Born To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Mom. Don’t lie to me. I can see it plain as day. Why haven’t I heard a word about him before now?”

“There was really nothing to tell.” But the sparkle in her eyes belied her words. “What do you think?”

“About him? Or you?”

“About us.”

“I just want you to be happy,” Kacey heard herself saying, but beneath her good wishes there were questions, one of which was, why, in all the years she had been married, had her mother never once showed this youthful, giddily happy side to her daughter or husband? Why had Kacey felt the strain of her parents’ marriage for almost as long as she could remember? She’d come to think that her mother had never loved her father, that she’d thought she’d married beneath herself, becoming the wife of a laborer when she had an education, a career ... and, probably, aspirations to something more, something she saw now in David Spencer.

Kacey wondered how well she knew her mother. How well she’d ever known her. Maribelle was full of secrets and obfuscation. The truth was a thing to hide.

“How about that? You actually showed up.”

Dan Grayson’s smile stretched across his face as he stood in the doorway and swung the door open to allow Alvarez to step inside.

She’d almost turned around when she’d spied the unfamiliar car parked near the garage, snow piled four inches over it, so that it was impossible to tell what make or model it was. A small compact, it looked like.

“Hey, Hattie! We’ve got company,” he called over his shoulder, and Alvarez’s stomach dropped an inch or two. “Come in, come in. Cold as the devil out there!” Stepping out of the doorway, he waved her inside, and she forced a smile she didn’t feel.

What a mistake! He’d suggested she come over just to be polite, that was all. But now there was no turning back; she’d just have to make her excuses early and leave. She stepped into the entryway of the cabin and heard the thunder of footsteps.

Two girls who looked to be around seven, identical twins, rounded the corner. One was dressed in pink, and her hair was pinned back behind her ears with a matching headband. The other, in green, wore a ponytail that was slipping out of its band, and when she smiled, she showed a missing front tooth.

“Girls, this is Detective, er, Ms. Alvarez.” Then to Alvarez, “Selena, meet McKenzie and Mallory.”

“Hi,” the girl in pink, McKenzie, said. Her sister’s eyebrows pulled together, and she glared at Alvarez as steady footsteps clipped from behind and a woman who could have been a twin for June Cleaver appeared. Tall, slim, in heels and a sheath, she smiled brightly as she spied Alvarez.

“I’m Hattie,” she said with a warm smile. She was actually wearing a strand of pearls and one of those flimsy, useless aprons that wrapped around her wasp-thin waist. Her hair was pulled to the back and pinned with a fancy comb of some sort. She looked as if she’d just stepped off of a 1950s television soundstage.

“Selena,” Alvarez said, feeling awkward as she handed the woman, obviously the hostess, the bottle of wine.

“So glad you could make it. And just in time!” To Grayson, she said, “You could offer to take her coat. Geez, Dan, sometimes I wonder!” She glanced at the wine. “Cabernet! My favorite!”

Save me, Alvarez thought and mentally kicked her way into the dining area, where the old beat-up table had been covered with a pressed cloth, and fresh greens and a sprig of cranberry surrounded fat white candles as a centerpiece. Four place settings, chipped china on faded place mats, screamed that she hadn’t been expected.

“Dan, can you open this?” Hattie asked and actually winked at him as she handed him the bottle, then hurried through a doorway to what was obviously the kitchen.

“You got it.” To Alvarez he said, “Hattie is . . . was ... my sister-in-law. The girls are my nieces.”

“Oh.”

That didn’t explain a lot, and as if he could read the confusion in her eyes, he added, “Hattie’s my ex-wife’s sister.”

Oh, God, this was getting more and more complicated.

They walked into the kitchen, where Hattie was pulling another plate from a cupboard and a turkey, roasted to perfection, was cooling, waiting to be carved, an open bottle of Chablis standing next to two mismatched wineglasses.

Inwardly, Alvarez groaned as Hattie rattled in the cutlery drawer and came up with a place setting.

Make the best of it, she told herself. Just get through the next couple of hours and smile. Even though this is your own private nightmare, you can handle it. How difficult is small talk compared to searching for clues to Jocelyn Wallis’s death or studying the crime scene left by a sadistic, brutal killer? It’s only a meal, for God’s sake!

“Dan, why don’t you start carving?” Hattie asked as Grayson uncorked the bottle of red.

“Good idea.”

Alvarez buried her nose in the glass he offered her. This was a side of Grayson she’d never seen. The relaxed family guy. Dear God, what had she been t

hinking?