Deserves to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Give it a year or two,” she said and saw the girl’s eyes cloud. “Sorry. None of my business. Anything else you can tell us about the woman?”

“Other than that she was in a real bad mood? I don’t know if that’s her normal personality or not, but if it is, she really needs an attitude adjustment. That’s what my dad always tells my mom when she’s in one of her bitch moods. Oops.” She placed her fingers over her lips. “Sorry. That just slipped out.”

“No problem,” Pescoli said, thinking of the language she’d heard from her own kids.

They ran some more questions but didn’t learn anything more as no one else in the place had been on duty or remembered the one customer.

As they walked back to the Jeep, Alvarez found her sunglasses and slipped them on. “We’re already waiting for the security cameras from the buildings along the river. Maybe we’ll catch a break and one of them will show something.”

“Or the Spokane PD will find something in her home,” Pescoli thought aloud as they knew the victim’s address, but she wasn’t holding her breath. So far, they knew little about the woman other than where she lived. They’d found no connection between the two victims, other than they’d both been killed and had their ring fingers, complete with diamond rings, sliced off their left hands.

“This guy got a thing against engagement?” Alvarez thought aloud as they crossed the street and got into Pescoli’s rig.

“Or marriage. But that’s half the male population.”

“And then there’s the missing fingers.”

“What the hell do you think he does with those?” Pescoli asked.

“Hmmm . . .” Alvarez shook her head in disgust. As they reached the base of Boxer Buff her cell phone went off. “Alvarez,” she answered. “Yeah . . . where? You’re sure?”

Pescoli glanced over at her partner.

Yeah . . . okay. We’ll be right there.” Alvarez hung up and said, “We got lucky.”

“What?”

“Calypso Pope’s purse. Found by a teenager on the rocks near the falls. All her ID intact. Credit cards, too, or so it seems on first inspection. No cash. Anyway, he turned it in at the station. It’s at the lab already and they’re processing it, checking for trace evidence, fingerprints.”

“Needle in a haystack.”

“Maybe, but it’s something.”

“Yeah.”

“Lars Bender, the kid who found it, claims there wasn’t a dime in it,” Alvarez said. “He’s already asking about a reward.”

“Figures.” Pescoli cranked on the wheel and turned up the hill behind a tow truck with a crumpled midsized sedan on its bed. “You never go wrong being disappointed in human nature.”

With his gaze on the GPS monitor, Ryder followed the woman he was certain was Anne-Marie Calderone. He drove a mile or two behind her outside of town, past a smattering of houses on the fringe of Grizzly Falls, and into the rolling hills of farmland. The road was getting chewed up from traffic, but the pastures that spread beyond the fences were still covered in a white, pristine mantle, sunlight bouncing off the icy crystals of snow so that he was forced to squint and finally find an old pair of sunglasses he kept in the glove box.

Slipping on the polarized lenses, he kept driving, meeting a few other vehicles, checking his mileage and finally guessing where she was heading. Sure enough, he passed a long driveway and saw from the small monitor’s screen that she’d turned into the lane. No surprise the oversized mailbox had the name GRAYSON written across it.

Some things never change.

He told himself it didn’t matter, but he couldn’t help wondering why she’d decided to go to Cade Grayson. Was he the real reason she’d taken this winding path from Louisiana to Montana? The end piece of her game? Ryder drove past the place and turned around about a mile up the road. Then he waited, wondering what she was doing, thinking that after meeting with Grayson she might take off again.

He’d have some time, though. She hadn’t packed up.

Yet.

He’d been watching, feeling every bit the voyeur as he’d sat in his dive of a motel room, sipping beer and staring at the monitor of one of his laptops, the one that had been hooked up as a receiver to the wireless transmitter he’d left on her property. The second one he used for research and communication.

He’d nearly collected enough evidence, and after today, it would be time to execute phase two of his plan.

His lips twisted a little at that thought.

Seeing Anne-Marie face-to-face for the first time in months would give him a small degree of satisfaction. But then telling her what he was going to do with her, that was going to be difficult because like it or not, he still felt a connection to her, that same old attraction that hadn’t quite let go, despite everything.