To Die: Chosen To Die Part 3

But she had to be close.

She half ran to keep up with the dog.

She hated the visions, for that's what they were, and wished they would stop, but they wouldn't. Not until she died, she thought morosely as she held her coat tight around her, the coat she didn't remember donning, and her boots crunched in the soft snow.

The visions had started when she was thirteen, at the time of the accident that had taken the lives of her parents and older sister, Cleo. It had been a winter night much like this one. She and Cleo had been arguing in the backseat while their father squinted into the coming blizzard. Their old Volvo was straining uphill, the four-cylinder engine humming loudly, the tires sliding a bit, the radio filled with static.

"G.o.dd.a.m.ned snow," Father muttered. "I swear, next spring we're moving to Florida!"

"No!" Cleo overheard this. "We can't move! All my friends are here."

"Doesn't matter," he insisted and snapped off the radio. His jaw was set, same as it always was when he'd made up his mind. Headlights from an oncoming vehicle washed his face in stark relief. From the backseat, behind Mother, Grace had thought he'd looked suddenly old, the lines in his face seeming craggy and harsh.

Cleo pouted and ordered Mother, "Tell him we can't move!"

She turned to make eye contact with Cleo and said quietly, "Of course we won't."

"I'm serious." Father squinted, the headlights looming as they approached the curving bridge that spanned Boxer Creek as it cut through the canyon some fifty feet below.

"You can't be!" Cleo unbuckled her seat belt and leaned forward, pleading, touching his tense shoulder gently. "Don't even joke about it. I won't move."

"Honey, we aren't moving anywhere. Your father's a foreman at the mine. Now, come on, let's not worry about this."

Then, "What the h.e.l.l?" Panic tightened their father's voice as the oncoming vehicle drew closer. "Dim those lights, you son of a b.i.t.c.h." He flashed his own lights.

"Hank," their mother reproved. Headlights, two blinding orbs, flooded the interior with harsh white light. "Hank! Watch out!"

Too late!

Trying to avoid the imminent collision, Father cranked on the steering wheel, and the car began to slide. Out of control. The pa.s.sing truck hit their rear end and sent the Volvo spinning crazily.

Cleo screamed and was flung across Grace.

Grace's head hit the side window. Pain exploded in her skull.

Mother was yelling, "Watch out, watch out, oh, G.o.d!" as the wagon hit the rail, bounced back onto the slick pavement, and skidded ever faster to the other side of the bridge.

The reeling Volvo crashed through the guardrail in a horrifying groan of twisting metal, popping tires, and splintering gla.s.s.

Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d...

Down the car plunged!

Cleo was screaming.

Mother prayed.

And Father cursed as Grace lost consciousness.

She didn't feel the crash that snapped her mother's neck and caused broken ribs to puncture her father's lungs. She hadn't been awake to witness Cleo being flung from the car and pinned beneath it, crushed to death.

Eighteen days later, Grace awoke in a hospital to learn that the rest of her family was gone. Dead. She'd managed to live, though she'd been half frozen in the creek waters, her body temperature dangerously low, only a few bruises from the seat belt and a concussion to indicate she'd been in the deadly wreck. No other driver or damaged vehicle had ever been located and when she was advised that her family was dead, she'd simply answered "No."

Because she saw them.

Talked to them.

All of them: Father, Mother, and Cleo.

Even now. Forty-some years later.

Of course, the hospital staff were sure she was crazy, hallucinating, her brain conjuring up images.

If only, she thought now as the dog rounded a corner and she saw her small house, flanked by snowdrifts and dark as sin, sitting on a small hillock just off the road. Rubbing her arms, Grace picked up her pace and told herself that even if she told someone about her latest vision, she'd be disregarded. Sneered at.

Before the accident, as a child, she'd sometimes been lost in daydreams. Had been left on the playground more than once, never hearing the bell or the hoots and laughter of the other children.

Then, she'd been teased and had often run home crying, only to hear her mother say she was "special," while Cleo cringed at "the weirdo" who was her sister. Those days her dreams had been labeled as nothing more than the fantasies of a "gifted" child. There had been no medical reason that she sometimes blanked out. And though her IQ tests and exams had placed her right in the center of normal, her mother had always whispered to her that she was smarter than the others who cruelly taunted her, that they, the ones who called her "r.e.t.a.r.d," were to be pitied.

