by Lisa Jackson
I smile kindly as I set the tray on the table beside her bed. Tears jump to her eyes. She’s overwhelmed. “Oh, thank you,” she breathes. “Thank you.”
“Still can’t get cell service, but once we get going we should be able to pick up a signal. I’ll make sure I get you to the nearest clinic.”
“Oh, Liam…”
She tilts her head just a little and looks at me from beneath her lashes, like women do when they’re interested. It’s the same old ploy I’ve seen a thousand times. It would be so easy to take her, to make love to her, to fuck the living hell out of her. But I cannot. Everything has to be as planned, especially tonight, for there is still work to do.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine,” I soothe her.
She glances at the food. “It looks like you’ve made enough for two…”
“I’d better not,” I say regretfully. “I’ve got a few more things to do. Make sure that we can get out of here early.”
“Okay.” She’s disappointed. Then she gives me a look straight on. “Tomorrow,” she says in a voice heavy with meaning.
I nod and close the door behind me, making sure it’s locked. She believes I’m extra cautious, keeping her safe. She likes locked doors. They all do. Silly, silly bitches. As if a lock will save them.
I head back to my rooms and smile. Yes, there is still much to do, but I’m on task. Better yet, I have a surprise for those idiotic cops. Something that will really get their engines fired up! A little something extra from me.
I can hardly wait!
Chapter Twenty-Three
What was the link?
Selena lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She’d finally gone home but that didn’t mean she’d quit working on the case. She’d tossed and turned most of the night and when she did sleep, her dreams were peppered with images of Brady Long’s dead body, the frozen corpses of the women they’d found in the forest, and Regan Pescoli, locked away somewhere, knowing her fate, maybe already lashed to the bole of a tree in the icy forest.
There had to be a connection between them—a connection more than the bullet dug out from the back of Brady Long’s desk chair and the blown-out tires of the victims found in the forest. Santana believed the same person was responsible for all the deaths.
If he was right, the killer knew all the women and Brady Long.
None of his victims were chosen at random.
And that meant the killer was close enough to Long to know that he was returning to Montana and had lain in wait for him. That information alone had absolved many suspects of the crime. As far as Alvarez knew, none of the victims had known anyone in the Long family.
Start with Brady Long’s murder. His death is the oddity. And it, too, was planned with ultimate precision.
She flung off the covers and, in a pj top and underwear, walked to the window where she looked outside. It was still dark, a few stars visible over the security lamps glowing harshly on the parking lot where snow was piled high around the individual spaces. The asphalt was covered with a shimmering layer of ice.
Her headache had left in the night and the cold that had been settling in her lungs seemed to be breaking up, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep again. A glance at the clock told her it was barely four, but she walked into the kitchen, filled the teapot, then remade her Murphy bed and slid it back into the wall. By the time she was through a short shower, her hair still damp, her body now dressed in workout clothes, the teapot was whistling.
She poured herself a cup of steaming hot water, tossed in a once-used bag, and carried it to her desk where notes, pictures, statements, and reports were spread out. Sliding into her desk chair, she began writing on a yellow legal pad, naming all of the victims and making lines that showed how they were connected to each other and those who were, or had been, suspects. She added in the people who had found the bodies and cars as well. The only connections there were Nate Santana, who had found Brady Long, worked for him, and was involved with Regan Pescoli, and Ivor Hicks, who had stumbled upon Wendy Ito’s body and shown up minutes after Santana at Brady Long’s house.
Tapping her pen against her chin, she frowned.
In kind of a six-degrees-of-separation thing, she did note that Clementine’s son, Ross, went to school where Elyssa O’Leary had studied, and they’d shared an English professor, but not a class.
None of the victims had lived in Grizzly Falls. Unless she counted Brady Long, who had taken up part-time residence as a child. He and his sister had spent their summers at the Lazy L Ranch. And Padgett had nearly been killed with her brother in an accident where Brady had escaped any serious injury.
So, how had the killer found these people?
“He’s relentless. A hunter,” Grace Perchant had warned Pescoli at Wild Will’s. There, surrounded by dead animal heads mounted on the walls, she had mentioned that the killer was a hunter. And Orion was the hunter in mythology and astronomy. Craig Halden, a Georgia country boy turned FBI agent and a hunter himself, was certain the stars located on the notes found at the various crime scenes were intentionally part of the Orion constellation.
The trouble was that nearly every male over the age of ten in this part of Montana considered himself a hunter. It was a way of life.
Alvarez flipped through the old police reports that she’d pulled and copied but hadn’t had time yet to read. For the most part nothing leaped out at her. She came across the report of the Long boating accident and read it over with curiosity. Brady had reported the event and Fire and Rescue had responded, taking Padgett by ambulance to a local hospital. Her father, Hubert, had been doing business in Missoula at the time and her mother, Cherilyn, who was already divorced from Hubert by that time, was living in San Francisco.
