Brewster said they found her car.”
“Nothing.”
“Shit.”
Alvarez’s sentiments precisely.
“Find her.”
“We will.”
“Jesus, what a mess.”
“We’ll get this guy and we’ll get Pescoli back alive,” she said, hearing the ring of conviction in her tone, wondering if she were lying.
“God, I hope so.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I’m on my way back. Chandler and Halden are staying on a little longer, wrapping things up with the Spokane Police, trying to find a link as to how the suspect knew so much about the other murders. I’ll see you at the office and we’ll have a meeting of the task force. I want anything the crime scene has got on Pescoli’s vehicle and her place. Get a search warrant and talk to her kids and…Oh, hell, you know what we need to do.”
“Already on it.”
“Good. Later.”
She hung up, finished drinking her cooling tea, then stepped outside where the sun was rising over the eastern hills and traffic was starting to move through this part of the town.
Pescoli had been missing two nights now.
Chapter Seven
That bitch needs to be taught a lesson!
I rake my fingers through my hair and try to calm down, but my hands are shaking, my muscles tight as bowstrings as I pace before the fire.
All because of her.
Don’t let her get to you. You’re in control here, remember? You’re the one who’s calling the shots. She’s wounded. Handcuffed. Under lock and key. You’re in charge. You. Not that miserable joke of a cop who doesn’t know her place. Do not lose it now, not when you’ve come so far, not when you’re so close.
Not when you have so much to do.
Not just here, with these women, with him. He’ll be here soon. You must calm down. You have to be ready. Your aim can’t be off even in the slightest. The shot has to be spot on.
I close my eyes. Count to ten. Then twenty. I feel the stiffness in my shoulders relax a bit and I listen for the sound of the storm, the shriek of the wind, the pounding of sleet, but there is nothing. Only silence over the crackle of the fire.
Peace.
And yet, despite my pep talk and the quietude of the winter day, it’s all I can do to hang on to my temper, to focus on the bigger picture, the greater good.
My work is too important to allow myself the luxury of becoming overwhelmed. I must be rock steady. And yet I’m rattled. Deep down. The bitch got to me and I have trouble repressing my anger.
Me.
Who is usually so calm.
It’s that bitch of a woman.
Detective.
Regan Pescoli is rattling me and I can’t let that happen. Not now. Not until it’s over.
To find some relief I pick up her pistol, feel the smooth steel in my palm. There’s just something about a weapon that brings a feeling of calm. I run the barrel over my cheek and down my neck, closing my eyes and reveling in the feel of it. I can’t let a pain in the ass like Pescoli unnerve or derail me; not now when I need all my concentration.
Slowly I breathe more easily and I walk to my bar and pour a cool glass of vodka. It steadies my nerves, takes the edge off. I have to forget about Pescoli for a while.
It seems I have bigger fish to fry.
I put down the pistol and grab the rifle.
It’s time.
I know him.
The thought hit Pescoli hard as she lay on the cot, her arm still handcuffed to its leg.
I know him, and the whack job is smart enough to realize that I might recognize him.
Groggy and weak, she forced herself up on one elbow and noticed a bit of light coming through a high window. Morning? Dawn?
For a second she thought of Santana. His image seemed to be with her each time she awoke in this cold, dark room. Her dreams had been rife with images of him, and each time she’d awoken to find herself here, alone and trapped, she’d blinked hard to call him back. Did he miss her? Suspect that something had happened to her? That was the trouble with their damned no-strings relationship; neither knew what the other was doing. She’d told herself that was the way she’d wanted it. Now she knew it was all a lie.
The grim thought that she’d never see him again hit her viscerally.
Don’t go there. You will. You have to. You’re a mother, for God’s sake, you can’t just give up and lie here in a pool of self-pity. For God’s sake, Pescoli, do something to save yourself!
Gritting her teeth, she ignored the throbbing in her head, the dull ache that was her shoulder, and the hurt of her ribs and tried to move. Pain seized her chest but it was bearable. She’d been certain her ribs were broken in the accident, then cracked further when the psycho who had abducted her had sat on her while injecting her with God only knew what. Some kind of sedative, she figured, something to keep her dull and lifeless and maybe even to deaden the pain as she somehow had slept, and now she hoped that her ribs were bruised, not broken. They still hurt like hell, but she could move a bit and each breath no longer killed her.
As near as she could remember, he’d been back once since the time he’d straddled her, to check on her, offering her water and soup, not feeding her, but leaving a spoon and a tin cup of something that smelled like chicken bouillon, and a hospital bedpan—the ultimate humiliation.
The bastard had poked and prodded her as she’d lain motionless, unable to lift herself up, her brain mush.
That’s why he keeps the place dark, she thought now as her mind began to clear, her brain coming into sharper focus. It’s why he rarely enters, why when he does he wears dark glasses, a baseball cap, and a beard—probably a fake one at that. A disguise.
The trouble was, she didn’t have any real clue to his identity. At least not yet. She eyed the doorway and the crack of light coming from beneath it. Once in a while a shadow passed, then paused, as if he were on the other side, peering through a peephole she couldn’t see, or pressing his ear against the wooden panels to listen to her.
It made her skin crawl to imagine that he could observe her. Don’t think about it. Concentrate on getting out of here. If he’s afraid you’ll recognize him, then he must fear that you’ll expose him somehow.
If that were the case, then he had to think she might escape. She didn’t kid herself for a minute into believing that he planned to keep her alive indefinitely or release her, not after all the effort he’d spent in capturing her, not after the way he’d treated his other victims.
