Fortunately, now that the FBI was involved, they and their hyped-up technology would take over. Alvarez had gone over the records of the inn before November sixth, when Lara Sue had last been seen, but those records were still being compared to those on Lissa Parsons’s account with a national Internet server.
“Keep at it,” she told herself.
Alvarez’s cell phone rang and she noticed O’Keefe’s name on the screen. Her stomach tightened a bit as she answered. “Tell me you have good news.”
“Wish I could,” he said, and she wanted to close her eyes and envision his face. Instead, she glanced at the clock on her computer and saw that it was nearing six. She’d been at this for twelve hours. “Rough day?”
“To put it mildly.” She considered telling him about the nipple ring but held back, didn’t want to compromise the case. Agents Halden and Chandler from the FBI field office in Salt Lake City were due to arrive within the next couple of hours. Had the weather been better, they would have been here earlier, but as it was, their plane was delayed in Missoula and they were driving the short distance to Grizzly Falls, but only after looking into the ice sculpture competition in the area along with the artists involved and anyone close to them.
Meanwhile a task force room, complete with dedicated phone lines, was being created in the very same area the sheriff ’s department had used in the past.
“How about I meet you after work? We can get something to eat and discuss the case.”
“Is there anything to discuss?”
“Always.”
That much was true, she supposed, but she didn’t think spending more time with him was such a good idea and she was still bothered that her earring was found on the victim. It just didn’t seem like a random act. No, it was pointed. At her. At least she felt as if it was, but she couldn’t make heads nor tails of it now and the night stretched out long before her. The thought of spending the hours alone, absently stroking Jane’s head while worrying about her missing dog, her son, an old earring or the madman stalking the county held little appeal. She needed a break. Besides, any information he could give her was something.
“Come on, Selena. Live a little.”
Her throat tightened at the familiar phrase, one he’d used often enough when they were both working in San Bernardino. “Okay, as long as it’s not pizza.”
“Deal,” he said, unable to hide the bit of amusement in his voice.
“And this is not a date?”
“Of course not. Why would you think anything like that?”
“Oh, you know the old saying, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it’s a date.”
He laughed outright. “Call it what you want, Alvarez. I’ll meet you at your place at what ... six?”
“Six thirty. Good?”
“That’ll work.”
She glanced at the clock again. “Good. I still have some loose ends to wrap up.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Lady. It’s a ... duck!”
Idiots!
Morons!
Cretins!
His hands tightened into fists and he felt the rage crawl up his neck, knew his face was heating as he stood and stared at the television screen in his den. His wife was out, thankfully, doing some shopping for dinner or something, so he could watch the news reports of the latest ice-mummy case over and over again, all without having to explain why he recorded all of the news stations and searched for the segments dedicated to the one story.
Aside from the sound coming from the television, the house was quiet. Empty. Snow was falling past the window, and a few cars traveled along the road that wound past the old family homestead. He heard the sound of their engines rumbling as they passed.
Inside his den, he hit the rewind button on the remote for his television recorder. Once more he watched that empty-headed Nia Del Ray, who had recently transferred from Helena to Missoula and now seemed to be KMJC’s local crime reporter. There she was, standing in front of the Enstads’ yard, snow collecting in her hair as she stared into the camera and tried to sound intelligent, which, in her case, was impossible.
The press, like the stupid cops, just didn’t get his art, didn’t understand him. He’d watched the reports of the ice-mummy case online and on the television and, as usual, the cops were at a loss. No one who was reporting or investigating seemed to notice the beauty of his work, the intricacies involved, how much he labored over each tiny detail.
He wanted to toy with them, show them how pathetic they were.
Once again Nia was saying something inane, and behind her, half obliterated by the snowfall, were the two detectives involved in the case. He knew them both. Did Selena Alvarez remember him? Of course she did. They knew each other and he’d introduced himself in the most innocuous of places, the grocery store, a few years ago. He’d come up behind her with his cart and she’d jumped a mile, turned and sent him a look that could kill. She’d dropped a container of yogurt, which had cracked, squirting creamy whey over the shiny linoleum. As she’d bent down to retrieve it, he’d beat her to it, was just that much quicker. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” Their gazes locked for just an instant, long enough for him to realize what a sexy bitch she really was. He’d caught a glimpse of her shoulder harness and weapon along with the way her slacks stretched tight over her perfect little rump. “I’ll get someone to clean this up,” he’d said, and she’d let it go, walking away after muttering a quick, automatic “thanks” that held no meaning.
He’d seen her since, of course. Not only in person, but also on the television. During the investigation of the other cases, the ones that had fascinated him. He’d paid such close attention and seen how much more intelligent and sophisticated he was than any of the investigators.
So how had his perfection come to be referred to as the ice mummy? That galled him to no end. His head pounded and spit collected in his mouth as if he might actually vomit. He thought of the ice picks laid out so carefully on his workbench and he felt the urge to grab one and ram it over and over again into a block of ice, into the wooden surface of the table, into the frozen flesh of the woman. Faster and faster and harder and harder, sending ice chips flying, splintering wood, causing the blood to show, a few icy drops flying against ...
