Deserves to Die Part 7

"I'm hungry this morning. Thought a latte would take care of it."

"A decaf latte," Alvarez reminded her. "Aren't you the same woman who drinks yesterday's Diet c.o.ke when you find it in your Jeep's cup holder and orders double or triple espresso shots if your morning gears aren't revved?"

"Sometimes."

"All times. 'Coffee and a cigarette-a working woman's breakfast,' to quote you not so long ago."

"A loooong time ago," Pescoli disagreed as cash and cups were exchanged. "I'm jazzed enough today, okay?" She handed Alvarez her cup and placed her latte into the drink holder of the console.

Alvarez took an experimental sip. "Just wondered if you were feeling okay. Or coming down with something, considering that you lost your lunch."

"Weird that, huh? Guess all the changes in the department have gotten to me." Pescoli cringed inwardly, uncomfortable using Grayson's death as an excuse. But it was true enough, and she wasn't willing to admit to Alvarez just yet that she was pregnant. First, she told herself, I have to give Santana the news. She owed him that much. Then, when she felt the time was right, she'd explain it all to her partner.

But not now.

Though the snow was still coming down, it seemed lighter, the windshield wipers keeping up with the flakes. The interior of the Jeep smelled of coffee, the police band crackled.

"The department's never going to be the same," Pescoli observed, keeping emotion out of her voice with an effort as they drove past snow-crusted fields. "I mean, without Grayson."

Alvarez sighed, frowning into her cup as she obviously struggled with a wave of grief. Then, as if she'd convinced herself that she had to face the inevitable, she took a deep breath and said, "We'll all just have to adjust. It'll be difficult, but that's the way it is."

"It sucks."

"Amen."

Pescoli drove onto a curving bridge, a semi heading in the opposite direction. "I was thinking about cutting back on my hours anyway and since we've got Grayson's killer in custody, I'll probably put in a request. See what happens."

"Today?"

"Probably in the summer," she said.

Alvarez was looking through the pa.s.senger window. She nodded as if she'd expected this conversation. "You sure that's what you want?"

"My kids need me."

"Okay, but they're nearly grown."

"Then there's Santana."

"You're marrying him. Is that a reason to be semiretired? You're not even forty, for G.o.d's sake."

"I'm not talking retirement. Just cutting back a little."

"What're you going to do? Take up knitting? Join a wine club? Try out new Crock-Pot recipes?"

"Give me a break."

"Then what? Racquetball? Save mankind by joining some cause for world peace?"

Pescoli actually laughed. "Yeah, that's it."

"You'd miss it. Whether you know it or not, Pescoli, you live for this. Being a cop's in your blood."

"Now you sound like some B movie from the seventies."

"I'm serious, d.a.m.n it."

"So that's it? You think we're destined to be together, riding in these Jeeps in the snow and ice, chasing bad guys, risking our lives and bowing to the likes of Hooper Blackwater?" She finally took a sip of her latte and scowled. "Jesus! People really drink this stuff?" The milky-sweet coffee hit her stomach and seemed to curdle. Dropping the cup back into its holder she added, "I don't need working eighty hours plus some weeks in my life."

Alvarez sent her a sharp look. "This is all about Blackwater and we both know it." When Pescoli didn't respond, she added tautly, "I don't like the new sheriff either, but he's what we're stuck with. For now. You're not the only one missing Dan Grayson."

Pescoli should have left it alone, but she was too raw, too bothered. "Yeah, well, I didn't fancy myself in love with him, either," she snapped and saw her partner's lips tighten. "What the h.e.l.l was that all about?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, come on." She hit the gas and sped around a tractor inching down the highway, the driver huddled against the elements in a thick jacket and hat with ear flaps. "Jesus. Why the h.e.l.l would you pull your John Deere out in this weather?" she grumbled.

Alvarez, obviously stung, didn't answer. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and turned her attention to her e-mail and texts, scanning them quickly "Got reports from the O'Halleran neighbors. The Zukovs, Ed and Tilly, who live on one side of the O'Halleran spread. They told the deputy they saw nothing, were inside all day because of the blizzard."

"Smart."

"Same with the Foxxes, who are on the other side of the Zukovs. The husband ventured out to his barn, but took care of his cattle and that was it. Haven't heard from the ranch across the road or the one on the other side of the O'Hallerans yet." She tucked her phone into her pocket.

