Читать книгу The Alvarez & Pescoli Series - Lisa Jackson - Страница 28

Jillian had never been so cold in her life.

Teeth chattering, mind numb with fear, she struggled to free herself, to slip through the bonds. Her mind was sluggish and dull, but she forced herself to think, to find a way to extricate herself from the rope that held her fast to the tree.

The sick smell of ether still clung to her nostrils and she coughed and spat as her mind began to clear. Vaguely she recalled being attacked as she tried to save the dog, of having a rag held over her nose and mouth as she flailed wildly, fighting for a breath of air, feeling her good leg wobble and battling the darkness that encroached upon her vision and dragged her under.

Then her thoughts were scattered and vague. She remembered nothing clearly and the memories she did have were dull, mainly sensations. She sensed she was being dragged, that whoever had attacked her was laboring, having trouble breathing, and obviously hadn’t planned on having to carry her. But other than that, she remembered little.

Shivering, she forced her eyes open. Daylight was fading, shadows lengthening, and she was just so cold, her skin covered in goosebumps, her flesh feeling as if it were ice.

Help me!

The thought stuck in her mind and she forced the words over her lips. “Help, oh please help!” she screamed, but her voice was raw and tight, the sound no louder than a whisper. She blinked and tried to look into the forest, into the encroaching darkness.

This, she was certain, was how the others had died, though she remembered little of the details. That information hadn’t been big news in Seattle.

Oh God, Seattle.

Home.

The townhouse with its narrow stairs, small decks and warm, soft calico cat. Her throat tightened and tears formed in her eyes. And she thought of Zane MacGregor, the man who had saved her from freezing to death in her car, all his efforts wasted. Her throat thickened as she remembered him. Dear Lord, how had she mistrusted him? Why hadn’t she gone with her instincts and gotten closer to him? Touched him? Kissed him? Now she would never get the chance. Now, aside from that chaste brush of his lips against her cheek, she’d never know his touch.

Fool! She nearly sobbed as the tears tracked from her eyes only to freeze against her skin.

Oh for God’s sake, Jillian, what’re ya doin’ sniveling and giving up? For the love of God, don’t feel sorry for yourself. Do something! Save yourself, honey. Show what you’re made of! Grandpa Jim’s voice echoed through her brain, though he’d been dead for years and she doubted, rationally, that his spirit was wandering through the snow-shrouded forests of these hills.

“Help!” she yelled with more force, and looked down at the ropes surrounding her. She’d been tied at the waist first, secured against the cedar tree, her wrists lashed in front of her. Then her shoulders and legs had been bound so tightly that the rough fibers of the rope cut deep into her skin, making every movement even more painful.

Her ribs still ached and her damned ankle throbbed.

You won’t have to worry about that much longer, though, if your body goes numb.

Great.

Her mind was clearing, the ether wearing off, the urge to spit and cough lessening.

Come on, Jillian. Somehow you have to untie the ropes. Work on your wrists. Get your hands free.

But her fingers were unresponsive, unable to grab the ends of the knots. Nor could she reach them with her mouth, as her shoulders were so tightly lashed. She thought about the person who’d brought her here, a strong, determined individual hell-bent on destroying her.

Why?

And why harm the dog?

Jillian’s stomach roiled when she thought how Harley, poor innocent pup, had given up his life for her. Why the hell would someone hurt MacGregor’s dog? Fury spurted through her blood, and if she ever got the chance, she’d beat the living tar out of the person who had done this.

Perverted, twisted sicko!

Angrier now, her head clearer, Jillian shook her body, trying to force the shoulder lashings lower so she could dip her head, but try as she might, she managed only to chafe her already raw skin.

It was useless!

So you’re just going to give up? Freeze to death without a fight? Her grandfather’s voice mocked her and she thought of the tough old man who had been so kind and loving. God, she missed him. And now, facing death, she missed her crazy, busybody of a mother and even her supercilious sister. Dusti could be such a pain in the neck, but she was still her damned sister.

And then there was Mason, her ex. Had he lured her to this part of Montana, taunting her with information about Aaron, with pictures of her first husband? Pictures that somehow jogged an obscure recollection? Mason had accused her of still loving her first husband, even long after they were married. Her “mental infidelity,” as Mason had called it, had been a major crack in the foundation of their marriage and she’d never been able to convince him that she was over Aaron, that though his body had never been found, she’d buried him and his memory forever.

