Afraid to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Your son needs you.”

“What? I don’t have a son.”

Grace’s fingers tightened. “He’s in grave danger.”

“Who are you talking about? I don’t have a son.” Her gaze locked with that of the kook’s.

“He needs you,” Grace repeated, and then, as if suddenly realizing how awkward the situation was, that people in the surrounding tables had stopped eating to stare, Grace released Alvarez’s hand as quickly as she’d gathered it.

Then, looking straight ahead, she walked out of the restaurant.

Pescoli snorted. “I told you, nutcase with a capital N.”

“Yeah.” Alvarez flashed a bit of a smile as she pulled on her gloves.

Sandi scurried over. “Geez, I’m sorry about that,” she said. “Grace is a bit off, I know, but she usually keeps to herself.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alvarez said and was already on her way to the door. “It’s no big deal.” Which, of course, was a lie. Another one. Inside she was shaking, the old familiar pain taking hold of her, but she wouldn’t think about it, not now.

You have to someday; you can’t just shove this into a dark corner forever.

Okay, fine. Just not today. And though Grace was a bona fide oddball who thought she could talk with ghosts, Alvarez couldn’t just shake off her warning. Even though Alvarez didn’t believe in all that psychic nonsense Grace tried to peddle, it was true that the strange woman had helped the department in the past. Several times. If nothing else, she brought a calmness, an equanimity to some of the most brutal and barbaric cases. It was weird. And bothered Alvarez.

Still she couldn’t brush off the woman’s concerns out of hand and Grace’s dire warning chased after her for most of the afternoon, drifting into her brain while she was trying to concentrate on something—make that anything—else.

Even when she discovered that Ray Sutherland had taken out a life insurance policy for two hundred thousand dollars on his ex-wife only six months earlier. Long after the divorce. Alvarez hung up from the insurance company and leaned back in her chair. What the hell was that all about? Alibi or not, the man had serious motive to have his ex-wife killed. The insurance proceeds coupled with gaining full custody of the kids was more than enough motive.

Except you’re not sure she’s dead yet. Don’t jump the gun.

Even now, while her mind was occupied with the mystery of Brenda Sutherland’s disappearance, Grace’s chilling words reverberated through her mind:

Your son needs you. He’s in grave danger ...

Oh. Dear. God.

Chapter 6

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Dylan O’Keefe muttered as he took off after the punk kid in jeans, jacket, watch cap and boots. A backpack swung from one thin shoulder as the boy sprinted easily through the drifting snow. Running down side streets, cutting through alleys and across yards, ducking around corners, climbing fences and creating a zigzag path toward a residential section of Grizzly Falls, Gabriel Reeve ran.

Where the hell was he going?

A bad feeling stole over O’Keefe as he rounded a corner and heard a dog barking frantically from somewhere in the darkness. He dashed across a deserted street. Barely eight in the evening, and this part of town was quiet as hell. Despite the earlier plowing, the snow was collecting again, his boots sinking into three inches of accumulation, snow falling past the street lamps to pile on a handful of cars parked near the curb.

He followed the fresh tracks across a side yard, and thankfully the dog he’d heard didn’t come bounding across the snow, so O’Keefe kept running, squinting through the curtain of snow. Icy air slapped him in the face and chilled a path to his lungs as he zeroed in on his quarry again, a punk of about sixteen, tough as nails and wanted for armed robbery.

Trouble was, Gabriel Reeve, the JD in question, just happened to be his cousin’s kid. Aggie had begged him to look for Gabe and O’Keefe had reluctantly agreed, even taken money to start his investigation. Now, he was in it deep. All in all, a bad situation.

Too bad! Like it or not, he’d ended up in Grizzly frickin’ Falls, and so far, he thought, the boy didn’t realize that he was being tailed. But that was about to change. Now that he was this close, O’Keefe wasn’t going to let the kid slip through his fingers again.

Down an alley and along a path, the boy ran, with O’Keefe, hopefully, just out of view. But he didn’t like it; Reeve was just too damned close to Selena Alvarez’s home, and she was one woman on this planet he meant to avoid at all costs.

Just damned luck the kid had led him here.

Right?

He didn’t have time to think about it. The kid vaulted yet another fence and took off on the other side. O’Keefe, less than ten seconds later, did the same, landing hard. He found himself smack dab in the side yard of a group of town houses; the complex that Selena Alvarez now called home.

He knew where she lived, of course.