"I'm thinking whoever did it came in from the back," Pescoli said.

"A team checked the nearest access road."

"Tracks?" She felt a little ray of hope.

"Some. Maybe hunters."

"In this?" Pescoli said, staring out the windshield.

"Or cross-country skiers or snowsh.o.e.rs. People don't necessarily stay inside just because it's cold or snowing."

"Then they're idiots."

Alvarez gave her a long look. "What's going on with you?"

Oh, s.h.i.t. She'd hoped that since the conversation had turned to the case at hand it wouldn't circle back to her. "What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb. You're even more out of sorts than usual."

"Nice," she said, gripping the wheel more tightly as the farmland gave way to the outskirts of Missoula, but she silently admitted Alvarez had a point. Pescoli's emotions were all over the place. Since there wasn't much she could do about them, she shut up. Alvarez again buried herself in the information flowing through her phone and they drove the short distance to the hospital in uncomfortable silence.

Each lost in her own thoughts, they parked, hurried inside, and took the elevator down to the morgue. Pescoli tried not to dwell on the fact that Dan Grayson had given up his tenuous grip on the world, because, like it or not, that part of her life was over.

Ryder's breakfast consisted of black coffee from the machine in the motel's lobby and a burrito of sorts from a vending machine in the mini-mart located at the intersection half a block from the River View's front entrance. Even with the addition of hot sauce from a couple free packets he'd gotten at the store, the meal was tasteless, but he didn't much care. Along with the burrito, he'd picked up a newspaper, a bag of chips, a packet of jerky, and a six-pack of Bud, which he'd tucked into the tiny insulated cabinet the River View's management had optimistically dubbed a refrigerator.

Despite the fact that the bed had sloped decidedly toward the center of a sagging mattress, he'd slept like a rock. "The sleep of innocents," his grandmother had said, though, in his case, that a.s.sessment was far from the truth. He'd learned to catch his winks wherever he could, whether it be wrapped in a thin sleeping bag on some ridge under the stars, or in his truck in broad daylight, after he'd spent a night huddled in his pick-up on a stakeout swilling strong coffee and holding his bladder until it felt like it would burst. Either way, he'd learned to drop off and catch whatever sleep he could. So the River View's sagging mattress hadn't bothered him any more than the meal of processed mystery meat-beef, if the label on the plastic-wrapped burrito was to be believed-trapped inside a tortilla that was probably several weeks past its pull date.

"So where are you?" he asked aloud as he pulled several ziplock bags from his duffel and laid them on the table that sufficed as a desk in the room. From each bag, he pulled out pictures, eight by tens, all in black and white, which had been taken of different-looking women, but whom, he believed, all were one and the same: Anne-Marie Calderone, the object of his search.

If he was right, and he'd bet his truck that he was on the money, she'd taken a crooked path from New Orleans to Grizzly Falls, Montana.

She'd become a master of disguise. Each photo was different; her style of dress, her hair color and cut, the shape of her body, whether she wore gla.s.ses or not, the curve and thickness of her eyebrows and lips. In one case where he thought she was wearing a short blond wig, she appeared seven months pregnant. In another, her bare leg was exposed by a short skirt and a tattoo was visible on her calf. In still another, her eyes appeared dark, almost black, though through the gray filter it was hard to determine the shade. Makeup accentuated her high cheekbones, or an appliance stuffed beneath her cheeks sometimes stole them from her. Her teeth were never the same, sometimes crooked, sometimes straight, but always longer or wider or with odd, gaze-catching overlaps than usually graced her smile. He found one where she'd placed a mole above her lip, and another where her fingernails were impossibly long, still another where her hair was stringy and dull. There were all kinds of distractions to catch the eye so that the viewer wouldn't take in the whole picture of her face and be able to say for certain that she was the woman in the first photograph, the one in color, of the real woman.

Picking up that photo, he studied the details of Anne-Marie's oval face-straight, aquiline nose dusted with fine freckles, naturally arched eyebrows, wide gold eyes, and full lips that, he remembered, stretched into a s.e.xy and secretive smile. Her teeth were straight, incisors a little longer than the others, and the glint in those incredible eyes had caused more than one male heart to beat a little faster. A natural athlete, her hips were slim, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s small, her legs long. She was far more clever than he'd given her credit for. Twice, he'd nearly caught her and just as many times she'd given him the slip.

