Afraid to Die

  Her dreams had been peppered with a faceless killer, a huge, swift monster, chasing her, his breath so cold it formed icicles on the back of her neck, his fingernails long, sharp talons dripping blood. She’d run and run and run, gasping for breath, her legs feeling leaden, her fear palpable. Gabe had been in the dreams, as well, and he’d always been in harm’s way, yelling at her that she wasn’t his real mother and catching the killer’s attention. “No!” she’d cried as the monster had turned his sights on her boy.

  She’d woken up with a start and O’Keefe had muttered something from deep in slumberland before turning over, his hair dark against her pillow, his long body stretching the length of the bed.

  She climbed out of bed, threw on a robe and slid into a pair of slippers before heading downstairs.

  O’Keefe, dead to the world, didn’t move, nor did Jane, the turncoat who had curled into a tight ball near his head.

  Downstairs, she didn’t bother with lights but walked to the sliding doors and looked out at the snowy morning. Daylight hadn’t broken and the night was thick, clouds hiding the stars, only the white landscape giving any illumination.

  She thought about the victims that they’d located, and those still missing. In her mind’s eye, she saw the earring through Lissa Parsons’s nipple and the silver stud forced through Lara Sue’s tongue. Obviously, the killer was sending a message to her.

  What, if anything, did it have to do with her son?

  “Who are you, you bastard?” she whispered, her breath fogging on the inside of the glass door. Uneasily, she wondered if, even now, he was standing just outside of her line of vision, hiding in the shadows, watching her. There was some reason he was attached to her, and she thought of those suspects she’d arrested, the most violent of them sent to prison for a very long time.

  Or was it someone more personal?

  A man she’d spurned?

  Someone she’d slighted?

  Junior Green was behind bars once more, thankfully, but there were others, perhaps not as vocal with their threats but certainly as deadly.

  The skin on the back of her arms pimpled at the thought of the sadistic killers she’d arrested, not just here in Grizzly Falls, but in San Bernardino as well. Alberto De Maestro’s face came to mind, the way his thin lips could twist into a superior sneer or the unholy light that would appear in his eyes when he was being questioned and he let his eyes stray a little too long on her neckline.

  He was only one.

  And there was nothing in his file to suggest he had an artistic bent, a need to express himself by letting his victims die a slow death and encasing them in ice. Alberto was more likely to slit your throat and enjoy your warm blood spilling over his hand as he held the knife.

  No, this killer, hiding out there in the frozen night, he was different than De Maestro but just as inherently evil. Probably more so.

  And somehow he was linked to her.

  She heard a creak in the floorboards overhead and heavy footsteps on the stairs. Before she could turn to greet him, O’Keefe came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She saw his ghostly reflection in the glass, dark hair poking at odd angles, a smile crawling across the scruff covering his jaw. “Mornin’,” he drawled against her ear.

  “Back atcha.”

  “Coffee ready?”

  “It is, if you make it.”

  He chuckled deep in his throat and she felt a little tingle of anticipation as one of his hands slipped inside her robe to find her breast and the nipple that was already puckering in interest.

  “Come back to bed,” he whispered as she leaned her head backward and felt his warm breath against her skin.

  “Got a lot to do.”

  “It’ll wait.”

  She was melting inside, and damn it, he could sense her resistance ebbing and she felt his hardness through her robe, pressed insistently against her backside. Erotic images began flitting through her mind. “Look, if you want coffee—”

  “We can pick it up on the way into the office.”

  “Seriously?” she whispered as her knees gave way and, together, they tumbled to the floor.

  “Damned straight.”

  What was that old expression? “Once burned, twice shy”? Or “once bitten, twice shy”? Didn’t matter. Either one applied to him, because O’Keefe had it bad.

  For Selena Alvarez.

  The woman he’d sworn to avoid, the one who had cost him his job and nearly his life.

