Deserves to Die Part 2

Pescoli looked up at him.

"Reports?" His eyebrows raised, a nonverbal reminder that there was work to be done that bugged the h.e.l.l out of her. "The Haskins suicide? Amstead domestic dispute?"

"Both done," Alvarez said.

"Good. E-mail them to me." With a quick, sharp nod, he was off, boots ringing as he strode down the hall, probably searching for his next Red Bull or a spot where he could drop and do twenty quick push-ups. Just because he could.

"I can't stand that guy," Pescoli said under her breath.

"I know," Alvarez said. "And he knows. For that matter, we all know." Her dark eyes were without reproach, though, as if she silently agreed. "Maybe you shouldn't make it so obvious."

Pescoli didn't respond. She knew she was being b.i.t.c.hy, but she didn't really care.

"Try it," Alvarez suggested, her professional mask slipping back into place. "I'll catch you later." She was out of Pescoli's office quickly.

Once more, Pescoli rolled her desk chair to the door and pushed it firmly shut, a practice that was new to her. Since Blackwater had grabbed the reins of the department, she felt she needed privacy, at least for now and the foreseeable future.

She wasn't kidding herself. Grayson, if he ever returned, was a long way off from regaining his rightful place as sheriff. She and the whole d.a.m.n office were stuck with Blackwater, the go-getter who let everyone know it.

"s.h.i.t," she whispered.

Grayson, forever with his black lab Sturgis at his heels, his Stetson squarely on his head, was soft-spoken and thoughtful, yet quietly firm. A tall, rangy man who looked more cowboy than lawman, a sheriff elected by the people of Pinewood County, his quiet command was effective. He had strong opinions and all h.e.l.l could break out when he was angry, but for the most part, he was in control and steady, a rock-solid force Pescoli could depend upon.

Blackwater was all action-fast-paced and guns blazing as if he had to prove himself. He made sure that everyone who worked for him knew he was an ex-Marine who had served two tours in Afghanistan. Pescoli had heard that he ran every morning, three miles minimum in all kinds of weather, and three days a week he spent hours in the gym, boxing and lifting weights to reduce his stress and stay in Marine-proud shape. At work, he downed Red Bull, Rock Star, or Monster energy drinks the way an alcoholic tossed back martinis. Part Native American, he appeared perpetually tanned, his eyes an intense brown bordering on black, his nearly six-foot physique all compact muscle.

Pescoli admitted to herself that he was handsome enough, if that mattered, with a slightly Roman nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once, bladed cheekbones, and black hair without a trace of gray, cut short, again, a reminder of his military background. Blackwater was smart, too, Pescoli allowed, and had the law degree to prove it. He attacked each problem head-on with the ferocity of a wounded bear, no excuses, and had already made it clear that he expected every member of his staff to do the same.

It wasn't his work ethic that got under her skin. It was his style that rankled. All his terse sentences, orders, and d.a.m.n meetings indicated that he'd come to not only play but to stay.

Pescoli had been toying with the idea of quitting, or at the very least, cutting back her hours to part-time, and her pregnancy had only reinforced her plans. However, there was that little matter of making sure Grayson's would-be a.s.sa.s.sin spent the rest of his life behind bars. She wasn't going to do anything until she was certain that son of a b.i.t.c.h never walked free again.

She'd have to suck it up for a while. Yes, the entire atmosphere in the department had changed and it bothered her, but so what? A lot bothered her these days.

Deal with it, she told herself as she clicked on her mouse and focused her attention on her e-mails. She sure as h.e.l.l didn't want to be late with any d.a.m.n reports.

Her life had become a pathetic good newsbad news joke, Jessica thought as she drove past the snow-crusted fields of a farm on the outskirts of Grizzly Falls.

The good news? She'd landed the job at the Midway Diner.

The bad news? Dan Grayson, the man she had thought just might be her savior, was in the hospital fighting for his life, so her plans to enlist his help would have to be put on hold. Indefinitely. Her spirits were low; she'd counted on the even-tempered sheriff's help. Her plans would have to change.

Taking a corner a little too fast, she felt her wheels slip on the icy road and eased off the gas. The tires gripped the road anew and her SUV straightened. The radio was blasting over the rumble of the engine and the clock on her dash indicated it was a few minutes after midnight.