Clementine DeGrazio and her then four-year-old son, Ross, lived on the property, and there were several ranch hands as well, some of them whose names she recognized. Henry Johansen, now around sixty, was one. Alvarez had been told that sometime in his late forties Henry had fallen off his tractor and never been the same. Now he sometimes showed up at the sheriff’s department, offering his help on cases, though he barely knew his own name half the time. Another ranch hand had been Gordon Dobbs, the guy who now either made chainsaw art that he sold off his front porch, or put a few shifts in at the local bars.
Neither seemed a candidate for Star-Crossed. She was about to toss the file aside when she noticed the name of the responding officer: Cort Brewster.
Selena felt a tremor slide up her spine.
Brewster was an incredible marksman.
He’d lived in the area since childhood; his parents still lived in the original family homestead.
He was a hunter, cross-country skier.
He had access to all county records.
And he was the undersheriff.
Your boss.
She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. No, that didn’t make any sense. It was true that Brewster didn’t clock the regular eight-to-five, but he had flexibility with his hours and was out of the office often. He was also a family man, an elder of his church.
But he’s organized.
Knows first aid and how to survive in the wilderness.
He has a temper.
Is intolerant of others.
And is a hunter.
Her heart was racing and she told herself not to go there, to end this line of thinking right now. But Brewster’s name, signed when he was a deputy, burned into her brain.
No one knew the exact time that the victims’ vehicles’ tires had been shot out. Nor did anyone know when the victims were being cared for or hauled into the woods.
“It can’t be,” she said as her tea cooled and her mind whirled with the possibilities. The killer was big; one shoe print had proved that. Cort Brewster had to be six-three and pushing two-thirty. Not fat. He worked out in the same gym where Selena did. But definitely big.
The back of her mouth went dry.
Cort Brewster,
next in line for sheriff if anything should happen to Daniel Grayson.
The idea was repulsive.
Unthinkable.
She argued with herself as she walked into the bathroom. Brewster’s a cop. A good cop, no matter what you might think of him.
Though his hair had started to silver, he wasn’t yet forty. Still older than what she would have expected for a serial killer.
She made a mental note to find out what, if any, connection there was between Brady Long, the boating accident that put Padgett into a mental hospital, and Cort Brewster.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she told herself, but settled into the computer, logged onto the Internet, and spent the next two hours trying to find out more information on the man who was her boss. Wrong tree be damned. Right now it was the only one she had.
Snap!
With a metallic crack, the weld gave way.
Regan’s heart soared. She bit back a cry of triumph.
It was quiet in her prison.
Cold.
No bit of morning light showed through that window high overhead, though the fire was on its last breath, the faintest glow of red allowing her just enough illumination to make out objects in the room.
Every muscle in her body ached. To move was excruciating and yet she was pretty sure that, other than a few cracked ribs, no bones were broken. Her arm didn’t work very well and her head thundered, but she had refused to give up or give in.
She didn’t stop to wonder where the bastard was. He’d been gone for hours, probably back to his real home. She did wonder if he had a wife. Maybe even kids. The thought made her sick, but she was convinced by the length of time that he was gone, both during the days as well as the nights, that he had a regular job somewhere, and either a house or apartment. That this dungeon was his fantasy lair, the place where he could let his sick persona run free.
She eased off the cot and, with her uninjured shoulder, pushed up on its frame, fitting the frame close to her neck as she teased the thin links of her handcuffs free of the now unwelded leg. There wasn’t much room, the chain caught several times.
Give me strength, she thought, and patience.
Slowly the chain slipped through and she was free.
Take that, you son of a bitch, she thought, though her hands were still cuffed in front of her. She found the poker, the only weapon in the room, then once it was at her side, located her clothes. Fighting pain, she stepped into her jeans, socks, and boots, but she couldn’t bother with her sweater, bra, or jacket. She had to keep her arms free.
Heart thudding irregularly, she made her way to the door. She thought she was alone, had heard him leave, and the fact that no light glowed from under the door told her that he’d let his fire die as well. There were no lanterns lit.
But he could be asleep.
You don’t know what’s on the other side.
Wishing for all she was worth that she had her sidearm rather than the poker, she held her breath and tried the door.
Unlocked.
The bastard truly believed she was no threat. And why not? She’d probably looked half dead after their fight. She’d certainly felt that way.
The door creaked open and she braced herself, half-expecting him to hurl himself at her.
But the room on the other side was dark, the fire nearly dead. It was larger than hers by three times and the fireplace was massive. Again, there were windows high overhead and she had the feeling most of this lair was built underground. Several doors opened from the main living area with its wide stone floor and huge table. The armoire stood against one wall and for the first time Regan noticed that there was electricity—light switches near the doors, outlets on the walls.
What was this place? The room she’d been imprisoned in, where she was certain others had been kept before her, was cruder, as if it had once been used as a storage area, the wood stove added later.
Not that she had time to worry about it. Quickly she surveyed the area, looking for a weapon, or the keys to the cuffs, even a bobby pin that she could strip of its plastic coating and use to unlock the handcuffs. There was nothing on the table.
