by Lisa Jackson
Though a gambling woman by nature, Detective Regan Pescoli wasn’t ready to bet on it.
Not yet.
Jillian parked in her assigned spot under the carport, then made a mad dash to the front porch as raindrops assailed her from a nearly dark sky. Most of the row houses were decorated, their sparkling, colored lights tiny bright beacons in the gray drizzle that was Seattle in winter. Battling with her small umbrella at the curb where the bevy of mailboxes for her group of units was located, Jillian unlocked her box and found a large manila envelope wedged in, her name and address written in black marker and block letters that began to run in the rain.
“Great,” she muttered, a gust of wind catching in her umbrella and turning it inside out as thick raindrops pelted her face. Ducking her head and sidestepping puddles, she dashed past the front lawns of two other row houses, then hurried up her front walk. The rain, blowing sideways off Lake Washington, pummeled her as she finally unlocked her front door and scurried inside. “Honey, I’m home,” she called as she entered, pulling the door shut behind her. It was her private joke, but every once in a while, as if on cue, Marilyn would come trotting from the kitchen at the back of the house, meow and greet her expectantly. Today, she wasn’t lucky, and after tossing her keys and purse on the side table, she set about opening the mail, starting with the envelope with the postmark of Missoula, Montana.
Where Mason, her ex-husband, lived.
So what was this? Some post-divorce court order?
God, Mason could be such a bastard.
But, then, why no return address? No printer-generated label from his law firm?
Water from the hem of her coat dripping onto the hardwood floor, she tore the wet packet open without the aid of a letter opener. Several grainy photographs, the kind that looked as if they’d been taken by an amateur photographer using a cell phone and printed off a computer, slid onto the side table.
Three images.
All of the same man.
All fuzzy and a little out of focus, as if the subject were moving, walking away, his head turned away.
Jillian’s heart nearly stopped beating.
Oh God, it couldn’t be!
She switched on the lamp. Golden light poured over the pictures that she flattened so that they lay side by side, as if they were stills from a movie.
The man was profiled in the first two shots but in the third shot, he looked back over his shoulder and faced the lens so that she could make out his features beneath his beard and aviator shades.
“Aaron?” she said aloud, and her first husband’s name seemed to reverberate off the walls. “Dear God, Aaron?”
Tears burned at the back of her eyes. She’d loved this man. Loved him. Lived with him. Married him. Lost him. And grieved for him. Oh Lord, how she’d grieved for him.
And now he was alive?
She let out a slow breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The envelope, the one from which the pictures had tumbled, was clenched hard in her left hand.
He was alive?
Aaron Caruso, her college sweetheart, the man she’d married so naively, hadn’t died in a forest in Suriname? Had lied to her? Had wanted her to think him dead? Had heartlessly left her while absconding with investors’ funds? Hadn’t cared that she would be a suspect, too? That the police would believe she knew what had happened to him? Would he have been so cruel?
Her knees threatened to give way and she braced herself against the table. No. This man in the hastily snapped photo wasn’t Aaron, just someone who looked like him. The beard hid his jaw. Aaron’s had been square and strong. And the sunglasses disguised the color and shape of his eyes. Aaron’s had been a deep brown and wide-set, his nose broken from an old basketball injury…She studied the pictures again and thought she saw the slight bump on his nose.
Of course it had been over ten years since she’d seen her first husband. He, if he had lived, would have changed. Like the man in the photo, who was at least ten pounds heavier and bearded. But the hair, that light brown hair with its distinctive widow’s peak, was the same—thick and wavy.
So distinctively Aaron.
What did it mean if this photo was real…if Aaron was alive? He would have built some sort of life for himself. A wife and kids. A home.
Don’t fall for this, Jillian, she warned herself, but it was too late. She was already half-buying into the fact that these photos showed her first husband, the one whom everyone, including the insurance company and the authorities, had presumed to have slid down a steep ravine to a raging river, where he’d been swept away by a swift current and drowned.
Presumably drowned.
The house phone rang and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Carrying the rest of the mail and the damned pictures with her, she walked through the hallway to the small family room and snapped up the receiver before the second ring. “Hello?” she said into the receiver and noted that, once again, the caller ID had been blocked.
“He’s alive,” the disembodied voice hissed again.
“Who is this? I’m not interested in playing any games.”
“Check your mail and your e-mail.”
“What do you want?”
Click.
“Damn it!” Jillian hung up and felt a rage so deep she could barely think. Who was doing this? Not Aaron, even if he were alive. So who? And why?
Jillian felt as if a ghost had just brushed against the back of her neck. Either the person on the other end of the call had been teasing her, playing a sick prank on her, or the unthinkable had happened and Aaron had come back from the dead.
Jillian closed her eyes. Ten years. A damned decade! He couldn’t be alive. That didn’t make any sense and yet…and yet…
Go to the police her inner voice suggested as she peeled off her coat, walked to the front of the house again and hung the garment on the wrought-iron coat tree near the front door. She found her tattered umbrella, fixed the broken spokes as best she could, then shoved it into the lower part of the same tree. Taking the steps two at a time, she climbed to the second floor and made her way to her den, which, when the hide-abed was opened, became her guest room. The computer was on and waiting, a screen saver of waving palms like wistful arms beckoning her to some sunny, remote destination where the sun always shone.