  Water under the bridge, he thought now as he met with Aggie and her husband at a coffee shop not far from the sheriff’s office. The place was crowded, crawling with Christmas shoppers from the mall just across the parking lot. Most of the tables were filled, women seated with packages at their feet, a group of men gathered at a large table, all talking sports, and other tables occupied by people of various ages, all with computers open. They seemed oblivious to the screech of grinding beans, the shouts of baristas when orders were ready or the general noise of a cacophony of battling conversations.

  They were seated at a small bistro table in one corner of the coffee shop, near the windows. Outside, snow was beginning to fall again, collecting on the sidewalk, where pedestrians, bundled against the cold, hurried past.

  “The FBI?” Aggie whispered across the table, her triple mocha untouched, the whipped cream beginning to run down the sides of her cup. “Why in the world would the FBI want to question Gabe?”

  “I can’t really say.”

  “Off the record,” Dave insisted. A tall man with graying hair, Dave was an ex-college basketball player who’d developed a bit of a paunch after giving up the game, and his dream. His usually animated expression was missing, his glasses sliding down his nose so he could tip his head and stare at O’Keefe over the rims. His coffee was black and simple, and, usually, Dave was a no-nonsense accountant with a quick wit and easy laugh. Today he was dead serious, his expression a reflection of his wife’s worried demeanor. Aggie was pale, her makeup already wearing thin, her eyes red from crying.

  O’Keefe eyed his cousin. “It’s not about the robbery in Helena.”

  “He’s involved in something else?” Aggie said, her whisper louder than she’d intended as she half stood until her husband clasped his hand over her forearm, and she, realizing she was on the verge of making a scene, fell into her chair again.

  “They’re just checking out every angle.” O’Keefe hoped he sounded more reassuring than he felt.

  “They’re here because of the murdered women they found,” Dave said quietly.

  “You mean for that ice-mummy case.” Shaking her head, her red hair brushing her chin with the movement, Aggie closed her eyes as if to gather herself. “He’s got nothing to do with that. You know that, Dylan. Nothing.” She blinked her eyes open and focused on her husband. “We have to get an attorney, Dave. Pronto! We have to!”

  “You saw Gabe, right?” O’Keefe said.

  “Yes. But that’s about it. ‘Saw’ him. He won’t talk to us. It’s as if ... as if ...” she squeaked out, “we’re the enemy. Us? When all we’ve ever tried to do is help him? Oh, my God, this is all so unbelievable and now, Gabe says he’s contacted his biological mother.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “And you?” she accused. “You’re involved with her?”

  Bad news traveled fast. “I know her. We worked together in San Bernardino.”

  “I remember that,” Dave said, his bushy eyebrows pulling together over the thin rims of his glasses. “Seems as if it didn’t turn out well.”

  “You lost your job!” Aggie reminded him.

  “I quit.”

  She waved a hand frantically in the air. “Doesn’t matter. But I don’t want her having any contact with my son, okay? That’s the deal. It’s always been the deal. I ... We don’t want or need another parent trying to mess with our kid’s emotions.”

  “He searched her out.”

  “He’s a kid! He obviously doesn’t know what he
wants or what’s best for him. I do not want her involved in his life, you got that? As for you, if I were you, I’d watch my step; tread carefully.” Aggie was on a roll now. “But ... we have to think, put things in perspective. Gabe’s in serious trouble and we have to help him. We have to hire an attorney and get Gabe out of jail!”

  “Maybe detention is the best place for him,” her husband offered up before taking a long swallow from his coffee. “At least he’s safe there and we know where he is.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Aggie demanded, her voice rising again. She stared at her husband as if he’d turned into an alien from outer space. “Come on, Dave! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard yet.”

  “Shh!” he snapped and Aggie, rebuffed, glanced around as if realizing she might be overheard.

  Fortunately, no one was paying the least bit of attention to them.

