by Lisa Jackson
But these days, kids were different. Weed was different.
“You, get your homework done, too,” she said to her sullen, beautiful daughter. “And clean your room. It’s a mess.”
“It’s better than his,” she sneered, arching an eyebrow toward the couch while her fingers flew over the buttons of her cell phone.
“Yeah, I know, but he did make an effort last weekend. Believe me, he’s not off the hook; I’m just prioritizing. Living room and kitchen first, then I’ll tackle the mess in the dungeon.”
If Jeremy heard her, which she doubted, he had the good sense to ignore the jabs about his living area. “Okay, Bianca,” Regan said, “I’m serious about the room and homework. You’re going to go to your dad’s this weekend, so everything needs to get done before you leave.”
Bianca let out a long, put-upon sigh as Regan petted Cisco, then walked through the back door to the garage, where the temperature dropped decidedly.
Usually when the kids took off for the weekend, she spent at least one night out, sometimes both. Being home alone wore thin quickly and she figured it was her time for a little fun. But all her plans for this weekend had been put on hold so she could be ready to report in. It was near the middle of the month, the time the psycho struck. Though the victims had always been found later, the ME and forensic techs thought that the killer’s pattern suggested that he hunted his victims a week or so before the end of the month.
Which would be soon.
Everyone in the department was nervous, expecting to hear a call about an abandoned car or a dead woman tied to some lone tree somewhere in the mountains.
She wondered how many victims there might already be, women whose wrecked cars or frozen dead bodies, now probably picked at by animals, existed in the woods outside the small town where she’d lived most of her life.
“Don’t go there,” she told herself as she backed out of the garage, barely avoiding Jeremy’s truck, then turned around and drove carefully down the lane. Her access street wound between several trees before meeting the main road, but the snow was dry, not much ice beneath, and her tires got plenty of traction.
She and the kids lived five miles out of town, in the hills surrounding Grizzly Falls, and there was little traffic. She passed a snowplow scraping snow to the side of the road and one abandoned vehicle. She stopped to make sure no one was inside, then called it in and returned to her Jeep. With snow melting on her shoulders, she took the main road into town. The amount of vehicles increased as the road split and she headed to the part of the city located on the ridge overlooking the river. Ice had collected along the banks and the water was the color of steel as it cascaded over the steep rocks that defined the falls.
Parking in the outside lot, she walked briskly inside, her breath misting around her, the cold air slapping her cheeks as she pushed through the glass doors, signed in, then headed toward a back hallway and the rabbit warren of cubicles and offices of the department.
She dropped her things in her locker, grabbed a cup of coffee, made a little small talk with Trilby Van Droz, a road deputy and single mother whose only daughter was one year younger than Bianca. Trilby’s ex was worse than Lucky, skipping the state and paying child support just sporadically enough to irritate the hell out of her but keep her from running back to her attorney.
A few minutes later, she found Alvarez at her desk on the phone, her computer screen filled with images of the victims of the first serial killer in the history of Grizzly Falls.
“Brought you coffee,” Pescoli said, knowing that Alvarez was forever pouring herself a cup and letting it cool untouched on her desk.
“Thanks.” She took the cup and sipped without looking up.
“Anything new?”
“Nah. Not yet.”
“Still haven’t located Wendy Ito’s vehicle?”
Alvarez glanced her way. Her dark hair was pulled back neat and tight while Regan’s reddish curls were waiting to spring free of their clip. “I’ve been working on the notes,” she said, pulling a spiral notebook to the front of the desk. On the lined pages were the initials of the victims’ names, laid out in the order in which they had been printed in dark block letters, and between those letters Alvarez had filled in the blanks:
W T SC I N
“Come up with anything?”
