The Alvarez & Pescoli Series

by Lisa Jackson

  “Not the lizard king, you moron,” Ivor said indignantly. “That was Jim Morrison. He said so hisself. Don’t you know nuthin’?”

  “The ‘Light My Fire’ guy? Before my time, old man.”

  Ivor Hicks was incensed. “And his name isn’t Krypton! You’d better be careful.” Ivor wagged a bony finger through the bars. “It really pisses him off when people get it wrong. It’s General Crytor, of the Reptilian Army.”

  “You’re a freakin’ lunatic, Hicks. You know that?”

  “Crytor hears all!” Veins pulsed in Ivor’s head.

  Again the locks on the door clanked as it opened and Detective Alvarez strode into the hallway.

  In a second Schwartz stopped his childish antics. “Hey,” he said, his demeanor sliding from antagonism into interest as the petite detective dared enter his domain.

  “We’re releasing MacGregor,” she said without preamble.

  “What?” Clearly A. Schwartz didn’t like this turn of events. “When?”

  “Right now.” She made her way to MacGregor’s cell, and if she noticed Schwartz or any of the inmates’ gazes following her, checking out her ass as she passed, she didn’t show it. “Unlock him.”

  “Does the sheriff know about this?”

  She shot the jailor a disdainful glance. “And the DA. And anyone else who needs to.” As she looked at MacGregor through the bars, it was obvious to him that she wasn’t any happier about his release than Schwartz was. “We contacted your lawyer and you can sign for and pick up your things at the front desk.”

  “What about Pescoli?” Schwartz asked. “She ain’t gonna like this, let me tell you.” But he was fiddling with his keys. “Oh, that’s right, she’s got her own problems, doesn’t she? Her stupid-ass kid got himself picked up.”

  The glare Alvarez sent the idiot jailor this time was blistering, filled with unspoken warnings.

  The big oaf didn’t take the message. “That kid’s a real prick, if you ask me.”

  “No one did,” she said tightly.

  He blurted on, “If the undersheriff doesn’t keep his daughter away from him, Brewster might find out that he’s gonna be a granddaddy.”

  “Shut up, Schwartz, and unlock the door.”

  “Oooh. Okay. Whatever you say, Detective.”

  Her lips were thin, her hair pulled back and gleaming beneath the harsh lights, her eyes angry and dark. If looks could kill, A. Schwartz would be a dead man several times over right now. As it was, the big guy with the creases in the back of his neck didn’t seem to notice her mood as he took his time with his keys, finally unlocked the door and slid it open. “Guess you’re a free man, MacGregor,” Schwartz said, suddenly all seething smiles.

  MacGregor didn’t answer, just headed to the main door.

  “How about me?” another voice called from one of the cells.

  “Your wife gonna bail you out, Dobbs?”

  “She left me. Can you believe that?” he slurred, and MacGregor recognized the man who created chain saw and metal art and sold it on the highway. Trees, stumps, garbage cans, hubcaps, soda cans or whatever, it was all an artist’s palette to Gordon Dobbs. “Right after Thanksgivin’!” A big bear of a man, he seemed about to fall as he clung to the bars. “Married twelve years and Wilma just up and leaves me….”

  “Go figure,” Schwartz said, then, under his breath, to Alvarez whispered, “it fuckin’ must be Christmas, cuz we got enough nuts in here tonight to make our own special fruitcake! All we need to make it official is Grace Perchant, the damned crackpot who sees ghosts, and Alma Shepherd, with her divining switch, and we got ourselves a real interesting party in here.”

  “You need a ride?” Alvarez asked as they walked to the front together.

  “No.”

  MacGregor collected the few things he’d had with him when he’d been arrested and pushed his way out of the jail. It was over a two-mile walk to the hospital where Jillian was, but he’d make it. Once there he’d call a friend who owed him one helluva favor.

  Flipping the collar of his jacket up, he decided it was time to call in his long-overdue marker.