  “Do you know the press have been calling us?” she asked O’Keefe. “They know Gabe’s identity even though they’re supposed to not report it and so I’ve been getting calls. They know he was arrested at Detective Alvarez’s home; well how could they not when a whole cavalry of cops showed up, huh? They’ll start digging, tying Gabe to this new series of crimes by the Ice Mummy Killer, just you wait, and then his life will be a living hell. Ours, too. And even that Selena Alvarez when they figure out she’s his birth mother!”

  “That hasn’t been established.”

  “Yet. But a reporter’s already on the story. Some guy called my cell phone. My cell, for God’s sake, and he started asking about the adoption. That was two days ago. By now it could be all over the Internet! God, this is a nightmare!” She finally picked up her drink and licked the whipped cream from the cup’s sides as she stared at her cousin. “You just wait! Things are only going to get worse. A whole lot worse.” She took a swallow of her drink, then said to her husband, “We’re getting a lawyer ASAP. I don’t care what it costs. And, Dylan, send us your bill. You found Gabe, we’ve got him ... sort of, but your job is over.”

  Dave said, “Wait a second, Aggie—”

  “Don’t even think about arguing with me about it!” she said to her husband, then her gaze turned to Dylan. “You’re involved with her. She’s Gabriel’s biological mother. So it’s over, you see? Just send us the bill.”

  Pescoli tried not to let her home life ruin her day, but Jeremy’s surprise announcement that he wanted to move out coupled with a request for her to sign a lease for him burned through her brain as she drove into the parking lot of the sheriff ’s department. Their argument, as always, had been about chores, his responsibilities and her work. They’d both agreed that living together under the same roof wasn’t a perfect arrangement, but the fact he thought she should still support him while he lived on his own really burned her butt.

  She cut the engine and reminded herself that he was still in school and still working part time to pay for his truck and the insurance on it. That was something, she supposed, but not enough. He’d moved out once before and it hadn’t worked out; he was still paying off bills from that fiasco, but he didn’t seem to realize that it wasn’t her goal in life to support him indefinitely.

  She figured he could move out again if he wanted to, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to finance any part of it. “Give me strength,” she said, taking a swallow from her travel coffee cup and realizing it was from two days ago, the coffee cold and bitter.

  Hopefully someone had already brewed a fresh pot in the station. She pushed Jeremy and his problems to that back I’ll-deal-with-this-later area of her mind and concentrated on her job. Somehow, whether she liked it or not, Alvarez was on the Ice Mummy Killer’s radar, though Pescoli didn’t know why, but there was a connection between the runaway kid, the killer and her partner.

  Hauling her computer with her, she stepped out of her Jeep and headed toward the back door of the station. The press, as ever, was in position, two vans parked, reporters and cameramen already filming, the sheriff ’s office forming a backdrop, snow falling softly. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Manny Douglas, that weasel of a reporter for the Mountain Reporter, fast approaching. In his usual flannel and khakis, he raised a hand, “Detective Pescoli! Just a few questions. I see the FBI has been called in.”

  Not “called in.” They always showed up when kidnapping or serial killers were involved in a case.

  “You know I’m not going to comment,” she said, reaching the back door.

  “Is it true that Selena Alvarez is the birth mother of the boy brought into custody yesterday, the one wanted in the shooting at Judge Victor Ramsey’s home in Helena?” he asked, trudging through the snow, his recorder in his gloved hand, a red light glowing, indicating that he was taping their conversation.

  How did he get his information so fast? “I said, ‘No comment.’ ”

  “Is the ice-mummy case somehow related to the break-in at Judge Ramsey’s home?”

  Calm down. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s just trying to get you to say something, anything he can report.

  “Look, Manny, I don’t have anything to say. You’ll have to ask your questions at the next press conference.”

  “But Alvarez is your partner. Is that kid hers? The kid involved in the shooting at the judge’s house in Helena?”

  She didn’t answer. Just strode through the back door and thankfully heard the locks click behind her. The coffee had been brewed, but only a few drops were left in the pot, as the undersheriff had just poured himself a cup and was adding a packet or two of artificial sweetener to his “I Heart Jesus” mug.