“Nothing that makes any sense. If it’s a message, the first word could be ‘what’ or maybe ‘wait,’ or the T might be the start of the next word. It looks like the S and C are supposed to be linked. For a word like ‘scene,’ or ‘school,’ or ‘scent’ or who knows? The N might go with it or not. Or it could be one long word, a warning, or—”
“Or he could be screwing with us. Maybe he’s laughing his ass off as he comes up with his whacko note.”
Alvarez’s eyebrows drew together and she shook her head. “No. He’s too organized. He finds his victims, tracks them down, blows out the tires of their vehicles, goes down and retrieves them and their personal effects, all without leaving any trace evidence. Then he keeps them somewhere while they partially heal and finally takes them to a spot I’m sure he’s picked out ahead of time and ties them up and leaves them and the damned notes.”
“Why do you think the spot is chosen earlier?”
“From the few tracks we’ve found in the snow, there’s no hesitation. They go in a straight line.”
“Someone very familiar with the area. Geography. Access roads. Someone confident he’ll get in and get out without anyone seeing him.”
“Umm.” Alvarez was nodding, tracing the letters of the note with the index finger of her right hand. “Hiker? Skier? Hunting or fishing guide? Someone who works in the woods?”
“Forestry service?”
Alvarez glanced up, her dark eyes intense. Pescoli felt a chill as cold as death and her heart nearly stopped beating. She lowered her voice. “You’re thinking about someone in the department?”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” Alvarez said. “But whoever’s behind this, he’s smart, he’s organized, he knows the area like the back of his hand and he’s one step ahead of us. Worse yet, he’s about to strike again. If he hasn’t already.”
Pescoli felt unnerved. Whoever was behind these atrocities, whatever sick mind had become compelled to prey upon the women he hunted, surely he wasn’t someone they worked with! In a half-second, all the faces of the deputies of the department flashed in quicksilver images through her mind. “No way,” she whispered but realized her fingers were wrapped tightly over the handle of her cup, her knuckles showing white.
Alvarez muttered tersely, “I’m just saying we can’t rule anyone out. Not yet.”
Regan nodded. She was right. That was the hell of it. Once again, Alvarez was spot-on. Everyone was a suspect. Even the men within the department that both of them trusted with their lives.
“Damn. Damn,” Jillian said aloud, her teeth chattering wildly, some of her skin feeling numb. She’d fallen asleep for a few minutes, or had it been longer? It was a little darker now, the moon rising as the sun started to set. Her headlights were dim and yellow.
So this was it? She was going to freeze to death in a ten-year-old Subaru in the bottom of a frozen ravine?
What kind of ignoble end was that?
Dear God, Jillian, you’re in deep trouble this time.
And you can count only on yourself.
She tried to think, to remember the crash, or the events leading up to it, but nothing but a yawning black hole filled her mind. Shivering, teeth chattering, she tried to remember as she worked at the handle of the door. It wouldn’t budge. She reached across the seat, tried the passenger door. It, too, was locked solid, either from ice or wreckage.
She grunted in dismay.
She could push herself through the broken window. If she could stand the pain and dislodge her foot from its trap. Setting her jaw, she tried to free her ankle again. Hot, blinding pain ripped through her foot. She sucked in her breath, felt the cold, then gr
itted her teeth for another go at it. She couldn’t just stay here. She had to free herself. Somehow.
Come on, Jillian, do something!
The cell phone! Oh God, where was it? Her purse? Wasn’t her purse somewhere…not on the passenger seat, but there, on the floor beneath the glove box. She strained, reaching as far as she could, trying to ignore the agony tearing through her ankle and the pain in her chest. If she could just reach her damned purse…its strap only inches from her fingers. She pushed herself, lying over the console, stretching as far as she could…reaching…brushing the edge of the strap with her fingers. “Come on,” she urged, her breath fogging in the air, determination in her voice. “Come on.” She strained. Harder. Felt something in her ankle pop. “Ow! Oooh…” Clenching her teeth, she inched her middle finger around the strap and drew back, bringing the purse with her. The damned cell phone fell out! Onto the floor.
