Ready to Die

  Her Jeep’s headlights danced upon the glistening snow as she drove the country road that wound through the foothills toward Grizzly Falls and overhead, in a field of winking stars, a nearly full moon illuminated the night.

  She thought about Grayson, about her job, about her kids, and of course, about Santana. The ring he’d given her—Lord, was it just last night?—was still in its box, tucked deep inside her underwear drawer, a reminder of the life she could have. If she wanted it badly enough.

  As she drove over a small bridge, she saw the lights of Grizzly Falls glowing in the distance. She wouldn’t quit her job now, of course, not until Grayson was out of the hospital and recovering. Then she’d tackle that problem; Santana would understand.

  “Ultimatum, shultimatum,” she muttered under her breath and resisted the urge to open her glove box to search for her emergency pack of cigarettes. A hit of nicotine was a crutch, nothing more. Instead, she listened to the police band crackle until her phone rang. With a glance at the screen, she recognized Alvarez’s number.

  “What’s up?” she asked, squinting against the bright headlights of a pickup tearing by in the opposite direction.

  “I’ve been reading Grayson’s will. If he doesn’t make it, his ex-wife inherits the bulk of his estate. That’s Cara, the first wife. She’s got an alibi, of course, her current hubby, and it’s unlikely she would actually try to kill Grayson herself, but I haven’t ruled out a murder-for-hire thing.”

  “Wow. Seems far-fetched, but okay.”

  “She benefits the most financially. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Again, Pescoli looked at the glove box, and again resisted the temptation within. “What else?”

  “Well, there’s the political angle. The sheriff’s up for reelection soon and he’s got a couple of people who’ve made noise about running.”

  “Please don’t tell me Brewster’s already making moves,” she groaned as she passed a snowplow scraping snow from the oncoming lane as it moved slowly in the opposite direction.

  “Not that I know of, no. I’m talking about Cal Moran and Shirley Braddock.”

  “Both good cops.” Pescoli, too, had heard that Cal and Shirley might run, each having political ambitions. Cal was a fiftyish father of five, grandfather of two, and Shirley was a single woman, a dedicated cop who was probably being urged by her lawyer boyfriend, Hans Tobias, who just happened to be an assistant district attorney. Hans was pushy, his mind as sharp as the crease in the pants of his Armani suits. However, even when you threw ambitious Hans into the mix, a political angle didn’t quite wash. “Far-fetched,” she said.

  “I agree. Next up are the ex-cons.”

  “Now you’re talkin’. Who’s around?”

  “Of all the dirtbags Grayson sent up the river, I’ve got several possibles. I’m checking with their parole officers, but the most likely suspects are, first, Floyd Cranston. He’s been out two months after doing time for domestic violence; tried to kill his wife and her lover with an ax.”

  “Nice guy.”

  “Then there’s Maurice Verdago. In and out of jail for domestic abuse before he finally ended up in Judge Samuels-Piquard’s courtroom. Once he was sentenced, he gave her the finger, pointed at her, and yelled, ‘You’ll get yours, bitch.’ ”

  “Another charmer.” Pescoli had always thought Verdago was a blasting cap with a very short fuse. She loathed the guy, and he seemed to feel the same way. She’d been with Grayson when Verdago had been nabbed and the hatred in his eyes had zeroed in on her. He’d gone so far as to call her a “cunt cop” and then spat on the ground when she’d handcuffed him. She figured him for a woman hater: the kind of guy who can’t live with them, can’t help roughing them up. “Really, he’s out?”

  “For the last six months. Attempted murder of his brother-in-law.”

  “Ah . . . yes. Sucks for the sister.”

  Alvarez nodded. “He had a whole arsenal of weapons. Military stuff, all kinds of weaponry, even Russian guns. Everything from grenades and an AK-47 to some kind of fancy sword. What got him arrested, though, was that he tried hacking up his victim with a butcher knife. Business partners. The brother-in-law, Ronnie Watkins, was skimming funds from their recently started trucking company. Supposedly, Verdago’s been staying out of trouble, working as a janitor in a Helena apartment building.”

  Pescoli snorted. “Once a crook, always a crook. And he’d been in the army, right? A sharpshooter?”

  “Uh-huh. His file mentions that he was the prime suspect in the disappearance of Joey Lundeen, someone he knew, but the case went cold.”