  “You making a new pot?” she asked, and he looked up, spilling a bit of white powder onto the counter.

  “What? Nah.” With a smile as saccharine as his artificial sweetener, he added, “I’ve mine.” To prove his point he lifted his cup and took a swallow.

  The sentiment on his cup reminded her that he was an elder in the Presbyterian church where Calvin Mullins was the preacher.

  “Didn’t see you here yesterday,” she observed.

  “I was here. In the afternoon.” He scowled. “Why?”

  “Just wondering how things are going at the church, after the body was discovered in the crèche.”

  “Oh. Yeah. It’s not good. Got a lot of questions yesterday, especially from the preacher. He, of course, wants us to find the killer and asked the congregation to pray that he’s brought to justice, which I went along with, though he did ask for God to forgive him.” Brewster snorted into his cup. “I’m having a little trouble with that.”

  “Me, too.” Grudgingly, she found a packet of coffee and placed it in the coffeemaker’s basket, then filled the reservoir with water and hit the start button.

  Almost immediately the machine started to gurgle, and within less than a minute, a stream of hot java began to fill the glass pot. Brewster left the room. She didn’t like the man much, and they’d had their problems in the past, largely because of the attraction between their children, but at least they were speaking, keeping things professional, which, Pescoli thought, was about as good as it was going to get.

  Like the sound of rapid-fire gunshots, the click of Joelle’s high heels announced her arrival. Per the season, she was carrying two of those environmental reusable grocery bags, a red purse to match her shoes and balancing a white box. Before she toppled over, she set the box onto a counter and opened the top.

  “Voila!” she said proudly as she displayed the contents: carefully stacked cupcakes. Some were decorated with Santa faces, while others were poinsettias or Christmas trees.

  “More?” Pescoli asked. Then, “You did this?”

  “Oh, no, no, no!” Joelle actually giggled, obviously pleased that anyone thought her capable of such artwork. Apparently she’d forgiven Pescoli for her rant against the decorations in the hallway of the week before. “I have a friend who’s a baker down at Cedar’s Market. We play Bunco every month, you know, a girls’-night-out kind of thing. She did them
for me.” Sliding a sly look at Pescoli, she added, “At cost.” Beginning to set the small cakes onto a platter she’d hauled from one of the cupboards, Joelle added, “I just couldn’t resist!”

  “Who could?”

  “Oh, dear.” Joelle’s perfectly made-up face crumpled a little as she noticed one of the frosting petals on one of the cupcakes had been squished.

  “I’ll take that one,” Pescoli offered and grabbed the less-than-perfect treat before pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee and heading to her desk. Once seated, she called First Union bank. It was early, long before the bank’s doors would open, but the employees should have arrived.

  She was connected with a receptionist and was told, when asked, that Johnna Phillips “wasn’t in yet.” Declining the offer of having Ms. Phillips return the call, Pescoli hung up and dialed Missing Persons, confirming that, yes, a report had been filed on the woman and deputies were checking at her home and workplace.

  “Let me know,” she told Tawilda Conrad, who worked with Taj Nayak in Missing Persons.

  “Will do.” She ate the cupcake, finished her coffee, then made her way the short distance to Alvarez’s office.

  Her partner was already at her desk, her computer monitor showing her e-mail account. She was on the phone and, glancing up at Pescoli, held up a finger. “... Okay, then I can pick it up between four and five at the garage?” she said into her cell and waited. “Yeah, that’ll work. Thanks, Andy.” She clicked off. “Good news, I get my car back.”

  “You should sue Junior Green for the damage.”

  “I’ll let my insurance agent know.” She glanced down at her desk, where a stack of mail had been left. A red, squatty envelope, the size that held a greeting card, was on the top of the stack. “What’s up?” she asked, finding her letter opener and slitting the packet open.

  “Bad news. I told you about Johnna Phillips?”

  “Banker. Works at First Union. Her boyfriend was worried about her?”

  “Recent ex-boyfriend. I checked with her work. So far she hasn’t shown.”