Deserves to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“You think there’s a connection between Anne-Marie and those murders?” Cade sounded poleaxed.

“Shit, that woman? The waitress?” Zed said in a huff of disgust. “I knew she was trouble.”

“Slow down,” Pescoli advised. “So, she is here in Grizzly Falls?”

Alvarez asked, “A waitress?”

“I don’t know all the details, but she admitted she was in trouble, that she thought—” Cade closed his eyes for a second, then clenched his jaw and spit out, “Shit-fire,” as if he were on the horns of a dilemma.

“She thought what?” Alvarez pressed.

When Cade remained silent for a few moments, clearly trying to get his head around what he’d just heard, Zed jumped into the fray. “She came to the ranch.” He flung an angry glare at his brother. “Whatever you think you’re doin’ by holdin’ back, like you’re saving her or something, or keeping some damn confidence, it’s over. They’re on to her.”

A muscle worked in Cade’s jaw.

“Mr. Grayson,” Alvarez urged.

Cade scowled, angry with his brother and quite possibly himself. “She dropped by a few days ago. Said she was in trouble, that it had something to do with those women who’d been found. I don’t know how, but she was afraid.”

“About what? Being caught?” Pescoli asked.

“That she was in danger. For her life, or something. She’d wanted to talk to Dan about what was going on, but of course that didn’t happen. I turned her away. I thought . . . hell, I’d hoped she was going to talk to you.”

“She works down at the Midway Diner,” Zed stated flatly.

“Did she say what she was afraid of?” Alvarez was making notes, but Pescoli was ready to shoot out of her chair and drive like a maniac to the diner. It was time to end this.

“Yeah.” Cade leaned back in his chair and exhaled heavily. “She did, but I didn’t believe her. She . . . well, she has a history of lying.”

Zed swore under his breath.

Cade straightened. “The thing is, she told me she was afraid of her own damn husband.”

“You can’t do this!” Anne-Marie spat, trying to worm her way out of the handcuffs he’d slapped on her wrists.

“You had the option. You wouldn’t leave on your own.”

“You really are a bastard.” She was furious, nearly spitting as, to her horror, he walked unerringly to the area along the baseboard where she’d stashed her important documents, her extra cash, her passports. “Don’t! You can’t!”

Ignoring her, he withdrew her switchblade from his pocket, clicked it open, and bent down to pry the board off to expose her niche. “We’ll have to wait until the fire dies a little for the other spot,” he said over his shoulder. He was serious. He was actually going to force her back to New Orleans.

He dug out the baseboard, then pulled her papers from their hiding spot. As he straightened, he snapped the knife closed and looked over the documents. “This must’ve cost you,” he said, opening one passport after another, his eyebrows rising in appreciation. “Or your grandmother.”

“I had to do it,” Anne-Marie said, desperate to change his mind. “If I went back, he would’ve killed me.”

“The police would have protected you.”

She gave a short, dry laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“You should’ve—”

“I should’ve nothing,” she cut him off. She’d had enough. Taken enough.

With a sudden yank, she removed the ring she wore, the fat piece of costume jewelry that hid her joint. Then quickly, with little effort, she grabbed her left hand with her right and removed the lifelike prosthesis to reveal the stump of her left ring finger, all that remained after the butcher she’d been married to had cleaved off the very finger on which he’d slipped her engagement ring years earlier.

Chapter 27

“The Midway Diner?” Pescoli said after the Grayson brothers had left the sheriff’s department. She and Alvarez were still in the conference room, picking up their things. “It’s almost lunchtime and maybe we’ll get lucky. She’ll be there, or we can get information from her boss or coworkers.” Pescoli’s stomach was rumbling again. Close enough for a meal, she decided. Even if it was one on the run. They hadn’t learned much from the Grayson brothers.