Читать книгу Chosen To Die - Lisa Jackson - Страница 11

“Oh, God, save me,” a frightened female voice whispers through the darkened hallways as I am finishing my exercise routine.

Ninety-three. Ninety-four. Ninety-five.

I count off each of the push-ups as sweat runs into my eyes and my arms start to shake, my hands flat against the cold stone floor, the fire hissing and casting the room in shifting golden shadows. My face burns, the scratches not yet healed, sweat like salt into the shallow wounds.

Outside the night is raw, a storm howling through this solitary canyon, hard beads of snow adding to the accumulation of several feet of fine white powder. Icy crystals that help me with my mission.

“Please, help me…”

I hear the desperation in her cries and it’s soothing to me even as it breaks my concentration.

Ninety-six. Ninety-seven.

My form is military perfect, my back level, my muscles gleaming with perspiration, my shoulders and arms screaming, but the pain feels good, the sweet torment of my muscles straining, of mind over matter.

Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.

She’s crying now. Mewling and whimpering in the small bedroom. Like a lost kitten whose eyes have not yet opened, searching in the darkness, calling out to the mother cat.

How perfect.

I pause, but only for a second as I savor the last push-up, slowly, painstakingly lowering my body until my chest nearly brushes the floor, then just as determinedly, inching my weight upward. I hold my body in the final, perfect, suspended position and study my reflection for a minute. Flawless, strident muscles, thick hair, a handsome face staring back at me, veins bulging with the effort.

One-fucking hundred.

“Someone, oh please…can anyone hear me?” she moans.

It’s time.

I release the pressure on my muscles and silently roll to my feet. From the back of a chair I retrieve my towel and dab away at the sweat as I listen to her cry. The longer she waits and worries, the more quickly she’ll learn to trust me.

I’m coming, I think, knowing I must respond, play my part, act as if I truly care. I’ll give her comfort and painkillers, offer her hot tea and a kind embrace, so that she will want more, will turn to me for comfort, to save her. She will be difficult, I know, a stubborn, intelligent woman not easily turned, but I’ll find a way to break her, to make her trust me, to give herself body and soul to me.

Not that I’ll accept it.

Still, she will beg for me to take her, to hold her, to whisper that I love her, when, of course, I will not. I imagine the hope in her eyes, the quiver of her full lips, the touch of her hand as it slides slowly down my body in seductive invitation.

But I’ll resist.

As I always do.

I add another log to the fire, sparks spraying, hungry flames licking the dry wood, coals glowing blood red and giving this primitive cabin a warmth, a coziness. I head to the small bathroom, walk quickly through the shower to soap off the evidence of my workout, then slip into jeans and a sweater. The casual mountain man.

She’s sobbing quietly in the other room as I walk barefoot to the tiny kitchen where hot water is already steaming on the wood stove.

Excellent.

I pour a cup, add a tea bag, and watch as the water turns the color of tobacco. A faint memory flits through my mind. It’s a picture of a woman long ago. Carefully, with silent calculation she’d dunked a tea bag into a chipped cup. She’d been pretty with her pillowy breasts and lips always colored a shimmering peach, lips that had forever been turned down at the corners, the aura of dissatisfaction hanging over her like a cloud. She’d smelled of cigarettes and perfume and had pretended to be my mother.

But she, like so many others, had been a fraud.

My hands are shaking. Trembling.

I hear her taunts.

“Idiot.”

“Moron.”

“Most likely to fail.”

The tea is nearly sloshing over the rim of the cup.

I let out my breath slowly. Then from practice, I quickly dispense with the ugly memory, and, calm once more, carry the cup through the living area where I’ve just finished my routine and down the hallway to my captive’s door. She’s quieter now, as if trying to disguise the fact that she’s been crying. As if she’s trying to pull herself together.

Which she never will.

I tap lightly on the panels and open the old door slowly, a crack of light cutting into the dark interior.

She’s lying on the bed. Frightened. Her eyes wide. Tears visibly tracking down her cheeks.

Am I a sinner or saint?

Her knight in shining armor?

A good Samaritan?

Or the embodiment of evil?

Soon, she’ll know.

Luke Pescoli answered the door himself.

