Chosen To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Santana felt as if he should make some kind of connection, that somewhere in all of Ivor’s babbling there was something important, but before he could really piece it together his cell phone rang. Dropping some bills on the bar, he slapped Ivor on the back and walked outside.

Chilcoate’s number flashed on the screen. 398

Lisa Jackson

About damned time. “What have ya got for me?” he demanded, noticing the snow had stopped falling. Good. Clouds were breaking up to show patches of blue.

“We need to talk.”

“We’re talking.”

“Not on a phone.”

Chilcoate’s fear of being wiretapped by the feds was something MacGregor had mentioned. Santana knew he wouldn’t be able to budge him. “I can be at your place in twenty minutes,” he said, already sprinting to his truck.

“Make it ten.”

Teeth chattering, gasping for air, Regan rounded the stone and wood cabin as snow blew all around her and the wind played havoc with her hair. She spied the footprints leading from the door, her set that took off to the right, and to the left, those she’d ignored, half covered with snow, a second set of tracks. Made by two individuals. Large boot prints and next to them, much smaller tracks. Those, she realized, were created by feet bare of any covering. Her heart sank.

Surely they belonged to Elyssa O’Leary. True to the bastard’s word, he’d already marched her away from the cabin and into the forest to spend her last few waking minutes or hours freezing to death. In her mind’s eye, Regan pictured the other victims, all without a stitch of clothing on, their own footprints left in the snow leading to the trees where they had expired.

“You son of a bitch,” she bit out, forcing her teeth not to chatter as she staggered toward the trees,

CHOSEN TO DIE

399

keeping the tracks in view as she started down the steep slope. The snow was a curtain falling endlessly from the sky—a curtain she was afraid her pursuer would soon part.

There were no landmarks to give her some indication of where she was. But you were in a mine, Regan. A gold or silver mine. The hills were riddled with mines left over from a bygone era, but most of them were small and boarded over. Forgotten.

Not this one.

It was large.

Those tunnels weren’t the work of one man. The bastard might have reinforced some; it had been obvious he’d spent hours there. But the original mine shafts were extensive.

She knew the history of the area, the names of those who had first laid claim to the land, become rich, but most of them had moved on, even Hubert Long, whose family’s wealth came from copper . . . But gold and silver . . .

She kept her eyes on the trail of footsteps, staying close, careful not to step over a drop off as the terrain was rough, rocks and boulders hidden beneath the snow.

A cold wind scuttled through the barren trees, cutting through her, slapping her face. She was shivering so badly, she had trouble thinking, and in the near whiteout the going was slow, treacherous, the path tracks becoming more and more obscured. She had to keep moving, ignore the numbness in her fingers, the cold that bit at the back of her neck. Her heart drummed.

What if he was coming back?

Somehow you’ve got to nail this guy. 400

Lisa Jackson

She started down the hill again, rounding a corner and spying a lean-to of some sort. Her heart nearly skipped a beat.

The tracks were leading directly to the open building and a road, obscured by snow, was visible. This was it! A way to civilization!

She half ran to the shelter.

There was an empty space where, judging from the tracks and some oil that had spilled, a car or truck had been parked.

The pickup with the canopy that brought you up here. Better yet, parked close to the side, was a snowmobile.