But the playground barbs cut deep and after the accident, when Grace still spoke to her dead parents and sister on a regular basis, worrying her aunt Barbara, and after she adopted her first puppies-two wolves who had lost their mother to a poacher-her visions had increased. Become more real, more definitive.

Those school bullies were right. Her condition was weird.

Now she made her way up the path to her door and found it ajar. Inside the house was cold, the ancient furnace unable to keep up with the frigid arctic temperature swept inside by the howling wind. Locking the door behind her, she turned on the lights and kicked off her boots.

She was keyed up. Edgy. Nerves strung tight.

After hanging her coat in the closet, she found her robe and cinched it tight about her waist. She lit a fire from kindling she'd stacked near the grate, then rocked back on her heels and watched the eager flames devour the paper and dry wood. As the flames ignited, crackling and hissing, promising warmth, Sheena curled up on a thick bed that Grace had sewn.

"Good girl," she said, warming her hands as she spied the clock on the mantel, near the fading, framed photograph of her family. It was morning, a few hours before dawn, and the images of Regan Pescoli were still with her.

The fire burned bright, golden shadows shifting through the small living area in the house where she'd resided all her life.

"An onus," she confided in Sheena, who was lying down, great head on her paws, eyes focused on Grace. No wonder she took the heat she did.

Rod Larimer, owner of the Bull and Bear, an inn of sorts in town, had referred to her as "our resident looney." And Bob Simms, the hunter who had killed the she-wolf twenty years earlier, had been known to say, "Crazy as a fruitcake. A real nutso. Should be locked up, if you ask me." Manny Douglas, a writer for the Mountain Reporter, had once described her as one of "Grizzly Falls's local color." Manny had kindly lumped her in with the likes of Ivor Hicks, who'd thought he'd been abducted by aliens in the seventies, and Henry Johansen, a farmer who fell off his tractor and hit his head only to claim he could read other people's minds.

Like you? she asked herself while staring at the flames.

Not all of the townspeople thought she was crazy. A few actually liked the whole clairvoyant thing, found it, and her, fascinating. Sandi Aldridge, the owner of Wild Will's, was always kind, and Aunt Barbara, though disgruntled at having to move here to take care of her brother's only surviving child, had always told her to accept the gift G.o.d had given her.

Hah. Now Grace grabbed a poker and jabbed at the fire, causing sparks to dance and red embers to glow a little more brightly. Going to the Pinewood County Sheriff's Department wouldn't be pleasant. Not at all. Sheriff Dan Grayson wasn't a fan and Pescoli's partner, Selena Alvarez, seemed icy and remote. But then that woman had secrets, held them close. Grace was certain of it. And she didn't like the idea of trying to convince Grayson, or Alvarez, or anyone a.s.sociated with the police about her vision. She didn't want to suffer the ridicule that was certain to be thrust her way.

"What should I do?" she asked the dog and in that moment Grace heard her father's voice, clear as a bell. "Be smart," he advised gruffly. "Keep your d.a.m.ned mouth shut."

But her mother, as she had in life, disagreed with her husband. "Don't worry about what anyone says about you. A woman's life is at stake. You owe it to her to tell what you know."

"I don't know anything," Grace argued, feeling some warmth return to her toes.

"Don't you?" Her mother seemed close enough to touch, but, of course, Grace saw no one, not even a transparent ghostly outline. Just heard voices. As ever.

Straightening, she picked up the picture from the mantel. Staring at the photograph of her family cl.u.s.tered on the front porch pulled at her heart-strings. But she quickly pushed aside any maudlin sense of nostalgia or self-pity.

Images of Regan Pescoli's tortured face appeared again, and Grace drew in a deep, steadying breath. It was only a matter of time before she bucked up and faced the ridicule that was sure to be a part of confiding in the police.

"You know," she said to the now sleeping dog, "Sometimes gift is just another word for curse."

Strike three.