  “So that’s the deal, Jeremy,” Pescoli said as her son, pale and wan, looking sicker than death, gave her the silent treatment. “You’re grounded until I say differently, and in the meantime, you’ll just go to school and go out and get that job you’ve been talking about. Football season’s over. You’re not involved in another sport and all this hanging-out is just no good.”

  He stared out the passenger side of her Jeep and doodled on the condensation on the window. With one shoulder effectively shunning her, he acted fascinated by the figure eights he drew over and over again as the miles slid beneath her wheels.

  The snow had stopped sometime in the early morning, the eastern sky showing streaks of pink and purple as dawn slid over the land.

  Since her son was intent on playing the passive-aggressive card, she flipped on the radio only to hear a newscaster reporting on the series of murders in the area.

  Jeremy snorted and she shut the radio off.

  “You know, we could discuss this,” she said, her fingers tight over the wheel as she drove into the foothills toward their house.

  He shrugged.

  “I’m not able to ignore this, Jer. Underage drinking? What were you thinking?”

  Silence. He was furious that she’d let him sit it out at the juvenile center while his friends had been picked up.

  “I thought you needed to cool your jets,” she added, keeping her mouth shut about the fact that she, too, had spent a lousy night, barely sleeping a wink, afer feeding Cisco, letting him outside, then allowing him to sleep in her bed with her. At six thirty this morning she’d showered, dressed and driven into town to pick up her kid. All in all, Jeremy had sat in juvie for about six hours. Long enough to make a point, not enough to do any permanent damage.

  “Everyone else’s parents came,” he finally charged as she turned off the main road and slowed for the bridge spanning the small creek that bordered her property.

  “I came.”

  He snorted. “They came last night.”

  “I was working.”

  “Heidi’s dad is the undersheriff. Kind of an important job. More important than yours. He came right away.” Jeremy’s eyes, so like Joe’s, glared at her, and her heart nearly broke as she recognized his hurt, his anger and, beyond the resentment, a bit of hatred.

  “I can’t speak to how he raises his kid, but I can tell you that you’ll probably be blamed for this. Even if Heidi admits to being a part of it, you’re older, a boy, and Cort Brewster will see you as the guilty party.”

  “Maybe it was my fault.”

  “Maybe it was. Where did you get the alcohol?”

  Jeremy’s lips tightened before he lapsed into stony silence again. She pulled into the driveway and gave him a look. “We’ll talk about this later. When I get home. But I’m serious. You start looking for a job, you stay home and take care of your dog, you get your grades up to where they should be and then we’ll figure out just how long you’re going to be grounded.”

  “I’ll be eighteen in—”

  “You want to move out?” She cut him off. “To find an apartment on your own? Maybe with some buddies? You think you can afford rent and electricity and gas and cable television?” Pescoli tried to keep her anger from boiling over. She didn’t bother with the garage door, just parked in front of the small house where she’d first taught her son how to tie his shoes and memorize the Boy Scout creed or whatever it was, the place where he’d gone fishing in the creek in the backyard and where he’d stepped on a nest of yellow jackets when he was only six and been covered in red welts. His little chin had trembled but he’d tried hard not to cry. In some respects he was right, he wasn’t that little boy any longer. Hadn’t been for a long, long time. “You can make dinner,” she said. “Take out something from the freezer. There’re chicken pieces—thighs and legs, I think.”

  He stared at
her as if she’d just landed on a spaceship from another universe.

  “Well, if you’re going to move out in a few months, you’d better learn how to cook. Eating out all the time is too expensive.”

  “I’m not cooking!”

  “Sure you are. Grandma’s recipe cards are in a box in the cupboard by the stove; you know where. Pick out a recipe; you like the one with the rice and condensed soup. I think we have all the ingredients and there should be something for a salad. Make enough for three. Bianca will be back for dinner.”

  “Are you out of your effin’ mind? I’m not cooking any—”

  “And clean the kitchen when you’re done.”

  “I’m not your fu—slave!” he said as he leapt out of the car.

  “For a second I thought you were going to say ‘wife.’”

  “Oh God, Mom, you are so sick!” He slammed the door shut.

