer—Kacey?—was still advancing.

  But it can’t be . . . She reached the wounded man and kicked his weapon away from him. The would-be assassin let out a last, gasping groan that rattled, wet in his lungs, then didn’t move.

  Pulling her gaze from his masked face, she turned, finding Trace’s eyes before she saw the blood flowing from his thigh, the snow around him discolored and dark from his blood.

  “Oh, Jesus! Trace!”

  Woozy now, the blackness pulling him under, he watched, sliding onto the ground, as she ran to him as if in slow motion. Kicking up snow, the rifle in one hand, a flashlight bobbing in her pocket, she crossed the short, powdery distance and fell to her knees at his side. “Oh, God, you’re hurt!”

  “Kacey,” he whispered and reached for her, wanting to wrap his arms around her, to hold her close, feel her warmth, smell her hair ... But his eyes wouldn’t stay open and he was spinning, further and further away ...

  “Wait . . . Let me see how badly you’re injured.... Oh, dear Christ, Trace . . .” He heard her sharp intake of breath and saw that she was focused on the dead woman lying next to him. “Oh, my God. Who?” she whispered, then clearing her throat, she moved close to the woman who was nearly her twin. Leaning over the body, she searched for a pulse at the woman’s neck, pushed her ear next to her nostrils. “Gone,” she whispered, then dragged her gaze from the body that was so like her own. Touching him on the shoulder, she said gently, “We have to get you to a hospital!”

  He was drifting away, his eyelids leaden, “But Eli?” he forced out. “Where’s Eli?”

  “I don’t know,” she said softly, holding him close. He drank in the smell of her, felt her warm, wet cheek against his own as the wintry world, like one of those snow globes turned upside down, seemed to spin around him.

  “No,” he said fighting to stay conscious. He had to find his son. Had to!

  “We’ll find him,” she promised over the shattering wail of sirens. “You just hang in. You hear me? Trace? Trace! You just stay with me . . .”

  But he didn’t. One second he heard her voice, the next he was floating away, wondering how this woman he loved could be two, one dead, one alive.

  He sank into himself, heard voices ... men and women . . . couldn’t respond.

  Kacey’s alive . . . she’s alive . . . but Eli . . .

  He loved them both . . .

  “Don’t you leave me, Trace O’Halleran!” she yelled at him from somewhere far off. “Damn it, Trace, it took me thirty-five years to find you and you’d better not die on me. Do you hear me? Stay with me.” Her voice broke. “Come on, Trace ... come on. I love you. Oh, Holy Christ, I love you!”

  I love you, too . . .

  She was losing him!

  Right here, right now, Trace O’Halleran was dying in her arms.

  And the woman lying next to him, dead in the snow, she was now certain must be Leanna, his ex-wife, probably another one of Gerald Johnson’s sperm bank children, and mother to Eli.

  “Hang in there,” she ordered Trace as the sound of sirens blasted around them and lights bobbed up the driveway.

  She didn’t look over her shoulder but prayed the EMTs had the equipment to save him. He’d lost a lot of blood, but she wasn’t going to let him die. Not on her watch. Quickly, she stripped him of his pants, yanking out the flashlight from her pocket to get a good look at the bullet wound in his thigh. Blood was pumping out of the hole in his flesh and she suspected his femoral artery had been hit. She crossed one hand over the other and pressed them to the wound just as she heard, “Hey! Over here!” from a deep voice yelling near the house. Then footsteps and heaving breaths and conversation swirled around her in the snow. “We’ll take over, ma’am,” someone said and she felt a man’s hand on her shoulder.

  “But I’m a doctor—”

  “Holy Christ, there’s another one!” He started bending over Leanna’s body.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Hey! Over here!” A woman shouted from the vicinity of Cam’s corpse. “Holy shit, what happened here. Looks like goddamned Armageddon!”

  “Here, ma’am . . . I’ve got him now,” the EMT said, turning back to Trace.

