Born To Die

  Now Kacey relived the attack, feeling again that stone-cold fear that brought color to her cheeks and sweat to the back of her neck.

  She told Trace about what had happened, how she’d escaped with her life, how the assault had seemed random, a crazy who was just waiting for his chance. He’d shown no interest in robbing her; he’d left her purse. Rape? Maybe. But she’d seen his eyes through the slits in his mask, and they, a steely blue, pupils dilated, were cold and deadly. Whether he first had planned to kidnap her, then sexually assault her or torture her, she didn’t know, but she was certain in those few desperate minutes that he intended to kill her.

  “The police never found him?” Trace asked soberly.

  “No. I know I cut him, but they collected no blood except my own. And so he’s out there, somewhere.”

  “Bugging you?” Trace asked, inclining his head toward the closed door, behind which the mics that were still in place.

  “Why?” she whispered aloud.

  Trace didn’t immediately answer, and she said, “Shelly Bonaventure’s death was well planned, made to appear a suicide. Jocelyn Wallis fell into the river. Elle Alexander’s minivan slid off the road.... Those attacks took time and thought.”

  “If they were attacks,” he reminded, but Kacey was on her own track.

  “When I was fighting off the psycho in the parking garage, I thought he was a wack job, completely off the rails. Not the kind of person who would meticulously plan someone’s death.”

  “Do you have security here?”

  “No alarm system, except for Bonzi.”

  “Weapons?”

  “My grandfather’s shotgun.”

  “Do you want to go to the police?”

  “No,” she answered immediately. “Not yet.”

  “Then I’ll stay here till morning. You take the dog upstairs, and I’ll camp out on the couch with the gun.” He opened the front door, and they headed back inside, which was just as well because Kacey had started to shiver.

  She wasn’t sure what she thought about him spending the night. What did she know about Trace O’Halleran? He seemed like a nice enough guy, a good father, but that wasn’t enough to hand him a gun and go off upstairs to sleep soundly. Not after what had been happening.

  “How about you keep the dog and I’ll take the gun?” she whispered.

  He almost smiled. “Smart,” he said, already reaching for the blanket that was always folded at the end of the couch. “Tell ya what. You take ’em both.”

  Snow was falling in big, wet flakes to pile on the ground at the edge of the night-darkened river. Shivering, Kacey stood on the icy bank, where the wind shrieked down the canyon and billowed her nightgown. Barefoot, she stared down at the rushing water and shivered with the cold.

  “Kacey!” She heard her name over the screaming wind and saw Grace Perchant with Bane, her wolf dog. “Evil,” she said, her voice a whisper over the keening wind. “Evil.”

  “Who?” Kacey tried to say, but her voice was lost and the thick falling snow became a shroud, Grace and the dog disappearing into the gloom.

  Fear coiled around her heart, and when she glanced down to the water again, she saw faces beneath the surface. Distorted and pale, they stared up at her in horror. Shelly Bonaventure, her makeup smeared; Jocelyn Wallis, crying; Elle Alexander, her eyes round with accusations; and then her own face, floating up to the surface, as if disembodied, her features twisted and ever-changing, but hers nonetheless. And Leanna O’Halleran, she was there, too, with Trace’s face, his mouth twisted into an evil grin, between Jocelyn and Leanna. . . . He stared up at her through a watery veil, and Jocelyn’s naked body drifted past him. Her breasts were flaccid, the dark nipples pinched, and a jagged, raw, Y-shaped autopsy scar marred her pale skin.

  Kacey tried to scream but no sound came. She tried to back up, but her feet seemed rooted on the bank, and the snow, as it continued to fall over the river, turned pink, then red, before dropping in thick scarlet drips of blood.

  Sweet Jesus!

  A dog growled and barked, and she looked across the river again, where she made out Grace, now no more than a skeleton, her pale hair whipping frantically in the wind, her jawbone opening to expose a dark hole as she whispered, “Stay away. . . . He’s evil.” The now emaciated animal beside her growled low in his throat as the bloody snowflakes caught on what was left of his coat.

  “Who?” she cried again as the dog’s voice startled her. A low, gruff growl ...