All six feet of him, squarely blocking the entrance to his single-level home. In a long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants, his blond hair mussed, he looked as if he’d been logging in serious hours in front of the television that was flickering in the background. The local news was on, the top story being the arrest of a woman thought to be a serial killer, and Regan’s feisty little terrier was tearing through the house, growling and barking as he raced, paws clicking madly on hardwood, to the door.

“Cisco, hush!” Pescoli ordered, blocking the doorway as the scrappy little terrier tried to scramble outside.

She’d already determined she would conduct this interview in her most professional manner. She and Lucky had met before, but only in passing. “Hello, Mr. Pescoli. I’m Detective Selena Alvarez from the—”

“Yeah, yeah. Old news,” he interrupted. “What do you want?” he asked, trying to control the jumping dog.

“I’m looking for Regan.”

“Regan?”

Behind him she caught a glimpse of a flocked Christmas tree, pink and gooey-looking, standing guard over the flat screen as the warm smell of cinnamon curled from the interior. “Your ex-wife.”

“Yeah, I know. What’s with all the protocol? Regan’s not here. No way she would be.”

“She’s missing and she left me a message that said she had business with you and—”

“Missing?” he interrupted harshly. Wariness darkened his hazel eyes. “What do you mean, missing?”

“She didn’t show up for work today and she’s not at the house.”

“Are you shittin’ me?” he demanded, disbelieving.

“Lucky!” a female voice shrilled behind him. Michelle, his wife, a compact, curvy woman, was barreling through the living room toward the front door.

“Watch your language! Bianca’s here.”

“Oh, save me,” a girl said as Regan’s daughter pushed her way past her father and stared at Alvarez suspiciously. “What are you talking about? Mom can’t be missing. What’s that supposed to mean?” She looked up at her father. “This is a joke, right?” But she was concerned. Her eyes, so much like her father’s, reflected his worry.

He waved off the question. To Alvarez he said, “Start at the beginning.”

“That’s what I was going to suggest you do.”

“Well, for God’s sake, come on in,” Michelle said, glaring at her husband and giving him a little-girl pout. “It’s freezing out there and our gas bill is already too high.”

Reluctantly, Lucky stepped away from the door and Alvarez stomped snow off her boots before crossing the threshold and walking into a room filled with Christmas decor. Along with the pink flocked tree, there were lights strung over the mantel and candles taking precedence over the hunting and sports magazines strewn over the tables. Ceramic elves with big eyes, drooping hats, and, in Alvarez’s opinion, wicked, leering smiles were tucked between table legs and on windowsills.

“So you haven’t seen Regan since…?”

“Last week sometime when we picked up the kids,” Lucky said.

“Friday,” Michelle chimed in as she waved Selena toward the cluster of chairs near an unlit fireplace where inside the firebox, dangling dangerously over the charred logs, a plastic Santa’s boot was visible, as if Old St. Nick were actually climbing down the chimney. “In the afternoon.”

“But you talked with her since.” She caught a glimpse of the local news on the television where there was running footage of a woman being forced into a squad car. Breaking news from Spokane, Washington, the running caption read. Suspect arrested in the Star-Crossed Serial Killer homicide investigation.

She perched on the edge of a blue side chair while her partner’s ex-husband took up what appeared to be his usual spot on the couch. Cisco, traitor that he was, hopped up beside Lucky and turned his beady eyes on Alvarez.

“Yeah. Yesterday. When she found out the kids were with me.” His gaze wandered to the television. “Looks like you caught the guy, huh?”

“Remains to be seen.”

“Maybe Regan took off for Spokane to be part of the bust.”

“Then the sheriff’s office would know where she was,” Bianca sneered, though she chewed nervously on her lower lip.

“What did she say?” Alvarez asked, bringing Lucky back to the conversation.

“On the phone?”

Selena nodded.

He shrugged. “That she was on her way. I’d told her I…well, that Michelle and I wanted full custody of Jeremy and Bianca, and Regan went ballistic. Told me she was coming over, and to get the kids and the dog ready.”

“Did she show up?”

“No.” He looked away from Alvarez’s steady gaze. “I figured she’d cooled off. Changed her mind.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. She does that, y’know.” He was irritated now, paying a little more attention. “It’s not like she hasn’t said one thing and done another before. It’s kind of her M.O.”

“Yeah,” Michelle agreed.

“You’re her partner. You must know what a hot-head she can be,” Lucky said.