Stop it!
The voice in his head roared to life.
Control yourself!
He sucked the spittle that had dampened his lips back into his mouth.
You cannot ruin everything you worked for! You! Cannot! Do not be an imbecile! Do not sink to their moronic levels. You are far superior to any of them. Remember that and hold your mission in reverence!
He was shaking. Violently. It was all he could do to suck in a deep breath through his bared teeth. Slowly, the rage receded, his heartbeat became normal and his clenched fists relaxed.
That’s better. Calmly. With purpose. You have much to do.
He blinked. Heard Nia Del Ray refer to his masterpieces as “the work of the Ice Mummy Killer.”
He held back a string of curses and told himself this was how he had to suffer at the hands of fools. Always at the hands of fools. Had he ever been recognized for his talent and intelligence, he wouldn’t have to prove to them how inferior they were. Though he’d tried, he’d been met with resistance, but wasn’t that the way it was so often.
If only they could see his files, the meticulous histories of those he’d chosen and honored to be a part of his art, then they would see his intelligence. They could then witness how dedicated he was, how thorough. He knew each woman’s life story, her wants, her needs, those whom she trusted, those whom she considered enemies. He understood the fine details of their lives, including their shoe size and choice of perfume. All that information was carefully locked away on a separate hard drive no one could ever access.
His abductions were not random acts.
He’d waited years for the right moment to start this phase of his project, to start the sculpting a
nd displaying his work. His inspirations, the women involved, were all perfect and, as a virile man, he wanted each one of them, had imagined what he would do to them in his bed.
He’d had to restrain himself from fucking the hell out of them, and, to his credit, he had not so much as mounted one, never driven his hard dick deep into their tight little ...
Not now! Don’t go there ...
He sucked deep breaths into his lungs, then let the air out slowly, forcing his mind to go blank, concentrating on bringing his pulse rate down.
He could control himself.
He could!
Calmer, he pointed his remote at the television as if it were a gun, then hit the button so that the screen would go blank. There was work to do. It was definitely time to shake things up a bit.
“I’ve got to run,” Pescoli said, pausing to stick her head into Alvarez’s office as she zipped her jacket. “I haven’t seen my kids for a couple of days, unless you can count Jeremy stumbling into his room and flopping on his bed yesterday morning as seeing him.”
“It’s Saturday night. They’ll be home?”
“Briefly, I think.” Pescoli shifted her bag on her shoulder and flashed a tired grin. “Just long enough to ask for money. Let’s just hope they took care of the dog.”
She headed out and Alvarez glanced at the clock. Tomorrow was another day, even if it was Sunday. However, she couldn’t help but feel time ticking away. Each minute that passed was another sixty seconds that the killer had to plot out his next move. In her job, Alvarez was forever racing against time.
Once more, she compared photos of the victims, before and after death, and felt a pang when she noticed the tattoo of the butterfly on Lara Sue’s ankle. Absently she wondered what was the significance of the inking, if anything. Freedom? Beauty? Or just a whim for a poor kid who, as Taj had commented, “fell through the cracks” and had been on her own since she was a teenager. Lara was very different from victim number two, Lissa Parsons, who had an education, good job, a sometimes boyfriend, a father and a much younger sister in Pocatello, Idaho, who were all completely devastated.
So who was the common person they knew, the thread that so fatefully had linked them together? And Brenda Sutherland, where was she? Already in the clutches of the killer, or had she been kidnapped by someone else, or just taken off, a single mother who had just cracked under the pressure? No way. In her gut, Alvarez knew Brenda had somehow come upon the same maniac as had the other victims.
God help her.
After slipping on her shoulder holster, she threw on her jacket and gloves, then grabbed her laptop and purse and walked down the decorated hallway to the back door. A couple of the road deputies, Rule Kayan and Pete Watershed, were searching for any leftovers that Joelle might have put in the refrigerator or cupboards and bemoaning the fact that there wasn’t a scrap of a cookie to be found. Rule was a tall African American who looked more like a power forward for the NBA than a cop, a guy Alvarez trusted. Watershed—not so much. He was handsome, knew it and thought crude jokes were the end-all, be-all. He was an okay cop, but Alvarez could do without him. Today, though, they were like two teenage boys, scavengers for anything edible.
“Good night,” Alvarez said.
Rule flashed her a grin. “See ya.” Watershed was still grumbling about the lack of cookies.
It seemed, Alvarez thought as she let herself out, that Pescoli was the only person in the entire department who didn’t appreciate all of Joelle’s efforts to bring a little Christmas spirit into the sheriff ’s offices.
And, Alvarez thought, even Pescoli had to admit that she liked a good cookie.
Outside, the temperature had definitely dropped as the storm the weather people had been predicting for the better part of a week seemed to roar over this part of Montana. Snow, in the form of tiny crystals of ice, poured from the heavens only to be whipped by the wind. Not a great night for a non-date, Alvarez thought as she turned away from the wind and unlocked her car, but she and O’Keefe had to go out; they couldn’t be alone in her apartment again.