“No!”
It was within reach. She snagged the slippery phone before it slid away. Gasping, she held onto the slim device in a death grip, as if afraid it would jump from her fingers.
“Please let there be service,” she whispered, ignoring the throb in her ankle, the pain behind her eyes, the blood she felt coagulating on her cheeks and forehead. The phone was turned on, but no signal-strength bars registered and the LCD screen flashed “No Reception.”
Jillian groaned. “Great,” she muttered through chattering teeth, thinking things could hardly get worse. She tried to place a call anyway, hoping that her phone would ping off the closest cell tower and that somehow someone would find her by the GPS chip in the damned thing. If the signal could reach a tower…if there was one anywhere nearby.
Refusing to think about the possibility that in this remote location there might not be a cell tower for miles, or that no one in his right mind would be out in this blizzard, she opened her purse and in the fading light saw that her wallet, sunglasses, makeup case and checkbook were still intact. There was a receipt for gas, at a station in Wildwood, Montana. Wherever the hell was that? Using a little illumination from her cell phone, she checked the date. December seventh. Was that today?
She had no idea, but found over three hundred dollars in her wallet, much more than she usually carried, and a half-full bottle of ibuprofen. “Thank you, God,” she whispered and with trembling hands shook out two pills, thought about it and added a third, then tossed them down her throat and swallowed them dry. “Do your magic.” Recapping the plastic bottle, she prayed the medication would help with her pain, then stuffed her wallet and the bottle into the handbag.
“Okay, so now…”
Shivering, she slid a glance at the cracked rearview mirror and spied her reflection. She flinched. The image staring back at her wasn’t only distorted from the broken glass and dark with the fading light but appeared to have been through a war zone. Cuts and lacerations discolored her skin, blood had dried around her nose from a gash in her forehead and the whites of her eyes seemed slick and tinged pink. Bruises had already started to appear and her brown hair, cut chin length and layered, was matted to her head, glued with her own blood.
She turned away. “Don’t think about it,” she muttered, and tried her phone again. Nothing. She couldn’t call anyone. Teeth rattling, she yelled, “Help!” And again. “Help!” At the top of her lungs. Was it possible for anyone to be nearby? If so, wouldn’t they have heard her skid off the road, the car crash into the trees?
Where were the rescuers?
The police?
The firefighters?
Anyone?
She’d heard about cars sliding off mountain roads or small planes going down in the winter. The bodies of those inside the wreckage were often not found until the next spring, when it thawed. If ever. Shivering violently, she thought about her fate. Surely she wasn’t destined to die in this unknown ravine, trapped in her own vehicle, all alone.
“Stay calm, don’t think about it,” she told herself as she spied a paper cup on the floor, remnants of a coffee drink splashed on the rug. Upon the cup was a brown logo, a picture of a moose backdropped by mountains. Beneath the logo were the words “Chocolate Moose Café, Spruce Creek, Montana.”
She’d obviously been in that café, but try as she might, she had no memory of the place. Was it a mile down the road? Five? Twenty?
It may as well be a million.
She closed her eyes. Tried to concentrate over the pounding in her skull and the pain throbbing up her leg. How could she save herself?
Spruce Creek, Montana? Why the hell had she been there? What was it that had propelled her from her home to this frigid, forested wilderness? She couldn’t quiet grasp it, but there was something that connected her to this state…something that bothered her, something she couldn’t pull out of her subconscious. What was it? Oh God. Her pulse jumped. She did know someone in Montana, someone she was pretty certain she hadn’t raced out in the middle of the winter to visit:
Mason Rivers.
Her ex-husband.
Her stomach knotted as she tried to conjure up Mason’s face and came up blank. She had the vague feeling that he had brown hair and hazel eyes and kept himself in pretty good shape, but she couldn’t recall his features, at least at the moment. Besides, he was in Helena, an attorney. No, make that a defense lawyer.