Had it been a lie?

Trembling with the cold, she didn’t know the answer to her feelings for her supposedly dead husband, but she saw no reason for Mason to bring it all up now. He’d remarried, had claimed to be happy, was “getting on with his life.” So why would he now, long after they were divorced, try to draw her back to Montana, shoot out her tire and leave her here for dead?

That just didn’t make sense.

But then, nothing did.

Again she began to cry, and again she sniffed back the stupid tears.

Setting her back teeth down hard, she struggled again, then heard the sound of someone running, hard. She looked up, half-expecting her tormentor to reappear. Instead, racing wildly through the trees was Zane MacGregor.

Her heart soared at the sight of him, wearing nothing but a sweater and jeans. He carried a rifle in one hand and didn’t falter one step as he broke from the woods to the clearing and the solitary tree to which she was bound.

“Jillian! Oh God!” He covered the snow-crusted ground in an instant.

Her voice squeaked and tears rained from her eyes.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, but was already reaching into his pocket, withdrawing a jackknife and sawing through the thick rope. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “Sick bastard.” The ropes around her shoulders gave way and she sank against him as he sliced through the cords binding her wrists. “Are you all right?”

“Ye–e-ss.”

He gave her an impassioned look that turned her insides to liquid. Then he cut through the ropes that held her hips to the tree, stripped off his sweater and forced it over her head. Her arms were lost in its sleeves, the hem barely covering her buttocks. “I’m getting you out of here.”

She was still fighting tears of relief that seemed hell-bent to track from her eyes though she cleared her throat and refused, absolutely refused, to allow herself to sob. “How?”

“I’ll carry you.”

“Oh no, you can’t—”

“Watch me.” With one arm, he lifted her off her feet and she sucked in her breath as pain shot through her ribs.

“Sorry,” he started to apologize. “I didn’t mean to—”

She kissed him. Without hesitation. Pressing her frozen mouth to his and wrapping her arms around his neck. His lips were warm and hard, the arms around her tightening as he kissed her back.

Eagerly.

Hungrily.

It felt so good to let go and kiss him. Despite the bruises on her body, the emotional horror she’d been through, the harrowing, near-death experience, she reveled in his touch, in the feeling of being alive again.

His fingers were strong and supple, their warmth permeating the oversized sweater, and in her mind’s eye she saw herself making love to him. Soon. She would be lying across his bed, the fire crackling on the hearth, desire pounding through her brain as need coursed through her bloodstream. She envisioned him as he came to her, his skin taut over hard muscles, his pupils dilated with the night, his hands and mouth insistent as he loved her.

Even now she felt it—that need to connect, the desire to lose herself completely to this man whom she barely knew, this stranger who had saved her twice.

She moaned when his tongue slipped between her teeth. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she held his face fast to hers, her mouth opening for him, her entire body trembling more from desire than the cold.

And yet they were alone in the forest, only the snow-crusted pines and hemlocks as tall sentinels.

Dear God, she wanted him. As crazy as it was, as cold as she was, as frightened as she was, she wanted him. He shifted a bit, breaking the kiss. “I have to get you to a hospital,” he said, his voice husky.

“MacGregor, I—”

“Shh.”

She just clung to him, burying her face in his neck and believing for the first time since she woke up naked and bound to the tree that she might actually live.

And then she remembered.

The dog!

“Oh God,” she whispered, her heart tearing at the image in her mind, a picture of Harley lying in the snow, blood crusting on his mottled fur. “Harley. He—”

“I know,” MacGregor said quickly, the corners of his mouth hard and set. “I found him.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Is he—?”

“Still alive. Or at least he was half an hour ago.” He looked at the tree again and hitched his chin toward a marking hewn from the bark. It was smaller than a man’s palm and positioned around six feet from the ground, obviously having been whittled over her head while she was tied to the tree.

“What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“A star?” His eyebrows slammed together and worry clouded his eyes. Somewhere, from the surrounding forest, an owl let out its lonely call.

Jillian, still clinging to MacGregor, felt the tiniest breath of wind play against the back of her neck. “Why would anyone cut a star or any kind of symbol into the trunk of that tree?”

“It’s a calling card. Whoever tied you up wanted the world to know that it’s his handiwork.”

