To Die: Chosen To Die Part 18

"Anyone know the combination for the safe?" Grayson asked.

She shrugged. "We're looking for it. The computer geeks are already checking his laptop. They found it here in its case."

"He didn't even have time to fire it up?"

"Looks like he hadn't been here long. His outer-wear was still wet and dripping in the mud room. No sign of him going upstairs or helping himself to anything to eat. There were things prepared, looks like for him, in the refrigerator. He didn't bother with it. Just grabbed a drink from the bar and came straight in here. We're already looking into any calls of interest to, or from, his cell phone, text messages, and the same with e-mail or notes in his computer."

Grayson frowned. "It's a start. Let's find out the name of his attorney, get a look at his will and figure out who benefits, and then talk to whoever's close to him. See what they know. And the housekeeper. She must've known he'd be showing up, so let's hear her story, how she knew he'd be back at the ranch, and if anyone else had any idea that Long was flying here. Someone he works with? What about where he keeps his helicopter, that's how he got here, right?"

Johnson nodded.

"And the door was unlocked when you arrived?"

"The back door, to the carport, yeah."

"Where do you think you're going?" Spitzer yelled from the hall as footsteps echoed on the stone floors. Alvarez and Grayson looked over as Nate Santana boldly entered the room.

"When Long was around he never locked his doors," he said, obviously overhearing part of the conversation. He stopped just inside the double doors, and Spitzer appeared behind him, eyes blazing.

Alvarez held up a hand to stop the confrontation. "You wanted to add something?"

"I'd like to know what the chances are that a thief shows up just after Brady lands his chopper around back? Even I didn't know he was going to be here, and I'm his d.a.m.ned foreman."

"You think someone was lying in wait?" Alvarez asked.

"Must've been, or else the killer's pretty d.a.m.ned lucky. That is, if you believe in coincidence."

"Unlikely," the sheriff said, scowling.

Spitzer, standing a pace behind Santana, was fit to be tied. Her face was flushed, her lips knifeblade thin in anger. "I'm sorry, Sheriff." She looked anything but apologetic. To Santana she added, "Let's go. Back to the living room."

"Wait." Alvarez wanted to hear what Santana had to say. "You think this was planned? Premeditated?"

"Looks that way to me. I think someone wanted Long dead and they made it happen. I think whoever did it knew he would be alone."

"How?"

"Beats me." Santana lifted a shoulder, stared at the dead man, then glanced away. "There's usually someone on the ranch, someone who could see or hear something."

"The housekeeper," Grayson said.

Santana nodded. "If she goes out, it's in the morning and not always."

Alvarez was taking mental notes. "And her son?"

"He's nineteen. Comes and goes. Works here with me. Lives upstairs in one of the wings with his mother, Clementine, but goes to community college and hangs out with his friends, so he's not here all the time."

"School's out for the holidays," Alvarez pointed out.

Santana shrugged. "His car is parked near the garage, so he's either with his mom, or someone came and picked him up."

"The 4 Runner," the sheriff guessed.

Santana grunted a "yeah" and Alvarez said, "We'll need to talk to both Clementine and the boy."

Santana said, "His name is Ross."

Grayson asked, "No dad in the picture?"

"Never seen or heard about him." Again Santana lifted one shoulder.

"But no one was here when you showed up," Alvarez clarified.

Santana shook his head slowly, then explained about noticing things were off, how he'd stopped at the main house, spied the open door and the unusual sets of footprints before he'd walked inside. "...I found Long, right there in his chair," he finished, motioning toward the victim. "He wasn't dead when I got here, but he was bleeding out. I called nine-one-one, tried to save him, and then heard someone in the house. I thought it was the killer. Turned out it was Ivor."

"Hicks was in the house?" Grayson's brows slammed together.

"Came in after me, I think. The same way I did," Santana explained.

Grayson thought that over, then turned to Johnson. "Someone's checking the tracks outside?"

She nodded. "Slatkin's taking measurements, too." Mikhail Slatkin was another crime scene tech.

Still disgruntled, Spitzer narrowed her eyes at Santana. "We've got dogs on the way. They'll be all over you."

He half-smiled and said nothing.

Alvarez had a mental "ping" and looked Santana over even more closely. "That's right. You're some kind of animal whisperer, aren't you?"

"I work with dogs, yeah, and I've got mine in the truck. He could track your guy. Get a head start."

"The dogs will be here in five minutes." She wasn't giving Santana an inch and Alvarez noticed the blood on his hands again.

"Anyone take samples?"

