Gabe’s body jerked.
He pitched forward.
As Alvarez watched in horror, he toppled facedown into the snow and a red stain oozed through his thin jacket.
“No!” she screamed, and flung herself from behind the wheel.
As she reached her boy, throwing herself on the frozen ground, she heard the resonant sound of a huge gun firing again.
So close!
Pain, blistering and hot tore down her side.
Blackness swept over her.
She swung around, her own gun firing wildly, seeing the dark figure from the corner of her eye. Trying to aim, she focused on him and squeezed the trigger again just as she felt the cold electrodes of the stun gun against her neck.
Panicked, she fired.
Die, you freak. Die! Die! Die!
O’Keefe punched it.
Snow flew from beneath his tires.
The engine of his Explorer ground but he managed to keep the wheels churning up the steep road in the foothills over Cougar Creek, his wipers working overtime against the snowstorm. “Come on, come on.” He was sweating, fear driving him, his heart a drum. If that bastard had laid a finger on Alvarez, he’d personally slit the son of a bitch’s throat.
Staring at the map on his smartphone, he followed the signal of the GPS device he’d stuck under the quarter panel of Alvarez’s Outback. He saw that she’d driven to a remote area of the foothills, and decided he had to call Pescoli back.
When he’d first called Selena’s partner, he hadn’t admitted to placing the device on the Subaru, hadn’t thought he had to activate it. He’d figured she was on police business or doing something privately, and wasn’t about to rat her out. After all, the sheriff had taken her off the ice-mummy case.
But he’d made a mistake and now was mentally kicking himself.
The tracking system on his phone indicated that the car had stopped and he had the coordinates.
Pescoli answered curtly.
“It’s O’Keefe. Alvarez is on Cougar Point Road, about fifteen miles out of town.” He gave her the coordinates.
“So what makes you think so?” Pescoli asked, obviously irritated.
“I’m tracking her.”
“You put a bug on her?”
“On her car. Yeah.” He thought about explaining that he’d been worried she’d do something foolish and go off half-cocked, but held his tongue.
“So why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Pescoli demanded, practically seething. “Why did you call me earlier and ask me where she was?”
“I didn’t want to overstep,” he started to explain. “I wasn’t sure.” It sounded lame. It was lame.
“But you put an effin’ bug in her Outback. I’d say that was overstepping. Wouldn’t you? Damn!” She said something else he couldn’t hear over the noise of his engine and the wind howling as it roared across this part of Montana. “Look, I’m on my way. I’ve called for backup.”
“You knew?”
“Just figured it out.”
“I’m almost there.”