“Sweet Jesus,” she whispered as the realization that she was in the hands of a demented killer suddenly hit home.

“It’s fresh. He did it today. After binding you to the tree.”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She stared at the crude symbol, and though the day was still bright, the snow blindingly white in the sunlight, she felt a darkness hidden in the trees, an evil concealed but present in the icy forest.

“You have slivers in your hair.” He pulled a bit of wood out and she nearly threw up. The thought of the monster working over her as she was slumped against the ropes, of him taking the time to carve out a symbol as she was helpless, drugged and naked, made her sick. A man who would go to so much trouble wouldn’t give up.

MacGregor must’ve felt it, too—the danger that lay in the surrounding thickets. His features hardened and his gaze scoured the surrounding woodland. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. He carried her to a stump, where he set her on her good foot, then turned so that his back was to her. “Wrap your legs around my waist and hold onto my neck.”

“You can’t carry me like…”

He stared at her so hard her thought dissipated and she let her voice trail off.

“I was in the war, Jillian. I’ve packed out soldiers and they were a helluva lot heavier than you. It was the desert, a hundred degrees, and I had a lot of equipment. You…here…a piece of cake.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, but didn’t argue. She thought about the fact that she was naked from the hips down, and though she felt a flush of embarrassment, his stare convinced her that they had no choice. “I should try to walk.”

“You should climb the hell on my back so we can get out of here now,” he said, “before whoever did this to you decides to come back.”

“Come back? No,” she said.

“Seems pretty determined to me.”

She didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t let herself think that the monster who had debased her and left her to suffer and die in the wilderness would still be stalking her. But she stared at the forest with new eyes, with a new fear. What if, even now, the psycho was watching them through binoculars or sighting her through a rifle.

Her throat went dry and fear, cold as the air surrounding them, burrowed deep into her heart. Who would be doing this to her? Trying to kill her, but doing it slowly. Ritualistically. “Is this…this being tied to a tree and left, the way the serial killer does it?”

“After he shoots out the tires of their cars. I think so. At least I read of a couple of women it happened to, but that was before the last spate of storms knocked out all the phone lines and electricity.”

“You think me and the other women were targeted for a reason?”

“I’d bet on it.”

She studied the horizon, searching for a dark figure lurking on the ridge, a sparkle of reflection off field glasses or a rifle’s sight. Was someone even now aiming at the back of her head or the spot between her shoulder blades?

“So, we’d better not go back to the cabin.” He was thinking aloud as he walked into the forest from the clearing.

“Why not?”

“He could be waiting for us.”

“He thinks I’m dead.”

“Does he?” MacGregor wasn’t convinced. “What makes you so sure that he isn’t watching us now?”

“The fact that we’re still alive. He’s got two guns that we know of, the one he used on Harley and the one you left for me, which he took. If he was still around, he would have picked you off before you cut me loose.”

“But if he figures out you didn’t die, he’ll be back,” MacGregor said, breathing with some difficulty. “When he couldn’t get you in the wrecked car, he tracked you down.”

“How?”

“Good question, but whoever this guy is, he’s damned determined.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. “Are you still betting on your ex?”

“Not if this guy is a serial killer.”

He shifted her again and she tried not to think about her bare thighs surrounding his waist, the way she jostled against him. It was all too bizarre, like something out of a weird, disjointed dream—the frigid cold, being half-dressed and carried, a killer potentially watching them after having tied her to a tree. “Not Mason,” she said at length. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Not the serial killer type?”

“No.” Mason Rivers was a lot of things, some of them not good. He was greedy and a cheat, an attorney who could bend the rules to his way of thinking, but a cold-blooded murderer? No way.

“Hold on.” He hiked her body up higher and she bit back the urge to cry out.

Walking briskly, trudging through the knee-deep snow and beginning to sweat despite the frigid temperature, MacGregor said, “Tell you what. I’ll leave you near the cabin, then check it out. If it’s safe, I’ll carry you there and then I’ll get Harley.”

Her heart twisted at the thought of the dog. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t write him off yet. He’s tougher than he looks.”

But she didn’t believe it. The dog had been shot so badly he couldn’t move, then had been cruelly left to bleed and die in the snow.

“That twisted son of a bitch,” she whispered, her fingers curling into fists.