  Kacey sat bolt upright in her own bed.

  The room was dark; her bedcovers were mussed. Bonzi stood at the window, staring out to the backyard. The hackles on the back of his thick neck were raised, hair stiff, tail unmoving, while his nose was pressed to the glass, fogging the pane in two tiny spots.

  Her heart froze. “Bonz . . . ?” she said softly as she eased out of the bed. She stood next to him at the window, near the curtains, next to the shotgun she’d loaded and propped against the casing. Through the glass, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. The yard and surrounding shrubbery were covered in white, shivering in the wind that moaned through the rafters of this old farmhouse.

  It was almost morning, but the outbuildings stood in dark relief, black against the blanketing snow, illumination pooling from the twin garage lanterns.

  Was there something or someone out there? Just around the corner of the old barn? Or farther still, in the dark row of saplings and scrub pine that edged the fields her grandfather had plowed? A light snow was falling. Gentle and soft.

  Nothing. It’s nothing. Maybe a stray cat or a hare . . .

  But her heart was knocking irregularly, her nerves strung tight as bowstrings. The edges of her dream clawed at her brain, disturbing images of dead women and bloody snow and Grace’s ominous warning.

  Evil . . .

  She saw her own pale reflection in the window, an ashen image that reminded her of the women in her dream. Was it true? Could Gerald Johnson possibly have fathered all the women she’d found and who were now being killed one by one?

  She heard a noise coming from the lower floor. Her heart jolted at the same moment she realized it was Trace.

  “Kacey?” he called softly up the stairs, the sound of bare feet slapping the steps as he climbed upward. “I thought I heard—” He appeared, filling up the doorway, his bare shoulders, silhouetted by the night-light in the hallway, nearly touching the jamb, his battered jeans hanging low on his hips. “The dog.” He glanced around the darkened room and demanded, “Something wrong?”

  “No.” She forced the image of his leering face from the nightmare from her brain. “Bonzi woke me.”

  Hearing his name, the dog finally turned to look over his shoulder and then, whatever enemy he’d thought he’d sensed no longer snagging his attention, wandered around the end of the bed and waited for Trace to scratch his ears.

  He stared at Kacey for a second. “I’ll go have a look around outside.”

  “No . . . it was probably just some animal. A squirrel or deer or whatever. This place is new to him.” She left her post at the window and patted the big dog’s head. “Probably just my nerves. I was having a particularly gruesome nightmare.”

  “You okay?” he asked, and one big hand fell lightly on her shoulder. Warm and steady. She nearly melted into him, but didn’t. She didn’t have time to fall apart.

  “As well as I can be,” she said, sliding into her slippers and grabbing her bathrobe off the hook on the back of the door. A thought nagged at her just below her consciousness, something about the women in the dream, how they were linked, but she couldn’t quite catch it. “I’ll make coffee,” she said, then slipped past him as she headed downstairs. The dog trotted after her, and Trace followed last.

  It all seemed so normal.

  So damned domestic.

  Except for the threats, real or imagined, that lay just outside her door. And the hidden microphones. And maybe even the man she was with now, who had been married to a woman who could be
her twin, a woman who’d disappeared. He was also linked to Jocelyn, another look-alike who had ended up dead. Murdered.

  Whatever fantasies she had about him, she had to push aside, she determined as she snapped on the lights on the first floor.

  With one finger, Trace snagged his T-shirt from the back of the rocking chair. Despite her warnings to herself that getting close to him could be dangerous, Kacey watched his muscles work beneath a patch of curling hair that spread across his chest and arrowed lower over tight abs.

  Her throat went dry, and she turned toward the kitchen, pushing all images of him out of her head.

  She’d already started coffee by the time he, in his sweater and jacket and boots, walked over the old linoleum to the back door. “I’ll take the dog and take a look,” he said, whistling for Bonzi, who seemed eager to go. “Once I know everything’s secure, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Okay. I’ll be heading to the hospital after I take care of some chores.”

  She nodded and glanced at the clock, noting it wasn’t quite six.

  “And the authorities?” he asked softly, almost inaudibly.

