The Alvarez & Pescoli Series

by Lisa Jackson

  “That’s ridiculous,” Alvarez cut in. “I mean, if the dog needs to relieve himself, why not just let him go outside? Why walk during a damned blizzard?”

  “It’s Grace,” Watershed said, as if that explained it all.

  Frustrated, her cheeks red with the cold, Pescoli looked around the scene, her gaze inching over the snowy terrain. “Damn it, where did he take her?”

  Selena Alvarez shook her head. Deep inside, she experienced a chill, a frigid drip of dread sliding through her gut. She knew the woman inside the car was already doomed and eventually they would find her, just as they’d found the others. As the wind keened and the blizzard started ripping through this ridge of mountains, she and Pescoli walked back to the spot where Slatkin was taking samples of the frozen blood. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the son of a bitch cut himself. It could be his blood.”

  “Let’s not count on luck.” Another male voice broke in and Alvarez looked over her shoulder to spy the sheriff walking toward them from the direction of the forest service road. His big boots crunched in the snow and his expression said it all: repressed anger, and maybe even a touch of defeat. The wind had been so damned fierce, she hadn’t even heard his rig arrive.

  Alvarez nodded. “You’re right, we won’t.”

  “A little luck wouldn’t hurt,” Pescoli observed. “Personally, I’ll take all we can get.”

  A bit of a smile cracked across Grayson’s face. “Fair enough.” A tall, strapping man with a thick, graying moustache and dark, deep-set eyes, Grayson was recently elected and recently divorced—the two, it seemed, had gone hand in hand. At least it seemed that way to Alvarez. “Tell me that Ivor Hicks didn’t call this in.”

  “Not this time,” Alvarez assured him.

  “Nope.” Pescoli shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets. “This time our witness is Grace Perchant.”

  “Oh for the love of God. Another nutcase.” Grayson scowled. “First Ivor, now Grace. The next thing you know, we’ll be getting tips from Henry Johansen.”

  Though Henry, a local farmer, hadn’t claimed to have been abducted by aliens like Ivor, nor did he commune with the dead, which was Grace’s specialty, he had fallen off his tractor twenty years earlier and suffered an injury that had caused him to claim he could read people’s minds. There had been no proof of this phenomenon, and yet Henry was convinced that the voices he heard were the random thoughts of people he’d met. He was a regular visitor at the sheriff’s department, always insisting he had the inside track on some local crime.

  “God help us,” Watershed said.

  As Grayson observed the scene, his expression only grew more grim. “We’d better wrap this up soon. The weather service is advising that we’re in for another blizzard. A big one.”

  Alvarez’s heart sank. The chances of finding the driver of the car weren’t that great to begin with; add a blizzard and they dropped to nearly impossible.

  Grayson glared at the half-buried car and the lines around his mouth etched even deeper. “Looks like he’s at it again.”

  “Looks like,” Pescoli agreed.

  “Shit.” Dan glanced up at the ridge and snowflakes caught on his moustache as he chewed on his lower lip. “Same MO?”

  Watershed nodded. “Yep. Body and ID missing.”

  “Tire shot?”

  “Blown for sure,” Alvarez said. “Haven’t been able to determine if—”

  “It was shot.” Grayson voiced what they all thought was fact, just not yet proven. “This isn’t a coincidence. That bastard’s hunting again.”

  “I’d bet on it,” Watershed agreed.

  Alvarez nodded.

  “Run the license plate,” Grayson said. “Find out who owns the car and we’ll work from there. If the bullet isn’t lodged in the undercarriage or somewhere else in the vehicle, check the ridge. Maybe it fell onto the road or became imbedded in the cliff on the farside. Anyone call a tow truck to haul the car in?”

  “Truck’s on its way,” Alvarez said. She’d put in the call as soon as she arrived.

  “Let’s hope they can get down here. The roads are a mess. Half the staff is dealing with power outages and accidents.” He rubbed his chin and shook his head, his gaze fastening on the crumpled car, which was quickly being buried in snow. “We need to nail this bastard.”

