“Well, maybe they did fight earlier. Who knows. But the way the body was positioned was weird. It was as if she, without hardly anything on, opened the door and got blasted. Right between the eyes. With a rifle.”
?
?The gun Brewster reported stolen,” O’Keefe reminded her.
“Was it, though? Why didn’t the thieves take that damned sword he’s now put in Grayson’s office?”
“Sounds like this isn’t about Brewster so much as Grayson.”
Alvarez turned away. Even to her own ears, her ideas sounded ridiculous. Everything pointed to Verdago. Hadn’t they found the pictures of six people he hated on the table? And Cort Brewster’s photo as well as Regan Pescoli’s had been front and center. She remembered viewing them and feeling a chill, the same chill she’d witnessed in Brewster’s eyes.
He’d found the pictures first.
He’d gone into the cabin ahead of her and checked that Carnie Tibalt wasn’t cowering inside or lying in wait, armed to the teeth.
“I know,” Alvarez said. “This is all just crazy talk. I guess I’m just sick of the way he’s lapping up all the attention from the press, even giving private interviews to Manny Douglas and Honey Carlisle at KBTR.” She blew across her cup. “It’s so . . . not Grayson’s style, I guess.”
“That’s what really gets under your skin.”
“Yeah,” she admitted, and clicked off the computer. “You know, I’ve changed my mind.” She moved up to him, sliding her arms around his torso. “It looks like I do have time for that shower after all.”
“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Jeremy said into Pescoli’s ear as she walked out of the quickie mart with her usual supersized diet soda in one hand, her cell phone in the other.
The snow had stopped the night before, the sun rising bright enough this morning to cast a glare off the snow-blanketed street. Juggling her drink and her keys, the cell phone caught between her cheek and shoulder, Pescoli managed to slip on her sunglasses. But the action tweaked her shoulder and she nearly slipped, the soda sloshing onto her jacket as the lid apparently wasn’t on as tightly as she’d thought.
Fabulous.
“Damn. So talk already,” she said. “No, wait until I get into the car and set this stupid drink in the cup holder.”
“Mom—”
“Just a sec, Jer.” She slid behind the wheel, replaced the lid of her cup, and staring out the foggy windshield at the customers walking into and out of the convenience store, said, “Okay, now what’s going on?”
“It’s, uh, something I can’t talk to you about over the phone.”
“You called me.”
“I know. I thought we could meet today sometime.”
“You coming into the office? You’re scheduled at two, right? That’s just a couple of hours from now.”
“Yeah, well. I’m not coming in.”
“Does the sheriff know?”
“I left a message with Joelle.”
“So, why aren’t you volunteering? I thought this was what you wanted. Last I hear that’s the reason you’re taking classes at the community college. You want to be a cop.”
He paused and she visualized him chewing on the inside of his cheek, a habit that still came out during times of stress. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Jer?” she said, her latent mom-radar suddenly alert. “Are you okay?”
“I just need to talk to you.”
“Okay, sure. When and where?”
“How about at Heidi’s house?”