by Lisa Jackson
So now they had two killers and two cases, and their focus at the moment was on the Rivers woman.
Agents Halden and Chandler had studied the theory that Aaron Caruso, a scam artist who had bilked investors out of their savings, might still be alive, but again, there was no proof. The pictures and e-mail and voice messages may have been just a lure to get Jillian Rivers to Montana.
Trouble was, other than her ex-husband, Mason Rivers, who was in Spokane at the time of the shooting, Ms. Rivers had no known enemies.
“Could be someone pissed off about losing their nest egg,” Watershed offered.
Chandler frowned. “Ten years is a long time to hold a grudge.”
“Not if you need the money now,” Pescoli said. She was seated at the table, wedged between Watershed and Alvarez, while the agents were walking back and forth in front of the geographical maps and pictures of the victims. “Not if you’re suddenly desperate, your life is falling apart and you need a scapegoat.”
“But murder?” Chandler asked. “Elaborate murder?”
“Could be the guy’s been waiting for the opportunity and then the Star-Crossed Killer comes along and he thinks he’s got his ticket.” Watershed glanced toward Grayson for support.
Grayson grimaced and rubbed his chin. “We should take a look at the victims of Caruso’s scam, see if anyone lives in the area or within a hundred-mile radius.”
“I’ll do it,” Zoller offered. For once she wasn’t manning the phone and was seated at one end of the long table.
“Good.”
“But that’s just one side of the equation.” Halden tapped a finger on the map of the area, the spot near MacGregor’s cabin where Jillian Rivers had been found. “If our copycat is after Ms. Rivers for a reason, he won’t kill anyone else.”
“No, he’ll go after her again,” Alvarez said. “He’s missed twice. He won’t give up.”
Halden nodded. “But our other guy, he won’t give up either and he’ll be looking for more victims if he doesn’t have some already stashed away. Have we checked the missing persons in the area?”
Alvarez answered, “Checked within a hundred-mile radius. Since he crosses race barriers, I narrowed it down to women between twenty and forty missing in the last month.” She walked to the map on the wall. “All of the shootings took place within ten miles of each other, so I tried to narrow the fields even further to women who were known, or thought by their families to have been passing through the area. Fortunately we have only five who meet all the criteria.” She placed the five reports face up on the table, driver’s license pictures included. “Any, all or none of them could be our next victim.”
“God, I hate this,” Pescoli said, scanning the pictures, and Alvarez agreed. The thought that some of these women might be in the killer’s lair, already held, bound, tortured or heaven knew what else, bothered her deeply.
“We have to ID this guy,” Chandler said, walking past each of the pictures. Her face was set and hard and, as thin as she was, she looked as if she’d lost weight since arriving in Grizzly Falls. “Has anyone been able to talk to the Jane Doe in the hospital?”
“No,” Zoller said. “She’s still unconscious, but we’ve identified her as Hannah Estes. Twenty-nine, a secretary for an insurance firm, divorced, no children. Lives in Butte with a roommate. Hannah’s the registered owner of a Chevrolet Impala, which, too, is missing.”
Cort Brewster added, “And the only living victim, the only person who can positively ID this prick.”
The sheriff nodded. “Someone needs to go up to Missoula, be there when she wakes up.”
“If she wakes up.” Brewster stood then, put his hands in his pockets and shook his head. He made a big point of avoiding Pescoli’s eyes, but she seemed to be ignoring him right back. Alvarez didn’t blame her; they had more important issues to deal with. The pictures of the missing women, all potential victims of this maniac, called to her. Were any of them even now trapped in some windowless lair, being used as slaves or…?
But not sex slaves. None of the bodies had shown any signs of vaginal trauma or sexual intercourse. What is this nutcase’s game?