  “I’m all for that,” Pescoli agreed.

  Grayson nodded and met Alvarez’s eyes. “But first let’s find the victim. And this time, let’s find her alive.”

  Chapter Seven

  Scccrratttch!

  The match head scrapes loudly against the stone hearth and the sharp smell of sulfur stings my nostrils. With a sweet hiss, the flame flares before my eyes.

  Perfect little flicker of hot light.

  I’ve always loved fire.

  Always been fascinated at how it so quickly springs to life—a living, breathing thing that requires air to survive. The shifting yellow and orange flames are oh so seductive in their warmth and brilliance and deadly abilities.

  Striking matches—bringing fire to life—is one of my passions, one of many.

  Carefully lifting the glass of the lantern, I light the wick, another spot of illumination in the large, barren room. A fire already crackles and burns in the grate, red embers glowing in a thick bed of ashes, mossy wood licked by passionate flames, smoke rising through the old stone chimney, golden shadows dancing on the watery old windowpanes.

  Outside the storm rages, winds howling, snow blowing furiously, and yet the stone-and-log cabin is a fortress against the elements. Here I don’t have to bother with the burden of clothing that scratches and itches and bothers. No, I can walk comfortably over the smooth flagstones in bare feet, the heat radiating from the fire enough to keep my skin warm.

  I keep a large store of firewood within the cabin, but should I need to walk to the outbuilding to retrieve more, I won’t need the trappings of boots and jacket but can face the elements naked, bracing myself against the bite of the wind and the slap of ice.

  The match burns down, licking at my fingertips, and I shake it out quickly.

  With one ear to the police-band radio that spits and sputters, I sit on the chairs I’ve turned by hand. I spread out my forestry maps, along with the more graphic pictures I’ve printed from satellites, photos available on the Internet, on the long table. I’ve carefully pieced these images together and marked them with colored pins that correspond to the same colored pins on the forestry maps.

  From a room down the hallway, I hear her quiet cough.

  I freeze. Listening.

  She groans, no doubt still unconscious.

  A smile pricks at the corners of my mouth when I think of her. She is rousing and that’s a good sign. Soon she’ll be ready. A little sizzle of anticipation sweeps through my bloodstream and I quickly tamp it down. Not yet. Not until the time is right. Not until she is healthy enough to do her part.

  Oh, it will be unwillingly, but she will partake.

  They all do.

  She groans more loudly and I know I’ll have to attend to her. Soon. I look at the open closet, an armoire I’ve fashioned with my own hands and a few basic tools. I’ve carved it ornately, lovingly, with images of celestial beings cut into the dark wood. Inside are the cubicles where I keep my treasures, little mementos of the reluctant participants. The door is slightly ajar. I scoot back my chair and stand, stretching my muscles before walking to the closet. Opening the doors further, I note how the mirrors lining the inside catch the reflection of the fire and my own sinewy body. Toned muscles. Dark hair. Deep set eyes with 20/10 vision.

  “A specimen,” one foolish woman said of me as she let her gaze wander down my frame.

  As if I would be flattered.

  “A tall drink of water,” another unimaginative would-be lover cooed, licking her lips slightly.

  “Ah…a bad boy with bedroom eyes,” a third whispered, hoping I would fall prey to her uninspired advances.

  In the mirror my li
ps twist at the memories, my eyes darken a shade.

  They found out, didn’t they?

  But those incidents were just the beginning, before I fully understood my mission.

  Ignoring my reflection, I open some of the drawers in the closet and eye my treasures, little bits of the women who were to become immortal: a tooled leather bag with fringe, a small clutch made out of fake leopard fur, a snakeskin wallet filled with credit cards, driver’s licenses, insurance information cards. Designer cases for eyeglasses, cigarettes and makeup. Nail files, tampons, cell phones, lipsticks in shades from wine to sheer, shimmering pink.

  Treasures.

  From those who were the chosen. I glance at one of the newspaper articles that has been written about the killings, the clippings all stacked neatly on a thin shelf. In this particular article, the reporter quoted some “source within the sheriff’s department” who indicated that the “acts” had been “random,” and that a “maniac” sharpshooter was behind the murders.