  “Quite a résumé.”

  “Not only that, but he hated Grayson’s guts, or so he told his cell mate. I found mention of it when that guy, what’s his name, oh, here it is, Gerald Resler, was released.”

  “He’s out too?”

  “Resler? Yeah, walking the straight and narrow for three years now. Married. With a kid.”

  Pescoli said, “Resler took a can opener to his girlfriend.”

  “When he was nineteen.”

  “Still . . .”

  “I’ll double-check on him, but Resler wasn’t Grayson’s collar.”

  “He was mine,” Pescoli said, remembering the scruffy kid with a bad case of acne, shaved head, and hate-filled eyes. “A real piece of work. Now he’s married with a kid?” She let out a huff of disbelief and finally opened the damned glove box for her cigs.

  “He found God.”

  “Good for him.” Discovering the pack, she yanked both it and a lighter from the compartment.

  “I think he’s a better bet than Verdago and Cranston.”

  About to light her cigarette, Pescoli had second thoughts and tossed both her filter tip and lighter onto the passenger seat. No reason to take up the habit tonight. Maybe tomorrow. “Any others?” Turning the wheel and edging her Jeep off the county road, she eased onto the long lane leading through the trees to her house. The lane hadn’t been plowed, and a fresh layer of snow covered the packed tire tracks.

  “Oh, yeah, we’ve got more. These are just the most obvious. So, let’s see . . . here we go. How about Edie Gardener?”

  “Geez, I’d forgotten about her.”

  “Well, she’s back. Got out last spring, married a man who corresponded with her while she was in the pen.”

  “For killing her boyfriend, if memory serves.” And it did. Edie was the daughter of antigovernment extremists who lived in a compound near Cougar Ridge. Deceptively small, Edie had sat in court expressionless, dark hair pinned away from her face, her hands folded in her lap. Pretty, petite, and self-possessed, she’d won the hearts of the jury without uttering so much as one word in her own defense. She’d let her lawyer and other witnesses do her talking.

  “Self-defense,” Alvarez reminded her.

  “Yeah, with a bullet to his back.”

  “I’m reading the report. She claimed he was abusing her, and her sister-in-law backed her up.”

  “I know.” Edie had always claimed her innocence and blamed Grayson for putting her away. She’d said as much in court. “She got an alibi?”

  “I’m still looking into it. Currently, she’s MIA, but I’ve got a call in to her parole officer and her brother. No one’s answering. It is Christmas, you know.”

  “Yeah, but she’s a dead-eye when it comes to rifles and with her family armed to the teeth, she would have access.”

  “Maybe. So far she hasn’t surfaced.”

  “Let’s find her.” Pescoli drove over the small bridge that spanned the creek on her property and saw her house, lit with Christmas lights, one strand dark while the rest of the colored bulbs outlined the gutters. “Who else?” She hit the garage door opener and the light came on as the door started its slow, noisy ascent into the tracks mounted on the ceiling.

  “Carlos Mendoza.” She hesitated. “He was released just ten days ago and has disappeared. The thought was that he headed south, back to Guadalajara, but that’s not been con
firmed.”

  “Remind me.”

  “Armed robbery with an assault rifle. No one other than one of his gang was hurt. He was arrested and his brother-in-law died in a shootout eleven years ago. A cop was injured but survived.”

  “Lonnie Milton.” Pescoli remembered now that her memory was jogged. “He retired a few months later.” Braking, she rolled into the garage and hit the garage door switch.

  “That’s the short list. I’m going to visit Grayson before heading home. You get anywhere with Dan’s brothers?”

  “Nothing significant, but it’s weird, you know, about Hattie, Bart’s widow. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she’d had something going with Cade once upon a time.”

  “You mean Dan,” Alvarez said as the garage door cranked slowly downward. “The sheriff.”

  “Nope, I’m talking about his younger brother, the hothead. Man, he was pissed, not only at whoever had done this to his brother, but at Hattie too. And she wasn’t much better. You could cut the tension between them with a knife.”

  For a second Alvarez didn’t say a word and the garage door settled onto the concrete floor with a thud. “You think she was involved with Cade as well as Bart, and . . . maybe even Dan?”