  “But I’m—”

  “A doctor. I know.” He was firm. “Hey, Annie,” he called over his shoulder as Kacey was vaguely aware of colored lights strobing the night. Red and blue flashes through the ever-falling snow. “I could use some help over here! This one’s in shock,” the EMT said and glanced up at Kacey.

  The O’Halleran ranch was a madhouse.

  All hell had broken loose before Alvarez and Pescoli arrived, their Jeep sliding around the corner at the end of the drive and nearly taking out the mailbox. Two department issued vehicles were parked near an open gate and an ambulance too, idled, waiting to transport the injured.

  At the back of the big farmhouse while battling the elements EMTs were tending to Trace O’Halleran, strapping him to a stretcher while a search team had been dispatched to find O’Halleran’s missing son. Cameron Johnson, dressed in black and wearing night goggles, was dead from two gunshot wounds, inflicted, admittedly, by Kacey Lambert.

  Shivering, a blanket thrown around her shoulders, Kacey herself admitted to cutting him down when he refused to drop his weapon. Pale as death, obviously in shock, Kacey swore that Cameron had already killed the woman still lying in the snow in front of them.

  A woman who could have been her twin.

  “I think it’s Leanna,” Kacey said, almost numbly, her gaze fastened on the woman’s frozen features.

  “Dead,” one of the EMTs confirmed.

  “I need to go with him,” Kacey insisted as two burly rescue workers carried Trace on a stretcher through the piling snow to the waiting ambulance.

  “You can ride with us,” Pescoli said.

  “Hey!” Trilby Van Droz, one of the road deputies, cocked her head toward the main road. “Looks like we’ve got company.” Twin headlights glowed at the end of the drive, but Pescoli couldn’t make out the vehicle. “Five will get you one, it’s the press.”

  A news van.

  Of course. Great. Just what they didn’t need. “They have to back off. Until we know what went down,” Pescoli shouted and Van Droz began heading down the lane, following the tracks of the ambulance that carried Trace.

  “I think O’Halleran is going to be okay,” Alvarez said.

  “But Eli. We have to find him,” Kacey insisted. “Leanna . . .
I thought she was in the house with me . . . warning me . . . but the timing probably couldn’t be. I thought she was an angel.”

  Pescoli glanced at her partner. “Let’s have a doctor look at her, too.”

  “I’m fine,” Kacey insisted, but her face was pretty bruised, the skin scraped, her chin covered in blood.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Pescoli said. As the ambulance sped off through the snow, Pescoli, Alvarez, and Kacey trudged through the drifts to the Jeep. Kacey climbed into the backseat. Her car was still in the police garage, the black paint transferred from her fender bender, not yet analyzed. Alvarez settled into the passenger seat and Pescoli backed up, then rammed the Jeep into gear.

  Even though Cam Johnson was dead, Pescoli still felt a sense of urgency, and the missing kid didn’t help. Where the hell could he be? she wondered as she flipped on the lights and hit the gas. There were too many loose ends to be tied up, too much evidence to be collected, other stories that had to jibe with what Kacey was saying before Pescoli would be satisfied. Even though the doctor was half mad with worry about the boy’s whereabouts and beyond concerned that Trace O’Halleran might not make it, Alvarez and Pescoli were required to haul her to the station.

  After their trip to the Emergency Room.

  True, Pescoli thought as she drove onto the county road and saw the news team from a local station huddled in their van, Kacey Lambert had called 9-1-1 as well as left Alvarez several voice mail messages on her phone. It had been the doctor who had drawn the authorities to the scene, but she hadn’t played by the book, had ignored the 9-1-1 dispatcher’s advice and taken the law into her own hands.

  Had she saved O’Halleran’s life?

  Probably.

  But two other people were dead and a kid was still missing.

  The sketchy statement Kacey had given coincided with everything the crime scene guys had put together so far, but it was too early in the game. They still had to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s.

  She headed toward Grizzly Falls.

  The night was dark aside from the snow, only a few farmhouses in the area, those with generators, showing any light in the windows. Tow trucks had stopped for a vehicle that had slid into the ditch, and other traffic was slow, battling the storm.