Chosen To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

father, Hubert, had been doing business in Missoula at the time and her mother, Cherilyn, who was already divorced from Hubert by that time, was living in San Francisco. Clementine DeGrazio and her then four-year-old son, Ross, lived on the property, and there were several ranch hands as well, some of them whose names she recognized. Henry Johansen, now around sixty, was one. Alvarez had been told that sometime in his late forties Henry had fallen off his tractor and never been the same. Now he sometimes showed up at the sheriff’s department, offering his help on cases, though he barely knew his own name half the time. Another ranch hand had been Gordon Dobbs, the guy who now either made chainsaw art that he sold off his front porch, or put a few shifts in at the local bars.

Neither seemed a candidate for Star-Crossed. She was about to toss the file aside when she noticed the name of the responding officer: Cort Brewster. Selena felt a tremor slide up her spine. Brewster was an incredible marksman.

He’d lived in the area since childhood; his parents still lived in the original family homestead. He was a hunter, cross-country skier.

He had access to all county records.

And he was the undersheriff.

Your boss.

She took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. No, that didn’t make any sense. It was true that Brewster didn’t clock the regular eight-to-five, but he had flexibility with his hours and was out of the office often. He was also a family man, an elder of his church.

But he’s organized.

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Knows first aid and how to survive in the wilderness. He has a temper.

Is intolerant of others.

And is a hunter.

Her heart was racing and she told herself not to go there, to end this line of thinking right now. But Brewster’s name, signed when he was a deputy, burned into her brain.

No one knew the exact time that the victims’ vehicles’ tires had been shot out. Nor did anyone know when the victims were being cared for or hauled into the woods.

“It can’t be,” she said as her tea cooled and her mind whirled with the possibilities. The killer was big; one shoe print had proved that. Cort Brewster had to be six-three and pushing two-thirty. Not fat. He worked out in the same gym where Selena did. But definitely big.

The back of her mouth went dry.

Cort Brewster, next in line for sheriff if anything should happen to Daniel Grayson.

The idea was repulsive.

Unthinkable.

She argued with herself as she walked into the bathroom. Brewster’s a cop. A good cop, no matter what you might think of him.

Though his hair had started to silver, he wasn’t yet forty. Still older than what she would have expected for a serial killer. She made a mental note to find out what, if any, connection there was between Brady Long, the boating accident that put Padgett into a mental hospital, and Cort Brewster.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” she told herself, but settled into the computer, logged onto the 318

Lisa Jackson

Internet, and spent the next two hours trying to find out more information on the man who was her boss. Wrong tree be damned. Right now it was the only one she had.

Snap!

With a metallic crack, the weld gave way. Regan’s heart soared. She bit back a cry of triumph. It was quiet in her prison.

Cold.

No bit of morning light showed through that window high overhead, though the fire was on its last breath, the faintest glow of red allowing her just enough illumination to make out objects in the room. Every muscle in her body ached. To move was excruciating and yet she was pretty sure that, other than a few cracked ribs, no bones were broken. Her arm didn’t work very well and her head thundered, but she had refused to give up or give in. She didn’t stop to wonder where the bastard was. He’d been gone for hours, probably back to his real home. She did wonder if he had a wife. Maybe even kids. The thought made her sick, but she was convinced by the length of time that he was gone, both during the days as well as the nights, that he had a regular job somewhere, and either a house or apartment. That this dungeon was his fantasy lair, the place where he could let his sick persona run free. She eased off the cot and, with her uninjured shoulder, pushed up on its frame, fitting the frame close to her neck as she teased the thin links of her handcuffs free of the now unwelded leg. There wasn’t much room, the chain caught several times.

CHOSEN TO DIE