Afraid to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Had kept track of her and realized she lived in Grizzly Falls and worked for the sheriff’s department, but he hadn’t known her street address until he’d checked with DMV before driving into the city limits.

Great. Just ... frickin’ great. What were the chances? he wondered as he watched the kid slink past a hedgerow of arborvitae, a few branches bending under the weight of the snow. The boy flattened himself against the side of a garage, glanced over his shoulder, then crept quickly around the corner of the end row house.

Alvarez’s unit.

“Son of a bitch,” O’Keefe muttered under his breath. He hadn’t crossed the damned state of Montana, chasing Gabriel Reeve to Grizzly Falls, only to lose him. No way! It was time to snag the kid, haul him back to Helena and make Reeve face the music before O’Keefe had to deal with Alvarez.

He unbuckled his sidearm from its holster but left the safety engaged. He wasn’t going to use the Glock. No. It was only insurance. He just wanted to scare the kid and get him out of the area quickly. Besides, he figured Reeve was armed and didn’t want to round a corner only to end up on the business end of a pistol without his own weapon ready.

A fresh blast of arctic wind swept through the buildings, slapping his face and cutting through his jacket with a bite as sharp as all of December.

You should call the cops; let them handle this—just tell them where the kid is.

But he didn’t and he had his reasons, even if they were flimsy as tissue paper. For one thing, the kid was a relative, his cousin’s boy; for another, he wanted answers himself before the cops got to the boy.

He followed Reeve around the corner and found himself at the garage side of the town house just as twin beams cut through the night and the sound of an engine reached his ears. A small SUV turned onto the street running past the town house, and somewhere nearby—from inside the condo—a dog barked wildly. O’Keefe stopped dead in his tracks, hoping the driver of the car wouldn’t notice him as the Subaru passed.

No such luck!

Instead, a grinding noise filled the night as the garage door began rolling upward. The Outback, sending snow flying beneath its tires, zipped into the driveway, the beams of its headlights splashing up against the building and, no doubt, throwing his silhouette into relief.

Great.

In the drive, the Subaru skidded to a stop and Selena Alvarez, all fire and ice, flew out of the driver’s side. Her

service weapon was drawn and her dark eyes, glittering with suspicion, zeroed in on him. “Police! Freeze!” she ordered, two hands on her pistol. “Drop it!”

He let go of his gun and it fell into the snow.

“Hands over your head!” she ordered, moving around the open door as the car dinged in protest. But the dog had stopped its frantic barking ... “Wait! What? Dylan O’Keefe?” she whispered in disbelief, and some of the starch in her spine seemed to leave her. Confusion clouded her features. Damn, she was beautiful. Still. In that intriguing, intelligent way that he’d found so damned fascinating and nearly deadly. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Chasing a suspect.” He tamped down the cold, blue fury that burned in his gut by just staring at her, and for a few seconds, he was thrown back to another place and time. The San Bernardino stakeout that had changed his life forever.

“But ... wait ... you’re chasing a suspect here?”

“That’s right. And he’s gonna get away if I don’t nail his ass. No time to explain.” Not that he could. What were the chances that he’d end up here? What the hell was that all about? Coincidence? Or just bad luck?

“For the love of God.” She was shaking her head, her hair as black and shiny as a raven’s wing and in stark contrast to the whiteness of the snow falling around them. He’d hoped he’d never see her again. But here he was. What was it his old grandma had said? If wishes were horses ... and so on and so forth.

Now that she recognized him, she slowly lowered her weapon. “Dylan effin’ O’Keefe.”

“Stay here,” he said, “and call for backup.”

In one swift motion, he pulled his Glock out of the snow and started rounding her building, wiping the barrel on his jeans as he followed the broken trail Gabriel Reeve had left.

“Wait! I don’t understand.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Get back in the car!”

“No way! This is my house!” She was already slowly closing the door of the Subaru.

“And my collar.”

“Fine. But I’m coming with you since you are chasing someone breaking into my house. I’m involved.”

He repeated, “Just stay out of the way, Alvarez, and call for backup.”

“You haven’t?”