Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“You want me to meet you at Cort Brewster’s home?” She couldn’t quite keep the note of horror from her voice.

“Yeah, at four. And don’t tell anyone.”

“Not even the sheriff?”

“Oh, God, no! Especially not . . . just don’t say anything. See you then.”

“Jeremy, I don’t really want to go—”

He clicked off before she could finish.

She didn’t move, just stared blindly through the windshield, her thoughts centered around her son. Why in the world would he want her to meet him at Heidi’s house? Was Heidi going to be there? Four in the afternoon? After she was out of school for the day?

Frantically she called him back and texted, but he wouldn’t respond. Nope. He was holding out.

It wasn’t like Jeremy to be overly dramatic; that was usually Bianca’s department . . . or Heidi’s.

A sick feeling started in the pit of her stomach as she considered what could require all this secrecy, and the only reason she could come up with was the horrifying conclusion that Heidi Brewster was pregnant.

Chapter 34

Alvarez had been avoiding Pescoli.

Because her partner always had a thing against Brewster and because she wasn’t certain exactly how things would play out, she’d kept her suspicions to herself. As she drove through the hills to Chilcoate’s place, she didn’t miss the irony of it all, that she agreed with Brewster on this one, that Pescoli might go all rogue if she had just the inkling that Alvarez suspected the undersheriff of being involved in the attack on Grayson and the judge.

But why would he do that?

Back to the age-old question: motive. Yes, Brewster was ambitious and, yes, he’d been passed over, probably reaching the acme of his career as undersheriff.

She nearly drove off the road as that thought crossed her mind. Undersheriff? Wait . . . what was it Cee-Cee had said about her mother-in-law, Judge Samuels-Piquard? A telephone conversation that Cee-Cee had overheard?

Not on top. I like to be under the sheriff.

Could Cee-Cee have misinterpreted? Could the judge have been talking about Cort Brewster, who was considered a friend of the judge? It wouldn’t have been the first time a “friend” had taken to consoling a widow one step too far.

Chilcoate’s cabin was as rustic as any she’d seen lately, but larger. Tucked into the mountains, surrounded by forests, his home was built out of rough-hewn logs but was supplied with electricity and running water. She suspected he might have a hidden room somewhere, either in an attic, behind a hidden wall, or in a basement, wherever he did his serious computer hacking.

As far as she knew, he’d never violated any specific laws, but then she didn’t know much about him, and preferred to keep it that way.

He was smoking a cigarette on the porch, waiting for her, and she figured she’d tripped some kind of silent alarm on her approach.

“Detective,” he said, his eyes full of secrets behind a pair of thick glasses. His untamed, curly hair and beard gave him a slightly sloppy look, a disguise that belied his sharp mind.

“You have something?”

“Did you doubt me?”

“Nope.”

“Good. You shouldn’t.” He took a final drag on his smoke, then led her inside, through a tiny living room complete with a huge, flat-screen TV and a single recliner surrounded by TV trays covered with remote controls for all the equipment plugged into the television, as well as the remains of what looked to be four or five meals on dirty paper plates. Green, Chilcoate clearly was not.

“In here,” he said as he stepped into a short hallway and opened the door to a bedroom that had been converted to his office. Inside was a desktop computer, several different laptops in varying sizes, telephones, and radio equipment. As geek-worthy as this place was, it was probably a front, just the tip of the electronic iceberg that was hidden away, where the real sophisticated electronics buzzed, hummed, and collected data she didn’t want to think about.

“What have you got?” she asked.

“The judge was pretty clean,” he said, “not much dirt to be found. I checked all of her computer logs, phone records, and went deep.” Meaning, she assumed, deeper and faster than the department had the time, manpower, or knowledge to plumb. “But she did apparently have a weak spot.”

He kicked out a secretary’s chair and sat, then nodded to a battered folding chair for Alvarez to occupy.