“Here’s what we’ve got,” Halden said. “I’ve been working on this.” He laid down page after page of the stars left at the killing scenes, each traced onto tissue paper as thin as onion skins. “If you look closely, they all fit onto this—” He drew out another, heavier piece of paper from his briefcase, laid it flat and placed the stack of traced drawings over the image. Every star fit perfectly except one. “This is the star we found with Jillian Rivers. Not only is it a different shape but it doesn’t fit into the constellation.”
“Which constellation?” Pescoli asked.
“Orion.” Alvarez recognized the familiar outline. “The hunter.”
She noticed Pescoli stiffen. “He thinks he’s a hunter? Shooting out their tires, keeping them with him before he leaves them in the woods?”
“Maybe…?” Alvarez looked to Halden.
“That part we don’t get,” the agent said. “If it was about hunting and killing, why not just shoot them when he has the chance?”
“So, if you scramble the letters, do they say something about hunting or Orion?” Alvarez suggested.
Halden pulled out a copy of the note and placed it on the table. The large block letters were visible to everyone:
WAR T HE SC I N
“Not yet,” he said.
“R, I, N.” Alvarez frowned. “And the S and C and E could be part of ‘CONSTELLATION.’”
“Or the H and N and T and E and R could be part of ‘HUNTER.’ We’re only missing a U on that one,” Watershed said, scratching at his beard stubble.
“It’s all conjecture.” Stephanie Chandler was terse. “The bureau’s working on it.”
Halden went on a little bit more about the stars and the letters, and the FBI agents agreed to go to Missoula and talk to Hannah Estes’s doctors and family. Everyone was hoping she would awaken and make ID’ing the killer easier, but so far it wasn’t happening. When the meeting broke up, Alvarez left the room worrying that they were no closer to arresting the killer than they had been when Theresa Charleton’s body had been found months before.
She made her way out of the task force room and nearly ran into Joelle, who was carrying a platter of decorated sugar cookies: jolly Santa faces, snowmen with raisin eyes, holly wreaths decorated in gooey green frosting with tiny red hearts clustered to look like berries. “I thought everyone could use a little cheering up,” she said.
“Thanks,” Alvarez said, and grabbed a reindeer with a red heart nose that was much too large for his little head. Poor Rudolph looked like he was in serious need of rhinoplasty. Worse yet, the cookie crumbled in her fingers.
Joelle didn’t notice as she passed the plate around to the officers exiting the room, then walked self-importantly down the hallway, high heels clicking, earrings bobbing, as she made her way to the kitchen, where she paused to brew coffee, then left the platter with its homemade sweets on the table.
“Merry Christmas,” she breathed to them all as she hurried out the front door and somehow pushed her way through the crowd of reporters on the steps. Joelle wasn’t part of the investigative team and therefore wasn’t expected to come to work on her days off.
“What a case,” Pescoli whispered, snapping off Santa’s hat with her teeth.
“She’s just spreading good cheer.”
“In a serial-murder investigation?” Pescoli shook her head and made her way back to her desk.
“She means well,” Alvarez offered.
“Have you ever wondered why people say that? ‘She means well?’ It implies that the person they’re talking about is rude, self-involved or just plain oblivious to what’s really going on, and I’m not so sure Joelle ever means well. I think it’s an act, that deep down she’s a mean-spirited bitch.”
Alvarez lifted her brows. “You got up on the wrong side of…oh yeah, sorry.” Of course Pescoli
was snappy. She’d had a horrible night with her kid.
“I guess I have a date with destiny,” Pescoli said, and as Alvarez watched, her partner finished her cookie and, visibly squaring her shoulders, walked across the hall and straight for the door of Cort Brewster’s office.
The storm had abated a bit. MacGregor was at the wheel of a truck loaned to him by a friend, Jillian in the passenger seat. The roads were plowed, the pickup making good time in the scant traffic.
For once the sun’s rays burned through the remaining clouds and Jillian felt better than she had in days. It had been long over a week since she’d woken up in MacGregor’s cabin, and from that time forward, she’d always been laid up, in someone’s care and feeling useless.