“Tell me what happened.” MacGregor was breathing hard now, sweat trickling down his neck as he trudged on.

“I could try to walk.”

“I’m okay.”

“But—”

“Just tell me what happened,” he said tersely. “How you ended up tied to the tree without a stitch on.”

“Okay.” As he hauled her down a short hill and across a frozen stream, Jillian began with her fears, how she’d been waiting for MacGregor at the cabin as the hours had passed, how she’d worried that he wasn’t returning, that something had happened to him, how she’d let the dog out to relieve himself before realizing she’d made a mistake.

“I was watching him and then Harley took off. I followed, but with my damned ankle and using a crutch, there was no way I could keep up with him. He took off through a thicket and I followed and then…and then…oh God, I heard a gunshot and this horrible, painful yelp. It was awful,” she said, replaying the horrible scene in her mind. “I found him and he was just lying in the snow…. Oh dear God, it was so awful,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

“And you didn’t see the guy?” MacGregor said, trudging onward, through the play of sunlight and shadow, and heading, she assumed, toward the cabin.

“I don’t remember anything after coming upon the dog. I…I don’t know what happened to my clothes or my crutch or the rifle. He jumped me from behind, put a rag soaked in something—I think maybe ether—over my face. The next thing I knew I woke up naked and tied to the tree.”

“Where did the bastard go?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “As I said, I was out.” She shuddered and he held her closer, his body warmth seeping through the T-shirt he still wore and the bulky sweater covering her body.

“Did you recognize anything about him?”

“I didn’t see him.” And that was the God’s honest truth. He’d jumped her from behind and…

A noise caught her attention.

“What’s that?” she asked, looking up through the ice-laden canopy of naked branches just as she recognized the whomp, whomp, whomp of a helicopter’s rotor whirring in the distance.

“Maybe help,” he said, looking up, squinting into the heavens. His lips tightened a fraction just as a rescue copter appeared over the sharp crest of the surrounding mountains.

“Oh God, you’re right!” Her heart soared and her throat closed. Rescue! Finally!

Still holding her with one arm, Zane waved frantically, trying to get the pilot’s attention. “What did I tell ya?” he said with more than a touch of irony. “The Cavalry is finally on its way!”

MacGregor sat in the uncomfortable chair in the interrogation room and, while the two investigators peppered him with questions, stared at the large one-way mirror through which he knew the sheriff, district attorney and probably a host of other cops were watching his reactions. He could invoke his right to a lawyer; hell, they were expecting it as they videotaped the interview, but he had nothing to hide.

He picked his way through the minefield of questions, answering honestly but not giving up any extra information in the cinder-block room, where the acrid scent of ammonia couldn’t quite hide the smells of body odor, vomit and desperation. Fluorescent tubes offered a buzzing, jittery light. Mounted in one corner was a camera, its lens focused on the small table, where a half-filled ashtray sat in one corner and a thick manila file with notes jotted across it and papers stuffed inside lay, like a coiled snake, silent and deadly, ready to strike in a split second.

“…so you expect us to believe that in the middle of one of the worst blizzards in the last decade, you just came across Jillian Rivers’s car and saved her?” the taller detective, Pescoli, asked. Her eyebrows were raised in wonder, her expression total disbelief.

“I heard the sound of the rifle report,” he said again. “That’s why I found her. And there was a break in the weather, a small one, but a break.”

The other detective, a quieter, calmer woman with shiny black hair knotted at the base of her neck and eyes that were an intense, unreadable brown, was listening. Something in her demeanor suggested that she believed him, or that at least enough of his rendition of the events was believable to have her doubt him as a suspect.

He’d told them the entire story. Once the helicopter had rescued Jillian and he, too, had been hauled into the chopper, he’d been handcuffed and brought to the sheriff’s department while Jillian was taken to a hospital. Here, in this dull, windowless room with its flat gray walls and cement floor, he’d been offered a folding chair at a simple table and the cuffs had been removed as he’d given his statement. At first he’d been spitting mad, demanding his freedom, insisting that someone find his dog, cursing the fact that no one seemed to believe that he’d actually saved Jillian Rivers rather than tried to harm her.

But this woman, Alvarez, had told him they’d found his dog, alive, and she was beginning to buy into some of what he was telling her. It had been hours since the helicopter had touched down, a long time since he’d been hauled in here and they’d begun interrogating him.