  She nodded. She planned on contacting them but wasn’t sure exactly when.

  While he was outside and the coffee was dripping through the maker, she ran through the shower. Within five minutes she was dry, half dressed, and winding her hair into a quick knot that she pinned to the back of her head. Today she applied only a slap of lipstick, a brush of mascara, then slid into slacks and a sweater before returning to the kitchen. Trace was just stomping the snow from his boots on the back porch. He opened the door, and Bonzi, fresh from relieving himself and, it appeared, running through the snow, bounded inside.

  “Nice morning,” Trace said as he stepped over the threshold, shaking his head to let her know he hadn’t seen anything outside. She poured two cups of coffee and handed him one. They shared their drinks in silence for a few moments, acutely aware of the microphones.

  Finishing his coffee, Trace put his cup in the sink. Kacey followed suit as he asked, “You leaving now?”

  “Yep.” She grabbed her keys. She might not completely trust Trace, but she really didn’t like the idea of being alone in her house, Bonzi or no Bonzi.

  CHAPTER 26

  Water dripped onto the floor of his listening post. Snow melting off his clothes. He’d hurried back from Acacia’s, where he’d spent the night watching the back of her house through his night-vision goggles. O’Halleran had spent the night with her! He’d circled around and seen the man’s truck while snow came down heavily, obscuring his tracks almost as he made them. He’d circled back and waited, the big flakes silent and cold, a slow, hot fury taking hold inside him at all the things she’d learned and told O’Halleran.

  A light had come on in Acacia’s room, and he’d quickly moved farther into the brush and jogged to his car. It had been a short drive to his lair, and he’d hurried inside, eager to listen in, but there was nothing more than what he’d heard the night before.

  His blood burned through his veins. He wanted Acacia to die. Soon. Now.

  He ripped out the earbud and threw it down. If only he’d heard more! The first part had been clear, but then they’d turned up the volume on the television and the radio.

  Had they guessed? Had they found the tiny microphones? Been aware of him listening in?

  Couldn’t be!

  In frustration he’d left this morning to go to her place, and the only thing he’d learned was that O’Halleran had never left. She had an ally. O’Halleran! Leanna’s ex. How had that happened? He wasn’t sure, but he knew they had to die together. Somehow.

  Leanna . . . He ground his teeth together. Acacia had found a lot of the names of the women. Too many!

  And O’Halleran had told her about Leanna.

  Leanna . . . who had left her boy with O’Halleran . . .

  Her boy . . .

  He contemplated that for several moments, calming himself, thinking.

  O’Halleran was already concerned the police would look at him as a suspect. He was already connected to Leanna and Acacia, and it sounded like Jocelyn Wallis as well.

  He wasn’t wrong. Of course he would be a suspect! The rancher was the perfect suspect. O’Halleran could be blamed for all of it. With a little bit of outside help, he would be.

  Someone just had to push things along in the right direction.

  Pescoli drove into the station lot, slid a little in the ice-crusted snow, and swore violently, way out of proportion to the situation. Hearing her words echo back through her mind, she tried very, very hard not to be totally pissed off, at the world in general, and at herself, too.

  Bianca had mono. Mononucleosis. Yep. The kissing disease. And though Pescoli had hoped this affliction might be visited upon her boyfriend as well, no such luck, apparently. Chris was as healthy as a horse and as sticky as Gorilla Glue. Chris, who heretofore had shown no interest whatsoever in hanging around the Pescoli home if Regan was there, now seemed to think it was his life’s mission to take care of Bianca, and he’d planted himself on the property.

  “Go back to school,” Pescoli had told him yesterday, when he’d showed up at noon. He’d left, only to return in the evening and hover around while Bianca basically slept on the couch.

  But even worse, it had been Lucky’s bimbo wife, Michelle, who’d set the wheels in motion by intimating that Bianca hadn’t been herself over the holidays, and didn’t Pescoli think maybe she should see a doctor? Never mind the fact that Pescoli had already been trying her damnedest to get Bianca to the doctor’s office but had run up against a brick wall at even the mention of visiting Dr. Lundell, Bianca’s pediatrician.

