The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa JacksonЧитать онлайн книгу.
the man in the picture looks enough like him that you came?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She was shaking her head at her own folly. “I know, it seems kinda crazy now.” She shoved her hair out of her eyes. “Or really crazy.”
“Was the marriage to Aaron in trouble?”
“No!” she said with more passion than she’d intended. “Well, I don’t think so. I mean, he had no reason to disappear that I know of.”
“Did he have bad debts?”
“We didn’t owe more than we could pay.”
“Did he have life insurance?”
“Yes, and it took a while, but they finally paid me. That’s how I bought my townhouse.” Why in the world was she confiding in him?
“And until you saw the pictures, you were convinced he was dead. He didn’t come after you for the money.”
“This letter and the phone calls—they came out of the blue. And now I think they all might have been a wild goose chase.”
“To lure you here,” he said again, “so someone could kill you?”
“That sounds…ridiculous, doesn’t it?”
He shrugged, then rocked back on his heels and frowned. “I’m a hunter. I was in the military. There are lots of ways to kill a person and do it quickly, maybe not even get caught, but shooting out a tire and hoping the car will free-fall into an icy ravine isn’t a sure thing.”
“As evidenced that I’m still here,” she agreed.
“Right, and the killer knows you survived. Or, at least, I’m assuming he checked the car.”
“Maybe not. He could’ve thought the job was finished.”
“Or been frightened away by me.”
“Why not just shoot you, too?”
“He might not have been able to get a shot off. And anyway, we can’t assume you were the ultimate target. As you said, there’ve been other women killed around here. A couple of them, I think, and they, too, were forced off the road, like you, though I don’t know all the details.”
“We talked about the serial killer thing before,” she reminded him, and tried to ignore the panic she felt rising inside. “Are you trying to say that this killer knows his victims, or at least enough intimate details of their lives to get them here?” Dear God, she couldn’t believe the words that passed her lips and yet…. “Do you know the names of the other women?”
He shook his head. “No. Why? Do you think you might know them?”
She glanced nervously to the windows and the darkening landscape beyond. “I think I read one of their names, but it didn’t ring any bells.” She forced herself to look directly into his eyes. How did she know he wasn’t the killer? That he wasn’t toying with her? It didn’t seem that way. In fact he seemed downright concerned.
She swallowed hard.
Could she trust this man?
Did she have a choice?
The answer was no.
Like it or not, she was stuck here, at least for a while. But she didn’t have to stay. If she could get herself mobile, able to walk just a little, and the weather broke. He’d mentioned he had a snowmobile. She’d driven one before, while she and Aaron were on a ski trip to Colorado. If push came to shove, she could get it started and drive the damned thing to civilization, or another cabin, or any damned where.
She just needed a key.
Mason Rivers was a prick.
And a prick who was hiding something, Pescoli thought as she pulled into her driveway, cell phone at her ear. She’d just driven home through the blizzard to make sure the kids took everything they needed for the weekend visit with their father. Lights were on inside the house, but Jeremy’s truck wasn’t parked in its usual spot.
“My secretary said you were trying to reach me,” Rivers said guardedly, after brief introductions.
No shit, Sherlock, Pescoli thought, but kept it to herself.
“You’ve heard about your ex-wife?” Regan hit the button on her garage door opener.
“I was out of town, but a colleague brought in the paper saying that her car had been found at the bottom of a canyon.”
“That’s right.”
“Is she okay?” he asked as the garage door slowly opened.
“We don’t know. We can’t find her.”
A pause, the silence cut by the grinding of the garage door and her Jeep’s idling engine.
“We thought you might have an idea of where she was going, or where she’d been.” The truth of the matter was that the accident reconstruction team had spent hours on the ridge where Jillian’s car had spun out. They could tell from which direction the car had careened down the hill, but because of the spin, couldn’t discern which direction she’d been traveling. They had the clue of an empty coffee cup from the Chocolate Moose Café in Spruce Creek, and a waitress remembered Jillian, as she’d been one of the few customers taking anything “to go” that day. So, it seemed that she had been traveling toward Missoula rather than away from the town.
“You know, we were divorced two years ago and I’m remarried now. I don’t keep in contact with Jill or her family.”
“We thought she might be coming to see you.”
“Why?”
“That’s what we wanted to know.”
“Look, I have no idea where she was going or why. As I said, I haven’t had any contact with her since the divorce was finalized. Now, if there’s nothing further, I have a client waiting in my office.”
“Just let us know if you think of anything.”
“There’s nothing to think about, Detective.” He hung up and Regan was left with a bad feeling. She pulled into the garage, hit the remote so the door would crank down, then climbed out of the car and made her way into her house, where Cisco greeted her with wild tail wagging, excited yips and tight little circles of enthusiasm. She had only half an hour, then she had to be back at the department for a Friday afternoon meeting before she worked late into the night. Overtime. This year it would pay for Christmas.
The dog was still going out of what little he had for a mind.
“Cisco! Shut up!” Bianca yelled from her bedroom. The TV was blaring in the living room, tuned into some reality show about twenty-somethings being overly dramatic about the minutiae of their lives, all while dressed in nearly nothing. Lots of tanned, toned flesh, a few piercings visible, numerous tattoos, all peppered with tears, bad language and raw, teen-type angst and emotion.
“Real life, my ass.” Pescoli picked up the remote, downed the volume and turned to the local news.
Once the decibel level was in the normal hearing range again, Pescoli stuck her head into her daughter’s room. Painted a blinding pink when Bianca was ten, it was now covered in posters of the latest teen “hotties” from boy bands and movie stardom. Bianca was flopped over her unmade bed, cell phone glued to her ear.
“Where’s your brother?” Regan asked.
Bianca’s expression got all pissy. She mouthed, “I’m on the phone.”
“Big deal. Hang up. You can call whoever it is back.”
“What? Just a minute. My mom came in. No, it’s okay—”
“Hang up, Bianca. Your dad will be here in twenty minutes.”
Sending her mother a look meant to melt steel,