Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Joelle Fisher, the department’s receptionist, was an uber Christmas enthusiast. Well, make that any holiday. She was up for celebrating all of the majors, like the Fourth of July and Christmas, as well as the minors, like Arbor Day and Flag Day. It seemed to be Joelle’s mission to find even the most obscure holiday and find a way to celebrate it here at the office. Joelle was never more in her element than around the end of the year when the biggies came: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Bang, bang, bang! From mid-September through February fifteenth, Joelle’s personal mission was to spread the cheer.

Ad nauseum.

Joelle’s idea of celebration meant decorating the office in the brightest, most glittery, and sometimes gaudiest decorations available. Somehow Alvarez didn’t think that tinsel and colored lights blinking rapidly enough to bring on seizures were exactly how God thought the world should celebrate the holy day, but then, what did she know? And she wasn’t one to complain, not like Pescoli, her partner.

A few reindeer cookies remained on a plastic platter cut into the shape of a snowflake. Alvarez resisted, as she was determined to return to her normal diet and exercise regimen. As she stepped outside, the nagging pain in her leg reminded her once more of her last struggle with a madman. She actively ignored it, concentrating inste

ad on how much better her life was now. If she let it, the magic of Christmas might just steal into her heart and touch her soul.

Maybe.

The jury was still out on that one.

Chapter 3

Pescoli floored it.

Though it was snowing and the roads were dicey at best, she hit the gas and her Jeep sprang forward, following the snaking road through steep canyons and sheer mountains. The forest was silent, aside from the rumble of the Jeep’s engine, the stands of pine and hemlock blanketed in three inches of fresh, pristine snow. Picture-postcard perfect, but she barely noticed. She was tired as all get-out from a sleepless night of tossing and turning and inwardly fretting. After making love to Santana until nearly two a.m., she’d tried to fall asleep, but her churning thoughts had kept her awake for hours. Should she accept his proposal? Could she give up her independence? What would happen to her kids? Her job? The life she had worked so hard to carve out for herself after her divorce from Lucky?

Marrying Santana seemed like a no-brainer, and, she supposed in the warmth of her SUV, if she hadn’t been down the slippery slope of marriage before, she would have leaped at the chance to become his wife. But she had already suffered through two messy marriages and though she was leaning toward saying yes, it pissed her off to be put on the spot, be given a deadline.

Shifting down for a corner, she told herself how ridiculous that sounded. He had the right to move on if the relationship didn’t develop the way he wanted. Still, she was bugged.

She flipped her wipers onto a faster rhythm, the blades scraping away snow from her windshield as the engine purred and the tires whined. The police band crackled a bit, and she turned on the radio straight to Burl Ives singing “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” for about the three millionth time this Christmas season. Quickly, she punched in another station that was all talk radio and the news.

Her kids were coming over this morning, well, make that the afternoon as Jeremy had trouble getting his butt out of bed before eleven these days, so she didn’t have much time. She hated the fact that she had to share them both, especially during the holidays, but couldn’t argue the fact. Luke, a louse of a husband while they’d been married, was slightly better as a stepfather and father, though she wasn’t that crazy about his wife. Still south of thirty, Michelle had a killer figure, and despite the dumb-blonde routine was, Pescoli estimated, at least a little smarter than she let on.

Now, because of Santana’s proposal, she was on her way to see her boss. It might not be a good idea to bust in on him on Christmas morning, but Grayson was of the mind-set that he always had time for his employees, day or night. He’d said as much as recently as last week, so Pescoli intended to take him at his word. She needed advice and with one week to make up her mind, she wanted to know if working part-time was an option, or if there was some way to adjust her hours. Though Jeremy was about out of the house, Bianca, still in high school, could use her around more. If there were anything about her job Pescoli regretted, it was how much time it took her away from the kids, and her dedication to her work was certainly one factor in the erosion of both of her marriages.