Fiddling with the Chevy's finicky heater, she considered her options. With the temperature having dropped below freezing, the heater was blowing lukewarm air, its rattle nearly drowning out a country song about the pain of love lost that filled the interior. Snapping off the radio, she noticed the defroster was fighting a losing battle with the condensation that was crawling inward over her viewing angle. She gave the gla.s.s a swipe with an extra sweatshirt that was lying on the pa.s.senger seat, and squinted, trying to find the turnoff to the long lane that wound to her cabin. "Home," she reminded herself.

Snowflakes danced, swirling as they were caught in the headlights' glare, piling along the fencerows and frosting the branches of the evergreens that rose in the foothills.

She could continue to lie low, retaining her disguise while keeping her ear to the ground, or she could bolt again, heading farther west or north. Or, she could seek her own revenge, try to turn the tables on the b.a.s.t.a.r.d from whom she was running, lure him in, and then destroy him. The thought of taking another human life had always repulsed her, but she'd never been so scared before, had never been fighting for her own existence. She'd always had the luxury of naivete. If she came face-to-face with him again, she had no doubt she could shoot him dead or plunge a knife deep into his black heart and give the blade a little twist.

"Sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she whispered.

As the wipers of the old Tahoe slapped snow from the windshield, leaving streaks upon the gla.s.s, she checked her rearview mirror for the hundredth time.

No one was following her.

No menacing pickup's headlights appeared over the last rise. Still, she could sense her pursuer.

Letting her breath out slowly, she noticed an old NO HUNTING sign posted on the ma.s.sive trunk of a giant hemlock that caught in the headlights. She was close. The engine groaned a little as the incline grew steeper, and less than a quarter mile up the hill, she spied the spot where the trees parted a bit and the old lane ambled off the county road. Of course, there were tracks from her Tahoe, enough to be visible despite the snowfall, but so far, he hadn't appeared.

Had she finally lost him?

Most likely not. Several months had pa.s.sed from the moment she'd stared up at the moon and gasped for air as she'd lain on the soft banks of the bayou. It was there she'd fought the battle of deciding whether to live or die.

Life had won out, and she'd started her journey of two thousand miles down a desperately crooked path that had finally ended up in the wilds of western Montana.

Was she safe?

She doubted it.

He was nothing if not dogged and deadly.

Shivering a little, she nosed her Tahoe through the stands of hemlock and fir to the tiny clearing where her cabin, after a call to the owner, was finally equipped with electricity and hot water. There was still no furnace, but she'd picked up a used s.p.a.ce heater at a secondhand shop, along with a few other essentials.

House Beautiful the old cottage was not, but at least it was functioning, the utilities in the owner's name and billed to him. She parked near the garage, locked her SUV, and made her way inside where the smell of wood smoke and last night's microwave popcorn greeted her. On a makeshift coffee table was the local paper, where she'd first learned of the attack on Dan Grayson and his subsequent hospitalization. There was a new sheriff in town, if only temporarily, a man by the name of Hooper Blackwater who was rumored to be a strict, by-the-book officer of the law, a person she was pretty certain she couldn't approach.

So who, then, would help her?

The simple answer was Cade Grayson, Dan's brother, the man from whom she'd heard about the sheriff. But she wasn't about to go running to that rangy cowboy, at least not right away. Unfortunately, he was the man who had started all her trouble and as such would only be her last resort.

Chapter 3.

Troy Ryder rolled into Grizzly Falls, Montana on a wing and a prayer. His old Dodge truck was wheezing by the time he pulled into a service station and mini-mart where he filled up his tank, added antifreeze to the radiator, and bought a prewrapped ham and cheese sandwich, bag of chips, and two bottles of beer.

He'd spied a motel on his way into town, one of those long, low buildings with a shared porch, empty parking lot, and a sign proudly announcing FREE WI-FI AND CABLE TELEVISION right next to the VACANCY sign. Good enough. His back ached a bit, his stomach was growling, and he needed to settle in for at least a few hours to study the lay of the land and figure out if Anne-Marie had landed there.

It seemed unlikely, but then stranger things had happened.

h.e.l.l, didn't he know it?

He drove back to the motel. After locking his old pickup, he crossed the icy lot and pushed open a gla.s.s door to a small, brightly lit reception area that smelled of bitter, overcooked coffee and a hint of cigarette smoke. A second after he approached the counter, a heavyset woman of fifty or so appeared through an open doorway leading to the inner sanctum of the River View Motel. Wearing a uniform that was on the tight side, she took one look at Troy and smiled widely enough to show off a gold crown on one of her molars. "What can I do ya for?"

"Lookin' for a room."

"That we got. How many nights?"

"Just one to start with." After all, he wasn't certain that Anne-Marie had stopped here. "Then, we'll see."