"Done," Johnson said.

Santana added, "The blood belongs to Long."

"From when you were trying to save him," Alvarez clarified.

His eyes glittered. "That's right, Detective."

As the tech took the sample of his blood away, Santana gave a concise rendition of how he'd spent the last hour and a half, first at the sheriff's office, then driving here to find Brady Long dying just before Ivor Hicks walked in.

"That gibes with what Hicks is saying," Spitzer admitted, though she was still angry that Santana had shown her up to her boss.

"Except I didn't see any Yeti or Reptilian general or anything out of the ordinary. Just the tracks and open door," Nate said calmly.

At that moment Bellasario, the deputy coroner, arrived. She was tall, nearly five-ten, with brown hair sc.r.a.ped away from her face and pulled into a thick, short ponytail. She dropped a body bag in the hallway, then worked efficiently, examining Brady Long carefully and scowling at the size of the wound. "Someone wasn't taking any chances that he would pull through."

"Then why not shoot him in the head?" Grayson said. "Or a second time?"

"Because the killer wanted him to suffer." Santana offered up his opinion flatly, as if it were a fact.

Grayson's eyes narrowed on Santana, studying him. "You have any idea about next of kin? Brady wasn't married, was he? Kids?"

"No kids that I know of. Married a couple of times but divorced the last I heard. Engaged to some model, but I didn't hear they ever tied the knot. But then," he said, his lips twisting a bit, "Long and I weren't exactly tight."

The sheriff scratched the back of his neck. "Okay, so no wives or kids. But the old man-Hubert-he's still with us?"

"Barely, I think, but I never heard he died. Brady had him in a nursing home, I think in Denver. But I could be wrong."

"What about siblings?" Alvarez asked.

"He's got a sister. Padgett." Santana glanced out the window, but Alvarez guessed he wasn't seeing the snow falling over the trees and vehicles parked in front of the house. It seemed as if he were looking inward. "I knew Padgett when we were kids, she's a little younger than Brady. A year? Maybe two, I can't really remember, but she's been in some kind of care facility since the accident."

"What kind of accident?" Alvarez asked. "When?"

"Boating. Maybe fifteen years ago?" Santana frowned. "Clementine will know."

"What happened?" she questioned.

It was Grayson's grim voice that answered, "A bunch of kids were out and hit some rocks, flew out of the boat. Padgett got trapped underwater for a while."

"Only two people on the boat," Santana corrected. "Padgett and Brady. He survived, ended up with some cuts and bruises, but he couldn't get his sister out from under the wreckage." His eyes darkened. "At least that's the way he told it. Padgett, she never spoke again, far as I know. Again, ask Clementine. She was working for Hubert at the time. Just started, I think."

"So where's Padgett's care facility?" Selena asked.

Santana shook his head. "h.e.l.l if I know. The Longs didn't talk about her much. Figured that's the way the family wanted it, you know? Out of sight, out of mind."

The deputy coroner straightened. "Okay, I've got all I need, you can move the body now," Bellasario said to the sheriff. "When you're done, we'll haul him outta here." Bellasario was already unzipping the body bag while an a.s.sistant rolled in a portable gurney.

As soon as Long's body was removed from the chair in which he died, Johnson went to work. Blood had stained the expensive chair's seat and back, and a small hole had been torn in the oxblood leather. "Here we go. I want to see...aha...think I found it." She was digging at the back of the chair. "Our boy was shot clean through. Entry wound in his chest, and exit a little lower, near his spine, like the killer was standing over him." Using a knife, she urged the bullet from the padding. "Come to Mama," she said, biting her lower lip. With her gloved fingers, she removed what appeared to be a bullet from the leather. "This," she held up the bullet for inspection, "probably would have blown through the chair, too, maybe lodged in the floor of the baseboard if it hadn't been for the steel reinforcement in the back cushion." She eyed the bullet critically and her eyebrows drew into a concerned knot. "Seen this before. .30 caliber."

Alvarez's heart went stone cold.

".30 at close range." The sheriff was eyeing the slug as Johnson dropped it into a plastic evidence bag. "Lotta firepower for a close-up job."

"And just like the bullets that tore holes in the tires of Star-Crossed's victim's vehicles." Alvarez's words seemed to hang in the air, hollow and cold. She didn't want to believe it. This brazen murder of one of the richest men in the country couldn't be related to the other homicides. And yet...Fear and incomprehension crawled through her.

"Star-Crossed?" Santana's jaw had tightened.

"Hey, get him out of here," Grayson said to Spitzer.