Today, however, she thought as the pickup’s wide tires hummed across the wet pavement, she felt in control, able to determine her own destiny.
Well…somewhat. There were still the bruised ribs and sprained ankle to deal with, and the painkillers she was on not only took the edge off, but dulled her a bit.
She didn’t care.
Finally she was free.
With the heat blasting into the cab and the radio turned to some country-western station that plucked Christmas classics from obscurity, MacGregor drove straight from the hospital’s front doors, where a few newscasters had tried to get a statement from her, to the veterinary clinic a few miles away. He parked in an alley next to a dented Dumpster that had survived more than one unfortunate tangle with a car.
Fortunately she wasn’t a big enough news item for the press to chase. With MacGregor’s help and her single crutch, she was able to walk along a snow-covered concrete path, past a row of stiff arborvitae to the back door, where MacGregor rapped sharply with his knuckles. “She’s doing this as a favor to me,” he explained. “The clinic’s officially closed.”
“A favor?”
“Mmm.” The door swung open and a petite woman who couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds ushered them inside, where the smells of animals and urine were faint and masked by the stronger odors of antiseptic and pine cleaner. Fluorescent lights illuminated rooms and hallways painted white to match a gleaming tile floor. MacGregor made quick introductions and Jordan Eagle shook her hand with fingers that were as strong as steel. “You’re the woman who survived the attack,” she said, her eyes assessing. Without any makeup, she was still beautiful, her skin smooth and coppery, her eyes surrounded by thick black lashes and perfect eyebrows. Her cheekbones were high and separated by a thin, straight nose. Full lips parted to expose white teeth that were only slightly crooked, just enough to add interest to her face. “You’re lucky,” she observed.
“Because of MacGregor.”
Jordan’s gaze skated to Zane. “I heard. So now you’re a hero?”
He snorted derisively and sent Jillian a look meant to shut her up. “Hardly.”
She didn’t take the hint. “He saved my life,” Jillian said flatly. “Twice.” Jillian wanted everyone in Pinewood and the surrounding counties to know the facts, not the distorted truth that she suspected was grist for the local gossip mill. Not the facts twisted to make a case against him by the sheriff’s department.
One of Jordan’s arched brows quirked upward. “Well, how about that, MacGregor? I knew you always had it in you.”
He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “How’s Harley?”
“Groggy but okay. I was able to save the leg, but my guess is that he won’t use it much. Maybe for balance. But when he runs, he’ll probably tuck it up and gallop on three legs.” She glanced up at MacGregor. “He’ll be fine. Don’t worry. The jackrabbits will have just as much to fear as they used to.”
“Which wasn’t all that much,” MacGregor allowed. “He gives a good chase, but wouldn’t know what to do with one if he caught it.”
She laughed, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners. She was tanned, lithe, her black hair pulled into a ponytail that hung halfway to her waist. How she could wrestle an eighty-pound German shepherd or anxious foaling mare, Jillian couldn’t understand. Nonetheless, if anything, Jordan Eagle, DVM, looked efficient.
“He’s in here.” She led them along a well-lit hallway to an examination room, then opened a door to a larger area, where Harley lay in a large crate. He looked through the grate with groggy eyes, but Jillian heard his tail thump a few times.
“Hey, buddy,” MacGregor said, and opened the gate to pet his dog. Harley’s tongue hung out of his mouth and the thumping increased in tempo for a second. “Is the doc takin’ good care of you?”
Jillian felt as if her heart might crack. Even though she and the spaniel had started out mistrusting each other, she’d begun to care for the damned dog, and she felt terrible that he’d been attacked because of her.
“As I said, he’s going to be fine. He’s one tough dog,” Jordan said when MacGregor straightened and Jillian took her turn petting the dog’s head. Harley even managed to wag his tail for her, and she felt all the more pain, more responsibility.
“So you’ll watch him?” MacGregor asked.
