Born To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Checking his watch, he realized it was too late to listen in on Acacia, the most troubling of the lot. Just thinking of her made his skin tingle in a way he found disturbing, yet slightly erotic.

Too risky, he reminded himself. She had been the reason, all those years ago, that he’d learned of the other Unknowings. Her existence had unwittingly brought them all to his attention and each’s ultimate demise.

He should probably thank her.

He almost laughed aloud and wished that he could listen in on her and fantasize, but he knew it would be fruitless. There was no reason to try and listen now. She was already out of the house and probably at the clinic.

He smiled.

Maybe he should become her “patient.”

Soon. He smiled to himself and felt his cock tweak just a bit. Very, very soon.

“So she has some vague, slight resemblance to the other women. So what?” Pescoli said two hours later, when she and Alvarez had reconnected and were driving to the department’s garage. Today, it seemed, her partner was really grasping at straws. Her latest: Elle Alexander looked like Shelly Bonaventure and Jocelyn Wallis. That was just a leap of faith Pescoli wasn’t about to take.

But she did have to agree with Alvarez that the 9-1-1 tape of Tom Alexander’s frantic call to the emergency line sounded authentic, that he was out of his mind with fear, which was only reinforced when he showed up at the department earlier this morning. Upset, he’d stormed into the sheriff’s department and demanded an investigation into his wife’s death. But his anger had slipped as he’d talked to Pescoli.

Handsome and trim, he’d been the epitome of the grief-stricken husband who was still in shock.

“She was a good driver and was used to inclement weather. I’m telling you, she could navigate the worst roads in snow! And I heard it all! I was on the phone when he hit her. She was scared out of her mind and must’ve dropped the phone, because she wasn’t answering, and I heard the sound of metal on metal. Oh, God it was ... deafening. And then she was yelling and screaming, calling my name over and over, but she couldn’t hear me!” At that point he dissolved onto one of the side chairs, burying his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. “Then there was the screams and the rush of . . . water, I guess, and then ... and then ... nothing. The phone went dead. For the love of God, what am I going to do? Elle . . . oh, Jesus, Elle.”

Pescoli hadn’t been able to offer platitudes. She hadn’t told him, “It’ll be all right,” or “I know it’s tough, but you’ll get through this.” Not when she’d been where he was on the night that her first husband, Joe, had been shot.

It didn’t matter that it was in the line of duty.

She didn’t care that he was deemed a damned “hero.”

All she knew was that he was dead, leaving her with a young son and a hole in her heart big enough that an army tank could have driven through it. She would never be able to talk to him again or hear his laugh or watch him haul Jeremy around on his broad shoulders, or make love to him long into the night. It had been over in an instant. Those first years after Joe’s death had been hard. So hard that she’d mistaken lust for love and married Luke Pescoli, “Lucky,” who had proved to be anything but.

So she didn’t offer up bromides. Instead she said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Alexander,” and slid the Kleenex box across her desk to him.

Somehow she’

d managed to take his statement, and now she and Alvarez were heading to the department’s garage. Alvarez was explaining that Detective Jonas Hayes of the LAPD wasn’t convinced that Shelly Bonaventure committed suicide, though most of the evidence pointed that way.

“There were just some things that didn’t add up to his satisfaction,” she said as she pulled into the lot designated for official vehicles. She found a parking spot near one of the large metallic garage doors and switched off the engine.

“Just like the Jocelyn Wallis case,” Pescoli guessed, still reluctant to accept any loose connection between two cases that were over a thousand miles apart.

So the two women resembled each other. So they’d both been born in Helena, at the same hospital. Their deaths weren’t even the same, except, of course, they’d both been poisoned. But Shelly Bonaventure’s death was from an apparent overdose, and Jocelyn Wallis had fallen over the cliff, which broke her back and crushed her internal organs, the reason she was no longer walking this earth. Neither was from the poisoning itself.

“I asked Detective Hayes to send me a DNA analysis on Shelly Bonaventure,” Alvarez said.

“To compare to Jocelyn Wallis? Are you serious?”

“And Elle Alexander.”

“Her death was entirely different,” Pescoli reminded.

“I know. Could be our guy’s getting desperate.”

“Sounds like a wild-goose chase to me. And it’ll take time. You think that’s necessary?”

“Don’t know,” Alvarez admitted. “Could be that it’s a dead end. But at least we’ll know if these women have any genetic link.” She opened the door to her Jeep and pocketed the keys. “I’m just ruling out all the possibilities.”

“I think it’s premature.”

“Duly noted. Meanwhile, women are dying.”