  “Maybe.” Pescoli cut the engine, then tossed her cigarette and lighter back into the glove box before grabbing her computer case. “Just a vibe I got.”

  “Worth looking into.”

  “Everything is. I’ll see ya tomorrow.” She hung up and walked from the garage to the house where, with a sharp excited yip, Cisco hopped off the living room couch. Jeremy was sprawled on the cushions, playing one of his video games. “Hey. Merry Christmas.”

  He actually paused the game and rolled over to look at her, his controller still in his hands. “How’s the sheriff?”

  “Hanging in there, I guess. It’s probably going to be touch and go for a while.”

  “Grayson’s tough, he’ll make it,” Jeremy predicted with the faith and invincibility of youth. “You catch the fuck—um, the bastard who shot him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But you will.” His eyebrows raised, pushing up the edge of a stocking cap that, these days, seemed forever on his head.

  “Oh, yeah,” Pescoli said, dropping her computer onto a chair at the table and unzipping her jacket. Cisco was still spinning crazily at her feet, so she took the time to bend down and scratch him behind his ears. “Hey, there,” she said to the dog and was rewarded with a wildly wagging tail and a few more quick circles. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

  “Mom?” Bianca appeared in bare feet, pajama bottoms, and a sweatshirt that looked two sizes too big for her small frame.

  “Hi.” Pescoli threw her daughter a wan smile. “Sorry about all this.”

  “It’s okay,” Bianca said as Pescoli tossed her coat over the back of a chair.

  “But I was going to cook a ham with scalloped potatoes, you know, try to have a real Christmas dinner.”

  “Who cares?” Jeremy was sitting up though his fingers were still attached to his game controller. “I had Cap’n Crunch.”

  “Swell. Cereal for dinner.”

  “And Gatorade.”

  “Mmmm.” She noticed a half-full plastic bottle set on the floor next to a mixing bowl—the remains of his dinner. “Terrific.” Lifting an eyebrow, she glanced at her daughter. “You?”

  “A protein bar.”

  “And? Gatorade?”

  “Yuk, no. Diet Pepsi.”

  “Even better. Zero calories and zero nutrition.” Pescoli made a face, then cringed inside when she thought of her own childhood and all the traditional meals eaten around the dining table on polished silver. Even after her father had abandoned them when she was eleven, her mother had, each and every year, held Christmas dinner at the big table where she and her three older sisters had sat with various aunts, uncles, and cousins. If too many family members showed up, the long table was extended with a series of folding tables that pushed into the living room. The tantalizing aromas of roasting prime rib and hot baked pies filled the old house where laughter rang, the piano was played, and, after a flurry of opening of presents, dice were tossed when board games were played . . . a far cry from what her children were experiencing. “I’ll make it up to you,” she promised, her throat suddenly thick. “I swear.”

  “We had a big dinner last night at Dad’s,” Bianca said, uncaring.

  “Michelle cooked?” Pescoli imagined the Barbie doll–like woman in her pink, strappy high heels and a tiny embroidered apron that barely covered her tight dress as she glazed the Christmas ham.

  Jeremy barked out a laugh, as if he’d seen the same image in his own mind’s eye. “Michelle’s mother cooked a goose. I think it’s their family tradition or something.”

  “It was gross!” Bianca pulled a face and stuck out her tongue. “I tried to eat some, really . . . but . . .” She shuddered violently. “Ick!”

  “A protein bar was better?”

  “Tons!” Bianca said, nodding. “Oh! But Michelle got me a string bikini for Christmas.”

  “A bikini? In Montana in the winter?” Pescoli inwardly sighed. What was wrong with Lucky’s wife?

  “She had to order it online, and she also bought me a round-trip ticket to Phoenix for a girls’ spa weekend!” Bianca’s blue eyes were bright with anticipation.

  “She’s going, too, I take it?”

  “Uh-huh, and we’re going to get all-day massages, manis, and pedis, and then lay around the pool, oh, make that pools. She and Dad have a time-share and there are six pools on the property!”

  “And when is this trip planned . . . ?”

  “Spring break!”

  “And you?” she turned to Jeremy.

  “Luke got me a new rifle.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” Jeremy said, and he, too, grinned widely. “It’s really cool. And airline tickets too. Spring training. Luke’s already lined up a couple of games!”