But the armoire…
Without hesitation, she limped to the huge cabinet and opened the double doors. Inside were papers. Books on astronomy and astrology were slid into slots. Along with boxes neatly stacked and drawings…It was too dark to see, but…
Her stomach dropped as she recognized the pages. Notes that had been left on the trees above the victims’ heads and more…Oh, God, so many more.
Telling herself that she was running out of time, shivering with the cold, she opened some of the drawers and searched. Come on, come on, please let the keys be…
She saw them then. A drawer of metal keys. Door keys and car keys and…there were the tiny handcuff keys. Her hands shook as she worked the lock with difficulty. Half-expecting a door to be flung open at any second, she set her jaw and forced the tiny key into the lock.
Click!
One cuff fell open.
She didn’t waste a second and unlocked the second, the right one. She needed to bandage that wrist but there was no time. She stuffed the key and handcuffs into her pockets. Oh, if she could turn the tables on this bastard, she’d love to force his hands behind his back and march him into the station! Maybe even give him an inkling of what police brutality really meant. She surveyed the room for a weapon, or phone, or computer, anything so that she could protect herself and get word to the outside world, but no luck.
Damn.
But she did uncover a flashlight, and when she cast its beam over the contents of the armoire one last time, she nearly jumped out of her skin. There, along with the neatly drawn notes with their cryptic messages and stars, were pictures. Of the women he’d captured. Each one naked, bound to a tree, still very much alive, terror in their eyes.
Pescoli’s stomach quivered.
She had no choice but to leave the evidence where it was, and find a way of escape. For herself. For Elyssa. For the others he’d alluded to.
Where are they? Where is Elyssa?
Here somewhere?
Or already being forced through the forest to a lone tree where she is certain to die a lonely, brutal death?
Fury burning through her blood, Pescoli hurried back to her prison, grabbed the rest of her clothes, and carefully pulled them on, chafing at the extra time it took because of her injuries. She intended to find the other captives and kill the son of a bitch who had held them against their will.
The poker at the ready in one hand, flashlight in the other, her body still aching, she held her breath and slowly opened the door to freedom.
“I don’t understand,” Elyssa whispers, her eyes round with fear.
Oh, she understands, all right. All of her fears, the ones that have been hidden just beneath the surface of her consciousness, are rising to the surface, causing her heart to pound with dread, her hope to disintegrate.
I see it. Have witnessed it before in this very room with its twin bed draped in the hand-pieced quilt Mother created over half a century ago. It seems fitting, somehow, that some of my guests have slept under Mother’s handiwork. Theresa had mentioned how “beautiful” it was, the detail “intricate.” If Theresa had only known that those very hands that had so lovingly cut and pieced the tiny scraps together had also shown a great ability to slap, or flick a lit cigarette, with equal ease.
This room Elyssa has come to think of as hers belonged to me, and now, time is slipping past. It’s been a busy morning already and it’s not yet light. After taking care of my other business for the police, I returned for Elyssa. When I entered her room she played coy, as I knew she would. Mentioned that it was now “tomorrow.”
For an answer, I ordered her to strip off her clothes.
Oh, the eager anticipation, the hope of some sort of sexual connection; her eyes sparked with it. But it was extinguished quickly when I drew my hunting knife from its sheath.
My
expression, too, altered at the same time. I know there isn’t a speck of kindness in my eyes now. No hint of interest. “Just do it,” I tell her firmly and the knife in my hand, my favorite long-bladed weapon, one which can gut and skin a deer so smoothly and easily, convinces her not to balk.
Tears begin to sheen in her large eyes. “If this is a joke, it’s not funny.” Her voice tremors.
She knows.
I catch her first fleeting, furtive glance around her room, as she contemplates her odds of escape.
“No joke.”
“But—”
“Get on with it!”
“Please, I don’t understand what you’re doing. You know I like you.” She was supplicating now, her hands in front of her, fingers wide, offering herself like the sacrificial whore I’ve always known she is. “I could…we could…” She swallows hard and motions toward the small bed with its fading quilt in an awkward, desperate attempt at seduction.
I usually play along for a bit, but this morning her attempts to bed me are irritating. There is no time. Because of that bitch Pescoli I’ve stepped up my game, already put the gears into motion. I need to make a real statement, get the attention of the stupid dickwads at the sheriff’s department.
“Strip, now, Elyssa.” I waggle the knife a bit. Menacingly.
She gasps and throws a hand to her own throat.
“I don’t want to use this,” I assure her. Firmly. The knife blade glints with the light from the lantern I’ve set on the small bedside table.
This isn’t a lie. Cutting her isn’t part of my plan. But I will. If I have to.
Wild-eyed, she slowly begins to peel off her clothes, taking her time, trying and failing to appear seductive, as if unsure that this isn’t some kind of sexual fantasy I’m playing out.
She tugs her sweater over her head and looks at me. Tosses her hair.
God, she is pathetic.
I point the tip of the knife at her bra. “Keep going.”