  “I’m too old!” Bianca had yelled at her. “I’m fine. Just leave me alone!”

  So, okay, maybe she should have insisted. She’d half believed Bianca had been faking just so she could hang out with Chris. And things were crazy at work, so she’d let it slide. It was no excuse, and she sure as hell felt guilty about it now, but it was the truth. The good news: at least her daughter wasn’t on drugs or suffering from some more serious malaise.

  But Bianca was home sick, and Jeremy was there, too, doing nothing constructive, and Chris would be on their doorstep again the first chance he got.

  She needed to be there, too.

  Pulling back her sleeve with a gloved hand, Pescoli checked her watch. Seven a.m. Maybe she could get a couple of hours in before anyone stirred at home. She planned to work as long as she could, then head home and check on things. It galled her that Michelle had been the one to finally make her force the issue with Bianca. And this after Bianca came back in clothes too raunchy for even a streetwalker—in Pescoli’s unbiased opinion—clothes Michelle had helped her pick out during their trip to the mall. Good. God.

  And then Jeremy, with his video-game playing and no plan to do anything else ...

  She stepped out into unrelenting snow. Huge flakes were falling steadily, and she bent her head as she headed up the steps to the station. Her jaw was tight, her thoughts on her son. What the hell did he think he was doing? She wasn’t going to just have him home doing nothing. Even Lucky wouldn’t be up for that. And if Jeremy didn’t get his butt off the couch and do something soon, Pescoli was going to go postal. The video games that were his lifeblood were this close to being given to charity. She was pretty sure there was some deserving kid out there who would be thrilled with Kill ’Em Dead or Annihilation or The End of the World, or whatever the hell they were called. Something like that. The perfect Christmas stocking stuffers.

  Thinking of Jeremy reminded her of Heidi Brewster, which in turn reminded her of the undersheriff and the fact that she’d drawn Cort Brewster’s name for a Secret Santa gift.

  Stomping snow from her boots, she headed down the still half-darkened hallway toward her desk. She stopped short upon seeing Alvarez already at her workstation, her dark, smoothed hair pulled back tight as she hunched over an area lit by a desk lamp, a small oasis of
illumination in an otherwise dimly lit room.

  Pescoli flipped the switch by the door and flooded the place with fluorescent lighting, which buzzed and shook and generally made everything look harsh and unappealing.

  Alvarez glanced up. “You’re in a mood.”

  “How can you tell?”

  She gave Pescoli a look that made her realize she was standing with her feet apart, arms crossed, glaring aggressively into the room.

  “How’s Bianca?” Alvarez asked.

  “Asleep. Hopefully alone, although Chris won’t stay away now that he thinks he’s appointed himself her angel of mercy.”

  “Her boyfriend?”

  Pescoli made a rude sound, then brought her partner up to speed on Bianca’s boyfriend’s new desire to be at the Pescoli home 24-7. “Like all of a sudden he’s the concerned parent, and none of the rules apply anymore. And then Jeremy . . . if he isn’t spending time playing some video game where he has to annihilate legions of futuristic zombie robots, he’s sexting Heidi Brewster. I got a real surprise the last time Jeremy left his cell phone just lying around for anyone to pick up. Photos. Of Heidi. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, these are like a whole new vocabulary. Some of Heidi’s are . . . Actually, I don’t even have the words.”

  Alvarez’s dark eyes were wide and staring straight at Pescoli, telegraphing messages.

  “Brewster?” Pescoli said aloud, figuring he must be standing right behind her.

  “You don’t have the words,” he said tautly.

  Pescoli slowly turned on her heel and eyed the undersheriff uneasily. Some of her anger dissipated as she gazed at his stony face. He might not look like it, but she knew he was just barely holding it together, too. “She’s fully clothed,” Pescoli told him, holding up her hands.

  “So, what then?” he challenged.

  “Just a major lip-lock between her and my son,” Pescoli said. “My son, who I’m about to give a boot to the backside. And that’s all I’m saying about that.”

  He opened and shut his mouth several times like a gasping fish, then showed enormous restraint by merely slapping a hand in the air at her and turning away.