Willing to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

But there were still two sources, if she could convince either of them to help her. The first was Chilcoate with his ability to hack just about any damned thing. And then there was Jeremy. Could she use her own son to get what she wanted?

You bet.

When it came to catching a killer.

“Here.” Sarina handed the baby back to Pescoli. “I need to call Collette and bring her up to speed. She’ll want to know what’s going on.”

Pescoli gave her a halfhearted smile. Just what she needed. Her other sister back in the mix.

Sarina added, “Then I want to talk to Ivy. Alone.”

Be my guest, Pescoli thought as Sarina, tapping her fingers across the face of her cell phone before placing it against her ear, followed after her niece up the stairs.

* * *

Tanaka sat in the rental car at the airport in Missoula as Paterno turned it back into the agency. Her thoughts about the case had been interrupted by a phone call from Bonita, the neighbor girl who was in charge of Mr. Claus, while she was here, in the frozen tundra of Montana.

In performing her cat duties Bonita had discovered a decapitated, partially chewed mouse left on the little rug in front of the bathroom sink, a trophy displayed proudly.

“Disgusting!” Bonita, the thirteen-year-old neighbor, reported.

“You’re right. Did you take care of it?”

“Uh—yeah.”

“It’s in the garbage? Or down the toilet?”

“I put a paper towel over it. I couldn’t do anything else. I was almost puking just looking at it. I couldn’t touch it.”

“It’s still in the bathroom.”

“Unless he ate it. Yech. Why would he do it?”

“Kill the mouse? That’s his job.”

“But he could . . . I don’t know, eat it or bury it or whatever it is they do.”

“He did what they do. Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll be home in a few hours and I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh . . . okay. And you’ll pay me then?”

“Yes,” Tanaka said, staring out the windshield and watching a plane descend through the cloud cover. “I’ll stop by your apartment.”

“Good. Cuz me and my friends are going to get mani-pedis tomorrow.”

Is that what thirteen-year-olds did these days? “Okay.” She hung up feeling out of touch with the world. When she took on a case like the Lathams, she became uber-focused, and while the earth spun, and people had normal lives of

husbands and children and run-of-the-mill jobs, she spent every waking hour trying to track down a killer.

That was good, wasn’t it?

The world kept spinning because everyone did his or her job.

Hers just happened to be intense, trying to bring the most heinous of offenders to justice. As was the case in the Latham murders.

Through the window, she saw Paterno motioning to her and she climbed out of the car, double-checked to see that she had her laptop and briefcase, then pulled her coat tight around her torso and stepped onto the snowy parking area where an attendant in a puffy jacket halfheartedly walked around the vehicle searching for any damage.

A gust of wind swept over the lot, tugging at her hair, and she thought for a second that she and Paterno should stay here, that there had to be more of a reason for Ivy Wilde to come here than to seek shelter and safety with an aunt she barely knew. That just didn’t make any sense.