"No more," he vowed as he found his iPad where he'd stored most of his notes on her. The pictures were on the device as well as his phone, but he liked the photographs as they were easier to pocket and pull out when necessary if he came across someone who might have run into her. They were easier to give to the person rather than let anyone handle his phone with all of its stored data.

Also, it seemed more likely to him that if he were "her brother," or "her cousin" or "a friend," all claims he'd made while tracking her down, that he would have an old photo. Bringing out a gallery of different shots stored on a computer file might be off-putting.

He checked his notes again. Her connection to Grizzly Falls was frail at best. Then again, when it came to the chameleon that was Anne-Marie Calderone, what he knew about her was about as solid as quicksand, the lies soft and shifting, hiding the solid footing of the truth.

His jaw grew tense at the thought of how she'd duped him.

All too easily.

Because he hadn't been thinking with his head when he was around her.

He felt the same cold fire burn through him as he gathered up her pictures and stuffed them back into the plastic bags.

Time to get moving.

He didn't know where she was. But he knew where to start looking for her.

Cade Grayson.

He shouldn't be too hard to find. Grayson was an ex-rodeo rider. Hard drinking. Womanizing. Trouble. The kind of man Anne-Marie had found irresistible. So of course, she'd come to seek him out.

From what Ryder had read in the local newspaper, Cade was one of two surviving brothers of Dan Grayson, recent sheriff of Pinewood County and the victim of a homicide. Cade and Zedediah still owned and maintained the Grayson ranch outside town, the place their ancestors had claimed as a homestead.

It seemed the likely place for Anne-Marie to show up. Ryder grabbed his heavy jacket and tucked his pistol and knife within. In a small case, he put the iPad, night-vision goggles, some various spy equipment, and his camera with all of its lenses.

After double-checking that everything, including the packs of chips and jerky, were in place, he zipped up the case and tossed on his jacket.

As he locked the door of the shabby room behind him, he thought of her again. How she'd once been. Without the makeup and disguises. Stripped bare. A natural beauty, a woman of privilege, smarter than most people knew.

He threw open the door of his truck, tossed in his gear, climbed inside, and fired the engine, her visage with him still. He'd trained himself not to think too much about her but sometimes he couldn't help himself. All his practiced self-control slid away and the door of his memories cracked open. When that happened, as it did as he backed out of the icy parking spot, he couldn't help but remember her naked body, shining with perspiration, flesh warm and smooth, eyes a smoldering shade as she stared up at him, almost daring him to give in to her.

She had been as erotically sensual and emotionally dangerous a woman as he'd ever met; a deadly combination he'd been unable to resist.

It wasn't a big surprise that he'd decided to hunt her down, he thought, driving out of the lot and joining a slim stream of traffic heading toward the town of Grizzly Falls.

It was the least she deserved.

Usually nothing about the morgue got to Pescoli. She could deal with the sight of a dead body, blood, and organs, and the cooler temperature in the room hardly registered. The clinical aspect of it was a comfort, if anything, and the smell, though unpleasant, wasn't a big deal. Even watching the pathologists work, examining and weighing organs while making notes on computers, was more interesting than troubling to her. She'd been there enough times, most often to collect the fingerprints off dead bodies. Nothing about the tiled room with its refrigerated coffin-like drawers, scales, stainless steel tables with sinks, or mutilated bodies really ever bothered her. She figured the dead were dead. Unfeeling.

It was her job to find out why, and if a crime had been committed, to bring the lowlife who'd perpetrated said crime to justice. Knowing the trauma a victim had gone through burrowed under her skin and increased her determination to nail the son of a b.i.t.c.h who'd committed the crime. Her emotions were often volatile, while her partner exuded a cool, almost icy detachment, but Pescoli wasn't particularly sensitive to the nuances. She just did her job.