Seated at her desk in her cubicle at the department, Selena Alvarez swiped at her nose with a tissue and glowered at her computer monitor. She'd called Pescoli on her cell, gotten no response, tried to reach her partner's ex-husband, Luke "Lucky" Pescoli, but the guy wasn't answering. Finally, she'd dialed Nate Santana again with no luck. Though Pescoli hadn't confided the name of her most recent in a string of loser lovers, Alvarez was certain Santana was the man she'd been seeing. The guy was just Pescoli's type: a good-looking drifter who'd rolled into town a few years back and had recently caught Selena's partner's eye.

When it came to men, Pescoli never seemed to learn.

Her first husband, Joe Strand, had been a cop who had taken a bullet in the line of duty, but there had been questions about his ethics. Pescoli had admitted to Alvarez that she'd married Strand, her college sweetheart, after learning she was pregnant and that there had been cracks in their marriage, affairs when they'd separated a while. Luke Pescoli, her s.e.xy-as-h.e.l.l but useless second husband, now owed her thousands in back child support.

That was the problem with Pescoli, she picked men for their looks rather than their brains or moral character. Nate Santana was a case in point. The guy was the quiet type, with black hair, razor-sharp features, and piercing dark eyes that never reflected any of his thoughts. An athletic cowboy type with a whip-tough body and cutting sense of humor, he appeared as ready to ride a bareback bronc as he was to spend all night making love.

Good for a fling, maybe. Definitely not suitable for a husband, which Pescoli had claimed she didn't want anyway.

Alvarez blew her nose and told herself not to worry. After all, Pescoli had called in. Again Alvarez replayed the message: "It's me. Hey, I've got a personal issue to deal with. Lucky and the kids. It might take a while, so cover for me, will ya?" Pescoli's voice had been firm. Determined. Borderline angry.

So what else was new?

But that call had been made yesterday.

No word from her today.

Something was off. Definitely wrong. Pescoli was nothing if not a dedicated cop. Surely she would have called again, especially since there had been an arrest in the Star-Crossed Killer murders. No way would Detective Regan Pescoli have missed out on the action, not after months of trying to track down the whack job.

Sniffing, Alvarez tossed the tissue into her overflowing trash basket tucked under her desk. This cold-flu-she'd contracted was starting to really p.i.s.s her off.

She doubted that she was overreacting. Even though Pescoli had indicated whatever issue she was dealing with would take some time, this was all wrong.

Alvarez glanced at the clock mounted high on the wall. Pescoli's message had come in late yesterday afternoon and since that time the Spokane Police Department in Washington state thought they'd arrested the killer.

Alvarez wasn't so sure.

Nothing seemed right today. But soon Sheriff Dan Grayson would be on his way to verify that the person who had been captured by the Spokane Police Department, and was now accused of being the serial killer who had terrorized this part of Montana, was their sick doer.

But Alvarez doubted the suspect arrested would prove to be the Star-Crossed Killer. The person in custody was definitely a would-be murderer, but so far, Alvarez hadn't been able to tie the suspect to any of the previous crimes. She glanced at the pictures of the victims lying upon her desk. Five women. Different races and ages with no connection to each other. She bit her lip and tapped her fingers as she thought about how hard Regan Pescoli had worked the case.

She would have moved heaven and earth to be a part of the suspect's arrest, no matter what her personal issues were. And she would have known about it. The stand-off and arrest had been splashed all over the news. Though most of the members of the press had swooped down on Spokane, a few reporters had stayed on in Grizzly Falls, still camped out in the surrounding streets, hoping for a new angle on the biggest story to hit Grizzly Falls since Ivor Hicks had claimed he'd been transported to a mothership by aliens.

She slid a glance to the clock on the wall. Nearly five P.M.... no way would Pescoli miss this kind of action.

Something was definitely wrong.

Alvarez scooted her chair back and tried not to think of the warning Pescoli had received from Grace Perchant, no less. Grace was an odd sort, cursed with some sort of psychic ability, if you believed her. Alvarez didn't. All she really knew about the odd woman was that Grace raised wolf dogs and talked to ghosts and never made much trouble. But recently, while Pescoli and Alvarez were having lunch at Wild Will's, Grace had approached the table. Her voice had been low, her pale green eyes troubled.