The room was cold but he’d been given another one of his shirts, one brought from his cabin, which, he knew, had been turned inside out while the detectives had looked for evidence, clues that he’d been involved not only in Jillian Rivers’s abduction but the murders of several other women.

Pictures of corpses had been laid on the table in front of him, photos of battered, dead women, all of whom had been lashed to trees and left in the elements to die.

“You’ve never met any of these women before?” he was asked for about the twentieth time.

“No.”

“You don’t recognize them?”

“No.”

He held Pescoli’s gaze. “I’ve never seen any of them before in my life.”

Pissed, she walked away from him and rotated her neck a bit, as if she, too, were weary of this discussion that was going nowhere.

“You have a record,” she said, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms under her chest.

“That’s right.”

“And we’re not talking about speeding tickets. You killed a man in Denver. Did time.”

MacGregor didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. They had his file, knew all about the charges.

“So you’re not a stranger to murder.”

It wasn’t a question. He didn’t rise to the bait. The charge had been manslaughter. Big difference. They both knew it. He wondered what time it was but resisted the urge to check his watch. They’d been at it long enough that he’d told them not only how he’d found Jillian but what had transpired in the ensuing days. He figured everything he told them would be confirmed by his cabin or by Jillian herself. He’d already asked about her, and they’d responded with, “She’s at the hospital under a doctor’s care,” but wouldn’t give him any other information. The same was true of Harley. “He’s alive. A vet is examining him,” was all he got.

“You have books on astrology and astronomy,” Alvarez said. Again, a statement.

“And you’re a guide, know the area,” Pescoli added, double-teaming him. “You’ve led expeditions to Cougar Pass?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve fished in September Creek?”

“Of course.”

“Know about Broken Pine Lodge?” she asked, leaning closer, near enough that he smelled the faint scent of perfume laced with cigarette smoke.

“I’m a guide. I know the area.”

“Including all the places the bodies and cars were found.” She pulled a map from the file on the edge of the desk. Upon the familiar topography were red marks that he assumed were the areas in which they found the bodies and the cars. “You’ve been to all of these places, right?” She pointed out the marked areas.

“At one time or another, yes. But not recently.”

They kept at it, asking him what he’d done this winter, specifically centering on the dates around the twentieth of each month. They asked what he could tell them about the significance of the stars carved into the boles of the trees and then they showed him copies of notes on white paper, notes with letters that meant nothing to him other than they seemed to progress—with each new victim, new letters, the initials of the dead woman, were inserted.

“So you’re asking us to believe that you’re not the Star-Crossed Killer. That’s what the press has dubbed you.”

“Ask Jillian Rivers,” he suggested.

“We have. And you know what? She’s not exactly backing you up.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t believe this hard-nosed detective with her narrowed eyes. “In fact, she said there were times when you were gone for hours. Hours.” She closed the gap between herself and the table and pointed to the pictures of the dead women. “Enough time to get to your lair and prod your victim to her doom.”

“My lair?” he repeated. “Are you kidding? Lair?”

“A cave or another cabin, maybe something like the old abandoned lodge, a mining shed, some place where you keep them.”

She was fishing. Didn’t have a case and she knew it, all the while hoping he’d get mad enough to blurt out some piece of critical information to lock him to the murders.

“So are you going to arrest me or what?” he asked, finally tired of the game. He was exhausted, mentally fatigued, and his bullshit meter hovered well over full. He’d said what he had to say.

“We’re holding you.”

He knew the law, knew this was within their rights. “Okay, but I’m done answering questions. I’ve given you my statement, so anything else you want to ask me will be with my attorney present. Garret Wilkes in Missoula. Give him a call.” He stood then, half-expecting the bigger woman to order him back into his chair, but she didn’t.

She looked as tired as he felt, and if she was any cop at all, she’d already figured out he was innocent.

“I want to see my dog and talk to Jillian.”

Pescoli was having none of it. “Can’t do it.”

“Sure you can. As soon as you give up all this ‘bad cop’ act.”

Pescoli’s eyes flashed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Alvarez said, stepping in before her partner did anything they’d both regret. She fished her handcuffs from her back pocket. “For now, though, Mr. MacGregor, you’re going to have to spend the rest of the night in a holding cell. Compliments of Pinewood County.”