Though she couldn’t remember why, she was fairly certain Mason was part of the reason she was in Montana in the first place.
The cold became a soothing blanket, drawing her under as she shivered. Don’t let go. Fight, Jillian. For God’s sake, fight!
She forced her eyes open. “Help!” she yelled again, determined to find a way out of this mess. “Can anybody hear me? I’m down here! For God’s sake, someone, please! Help me!” Again she pounded on the horn.
But her words echoed back at her through the canyon, taunting her in their naivete and fear, the lights of the car dimming as the battery died, the horn becoming little more than a weak honk.
She kept at it, but within minutes the battery had failed. Jillian beat on the horn, but its sound had died away and her voice was little more than a desperate, croaky whisper, while the headlights had grown impossibly dim.
“Oh God,” she murmured, alone in the dark.
Worn out, she could do nothing but wait and pray and try to stay awake, to keep the cold and unconsciousness at bay, until there was only silence.
Dark, disturbing silence.
She wondered about her life and those she’d loved. Would she ever see them again? Or was this it? Was her life truly over?
A shadow in the cracked rearview mirror moved. It seemed far away, and yet, oddly out of place, a scuttling umbra on this white landscape.
Her heart jumped.
She twisted her head. Searched the darkening terrain.
Had someone found her?
Was it her imagination? Or was someone or something out there? Maybe it was just the snow falling, an optical illusion.
She started to open her mouth to yell, then stopped before making a sound.
There was a chance it was nothing. Her mind playing tricks on her.
Nerves tight as bowstrings, she stared into the night, eyes straining, heart pounding.
A rescuer would have called out.
Anyone searching down here would have seen her car. Right?
Why else would anyone be in this lonesome, frozen canyon?
Another movement in the cracked mirror.
Her heart leaped to her throat.
Again she started to scream for help and again she snapped her mouth closed and bit her tongue.
Frantic, she tried to make out the movement in the shadows.
Was she hallucinating?
Or…
You have to take a chance. Friend or foe, you need help! You can’t stay here in the car if you want to get out of this alive!
And yet…she didn’t move a muscle and the world began to spin as if she were going to pass out. She struggled to keep her eyes open, her gaze v
igilant.
Pinned in the car, unable to free herself and all alone, she was such easy prey. Too easy.
Paralyzing fear controlled her.
For the first time since the accident, she felt incredibly and ultimately vulnerable, entirely at the mercy of whomever or whatever was outside. The skin on the back of her neck prickled and she fought the urge to scream. Muscles tight, she stared through the broken glass. Please be a good guy. Please…oh please…
Another movement.
She gasped, nearly screaming, then held back. She grabbed a piece of glass, cutting her hand, needing something to use as a weapon.
Don’t be silly, she told herself, but her blood was pumping, fear jetting through her veins, and yet she felt a wave of darkness threatening to pull her under. Don’t fall victim to your own wild imagination or fright. You’ve watched too many teen slasher movies. Call out to whomever’s out there. You need help. You have to get medical attention or you will die.
However, she resisted the urge to let out even the barest of whispers.
Because she knew.
Deep in her gut she knew.
Call it feminine intuition, or some kind of animal instinct, but, trapped in the twisted metal of her car, unable to get out of this steep ravine, she was as easy quarry as a rabbit in a snare. She felt her scalp wrinkle with foreboding and she was certain that whatever was prowling these snowy, night-darkened woods was the embodiment of pure, malevolent evil.
Her insides turned as cold as death and still the blackness tried to pull her under, tugging hard.
Shivering, struggling to stay conscious, she set her jaw and wondered if, within the wreckage of her old Subaru, there was anything other than the piece of glass she could use as a weapon. Her camera! It was heavy. She could swing the strap of the case like a bola or Mace and hurl the Canon .35-millimeter at—
Another movement, this time closer.
Swift. Dark. Scurrying.
In front of the car.
