Afraid to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Is the cat missing, too?”

“No. She’s downstairs. I saw her hiding under the couch,” she said automatically, and walked to an alcove in her bedroom where a dormer window was wide open. “Escape route.”

“Son of a bitch.” He stood beside her and looked outside, where the dormer was attached to the roof. Sure enough the snow had been scraped away where, obviously, someone had slid to the edge, then probably swung from the branch of a nearby tree to land on the ground. Footsteps broke through the snow, then disappeared into the night and the tracks in the road.

O’Keefe didn’t wait. In three steps, he was out of the bedroom and flying down the stairs. He wasn’t about to give up the chase yet. Selena Alvarez or not. Through the open front door, he raced along the short drive to the street, where he hesitated under the street lamp. A pickup rolled past, a dog visible in the foggy window. He hailed the driver, who stopped on the ice and rolled down his window. Smoke from a dangling cigarette wedged into the corner of the driver’s mouth curled out the window. From beneath the brim of a crumpled hat, the driver asked, “What can I do for ya?”

“You see a kid run by, a kid with a puppy?” O’Keefe glanced across the seat to the spot where the dog, a springer spaniel sat, head turned toward his master and the open window, its dark eyes assessing. Old dog. Not a pup.

“Nope.” Three days of silvery beard shadow covered a jaw that was somewhere north of sixty. “You a cop?”

“Was,” O’Keefe said.

“Well, I ain’t seen anyone tonight. Whole damned town seems to have rolled up and called it a night.”

That much was true. At least for this street, which was pretty much deserted.

“Thanks.” He stepped away from the truck, but he did take a cursory glance at the bed, which was empty aside from a toolbox bolted behind the cab and a couple of shovels. The truck rolled away and he searched the street, looking down alleys and in the bushes that lined the yards of several homes along the street. Colored lights and garlands of cedar decorated doorways and eaves while, at one house, a snowman—missing

an eye and covered in a fresh layer of frosting—stood guard near a walkway.

He didn’t pay much attention, just checked all of the yards and fresh snow, looking for tracks only to come up empty. Down one side of the street and up the other, he searched, swearing under his breath, disbelieving that after three days, he’d actually lost the kid.

And it would be damned hard to find him with no phone with GPS, no car with plates, no credit cards, no friends in this town that he knew of, not one damned way to trace the kid here in Grizzly Falls. But he’d have to have money and find shelter and eat. Probably fast food.

He was jogging back to Alvarez’s town house when he noticed a Jeep round the corner of the street and red and blue lights strobed the area.

Backup.

Finally.

About damned time.

Chapter 7

Alvarez finally let out her breath. She hoped she’d seemed cool and in command when deep down she’d been scared to death, sweating bullets. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of a dark figure lurking by her garage; O’Keefe was lucky she hadn’t shot him.

What the hell was he doing chasing some punk to her house? She’d called Pescoli, located Jane Doe and tried to piece together why some criminal would break into her house and steal her dog. For a few seconds she’d thought of the men she’d put away who had threatened her, insisted that they, when they got out of prison, would come back and haunt her.

“You made a big mistake, cunt,” Junior Green had charged, pointing a thick finger at her, his near-bald head shiny with sweat and reflecting the lights of the courthouse after his conviction. “You hear me. I’m comin’ back for you, just you wait!” She’d dismissed his threat as empty at the time, but when she’d thought of someone breaking into her place, he’d come to mind, no matter that O’Keefe had mentioned a kid named Reeve.

This was her home, damn it, she thought as she eyed the interior of the town house where a cold wind was blowing, and she dragged the slider door to the backyard closed. Why would the kid take her dog?

He didn’t. Somehow Roscoe must’ve escaped in all of the hubbub, maybe even gone out the same upstairs window. . . except there were no paw prints in the snow on the roof and he would have been trapped in the backyard if he’d gone out the sliding door in the dining area ...

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Pescoli said to O’Keefe. She’d arrived after Alvarez had phoned her and Pescoli, along with O’Keefe, had returned to the house, where they now stood in the living room, not far from the front door. “You were chasing an underage armed robber who just happened to end up here and steal my partner’s dog.”

O’Keefe asked Pescoli, “You’re her new partner?”

“Not so new,” Pescoli said, and shot Alvarez a questioning look.

“I don’t know that he took the dog,” O’Keefe replied, “but, yeah, the rest of it’s essentially true. And what’s worse, I lost the suspect. We need more officers to find the kid!”

“We’ll see.” Pescoli was obviously still trying to get a handle on what went down. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? Who is this Reeve kid?” She was skewering him with green-blue eyes that said more loudly than words, And don’t try to sell me any BS cuz I ain’t buyin’.

“Gabe is my cousin’s son, but I don’t know the kid all that well, have only met him a couple of times.”

“But he’s a criminal?” Pescoli pressed. “Or just a psycho dog snatcher?”