He sucked deep breaths into his lungs, then let the air out slowly, forcing his mind to go blank, concentrating on bringing his pulse rate down.
He could control himself.
He could!
Calmer, he pointed his remote at the television as if it were a gun, then hit the button so that the screen would go blank. There was work to do. It was definitely time to shake things up a bit.
“I’ve got to run,” Pescoli said, pausing to stick her head into Alvarez’s office as she zipped her jacket. “I haven’t seen my kids for a couple of days, unless you can count Jeremy stumbling into his room and flopping on his bed yesterday morning as seeing him.”
“It’s Saturday night. They’ll be home?”
“Briefly, I think.” Pescoli shifted her bag on her shoulder and flashed a tired grin. “Just long enough to ask for money. Let’s just hope they took care of the dog.”
She headed out and Alvarez glanced at the clock. Tomorrow was another day, even if it was Sunday. However, she couldn’t help but feel time ticking away. Each minute that passed was another sixty seconds that the killer had to plot out his next move. In her job, Alvarez was forever racing against time.
Once more, she compared photos of the victims, before and after death, and felt a pang when she noticed the tattoo of the butterfly on Lara Sue’s ankle. Absently she wondered what was the significance of the inking, if anything. Freedom? Beauty? Or just a whim for a poor kid who, as Taj had commented, “fell through the cracks” and had been on her own since she was a teenager. Lara was very different from victim number two, Lissa Parsons, who had an education, good job, a sometimes boyfriend, a father and a much younger sister in Pocatello, Idaho, who were all completely devastated.
So who was the common person they knew, the thread that so fatefully had linked them together? And Brenda Sutherland, where was she? Already in the clutches of the killer, or had she been kidnapped by someone else, or just taken off, a single mother who had just cracked under the pressure? No way. In her gut, Alvarez knew Brenda had somehow come upon the same maniac as had the other victims.
God help her.
After slipping on her shoulder holster, she threw on her jacket and gloves, then grabbed her laptop and purse and walked down the decorated hallway to the back door. A couple of the road deputies, Rule Kayan and Pete Watershed, were searching for any leftovers that Joelle might have put in the refrigerator or cupboards and bemoaning the fact that there wasn’t a scrap of a cookie to be found. Rule was a tall African American who looked more like a power forward for the NBA than a cop, a guy Alvarez trusted. Watershed—not so much. He was handsome, knew it and thought crude jokes were the end-all, be-all. He was an okay cop, but Alvarez could do without him. Today, though, they were like two teenage boys, scavengers for anything edible.
“Good night,” Alvarez said.
Rule flashed her a grin. “See ya.” Watershed was still grumbling about the lack of cookies.
It seemed, Alvarez thought as she let herself out, that Pescoli was the only person in the entire department who didn’t appreciate all of Joelle’s efforts to bring a little Christmas spirit into the sheriff ’s offices.
And, Alvarez thought, even Pescoli had to admit that she liked a good cookie.
Outside, the temperature had definitely dropped as the storm the weather people had been predicting for the better part of a week seemed to roar over this part of Montana. Snow, in the form of tiny crystals of ice, poured from the heavens only to be whipped by the wind. Not a great night for a non-date, Alvarez thought as she turned away from the wind and unlocked her car, but she and O’Keefe had to go out; they couldn’t be alone in her apartment again.
She piled into her Outback and switched on the engine before backing out of her parking space and wheeling out of the parking lot, her tires crunching in the piling snow. Easing into traffic, she turned toward her town house. Traffic was a little slower than usual but hadn’t slowed to a crawl, as people in this part of the country were used to snowy conditions on the roads in winter. However, the guy behind her in some jacked-up SUV had his headlights on bright and the glare was nearly blinding. Adjusting her mirror, she tried to ignore the reflection, but it still bothered her.
Down the hill and over the railroad tracks, she drove through the older part of the town that had been built upon the banks of the Grizzly River. Through the curtain of snow, she saw the light of the courthouse, and farther down the street, barely, she saw the sign for Wild Will’s, where she’d first been accosted by Grace Perchant about her son, and where Sandi, the owner, had pointed her finger at Ray Sutherland. Was it possible? Had he somehow gotten rid of his ex-wife? Was the sheriff ’s department so focused on the Ice Mummy Killer that they were ignoring the obvious in the Brenda Sutherland disappearance?
Nah; she didn’t think so.
She turned onto her own street and was grateful the guy with the blinding headlights drove past. Thank God.
She pulled into her drive, waited for the garage door to go up, then guided the car inside just as her cell phone rang. Thinking it was O’Keefe, she picked up and answered as she was getting out of the car. “Hello?”
Nothing.
“Hello?” she said, irritated, then saw that there was no number on the cell as she hit the switch for the garage door with the palm of her hand and started inside. “Hello?” The opener responded and the garage door began to grind into place.
“Hello, bitch,” a deep voice said and she froze. The male voice was nearly an echo in the phone pressed against her ear and also through the garage.
She spun, dropping the phone and her purse as she reached for her service weapon.
“Too late,” the voice said, the door continuing rolling down, a man standing just inside. Junior Green, older and fatter than she remembered, his thinning hair disheveled, his beard shadow patchy, was standing inside the slowly descending door. Bloodless lips twisted in satisfaction, he aimed a pistol straight at Alvarez. “I told you I was coming back for you, cunt, and you fuckin’ didn’t believe me. Well, here I am!”
He grinned soullessly. “And I brought my fuckin’ gun!”
Chapter 19
Blam!