  Maniac?

  Random?

  The police are worse imbeciles than I originally thought.

  Idiots playing at detection.

  From a distance, through long-range binoculars, I have watched the officers from the sheriff’s department swarm into the canyon, some up on the ridge, searching for clues, sifting for evidence, pawing through the snow like dogs looking for bones in the sand. Others, the lazier ones, huddled around the wrecked car, scratching their chins, frowning and talking and getting nowhere.

  As I close the closet door I hear her cry out. Whimpering. Perhaps this one was a poor choice. She doesn’t seem to have much backbone.

  But it’s early. She will snap out of it. Her ferocity, her passion, will surely appear.

  I know she is one of the chosen. Just like the others.

  Listening to the howl of the wind, I wonder just where I will leave her to fight her battle with fate and the elements. She is too injured from the “accident” to move easily just yet, but within the week, she will have healed to the point that she can be urged to the perfect spot, a site I have yet to find. It has to be remote yet accessible, so that the imbeciles who work for the sheriff’s department can find her.

  Eyeing the forestry map again, I run a finger down the spine of one of the smaller ranges branching off the Bitterroots and remember a valley I hunted in long ago. Somewhat alpine, the meadowland has a few sparse trees along its perimeter. I think hard, remembering, bringing back the imagery of those few grassy acres. Just at dawn, I once spied an elk across the lea, a muscular bull standing near one gnarled pine, his rack five feet wide if an inch, his dark mane and coat barely visible in the thicket. I shot at him, missed, and he disappeared as if he were a ghost. I found the bullet from my rifle burrowed deep in the scaly bole of a solitary pine. That tree, if it is still standing, will be the perfect death post.

  I study the map carefully. There are so many gullies and ridges, places a body won’t be discovered until spring, and maybe not even then.

  But those won’t do.

  I need the woman to be found.

  I have to keep searching for the perfect spot.

  I don’t doubt that I will find it.

  God and the Fates are on my side.

  “Okay, so what have we got?” Alvarez asked as the Jeep, buffeted by the wind, slid on the icy terrain.

  “You mean besides diddly-squat?” Pescoli was driving, her eyes narrowed as she tried to keep the rig on the road. Despite the windshield wipers slapping frantically at the continuous flakes, visibility was nil in the near whiteout. The road they were driving had already been closed, the plows unable to keep up with the storm. Ahead of them, the vehicles driven by the officers at the scene slowly eased along the uneven mountain terrain.

  “Yeah, besides that.” The police band crackled and the defroster blew enough hot air that Alvarez pulled off her gloves with her teeth, then unzipped her jacket. The interior smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and the cup holders were filled with half-full drinks.

  “We’ve got his MO.” Pescoli glared through the window as she drove, her gaze fastened on the snowy road, her eyebrows pulled together.

  “Which so far only links the Subaru to the other cars we found.” Alvarez didn’t like the turn of her thoughts. She was certain the crumpled Subaru would show up registered to a woman who had gone missing, a woman who even now was being held hostage somewhere within the surrounding five miles. So close, and yet eons away in this blizzard.

  As Pescoli drove, Alvarez put a call in to the State of Washington DMV, finally connected, only to be placed on hold. When the clerk on the other end returned to Selena, he refused to give her any information over the phone but promised to fax the car’s registration, as well as e-mail it to the sheriff’s department. By the time Alvarez and Pescoli returned to the office, the car owner’s identity would be available.

  Not so the killer’s.

  “So if this car has been in the ravine two, possibly three, days, how much longer do you think he’ll keep her alive?”

  “Don’t know,” Alvarez said, concentrating on the taillights of Watershed’s rig, the closest vehicle in their mini-convoy of county-owned pickups, SUVs and cars. The tow truck was behind them all, dragging what was left of the Subaru to the lot where it would be gone over again and again as investigators looked for evidence pointing to the killer. If only the guy would leave a fingerprint, or a hair, or some damned piece of evidence for them to work with.

