Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“He needs to go to school.”

“He will if he really wants to join the force. He’ll have to.” She blew across a spoonful of bisque. “So, go ahead and marry Santana.”

“Easy for you to say.”

She barreled on, “And you let Jeremy work at the department and find out what he really wants. Hurts nothing. As for Bianca,” she said, a little more serious, “if she’s really got an eating disorder, that’s a real problem. You have to do something. Fast.”

“I know,” Pescoli said, taking another bite from her sandwich and wondering how a child of hers would deny herself food. “And I will.” She polished off the first half, then tackled her potato salad. “Thanks, Dear Abby.”

“Anytime.” She stirred her soup. “Remember, I do have a master’s in psychology.”

“Well, then, that does make you an expert, now, doesn’t it?”

Alvarez attempted to swallow a small grin. “Pretty much.”

“Fine. So, now that you’ve solved every damned one of my personal problems, let’s get back to business.”

Alvarez nodded, her smile fading, her eyebrows drawing together, tiny lines appearing over her nose. “Because both victims work in law enforcement, we’ve been digging into past cases, thinking that’s the connection.” She glanced around the room, her gaze skating over the other customers. “But what if that’s what the killer wants us to think? What if there’s a connection we don’t know about?”

“Between the judge and the sheriff?”

“Yeah.” Alvarez was thinking hard.

“What kind of relationship?”

“That’s what we have to figure out.”

“Lovers?”

Alvarez hesitated. “It doesn’t feel right,” she said, shaking her head, but Pescoli could almost see the cogs turning in her partner’s mind. This wasn’t new territory for Alvarez to travel. “I still think Hattie Grayson’s the only woman he’d be interested in.”

“Or you.”

Her head snapped up. “I think we’d better be clear about this,” she said, “because I’m only saying it once, and I’m only saying it to you. Nothing ever happened between me and the sheriff. Not that I didn’t fantasize. But it wasn’t happening. He never would have let it, so it was just a passing thing, all on me. One-sided.”

“Okay. Then why not the judge?”

“There’s no evidence pointing that way. At least not yet. And if you’re thinking that Grayson’s name is going to magically appear out of the ashes from the fireplace in the judge’s den, I think you’re jumping off the deep end.”

Pescoli dug into her milkshake with the long-handled spoon she’d been given, breaking up a clog of ice cream. “We need to look at them all.”

“That we do,” her partner agreed, clearly disturbed. The topic of Grayson’s love life was hitting too close to home, it seemed.

And that, to Pescoli’s way of thinking, was one more problem in a case that already had far too many.

Hattie screwed up her courage as she drove to the Grayson ranch. The road was familiar, the memories vivid, as she guided her Toyota onto the long lane that wound its way to the ranch house. Surrounded by acres of snow-covered pastures and backdropped by rugged mountains, the house sat on a small rise, outbuildings scattered around the place the Grayson boys had called home for most of their lives.

She caught a glimpse of the barn and her heart twisted when she imagined, for what had to be the millionth time, how Bart’s body had swung from the cross timber where Cade had found him. In her mind’s eye, she saw his ashen face, bulging eyes, dark bruises on his neck. Why? She wondered again but knew deep in her heart that if he did, in fact, hang himself, she was the reason he’d taken his own life. “He didn’t,” she said again, forcing conviction into her words, praying that she was not the cause.

As her Camry churned its way to the crest of the hill, she recognized several vehicles, including Cade’s truck, parked just outside of the garage. For a split second she second-guessed herself, but she’d come too far to turn back now, and her reasons for arranging a play date for the twins so that she could track down Cade hadn’t changed. It was time they cleared the air, once and for all.

For the past couple of days, ever since they’d run into him in town, McKenzie and Mallory had been focused on seeing him again. It wasn’t a surprise that they were feeling uncle deprived, she supposed, as Dan had played such a large role in their lives.

Parking beside Cade’s Dodge, she took a deep breath, stuffed her keys into her pocket, and bracing herself against a gust of wintry wind, grabbed her purse and trudged through the snow to the front door. Her handbag felt as if it weighed a ton, the fat envelope inside heavy with the truth.

Cade’s dog, Shad, a three-legged speckled hound, sent up a ruckus as she approached, only to melt into a puddle of wagging tail and excited whines as she spoke to him.

“Hey, Shad,” she chastised softly. “What’s with all the barking? You know me.” She took the time to scratch the old dog behind his floppy ears and was still petting him when the front door opened and Zed, standing in his stockinged feet, new-looking jeans, and a sweatshirt from Montana State, filled the doorway.