  “Good, I guess.” Weaponry, trips to the sun country, tiny bathing suits. For Christmas. “Nothing says Peace on Earth like guns and string bikinis.”

  Bianca rolled her eyes and groaned, and Pescoli thought about the gifts she’d bought for the kids, gifts not yet wrapped and hidden in a back corner of her closet: a pair of jeans and iPhone cover for Bianca; two new sweatshirts and a video game for Jeremy.

  “Tomorrow,” she said, “I’ll make spaghetti. The day after Christmas, that’ll be our new holiday tradition from here on in. And we’ll have presents. Tonight, though, we’ll just let it slide.”

  “If that’s okay with you,” Jeremy said. “You’re the one who was so dead set about us all having Christmas together. And I thought Nate was coming over.”

  “No, we discussed it last night and he thought it would be best if it was just the three of us today.”

  “Why?”

  “Who cares?” Bianca said, but then she wasn’t looking for a father; she had always accepted Lucky for what he was. But then, biologically they were linked. Not so for her brother. Jeremy was still searching for a father figure and maybe always would be.

  “Well, even if we’d planned something, it wouldn’t have worked because of what happened this morning.”

  “You asking Nate over for tomorrow?” Jeremy asked, his expression taut. He vacillated between concern for his mother and contempt for anyone she dated, just as he kept stepping into adulthood, then cowering back to being a self-involved teenager.

  “Maybe. Depends.” She thought of Santana stopping by the hospital, only to leave as quickly as he came. “We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

  The man lying in the hospital bed could not have been Dan Grayson. Pale, eyes closed, unresponsive, hooked up to all kinds of monitors, tubes, and bags as he lay beneath crisp white sheets and thin blankets he was far from the vibrant man Alvarez knew. Now, he appeared weak, his face unshaven, his mustache still thick, but grayer somehow. His head was bandaged, seeming nearly twice its
normal size, and she saw the edges of surgical tape at the neckline of his hospital gown, indicating further surgical dressing taped to his chest.

  Don’t die, Grayson. Fight. You can win this battle, but please, please, do NOT give up. She blinked against a surprise attack of tears and beat them back. Crying wouldn’t help, and she wasn’t going to let herself think that this man she admired so much would let go of life.

  He was in good hands here, she told herself, the best health care this part of Montana had to offer. In this isolated unit, there were several beds, each separated by a curtain as they fanned out from a central hub, which was the nurses’ station. Two women in hospital scrubs manned the large, semicircular desk that looked as if it were designed by NASA, while another tended to the only other patient in the ward, a woman whose curtained room was on the opposite side of the desk as Grayson, separated from the sheriff by five empty beds.

  The ICU was quiet aside from the hushed tones of the workers and the soft beeps of computer monitors as patients’ vital signs were recorded. The only access was by a door with a punch-in code for those authorized, or a buzzer that would alert the staff to a visitor. The guard, currently Kayan Rule, a deputy from the department who Alvarez liked and trusted, was posted outside.

  This area of the hospital was safe.

  Secure.

  The best place for Grayson to start his long recovery.

  As she gazed down on his face, Alvarez felt a tug on her heart. She loved this man. Trusted him. He’d been a mentor, yes, but her feelings ran much deeper than that of a student to a teacher; she’d often thought if circumstances had been different, she and he could have become lovers.

  Silly, really, but as she stared down at his serene face, she couldn’t help but wonder, What if?

  She wasn’t the only one who had fantasies about the man now struggling to survive; Hattie Grayson was definitely romantically interested in him as well. While driving into the parking lot designated for visitors, Alvarez had seen Hattie hurrying to her car. One arm had been firmly around her middle, as if holding her coat closed as she’d gripped her purse, while with her free hand she’d swiped at tears. She’d looked so much younger than she had when Alvarez had run into her when she’d made the mistake of crashing Dan Grayson’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner one year. Alvarez had been greeted by Hattie, the mother of his nieces, who’d looked like a combo of Martha Stewart and June Cleaver in her frilly apron and pearls. Tonight, in a quickly donned coat over jeans, her hair flying from her face as she ran to her car, Hattie had appeared fresh-faced, but tortured. She’d climbed into her Toyota, gripped the wheel, and, probably thinking she was finally all alone, had completely broken down, her shoulders shaking with her sobs.