At the moment, her senses were all out of whack. The smell alone was awful, that dead, sickly-sweet odor seeming to cling to her nostrils as she viewed the dead body of their Jane Doe lying faceup, her skin a grayish tone, her hair pushed away from her face, her eyes wide open and seeming to stare straight up at the huge body lift suspended over her gurney. Also, Pescoli couldn't help but let her gaze wander to the refrigerated drawers. Morbidly, she wondered if Dan Grayson's body was lying within one.

Her lungs constricted for a moment, but she told herself there was no reason to speculate. Forcing her gaze back to the victim, she tried to concentrate on the case.

Obviously, Jane hadn't been autopsied yet, no Y slice cut into her torso, no thin line sawed across her forehead and into her skull.

"I a.s.sume the autopsy has been scheduled?" asked Alvarez. She was standing at the side of the gurney. Her gaze had moved from the vic to the forensic pathologist who had pulled Jane from her resting spot in the refrigerated drawers lining one wall.

"Tomorrow, right after lunch."

Pescoli's already queasy stomach turned. "Ugh."

Alvarez glanced up at her quickly, obviously wondering at the comment that just slipped out.

Dr. Esmeralda Kendrick didn't even look up. She was one of those women who was all business. Somewhere in her early thirties, she could have been pretty, but made no effort, at least not for work. Pescoli appreciated that. Everything about Dr. Kendrick was professional. Her manner, her speech, her body language. As usual, her blondish hair was sc.r.a.ped back into a no-nonsense ponytail. She wore no makeup, not even a trace of lipstick, and her blue eyes, behind huge gla.s.ses, were serious. Though barely five-three, she managed to appear commanding. She wore scrubs, tennis shoes, a lab coat, and the air of someone who was very busy and didn't like to be interrupted.

The little bit of a tattoo, a shamrock it seemed, peeked from beneath her ponytail, so Pescoli guessed that Dr. Kendrick might not be as straightlaced and cold away from the morgue as she was while doing her job. Maybe.

"You've got her personal effects?" Pescoli asked her.

She nodded. "Not much. Just her clothes that have been examined and are laid out and drying, and a pair of earrings. Look like diamonds. Could be cubic z. Not sure yet. Nothing else."

Pescoli glanced down at the fingers. "Fingernail sc.r.a.pings?"

"Done at the scene. And an officer came and took prints when the body was brought in," Kendrick said, looking toward the door which led to an underground parking area where bodies could be brought in discreetly. Across the wide room and through another doorway was a hallway that led to a viewing area, waiting room. Farther along was the staff area, much like the lunchroom at the station.

In the sterile-looking examination room, the feel was decidedly different. An operating room without the intensity, as no anesthesia was being forced into lungs to keep the patient under during surgery, no anxious relatives relegated to a waiting area to hear the outcome of the procedures, no life being saved. No, the lives here had already been lost, sometimes violently.

Pescoli eyed the surroundings, computer monitors, metal cabinets for equipment, scales, and three long stainless steel tables equipped with faucets, hoses, and gutters, the kind that reminded her of working in the cannery as a youth, where the detritus from the berries on the belt merged with the water running in the gutter to unknown drains, or as the gossip mill insisted, was used in wine making. Sticks, bees, rotten fruit, even a snake once, were pushed into the ever present stream of water flushing out the berries to be canned and sold in markets across the country.

The difference was that in the morgue the gutters were primarily for blood.

Observing the dead usually wasn't a big deal, just part of her job, until today, when the smell kept causing her stomach to roil uneasily and she'd had to fight to keep the nausea at bay.

"So what do we know about her?" Pescoli asked.

"We'll X-ray the body, look for anything out of the ordinary in the results, of course. There's not much in the form of distinguishing marks, other than a scar on her right forearm, probably from an accident when she was a kid, and a small tattoo of a flower-a daisy-on her ankle.

"She may have drowned," Dr. Kendrick said, her eyebrows pulling together thoughtfully. "Again, we won't be certain until we examine her lungs. There is a little bruising at her throat, but I can't be certain that the hyoid was crushed. We do know that she wasn't s.e.xually a.s.saulted, she wasn't pregnant, and the only serious and outward sign of trauma is her ring finger, which was sliced off cleanly and neatly."

Pescoli's gaze went to the hand in question where the stump was visible, then, once more, she looked at the woman's face. Serene in death. Who are you? she wondered. And what the h.e.l.l happened ?

Chapter 8.