"Got a double-double or a king. What's your pleasure?"

"One bed'll do. 'Round back, if you've got a room there."

"You're in luck," she said, then her eyebrows drew together as her hands clicked over the keyboard of a computer that looked as if it had been built before the turn of the millennium. "Well, I mean, if you call room thirteen lucky. It's the only one that's ready on the back side, where, you know, you get a river view. You're not superst.i.tious, are you?"

"Not much." He filled out the required paperwork, listened to her drone on about the beauty of that part of the country, then snagged the key from her hand and returned to his truck where he drove to the far side of the building and parked in front of room thirteen, an end unit with what only an optimist could describe as a "view" of the river. Not that he cared. He hauled his gear inside, flipped on the lights, and closed the door.

A big bed that looked as if it sagged in the middle, a television on a stand, two night tables with matching lamps, and one chair positioned near the window were the extent of the furniture.

Good enough.

The place was showing its age. The carpet near the door was discolored, the comforter on the bed fading a little, the smell of disinfectant not quite masking a lingering odor of cigarettes, but all in all, it would do.

After cracking open a beer and taking a long swallow, he took a short shower, then changed into fresh clothes and went to work. One way or another, he was going to find Anne-Marie Calderone and haul her tight little a.s.s back to New Orleans.

Alvarez was right.

Okay, she was right again, Pescoli thought as she drove down a winding lane that led to the partially built home where she and Santana were planning to live once they were married. Two days earlier, her partner had informed her that Dan Grayson was being moved from ICU and sure enough, when Pescoli had gone to visit him, the sheriff was in a private room, hooked up to all kinds of monitors, not too far from the hub of a nurse's station.

She had expected him to be recovering a lot faster than he was, but she told herself to be patient. So he hadn't woken from his coma, that didn't mean anything. If it were a problem, certainly the doctors and nursing staff would do something. And Grayson's family, his two brothers, Cade and Big Zed, had been at the hospital, along with Hattie, their deceased brother's wife, every day since the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt.

At least, she thought as she drove around the edge of an icy pond, Grayson's attacker had been rendered harmless. Injured during his capture, he was in custody, a bullet lodged against his spinal cord, his ability to walk in question. Though still under doctor's care, the son of a b.i.t.c.h who'd nearly taken her boss's life was no longer a threat.

No armed guard needed to be posted at the hospital any longer.

As she drove along the lane, she tried to be positive. She wasn't certain how she felt about moving as she already owned her own little cabin in the hills, a place that was finally paid off and the home where she'd raised her kids. It wasn't much to look at, but it was cozy, and she'd been proud that she'd been able to pay it off early by doubling up her payments whenever she was able, and finally claim it as her own.

She caught a glimpse of the lake on which the new cabin was built. It would be roomier than her little house, everything within it new enough that she wouldn't have to rely on her questionable plumbing and electrical skills, and it would provide a fresh start with no reminders of the other husbands she'd been married to. She and Santana planned to start their life together there. It sounds perfect, she thought as the house erected on the sh.o.r.es of the icy lake came into view.

And yet . . .

She didn't know if she was making the right choice. Jeremy had graduated from high school a couple years earlier and Bianca had one more year, so wouldn't it be smarter to wait?

"No time like the present." Santana's advice echoed through her mind as she cruised along the lake's snowy sh.o.r.es. "May as well let the kids claim their rooms and feel like they are a part of this."

That made sense, she supposed, or at least it had until she'd realized there was a new baby on the way, another child who would need his or her own room eventually. She seemed to be involved in revolving door parenting-as one kid was leaving a new one was coming to take his place.

The house came into view and she swallowed hard, wondering if she would ever think of it as home, her home. Two stories of raw cedar with a pitched roof covered in snow. With a gray stone fireplace, the house was nestled in the trees on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, picture-perfect. The garage was attached by a short, windowed breezeway and had private stairs that led to an area overhead where Santana planned to make his office. Considering everything, she wondered if Jeremy might tag the spot as his own, insisting the baby needed its own room as much as he needed his own privacy.

"Not gonna happen," she said under her breath, then decided she was borrowing trouble. Besides, Jeremy was working, taking cla.s.ses, planning to enroll full-time spring term, and finally appeared to be on a path going forward. He'd been through his own trauma the last few weeks but wouldn't hear of her trying to help him in any way. She didn't want to do anything that would impede his progress, like maybe telling him he was going to have another sibling soon . . .

But she was getting ahead of herself, far ahead of herself, she decided as she pulled into the parking area and cut the engine.