She piled into her Outback and switched on the engine before backing out of her parking space and wheeling out of the parking lot, her tires crunching in the piling snow. Easing into traffic, she turned toward her town house. Traffic was a little slower than usual but hadn’t slowed to a crawl, as people in this part of the country were used to snowy conditions on the roads in winter. However, the guy behind her in some jacked-up SUV had his headlights on bright and the glare was nearly blinding. Adjusting her mirror, she tried to ignore the reflection, but it still bothered her.
Down the hill and over the railroad tracks, she drove through the older part of the town that had been built upon the banks of the Grizzly River. Through the curtain of snow, she saw the light of the courthouse, and farther down the street, barely, she saw the sign for Wild Will’s, where she’d first been accosted by Grace Perchant about her son, and where Sandi, the owner, had pointed her finger at Ray Sutherland. Was it possible? Had he somehow gotten rid of his ex-wife? Was the sheriff ’s department so focused on the Ice Mummy Killer that they were ignoring the obvious in the Brenda Sutherland disappearance?
Nah; she didn’t think so.
She turned onto her own street and was grateful the guy with the blinding headlights drove past. Thank God.
She pulled into her drive, waited for the garage door to go up, then guided the car inside just as her cell phone rang. Thinking it was O’Keefe, she picked up and answered as she was getting out of the car. “Hello?”
Nothing.
“Hello?” she said, irritated, then saw that there was no number on the cell as she hit the switch for the garage door with the palm of her hand and started inside. “Hello?” The opener responded and the garage door began to grind into place.
“Hello, bitch,” a deep voice said and she froze. The male voice was nearly an echo in the phone pressed against her ear and also through the garage.
She spun, dropping the phone and her purse as she reached for her service weapon.
“Too late,” the voice said, the door continuing rolling down, a man standing just inside. Junior Green, older and fatter than she remembered, his thinning hair disheveled, his beard shadow patchy, was standing inside the slowly descending door. Bloodless lips twisted in satisfaction, he aimed a pistol straight at Alvarez. “I told you I was coming back for you, cunt, and you fuckin’ didn’t believe me. Well, here I am!”
He grinned soullessly. “And I brought my fuckin’ gun!”
Chapter 19
Blam!
He fired.
Glass shattered!
Hundreds of dull-edged shards of tempered glass sprayed.
The back window of the Outback was blown apart.
Alvarez ducked behind the front of the car. She felt no searing pain. No blood dripped from her body. How in God’s name had she not been hit?
He doesn’t want to hit you.
He’s toying with you.
The sick creep is enjoying this.
Yanking her weapon from its holster, she clicked off the safety, ready to fire. Protected by the tire, she leaned down to look under the car and gauge Green’s position just as someone rolled quickly beneath the lowering garage door.
The door jerked to a stop!
O’Keefe!
Oh, God, no!
His body still spinning, O’Keefe knocked Green’s legs out from under him.
“What the fuck?” the big man roared, toppling to the cement floor.
Thud! He hit hard. Cracked his skull. He cried out. “Shit! You goddamned cocksucker!”
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Gunshots echoed through the small space! Bullets ricocheted wildly, pinging against the car, splintering the wood walls, skittering against the cement.
Oh, God, no! Dylan!
Frantic, fear galvanizing her, Alvarez crouched and swiftly rounded the front end of the car as the shots went wild, a bullet zinging over her head and splinteri
ng the exposed studs of the front wall of the garage.
Blam!
Another bullet scraped across the side of the Outback before flying off in another direction as the men wrestled, fighting for the gun.
“Stop! Police!” she yelled automatically.
“Fuck off!” Green threw back at her. “Oh, ooo www! You bastard!”
Grunting and swearing, straining, the two men struggled, wrestling across the dirty concrete between the back of the car and the nearly shut garage door.
“Give it up, Green!” she ordered again, her heart in her throat, her pulse pounding in her ears as she inched past the back panel.
Bam!
“Goddamn it!” Green swore, breathing hard.
Thud! Their sweating bodies hit the side wall of the garage. A rake that had been propped in the corner fell down, clattering loudly.
“That’s enough! Green, drop your weapon!” With her pistol in her hand, Alvarez came around the rear end of her Outback. Green, red-faced, cords standing out in his fleshy neck, was still holding fast to his gun, but O’Keefe, smaller but tougher, moved quickly, wrangling the ex-football player down to the ground.
“Get away!” he yelled at Alvarez because Green, face mashed into the floor, was still attempting to fire his weapon. “Call for backup. Oh, for Christ’s sake!” His hand clamped over Green’s wrist, forcing the gun onto the floor. He pressed his weight down hard as the bigger man was trying like hell to flip O’Keefe off his back. O’Keefe’s nose was bleeding and he was sweating, breathing hard, as he straddled a wriggling, furious Green.
“Get the fuck off me,” Green ground out, his voice muffled against the concrete where a series of oil leaks had stained the floor.
“Give it up!” she ordered. “Junior Green, drop your weapon!”