Not that she’d ever give it up. Hell no. She loved being a detective and was a damned good one. Recently, while Alvarez recuperated, she’d been teamed with Brett Gage who, although capable enough, didn’t really click with her. Everything had felt awkward and out of sync at the station. However, now that Alvarez was back on the job, things were humming again.

Maybe she could cut down her time away from home, she mused, and if that didn’t work, she could maybe play around with the idea of going private. O’Keefe had mentioned something about it, and the idea was attractive. Sort of. The plain hard truth of it was that she loved her job; not quite as much as she loved her kids, of course, but right up there.

How about Santana? Do you love him more than working for the Pinewood Sheriff’s Department?

“Apples and oranges,” she told herself as the weather report came on the radio. “Apples and oranges.”

A fresh pot of coffee was brewing, filling his kitchen with that warm, heady aroma Grayson looked forward to from the minute he opened his eyes. He was a morning person, always had been, despite the years he’d been forced to work swing or graveyard when he’d first become a road deputy. His wife hadn’t much liked the late nights either, but back then, he’d taken whatever shift was offered and had let Cara’s complaints slide off him just like water on a duck’s back.

Of course, his refusing to engage in an argument about his work, about his “putting his job before his wife” had no doubt helped contribute to the death of an already deteriorating marriage.

Now, he poured himself a cup and checked his phone again where a text message from Regan Pescoli announced that she was on her way to see him. “Wonder what that’s all about?” he said to his dog. Sturgis, his black Lab who’d been eagerly lapping water from his bowl near the back door, looked over his shoulder and wagged his tail.

Why the hell would Pescoli be making a run to his house on Christmas morning? Probably not with good news or a damned fruitcake considering how she felt about all of Joelle’s Christmas machinations at the office. Pescoli, though not a traditionalist, always spent what time she could with her kids over the holidays. No way would she be heading to his house unless it was important. “Guess we’ll find out when we find out,” he said and glanced out the window over his sink.

A new layer of snow had fallen overnight, probably four inches if the accumulation on his deck railing was accurate. He was isolated up here, a two-bedroom cabin that he’d been working on for years in his spare time. So far he’d added a second bathroom, fixed up the first and was contemplating gutting the kitchen. But that would be a while. As it was, the old wooden, sloped counters and solid cupboards suited him just fine. For now. For his bachelor lifestyle.

Sturgis looked up again, water dripping from his mouth to the old wood floor. “You know you’ve got a drinking problem, don’t you?”

Again, he was rewarded with a tail wag. Smiling, Grayson scratched his dog’s ears and set his half-drunk cup on the scarred counter. “Merry Christmas, fella,” he said and thought of the day ahead. He’d been invited to his ex-sister-in-law’s house for dinner. Hattie, who had been married to his brother, Bart, had always included him in her holiday plans and he’d usually accepted her invitations, even though it was complicated. Very complicated. Hattie was a local girl who had, in her youth, dated three out of four of the Grayson brothers, including Dan.

So that was tricky to begin with.

She’d ended up marrying Bart, had twin girls, and when the marriage unraveled, moved off the ranch. The divorce had been bitter, and Bart, despondent, had ended up committing suicide by hanging himself in the barn.

Ugly all the way around. And that didn’t include another slightly incestuous twist. Hattie was his ex-wife Cara’s younger sister . . . make that estranged younger half sister. Yeah, things with Hattie were complicated, the kind of intertwined relationship that bred in a town the size of Grizzly Falls.

Of course, Hattie had felt terrible ever since Bart’s death, even going so far as to insist that he would never kill himself. The evidence was the evidence, however; she just chose to ignore it. But whenever she was with the Grayson family, which was often as she’d seemed to dedicate herself to the Grayson family more and more after Bart’s death, she would bring it up again, that Bart would never take his own life. She also explained hanging around more because she wanted the girls to know their father’s kin. Maybe that was true, but Dan’s brothers, Cade and Big Zed, weren’t convinced that her motives were so pure. They’d both vociferously declared that she was just interested in the ranch and the family money.