Kicking out her desk chair, Jillian sat down and clicked onto her e-mail account. She found one that had slipped through her spam filter with an attachment. When she opened it, sure enough, the same three pictures of the bearded man who was supposed to be her dead first husband appeared.
She checked the e-mail address, pressed REPLY, but, of course, her mail bounced back at her.
Damn.
She clicked back to her home page and a news item caught her eye. SERIAL KILLER STRIKES MONTANA. The story mentioned two women found dead in desolate parts of the Bitterroots, but she was too distracted to read on with these photos of Aaron taunting her.
She enhanced the pictures, enlarging them, then sharpening the images. As she worked with computer and photographic images for a living, this was a piece of cake. She’d spent the past five years creating brochures, both real and virtual, for clients ranging from universities to travel agencies and tour groups. In this room alone, the walls were covered with photographs she’d taken herself, colorful pictures of exotic locales and beautiful homes turned into inns. There were images of a brilliant sunset on the Oregon coast, the Cascade Mountains deep in snow, a fishing excursion on the Kenai River in Alaska and a hundred-and-fifty-year-old hotel situated in the rugged Columbia Gorge.
Using programs that enhanced, enlarged, zoomed in and recolored, she played with the photographs, erasing the man’s beard and sunglasses, growing his hair a few inches, taking off ten pounds. With each change, her heart beat a little faster, her nerves tightened and anticipation coursed through her veins.
When she was finished, the altered image was a dead ringer for her long-lost first husband.
Anyone can make
someone look different. You’ve seen countless short movies of people morphing from one person to another. You’ve seen the before and after pictures of models on the covers of magazines. You know how to make an image change shape.
This could be an out-and-out scam.
But why?
And who was behind it? Mason, in Missoula?
She shook her head at the thought. If Mason wanted to give her information, he’d just do it, call her up and give her the facts. And if he were trying to be sneaky, he’d mail the envelope from another town. He knew she wasn’t an idiot.
But what about that new wife of his—Sherice? She always had it in for you. And his mother, Belle—that woman never did like you.
It seemed far-fetched. She and Mason rarely communicated, and though Sherice, Mason’s receptionist, had outwardly despised Jillian when Jillian and Mason were married, now, since she’d become the second much younger Mrs. Mason Rivers, Sherice’s animosity had faded. Sherice had won the great prize of becoming a trophy wife. So why try to stir up trouble now?
Jillian leaned back in her desk chair and tapped the eraser end of her pencil on the arm of the chair as she stared at the image on the computer. She heard a soft meow and then Marilyn padded through the open door and, spying Jillian’s empty lap, leaped onto it.
“Hey, sweetcakes,” Jillian said, absently rubbing the calico’s head. “What do you think?”
The cat responded by curling up in her lap while Jillian tried to figure out if her long-dead husband had suddenly resurrected and why anyone would want her to know.
“It’s a problem,” she confided to Marilyn and knew in that instant that she couldn’t leave it alone.
She had to find out the truth.
If for no other reason than to clear her name.
No matter what it entailed, how painful it happened to be.
Chapter Four
Naked, I stand at the window.
Alone.
Waiting.
While sand slips oh so slowly through the hourglass.
The coming night is near, shadows playing darkly. A hollow wind, keening and savage, cuts through the canyons with the promise of death upon its breath. I hear its plaintive cry from deep in the cabin.
It wants me, I think. It wants her.
It’s as hungry as I am.
Good!
Feeling the ache, the low, insistent pulse, I peer through the windowpanes glazed in ice, frosted with blowing snow.
Naked branches of the lonely trees rattle and dance, like skeletal arms raised in supplication to the heavens.
As if God were interested.
I feel the urge to step outside. The tug of the cold tempts me to languish in the caress of frigid gusts upon my bare skin.
But it is too soon.
I won’t let myself fall victim to that easy enticement. The timing isn’t right. Not yet.
I have to be patient.
Because she is coming.
Unfailingly and without any inkling as to her fate, she is drawing near. I feel it.
And everything has to be perfect.
“Come on,” I whisper quietly and feel that sensual twitch deep inside at the thought of her: lightly tanned skin, dusting of freckles, wide hazel eyes and untamed hair a deep brown that shines red in the firelight. “Come the fuck on.”
The knowledge that she will soon appear causes my blood to race, my mind to fire with images of what’s to come. I can almost taste her, feel the texture of her skin as she quivers at my touch. In my mind’s eye I watch her pupils dilate until her eyes are nearly black with fear and a dark, unwelcome desire.
Oh, she will want me.
She will beg for more of me.
And I will give her what she wants…what she fears.
Her last conscious thoughts will be of me.
Only me.
But not yet…I have to hold back.
Tamping down my vibrant, exhilarating fantasies, I decide to savor them later. When the timing is right.
