But she couldn’t figure out how, despite another couple of hours going over reports, info, and maps of the area. Brewster could deny it all he wanted, but the picture taken by the traffic cam was Verdago. Pescoli would stake her badge on it.
Still without answers and stung by her enormous mistake, she drove home nearly two hours later. As she’d reconstructed what went wrong today, writing it into the report she’d hand to Brewster in the morning, she’d also sought to come up with another avenue. But each mental path she traveled down, each new possible scenario she explored presented a major roadblock.
The suspect list had narrowed.
Grayson’s brothers had no beef with him, or the judge. Cara Banks didn’t seem to have any real animosity toward her ex, and Pescoli had already crossed her off as having the desire or wherewithal to hire an assassin. Besides, why would she knock off the judge in the process? The same went for Akina Bellows, wife number two. The dating angle hadn’t been proved or disproved, but she couldn’t find any evidence linking Grayson and the judge romantically, and even if there were an affair, who would care enough to try and take them both out? Yes, the judge had called the station over the past few months, but that wasn’t all that out of line.
So she buried that old theory as well.
Which left the people they’d sent up the river and right at the top of the list, without the alibi most of the other ex-cons had come up with, was the missing Maurice Verdago.
A headache was pounding behind Pescoli’s eyes and she once again had the nagging thought that she was missing something . . . something important, and right under her nose, but whatever it was, she couldn’t quite grasp it, even though she concentrated so hard that she nearly hit a rabbit that hopped into the road in front of her car, hesitated, then turned quickly, missing her tire by inches as it disappeared into the icy brambles flanking the road.
Resler, Cranston, and Gardener all had r
ock-solid alibis.
Swearing under her breath, feeling her stomach begin to act up again, she turned into the long lane of her home. Recent tire tracks suggested Jeremy was home. She crossed the single-lane bridge to round a final bend and spy her house sitting in its clearing. The Christmas lights strung on the eaves were glowing, aside from one strand that had decided to give up the ghost, but Jeremy’s truck, usually parked out front, was missing.
Huh.
For a second she thought someone was watching her, that same eerie sensation that had prickled her skin when she was alone and created the nightmares that ruined her sleep. Was it possible that whoever was following her had come here for her children?
For the love of God, check your paranoia at the door.
As she drove into the garage, she had one hand on her sidearm, her adrenaline pumping in spite of herself. Then she heard the dogs starting to make a ruckus and Bianca’s voice: “Hey! Hush! Calm down. Cisco, you troublemaker!” The smaller dog continued to yap while Grayson’s Lab quieted immediately.
She returned her gun to its holster and breathed a long sigh of relief.
Get a hold of yourself, Pescoli. You are doing no one, including yourself, any favors with all these mind games.
Once inside the house, she greeted both dogs and found Bianca sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of soda and a small bag of some kind of chip at her fingertips as she read on her new e-reader and somehow still was able to text on her phone.
At least she was interested in some kind of food. “Hi,” she said, actually looking up.
“Hey.” Pescoli dropped her things on a nearby chair and hung her coat on the hall tree near the door. “What’s up?”
“I’m eating. See.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Her daughter sent her a dirty look, snagged a chip, and snapped it between her teeth.
“Where’s your brother?”
“Take a wild guess,” Bianca suggested, then before Pescoli could make a stab at it, said, “He hooked up with Heidi tonight when we went to get dinner. I think it was a setup.”
“How did you get home?”
“Oh, they brought me. Heidi was already at Dixie’s with friends and so we ate there. They brought me home and then left again. They’re probably at her house. She said she had something to show him.”
I’ll bet, Pescoli thought but didn’t say it, though her stomach tightened at the thought of her son under the same roof as her disgruntled—make that so-furious-he-was-frothing-at-the-mouth—boss.
“He’s mad at you, you know,” Bianca said.
Pescoli let out a humorless laugh. “He’d better take a number.” Walking to the refrigerator, she decided she’d have a glass of wine, but the minute she opened the bottle of chardonnay, poured herself a glass, and took a sip, her heartburn acted up again. “What a waste,” she said, then jammed the cork into the bottle and set it back into the refrigerator. “Let me guess why he’s mad at me. Was it because I embarrassed him at work, or because I told him to keep his rifle locked up, or my attitude about Heidi or—”
“Because you didn’t tell us you were getting married,” Bianca supplied.