Nikita, Santana's husky, appeared in the open doorway to the main house and gave a quick bark before bounding through the snow to greet her with his back end wiggling wildly.

"Hey, Detective!"

She looked up to see Santana standing on the upper floor deck, off the bedroom, looking every bit as s.e.xy as the first time she'd met him, in a bar no less. Wearing a faded shirt that stretched across his shoulders, he folded his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the frame of the French doors as he stared down at her. One side of his mouth drew into a lazy smile. "About time you showed up."

"Always the b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she threw out at him, trying to hide her own amus.e.m.e.nt.

His grin widened, showing off white teeth against his bronzed skin. Like Blackwater, he had more than a trace of Native American blood in his veins, visible in his high, bladed cheekbones, ink-black hair and dark eyes, the kind of eyes that seemed to sear to her soul, eyes that were twinkling with that s.e.xy kind of mischief that she found impossible to ignore.

What had started out as a white-hot attraction and equally hot affair hadn't flamed out as she'd expected. No, she thought, petting Nikita's furry head before heading into the house, that first spark of interest had burned through all her barriers to the engagement and, she hoped, marital bliss.

"Third time's the charm," she told herself as, with the dog on her heels, she walked through the open door and found her way up the stairs that would remain open, offering a view through the gla.s.s walls of the living room to the lake visible between each free floating step.

The staircase had been designed before she had any inkling that she would get pregnant, or that in the not-so-distant future a toddler would be trying to climb up and down the steps. At that thought, she paused, imagining a child with Santana's dark hair running through the hallways.

She almost smiled and decided the staircase would need to be boxed in, at least for the next few years.

Sooner, rather than later, she'd have to break the news to Santana.

But not today.

She just wasn't in the mood.

Eli O'Halleran couldn't believe his good luck. Though his father, Trace, had always taken him with him when there were ch.o.r.es to be done around the farm, until today he had never said, "Yeah, son, come with me. You can be the lead dog on this one. Let's see if we can find any other holes in the fence."

"All right!" Eli had said, thrilled. Within a matter of minutes, he'd ignored his breakfast, run to the barn and, with his dad's help, saddled and bridled Jetfire, his black gelding.

While his dad was still cinching his bay mare's saddle, Eli rode Jet through the barn's big roller door and into a back paddock. Both dogs, Dad's shepherd and Bonzi, Kacey's dog, which was at least part pit bull and probably yellow lab, were milling around, anxious to be a part of the action.

"Hold up!" Trace called, but Eli kept going through a series of corrals as the snow fell, all the while feeling like a real cowboy, though he was not quite nine years old.

"Come on," he urged the horse as they reached the open gate to the final field. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of his father leading Mocha from the barn and swinging into the saddle. The dogs, of course, had already escaped the barn and were sniffing and running in the fallen snow, while a cold wind was blowing, snowflakes falling from the gray Montana sky.

"Eli!" his father called, just as Eli leaned forward, eased up on the reins and let the horse go.

Jet surged forward, speeding into a full gallop and tearing down the long, tractor lane covered in snow. Eli's hat blew off, but he didn't care, loving the feel of the wind slapping his face and blowing his hair as he caught sight of the dogs bounding through the drifts and giving chase. Jetfire, after being cooped up in the barn, was eager to run. As Eli hung on, Jet tore up the field, a black blur streaking toward the foothills.

Breathless, Eli didn't care that his dad would probably be mad at him for taking off. It just felt right.

The ground sloped up to a small rise and the gelding ran eagerly upward, breathing hard, racing toward the crest. Eli clung like a burr, his nose running and feeling numb in the cold.

On the far side, the ground dropped off, sloping downward to the creek where the fence separated O'Halleran land from that of the federal government. It was where the problem had started, his dad had told him, a broken spot in the fence where five calves had found the break and gotten through. The strays had been rounded up, and the major hole in the fence had been repaired, but they were just making sure there weren't any more areas where those idiot cows could get through.

The truth was that Trace was tired of being cooped up, too. Otherwise, why would he have decided to survey the fence line in the middle of a near blizzard? It didn't matter, though. Eli was just glad to be out of the house as there was no school.

Plowing through the snow, kicking up powdery clods, Jet crested the hill and raced downward to the meandering brook that cut like a sidewinder back and forth beneath the fence. The field gave way to woods that, on the government side of the property, covered the foothills of the Bitterroots.

Nearing the creek, Eli pulled back on the reins and Jetfire slowed easily, cantering down to a walk just as his dad and Mocha appeared over the rise behind them.