With one last glance at the window, I walk to the table near the fire, sit in the smooth wooden chair, feel the varnish against my bare skin. When my body is unfettered by clothes, my mind is sharper. Clearer.
I study my maps carefully. Using a magnifying glass, charting my course. The worn, marked pages spread upon the table near the kerosene lantern glow softly. Scattered upon the scarred planks are the astrological charts, birth certificates and recent clippings of the deaths that no one will ever trace to me. In the articles the beautiful release of souls is described as brutal slayings, the work of a psychopath.
Reporters, like the police, are idiots.
I can’t help but smile at all their wasted efforts.
The authorities are morons.
Cretins.
Fools who are so easily toyed with.
Burning wood crackles in the grate, anxious flames devouring the mossy chunks of oak and pine. The scent of wood smoke is heavy in my nostrils as I reread the stories about the “victims,” tales that have been carefully construed by the stupid cops to ensure that no details they wish to keep from the public have slipped into the articles. They have worked diligently to hold back information, clues that will keep every nutcase around from claiming ownership of my deeds.
For if that should happen, the short-staffed sheriff’s department would have to sort it all out, spending valuable hours dealing with the fraud. Officers would have to expose him or her as just some whack job trying to get his or her fifteen minutes of fame. The department would lose a lot of time uncovering the false murderer, a lunatic pretender who in no way could understand the divinity, nor the complexity, of the painstakingly executed sacrifices.
Sorry, imbeciles.
You’ll have to find some other killer to emulate.
“Killer.” The word tastes bitter. As do “criminal” and “psycho.” Because what I do isn’t a crime, not just a “killing,” not some psychotic whim, but a necessity…a calling. However, those who are unenlightened can never understand. What I’ve done, what I will do again, is misunderstood.
So be it.
A window rattles against a gust of wind and I feel a sudden chill slither down my spine. Glancing up from my work to the icy panes, I see fluttering flakes of snow in the steely day beyond. Feeling the storm seep through the cracks in the walls, the cold air taunting my skin, I envision her again.
Beautiful bitch.
Soon you will be mine.
God and the Fates are on my side.
I lick my lips as a thrill steals through my bloodstream. Turning back to the table, I see her picture. In black and white, the surroundings out of focus, her features clear and crisp.
In the glossy photograph, she appears happy, though, of course, her smile is a frail façade. She looks almost flirtatious.
A lie.
As I stare deeply into her eyes, I detect a shadow, a small hint of darkness that betrays her fear.
In that fragile moment when the camera captured her, she sensed that her life was far from what it seemed.
And yet she couldn’t possibly comprehend the truth, then or now. Little does she know what is about to happen: that her fate has already been sealed, that she will soon join the others….
Carefully I read the charts once more. The stars are in the right positions; the groundwork has been done and December, with its cold, stinging kiss, will soon be here.
As will she.
She will arrive before the turn of the calendar’s page.
Closing my eyes I imagine our meeting: Her chilled flesh will press against mine. Her skin will have the salty taste of fear, her cheeks even more so, with the tracks of tears.
A frisson of expectation sizzles through my blood.
I glance down at the photograph again.
So clear.
So sharp.
So ready.
“Soon,” I whisper, not saying her name aloud, not wanting to hear it echo through the rafters. “Very soon.”
My groin tightens with expectancy.
Winter and Death are about to meet.
Jillian stepped on the accelerator.
Her medium-size station wagon engine whining, responded, winter tires digging into the icy terrain. She took a sip from her cup, a rapidly cooling cup of coffee that she’d bought at the last town she’d passed through, now nearly five miles back. Spruce Creek, the town, if you could call it that, was little more than a stoplight at two crossroads. The intersection had boasted a post office, gas station, coffee shop, two churches and, as if in perfect juxtaposition, two taverns. A few distantly spaced farmhouses had peppered the snowy landscape.
“Welcome to rural Montana,” she said aloud, wondering, not for the first time, if she was on a fool’s mission. The radio was tuned to a country/western station and Willie Nelson was singing over the underlying static, “White Christmas” no less.
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” he warbled in his nasal twang.
“Well, you got one, Willie Boy,” she said, staring out a windshield threatening to fog over to a vast landscape of snow-laden trees and piling drifts. “You’ve got yourself one helluva white Christmas.”
All around her, the mountains knifed upward, their peaks hidden by the thick clouds and driving snow. Here, in the Bitterroot Mountains, it looked like a second Ice Age.
The road twisted ever upward and her little car climbed steadily, its wipers slapping the flurries off the windshield. One tire slipped before digging in. Jillian eased into the slide, sloshing coffee, and the car’s all-wheel drive didn’t let her down. Nonetheless, she was nervous and wondered how far it was to the next town.
This mountainous part of Montana was more desolate than she’d anticipated, and though she wasn’t a coward or the least bit skittish, today, as dusk threatened and she met not one other vehicle on the road, she felt a little anxious, a bit edgy.
“Too much caffeine,” she muttered as Willie’s song faded and an announcer’s voice cut in and out. Irritated, she switched off the radio and thought about the calls she’d received from the unidentified caller and the pictures he or she had sent.
Had they been of Aaron?