“Seems to me she’s been pretty rock-steady where the kids are concerned.” For the first time Selena noticed that Pescoli’s son hadn’t joined the party. “Is Jeremy here?”

“Nah, he went into town.”

“In this?” she asked, hitching her chin toward the window and the storm raging outside.

“He’s nearly eighteen, been driving in snow ever since he got his license. It’s nothing. I loaned him my truck ’cuz we left his at her house.” As if a sudden thought occurred to him, he said, “You said you checked there at her place?”

“She’s not there and her Jeep is missing.”

“And she’s not answering her phone?” Leaning across the couch for the handheld, he dialed a number, as if he could reach his ex-wife when the entire sheriff’s department couldn’t. When that didn’t work, he pounded out a new set of numbers, then as he listened, said, “You probably tried her cell?”

“Yes,” Selena answered carefully.

Frowning, he waited, then, obviously hearing Pescoli’s voicemail recording, hung up and stared at the phone.

“Dad?” Bianca asked, her voice quavering slightly. “Where’s Mom?”

“Oh, probably with some loser guy she picked up—”

“Lucky, don’t—” Michelle warned, her perfect, pink lips puckering into a knot of disapproval.

Maybe she isn’t so bad after all.

“But you can find her, right?” Bianca said, glancing from her father to Alvarez.

“Of course,” Selena said, though she didn’t like her odds. “Why don’t you tell me what happened when she called yesterday.”

He glowered out the window, watching as the snowflakes fell relentlessly from the obscured heaven. “We had a fight on the phone. That’s no news flash. I thought she’d come barging in here ready for bear, but when she never showed I figured she’d decided to take some time to cool off. It’s almost Christmas. She was eyeball deep in all this crap about the serial killer, so I thought she’d just chilled. Believe it or not, that happens, too.”

A timer went off in the kitchen.

Michelle, as if she’d been sitting on coiled springs, shot out of her chair and hotfooted it past a crowded dining room table and through an archway.

Bianca looked at her dad. “Mom’s okay, right?”

“’Course she is,” Lucky said, flashing a smile that radiated confidence.

Alvarez’s cell phone went off and she climbed to her feet and walked to the entryway, to give herself a little privacy. “Alvarez,” she said, grabbing another tissue from her pocket, and heard Undersheriff Cort Brewster’s voice on the other end.

“We got a signal off of Pescoli’s vehicle coming from up on Horsebrier Ridge.” Alvarez’s stomach dropped. She’d driven over the ridge on her way from Regan’s house to here. “Rule’s already on the scene and spotted the vehicle. Wrecked, buried in the snow. We’ve got another unit headed that way, the towing company alerted.”

Alvarez sneaked a glance over her shoulder. Bianca was staring at her wide-eyed while Lucky was tuned in to the news. Oh, God, what a mess.

“Anyone see the driver?” she asked, her voice low.

“Not yet.” His voice was grim. “Rule claims at least twelve inches of snow over the vehicle. He can’t tell how badly it’s wrecked or if anyone’s inside.”

“I’m on my way,” she said, digesting what the undersheriff had said as well as what he hadn’t. The temperature in that wrecked car would have been far below freezing last night and if Regan hadn’t gotten out…

She clicked off the phone and turned back to the living room where Bianca was still staring at her.

“I’ve got to go. If you think of anything else, call me.”

“That was about Mom,” Bianca guessed, her face ashen. “Wasn’t it?”

“We don’t know. We think we might have found her vehicle. Nothing’s certain yet.”

“Where?” Bianca demanded, getting up from her spot on the ottoman.

Now, finally, she had Lucky’s attention. He clicked off the television with the remote. Michelle, snowman hot pads covering her hands, had walked into the archway near the dining room and, too, was waiting.

“I don’t know anything, but I will soon,” Alvarez said. “I’ll call.”

“No…I want to come.” Bianca was already starting for the door, but Lucky reached out a long arm and stopped her, held his daughter fast. For the first time he seemed to really comprehend how dire the situation was.

“We can’t interfere with police business, pumpkin. Detective Alvarez promised to call us and she will.”

Alvarez’s heart sank as she walked to the door and let herself out. Whatever had happened to Regan wasn’t good.

She knew it.

Lucky Pescoli knew it.

Only Bianca was holding out childish hope.