  “Probably,” she muttered as she backed into the turn out of the driveway, watching as he unlocked the door and stomped his way inside. She shoved the gearshift into drive and pushed aside the guilt that suggested she was running out on him, the feeling that her place was home, that she should try and talk things out. But the reality was that they both needed time to cool off. That if she did stay at the house, if her job didn’t demand her to be back at the office, he would just hole up in his room and refuse to talk to her, and she, angry, would cook and clean with a vengeance, rattling pots and dishes and stomping loudly to let him know she was upset, too.

  “Height of maturity,” she said, and reached for her pack of cigarettes. At the end of the lane she lit up and decided she’d quit again. As soon as this case was solved, she’d smoke her last one and this time she would never pick up the habit again.

  Never.

  At least she hoped not.

  MacGregor explained what he wanted. It took a while, but Chilcoate listened, all the while smoking a cigarette and gazing out the window of his two-bedroom cabin. The window was opened just a bit, a small crack allowing in some of the cold air, which battled with the heat from a gas fireplace on the opposite wall. The living area was furnished with a few secondhand chairs, a love seat and a beat-up leather recliner that was positioned to face a huge television screen hung on the opposite wall.

  The larger bedroom was his office, one set up with the finest state-of-the-art computer, radio and television equipment. The smaller of the two bedrooms held a double bed with a faded camouflage comforter and a dresser with the same decals he’d stuck on it as a child.

  Downstairs, behind shelves used to store anything from wine to old files and clothes never to be worn again, was a secret room, one only a handful of people knew about. Behind that fake wall was a long, narrow space filled with the most sophisticated electronic equipment known to man.

  Chilcoate was a computer hacker.

  And a damned good one.

  He’d learned from the best: the government.

  It wasn’t a surprise to MacGregor. The kid had been an electronic genius from the get-go, something that hadn’t gone unnoticed by MIT and a few others. The trouble was, at the time, Chilcoate had been a screw-off and had blown his scholarship to Stanford and been kicked out.

  Hence the stint in the army, and the rest was history.

  MacGregor and Chilcoate had been childhood buddies and still were. They knew each other’s secrets and MacGregor had bailed out Chilcoate from one sticky situation after another over the years, everything from helping him through a DUI and getting into AA to opening his own door to the man after a bad marriage and worse divorce.

  So now Chilcoate owed him.

  And MacGregor expected to collect on the man’s knowledge—knowledge gained from a dozen years in the military working with electronic surveillance before opting out. He’d spent a few more years with the FBI before giving up his government jobs and going freelance. With the Feds there had been too much red tape. Too many meetings. Too much regimentation for a wild-ass Montana boy with a natural-born rebellious streak that, try as he might, he just couldn’t tame.

  Now he lived in the foothills of the Bitterroots, not far from where he and MacGregor had spent idyllic childhoods fishing, hiking, hunting, camping under the stars, unaware of the twisted paths their lives would take.

  His full name was Tydeus Melville Chilcoate. His Mensa-member single mother had been influenced by all things Greek and had a thing for Captain Ahab and anything written by Herman Melville, hence the heavy name. Unimpressed, Chilcoate went by his last name. It was just easier.

  “Is that all you want?” he asked MacGregor as he walked to the kitchen sink, turned on the tap and doused the remains of his smoke. The cigarette hissed and smoldered for a second before he tossed the wet butt into the trash can near the slider door. “A truck, a cell phone and me to hack into a person’s private account on the Internet?”

  “For starters. I also want you to look after Harley.”

  Chilcoate grunted his assent. “Let’s go downstairs,” he said and led the way down a narrow stairway.

  MacGregor had made three calls from the first pay phone he’d come across. One was to the hospital, where he was assured Jillian Rivers was in stable condition, though the hospital would give him no further information. The second was to Jordan Eagle, the veterinarian at the clinic on Fourth Street. Jordan, who he’d known for years, had talked to him personally and assured him that Harley would live, though there was a chance that the dog might lose his back right leg. “He lost a lot of blood and there’s quite a bit of tissue damage, a torn tendon, but he’s lucky in that the bullet didn’t hit his spine or go through his other leg.” MacGregor had listened quietly, the receiver held in a death grip, his back to the cold wind. He’d barely noticed, so intent was he on the phone conversation. “Worst-case scenario: I’ll have to amputate. Best: a partial recovery. I won’t kid you, Zane, he won’t be the same, but I think he’ll live a full, good life. Lots of dogs get around great on three legs.”

