“At least not at home.”
“No. She ... no.”
Uh-oh. Now the ex was catching on.
Pescoli dropped the jacket over the back of her desk chair. “What’s her address?”
“Number two-one-five at the Park West Apartments.” He gave her the address and she wrote it down. “Like I said, I probably wouldn’t have called, but there’s all this crazy shit goin’ down and I’m worried. I’ve texted her and called and she’s not picking up or returning my calls. I checked online at Facebook and, like ... nothing for over twenty-four hours. And she’s on there all the time. I even sent IMs to her friends and no one’s sayin’ they, like, heard from her. It’s weird, man, I’m tellin’ ya. Somethin’s not right.”
“Why don’t you come in and file a report?” Pescoli suggested. Unconvinced that the ex-girlfriend wasn’t just not responding to him, Pescoli was hesitant to follow up. However, he seemed so convinced that Johnna Phillips was really missing and had actually called searching for her, which gave Pescoli pause. She didn’t want to take any chances, not with a lunatic terrorizing the area. “Check with Missing Persons. That’s the department where you need to file the report.”
“Cool!”
Not really, but she wasn’t going to tell him.
Driving home in a department-issued vehicle, Alvarez decided she probably should have told Pescoli her theory about the earring but hadn’t wanted to go off half-cocked. Just because she was missing an earring didn’t mean the one found in Lara Sue Gilfry’s tongue belonged to her. She wouldn’t even have thought of it, as the silver stud wasn’t all that unique, except for the hoop earring found pierced through Lissa Parsons’s nipple.
That one was definitely hers.
So, she wondered, was it that much of a leap to think that the killer would use another one ... no, make that the stud, the first piece of jewelry, if he’d killed the women in the order in which they’d been discovered? Because their bodies had been frozen, determining time or day of death was tricky, if not impossible.
She flipped on the Jeep’s wipers, as snow was falling again, dusk slipping away, the police band crackling as she nosed down Boxer Bluff. This year, colored spotlights had been trained on the falls, and the river, not yet frozen, tumbled wildly, a rushing froth in green and red as it flowed past the courthouse and shops lining the street that flanked its deep banks.
She wasn’t the only one who’d seen the new display. Sunday evening traffic was worse than usual as drivers slowed to take in the sight.
By the time she turned down her street, she was nervous and a little agitated. If the silver stud did prove to be hers, her life was going to be a lot more complicated. The FBI would be all over her and some connection made between the killer and her.
What the hell is that all about? Why has he targeted you? This is NOT random, Selena, you know that!
Troubled, she pulled into her drive and reached for the nonexistent garage-door opener. Of course, it was still in her Subaru.
“Lovely,” she said, ramming the gearshift into park. As soon as she made the determination that her stud earring was really and truly missing and that the remaining one was the twin of the bit of metal yanked out of Lissa Parsons’s mouth, she’d call Pescoli as well as O’Keefe, whom she left at the station without so much as a good-bye.
Dylan O’Keefe was another issue, one she’d prefer to keep private. That being the case, she didn’t want anyone from the department searching her place for her earring or evidence from a week-old break-in and coming up with any personal item from O’Keefe. She just wasn’t ready to start answering questions about their relationship or lack of relationship; it was all too complicated and would certainly bring up the mess in San Bernardino and Alberto De Maestro again.
That, she would definitely like to avoid.
Grabbing her things, she stepped into the cold of winter again and walked swiftly through a fresh dusting of snow to her front door. On the porch, she inserted her key into the lock, and as she did, the door swung open, as if it hadn’t been locked or latched.
Again?
Someone had broken in?
Her heart kicked into overtime as she tried to remember leaving early this morning, but she was certain the door had been shut and locked . . or had it?
From habit she reached for her gun and pushed the door open farther.
No sound.
But there was a flickering light emanating from within ... the gas fire? She knew she hadn’t left it burning.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
Someone was in the house.
Heart hammering, every nerve stretched tight, her fingers wrapped tightly over the butt of her pistol, she stepped quietly inside.
Still no noise, no shuffling of frantic feet, but if she listened hard, she could hear the hiss of the fire as it burned.