  So far, the killer had been lucky. No hairs, no fibers other than from the yellow plastic rope used to bind the victims to the trees, no fingerprints on the notes or vehicles, no witnesses to his crime. They had bullets, no casings, and poor impressions of boot prints in the snow. The blood samples the department had collected were all from the victims, and the damned carvings in the trees, all of which seemed to have been cut by some kind of hunting knife, gave no indication, except for a guestimate, of the killer’s height. There had been no semen left in or on the victims, no evidence of rape.

  Their profile of the killer was weak.

  What they believed was that the killer was a male who wore a size-eleven shoe and was between the height of five feet ten and six three. But again, this was primarily assumption. The paper the notes were written on was common computer paper, available in any office supply store or department, the ink from the pens unremarkable, a common blue from disposable ballpoints.

  And the notes he left, damn. What the hell did they mean?

  Pescoli down-shifted as they came to a hairpin corner and Watershed’s truck slipped a bit. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered under her breath as her rig slid, then found enough traction to right itself. “Remind me why I don’t live in Phoenix or San Diego. You know, where cold is seventy?”

  “You’d hate Phoenix. And the desert gets cold at night.”

  “Not this cold. But okay, then San Diego. I think I might move there. Next week.”

  Alvarez couldn’t help but smile at the image of Pescoli, in her boots, jeans and down vest, roller-skating on a sidewalk near a beach in Southern California.

  “Laugh if you want to, but I’m doin’ it. When we get back to the office, I’m searching for job openings from LA south.”

  “Good luck.”

  Pescoli actually flashed a quick we-both-know-I’m-full-of-crap grin.

  The roads improved closer to town, where traffic had beat the snow into slush that was bound to refreeze. De-icer trucks were busily spraying the streets as both pedestrians and vehicles battled the elements.

  Pescoli eased into the lot. She parked her Jeep as close to the main door as possible, then switched the engine off. Alvarez zipped up her jacket, pulled on her gloves and tugged her hood over her hair as she stepped out of the vehicle and hurried inside.

  Once at her desk, she peeled off the layers again, then found the fax from the Washington DMV. According to the car’s registration, it belonged to a thirty-six-year-old woman named Jillian Colleen Rivers
, whose address was listed as Seattle. An e-mail came through as well, with a picture of Jillian Rivers as good as any of those licensing photos could be.

  “Jesus,” Alvarez said, staring at the picture of a woman who might already be dead. Shoulder-length dark brown hair, eyes listed as hazel on the license but appearing gray in the photo, strong nose, small mouth, easy smile, high, pronounced cheekbones, maybe the hint of freckles.

  Alvarez dialed the number of the Seattle PD, connected to a detective who worked homicide and explained the situation.

  “We’ll check it out,” Detective Renfro assured her. “Just give me a couple of hours.”

  “You got it. And see if this woman has any outstanding warrants or priors.” But as Alvarez hung up, she knew that Renfro wouldn’t be able to locate the woman.

  No way.

  Jillian Rivers was probably a model citizen, like the other women left in the forest to die. And as such, well on her way to being the sadist’s next victim.

  Thud!

  Jillian heard the noise, tried to rouse, but couldn’t.

  What was it? A door slamming?

  Vaguely she was aware of pain in her leg and ribs. Jesus, they ached.

  Trying to think past the pain, she attempted to lift an eyelid. It didn’t budge.

  Dear God, where was she? She’d been in a car wreck, yes, that was it…and someone had come to help her…but she couldn’t think, couldn’t piece together her thoughts. In the distance she heard a high-pitched keen that, in her dazed thoughts, she decided might be the wind. As if it were racing through some deep ravine.

  Oh God, what had happened?

  Time was meaningless.

  Her life seemed far away. Distant.

  But she was no longer cold, and though she knew she should wake up, the blackness that had been her companion for God only knew how long kept her wrapped in its warm cocoon.

  And she succumbed to its gentle lure.

  She needed to sleep.

  To heal.

  She’d deal with the rest later….

  She is awake.