  MacGregor’s stomach had roiled, bile rising in his throat when he thought of the bastard who had sighted a rifle on his dog and, with malicious intent, pulled the trigger. This was no accident. To Jordan, he’d said, “Do the best you can. I’m on my way.”

  “He’s gonna live, Zane. But don’t rush over here. He’s still out of it from the anesthesia.”

  “Thanks.” He’d hung up and sworn a blue streak at the son of a bitch who had tried to kill his dog and then left Jillian for dead. At least Harley knew Jordan, as she was an old friend of MacGregor’s, a woman he’d once dated, a woman who had, briefly, shared his bed. Had he loved her? No. Nor had she loved him. Not in any way other than being lonely friends. They both had realized the mistake and ended the affair amicably. Sex always changed things, but in their case, their friendship had only deepened.

  It was, however, the singular time that had happened in his life. He thought about Jillian and knew, deep in his gut, if they ever made love, the course of his life would change forever. She affected him in a way that bothered him, a complicated way he’d rather avoid.

  Even more than Callie, the woman he’d once loved and married. He felt a pang of regret thinking of his wife and child, so long gone, but he couldn’t dwell on the past. That never helped.

  But it could serve as a reminder that with love came the chance of heartache.

  Not that he was in love with Jillian Rivers.

  Far from it.

  But she’d gotten to him.

  No doubt about it.

  That woman had burrowed her way under his skin.

  The third call was to Chilcoate and they’d agreed to meet at the diner up the street. Zane had walked the three blocks, ordered two cups of coffee to go and, collecting the steaming drinks, then strode into the parking lot, where a few early risers had parked their rigs.

  Within minutes Chilcoate had arrived in an old army Jeep, and they’d hauled ass up to his cabin, a roughhewn log building complete with running water, electricity and a basement
few people knew about.

  During the ride up a winding road, MacGregor had told Chilcoate as much of his story as he thought advisable, including how he’d found Jillian in her wrecked car at the bottom of a ravine and how, after healing, she’d been abducted and left in the forest, while his dog had been shot.

  Chilcoate had listened, asking few questions, then had led the way into his cabin. Now MacGregor followed him into a dusty basement, where they dodged old ductwork, made their way past broken furniture and a rusted-out barbecue, passing hidden cameras tucked into the shadowy cobwebs of the crossbeams. At the back wall, Chilcoate stepped into an alcove ostensibly built for firewood and hit a switch. The back wall swung open and an array of computers, monitors, photographic equipment, radios and cameras was revealed.

  “Okay, then,” Chilcoate said, smiling, as he sat at a desk chair that rolled the length of a twenty-foot table. “Let’s get to work.”

  Jillian felt the heat from the fire.

  Outside the winter raged, snow blowing against the windows, ice hanging in glittering shards from the roof. But inside the cabin was warm. Hot. Blood pounded through her veins as she stared into the eyes of a stranger, a lover.

  “MacGregor,” she whispered as his hands skimmed over her body, finger pads stroking her bare skin, brushing over her rib cage and the bend of her waist, as they lay face-to-face upon the wide couch.

  God, she wanted him. Ached for him. And yet she knew this was wrong. So very wrong.

  There was danger.

  Evil.

  Lurking in the dark corners of the room, unseen eyes watched with the same hunger and passion that, at this moment, ran through her veins. She caught a glimpse of something, a piece of glass reflecting the room, but the image was distorted, in grainy black and white, a photo with a bus and a man…no, not just a man. Aaron. Her husband. So why was she here, with this stranger?

  Aaron ran to catch the bus, his legs moving.

  He’s running away from you, Jillian. He’s…he’s…