“Like a hawk,” she said.
“Not an eagle?”
“Lame joke, MacGregor. Real lame.”
Jillian agreed but couldn’t help feeling another little twinge of jealousy at the easy banter between MacGregor and Jordan Eagle. It was ridiculous, but she was helpless to control it.
“I’ll call and check in.”
“Where’re you going?” Jordan asked, glancing again at Jillian, as if she were suddenly aware that there might be something more than friendship between the woman on crutches and MacGregor.
“Not sure yet, but I’ll call.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Seriously. I will.”
Jordan paused in the doorway. “You’d better or I might just hold Harley for ransom.”
MacGregor smiled as he helped Jillian into the truck. “Yeah, right, like you’d want him,” he said, and walked to the driver’s side. “Thanks, Jordan.”
“Anytime.” She smiled then, the curve of her lips wistful.
“She’s in love with you,” Jillian said as MacGregor jammed the truck into reverse and the vet disappeared into the clinic.
“Don’t think so.”
“Bull. You know it as much as I do.”
“She’s married.”
“That’s not what I said. Are you having an affair with her?”
“Nah.” Once the pickup was in drive and moving forward, he steered the old rig onto the street, where sunlight was dancing on the wet pavement.
“But you did.”
“A long time ago.” He squinted against the glare. “Look in the glove box. See if you can find a pair of sunglasses.”
“So what happened?” She rummaged through loose papers and old rags, and the manual for the truck. “Nothing.”
MacGregor checked the visor and found a pair. “Can you clean these off?”
“Sure.” She rubbed the dusty lenses with the hem of her sweater. “So what happened? With the lady vet?”
“The lady vet. She’d love that. It ran its course. She wanted something more than I was willing to give and she found somebody else.”
“That simple.”
A long dimple, filled with irony and a bit of regret, creased his cheek. “Well, nothing’s that simple, but I figure you know that, since you’ve been married twice.”
She wanted to ask more questions, to delve further, but he’d effectively shut her down. He was teasing her but also telling her to let it go. His past was his past. Had nothing to do with her. And yet…She shifted on the old bench seat and stared out a windshield that didn’t look as if it had been cleaned since the millennium. Pockmarked, dusty, with streaks where the wipers had scraped across it, the glass had a crack that ran along the bottom of the pane.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I was thinking of Spruce Creek.”
“What?” He was driving out of the city limits,
the low-slung buildings of mini-malls passing by.
“You had coffee there, right? At some place called the Chocolate Moose Café?”
She was nodding. “I can barely remember it, but yeah, I think so. How did you know?”
“Because the detectives asked me if I’d been there or knew about the place. Did I have coffee there? Was I a regular? They didn’t say why, but it had to be connected to you, and since it’s on the way from Seattle to September Creek, where your car was found, I figured you’d been there.”
“And you think the killer might have been, too?” she asked as he passed a slow-moving semi hauling cars that were dented and wrecked.
“It’s as good a place to start as any, don’t you think?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think. I’m not a detective or an investigator, but there’s no reason to sit around here.”
“Agreed.”
“Okay,” she said as he picked up speed and the town street gave way to a curvy mountain road lined with trees that were still drooping under the weight of snow. She’d never been afraid of adventure, had always welcomed a test, but taking off with no good plan to a destination she didn’t know, with a man who at times frightened her and other times excited her, seemed a little crazy. Okay, a lot crazy.
She wanted to deny her attraction to him but it was just damned impossible. The truth of the matter was that she was attracted to Zane MacGregor. And it wasn’t just a little, casual flirtation.
Unfortunately, she was beginning to fall for the man.
And that, she knew, was a problem.
A big problem.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“So what is it you want to say, Detective?”
Cort Brewster was sitting at his desk, a pile of paperwork in front of him, his pen in hand. He looked up as Pescoli walked into the room, and the expression on his face could have turned flesh to stone.