"Yes, sir." She snapped to attention.

Santana was having none of it. "The same son of a b.i.t.c.h who's got Regan?"

The sheriff glared at Santana. "We don't know where Detective Pescoli is."

"Don't give me the company line, Grayson!" He was agitated now. Cords on the back of his neck strident, his lips blade thin, he looked as if he were trying, and failing, to rein in his temper. "Everyone in this room, h.e.l.l, in this whole d.a.m.ned house knows that her Jeep was shot and wrecked and she's missing. Now you're telling me that the same freak who's done who the h.e.l.l knows what to her has walked in here and killed Long?"

Grayson barely held on to his temper. "Just because it's the same caliber bullet doesn't necessarily mean-"

Santana's eyes snapped fire. "Like h.e.l.l."

"Let's go!" Spitzer was trying to grab Santana's arm and shepherd him out the door, but he yanked himself free of her grasp.

"Find her," he rasped to Grayson, pointing a long, b.l.o.o.d.y finger at the sheriff. "You d.a.m.ned well find her."

"We will." Grayson's voice was cold steel.

"I mean, before it's too late and some idiot like Ivor runs across her out in the woods, dead and naked against a G.o.dd.a.m.ned tree!" He brushed off Spitzer's repeated attempts to corral him, then turned and headed out the back door. His shoulders were stiff, his jaw set, his boot heels ringing with determination.

Alvarez watched him go. No way was Santana going to sit tight and let the professionals do their jobs. She'd seen his rock-solid conviction to do things his own way in the angle of his chin, the glitter in his eyes, and the determination that flattened his lips over his teeth.

The loner was going to try and take justice into his own hands.

"He's a rogue," she said just as Grayson's cell rang, and he nodded as he took the call. She walked to the window and watched Santana climbing into the truck with the dog. If the rifle used this morning at his employer's house was the same as the one that had shot out the tire of Pescoli's Jeep, then Santana was in the thick of it. His boss. His girlfriend.

But you saw how upset he was about Pescoli.

He's not the killer.

"What...Who?...Yeah, but wait. I'll send Alvarez down, she can bring 'em up...What? Yeah, I know. Tell the press, I'll give them a statement today, at the department...h.e.l.l, no, not now. I've got a meeting at four with the task force. After that. Closer to six. Maybe later. Whenever I'm done." He snapped the phone off before whoever was on the other end of the connection could ask anything else, then he met the questions in Alvarez's eyes. "That was Connors at the gate. He's got Clementine and her son freaking out, demanding to be let in. The television cameras are rolling, so let's bring 'em up."

"I'm on my way."

"Are you sure she's unaware of what we're saying?" the African-American psychologist asked Martha, the big floor nurse who had been at Mountain View for as long as Padgett could remember.

"Near comatose," was the response. Martha had never been long on insight, just rolled in and did her job before clocking out, always leaving early.

Jalicia Ramsby PhD frowned at the response. Well, really, it wasn't very P.C. How did the fat slob of a nurse know anything about her? Padgett wondered, as she sat in the chair she'd claimed years before and rocked gently. Ostensibly she was staring out at the gray afternoon, her mind as blank as Martha believed, but she could see them behind her. They appeared ghostlike and washed out, their cellophane images seeming to float over the darkening landscape of lawns, hedges, and leafless trees in the grounds that surrounded Mountain View.

Slowly fingering the rosary on her lap, as if she were praying, Padgett told herself she would have to be wary of the newcomer. Dr. Ramsby was slim, straightforward, and sharp, with close-cropped hair, coffee-colored skin, and big eyes that didn't seem to miss much.

Head turned toward the window, Padgett moved her lips, as if in prayer, and kept her eyes blank, for she was certain Ramsby was watching her image in the gla.s.s, just as she was watching the psychologists.

Oh what a devious game we play, Don't we, Doctor? she thought but kept mouthing the familiar prayer. "Our Father who art in heaven..." No sound escaped her lips and she noticed, in the sheer pane, Ramsby's arched eyebrows come together, small lines radiating over her nose, red-tinted lips pursed in disbelief.

Why? Why didn't this woman trust the diagnosis that had been with Padgett ever since she'd been helped over the threshold of this ancient and revered hospital?

Some of the best psychologists and psychiatrists had examined her. She remembered, though, the last one to show any true interest in her had been Dr. Maxwell, and his interest had dwindled quickly years before.

So why this new interloper?

Why now, when it was most important that she seem as dull as the bread pudding the unimaginative cooks served each Wednesday?