"He knows about you," Grace had said to Pescoli, her gaze lost in a middle distance only she could see.

"Who?" Pescoli had asked, playing along.

"The predator."

Alvarez had felt it then, that dip in the temperature that accompanies fear.

"The one you seek," Grace had clarified. "The one who is evil. He's relentless. A hunter."

Pescoli had been angry and had taken it out on the clairvoyant, but she, too, had been scared. They'd both known that Grace was talking about the maniac the media had dubbed the Star-Crossed Killer.

He's relentless. A hunter.

That much was true.

And an ace marksman.

He, Grace had said distinctly. Not she. Not the woman demanding to talk to her attorney in Spokane, the one everyone wanted to confront about the killings.

Sniffing some more, Alvarez leaned back in her desk chair. She wasn't one to scare easy, but today she felt a stark fear she tried like h.e.l.l to deny.

The horror was spread around her in glossy, colored photographs of the victims. Five in all. Or, she thought as she picked up a picture of Theresa Charleton, the first victim, five that they knew of.

There could be others.

Innocent women naked and bound to trees in the wilderness, abandoned to die a long and painful death in the frigid temperatures of the icy landscape.

"Sicko." Selena's jaw hardened as she glanced through a nearby ice-crusted window to the gloomy day beyond. Steely gray clouds huddled over the mountains, dumping snow, threatening a blizzard. Already parts of the county were experiencing downed lines and no power as the temperatures plummeted far below freezing.

"Merry Christmas," she told herself, as the holiday was just around the corner.

She tossed the picture of the first victim onto her desk with the rest and gazed at the grouping. Alvarez felt as if she knew all the victims intimately: Theresa Charleton, married, no children, a schoolteacher from Boise, Idaho, who had been visiting her parents in Whitefish, Montana. Her nude body had been found lashed to the bole of a hemlock tree, her initials and a star cut into the bark, a note nailed above her head with the same information from the killer, the man whom they suspected shot out the tire of her green Ford, then, after the car had spun out of control and been totaled, extricated Charleton from the wreckage and took her somewhere to nurture her back to health. This before cruelly and savagely hauling her to a remote spot in the forest, tying her to a tree, and leaving her to die with her initials carved into the bark of the tree. A note had been left, her initials printed in bold block letters: T C Now Alvarez stared at the picture of Theresa's face taken at the crime scene far from where her car had been located. The other victims had each suffered a similar fate: Nina Salvadore, a single mother from Redding, California, whose crushed red Focus had been discovered miles from her body. The note left at that scene had read: TSC N.

No one, not even cryptologists nor agents with the FBI with cryptogram-busting computer programs, had understood the meaning of the notes. Afterward, in rapid succession, the bodies of Wendy Ito and Rona Anders had been located. Then Hannah Estes had been found alive near an abandoned hunting lodge by a news crew and taken to a hospital, only to die later as the disguised killer had boldly entered the hospital, yanking her life support and making certain she expired. Hannah hadn't been able to tell what she knew, or identify her killer, nor had any of the hospital cameras taken a decent photo of his image.

Bad d.a.m.ned luck.

All of the women had been driving alone through this area of the Bitterroot Mountains when their cars had been a.s.saulted and they'd been taken from the original crime scene to be nurtured, then, like Charleton and Salvadore before them, had been strapped to a tree in a remote location and left to die an icy, brutal death. The notes and carvings at the scenes had only been different because of the positions of the stars and initials, but the result had been the same: Five women dead, the final note now reading: WAR THE SC I N.

With each victim's initials added into the text, the sheriff's department and FBI had come up with different ideas for the meaning of the letters, thinking perhaps that they could be jumbled, or that the killer was just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with them, that there was no meaning at all.

But deep down, they all knew that the killer, a very organized and clever person, was not only trying to tell them something, he was lording it over them that he was smarter than they. If his note was to make any sense, then he'd obviously picked out his victims before they'd been put through his personal emotional gauntlet of wrecking their vehicles, "saving" them, nursing them back to health somewhere, and then ruthlessly and cruelly leaving them to die in the wilderness.

He hadn't s.e.xually molested any of them.

That seemed out of place.

His dominance wasn't physical, so much as emotional.