“Always.”
“Hey, Pete,” she said, before he hung up. “You think the victim is Dorie Oestergard?”
Watershed said, “Maybe. I’m telling you, Pescoli, I’ve never seen anything like it. Her eyes cut, her nose and mouth, too, as if he was disfiguring her on purpose. This guy’s beyond psycho.”
“Rage,” she said, sick inside.
“I’ll be there as soon as backup arrives.”
Not only was the killer, whom she assumed was Oestergard, escalating, but it was as if he’d snapped. No more quiet deaths where the victim was covered in ice, even sedated; now he was in a state of full-on homicidal madness.
She drove around the final corner and her headlights caught Dylan O’Keefe, his weapon pointed straight at her. As he recognized her and lowered his pistol, she cut the engine and got out of the Jeep.
“What the hell went on here? Where’s Alvarez?”
“Don’t know. Not here. And it looks like another vehicle went down the other side of the mountain.”
“To the Oestergard place.”
In the distance, sirens cut through the night. “Ambulance,” she said, and kneeling next to the boy, knew it couldn’t come fast enough.
She, too, talked to the kid, tried to keep him awake and focused. The dog, it seemed, was a lost cause and there was no sign of Alvarez, Trilby Van Droz or the killer. “Gabe, can you hear me?” she asked. “Stay with me. Gabe?”
The sirens shrieked, closer and cl
oser, engines cutting through the snowy night.
Gabe groaned, though it looked as if O’Keefe had managed to stanch the flow of blood for now. Maybe, just maybe, the kid would make it.
“You’ve been nothing but trouble!” Oestergard yelled to the woman, who, Alvarez saw now, was locked in a cage in this dungeon of a cavern. There were two other jail-like cells that had been constructed down here and Alvarez didn’t have to be told that they’d held other captives. She imagined the other victims being trapped in here, awaiting their fate, probably watching the ones before them slowly being killed before this jerk took the time to sculpt their own visages over their frozen bodies.
She wondered about this man whom she’d known as an acquaintance for the past five years, but didn’t dwell on it. As he approached the woman, whom Alvarez guessed was Johnna Phillips, Alvarez slowly moved, forcing her body to respond.
Now, if only Johnna would understand, not tip him off.
“You know what,” he said to the caged woman, “I should fuck you. Huh? How about that?”
“With what?” she threw back at him. She actually smiled as she taunted him. “You probably can’t even get it up.” In the case next to her was another woman, naked and unmoving. Trilby Van Droz was lying on a bare mattress, her hair a mess, her skin blue, and if she was breathing, Alvarez couldn’t see any sign of it.
“You think not? Well, how about I show you?” Oestergard yelled back at Johnna. As Alvarez raised her head a little higher, forcing her eyes to focus, she saw him at the gate, his key jangling in the lock. His face was red, his anger palpable as he was obviously off the rails completely. So intent at getting at the woman in his cage, he didn’t notice Alvarez or hear the sound that was barely discernible over the Christmas music: the distinct sound of footsteps on the staircase. Oh, God, please let it be help ... not an accomplice.
Johnna, naked, her lips blue, her skin covered in goose pimples, slid the barest of glances Alvarez’s way, and then said, “You can’t do it. I bet you haven’t been hard in years. Maybe never. So that’s why you’re down here making your stupid ice statues, because you don’t know how to satisfy a real woman. I’ve heard you talk about your wife. She’s a twit, isn’t that what you call her? Do you say that when you try to fuck her? Is that what you call her?”
“Just keep talking,” Jon said through clenched teeth as he unlocked the gate. “I’ll shut you up. For good.”
“Oh, big man ... sure ... Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Alvarez pulled her torso up as quietly as possible, then, with all her effort, swung her numb legs over the edge of the trough. Pain sizzled up her side from her bullet wound and she had to bite down on her tongue to keep from shouting out.
The music changed, a new song filtering through the speakers:
I don’t want a lot for Christmas ...
The song he’d sent her in the card. Alvarez drew in a deep breath. She had to take care of the bastard. Now! She slid to the ground, but her bad leg gave on her and she had to grab the side of the tub to keep on her feet.
Her gun.
Somewhere he had her gun.