The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson

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СКАЧАТЬ twitched into a happy little smile, which Regan found more than slightly disturbing. “Chris has nothing to do with my grades.”

      “Since you started”—Regan made air quotes—“‘going with’ him, you haven’t been so interested in school.”

      “Big deal.”

      “Bianca—”

      “Oh, what? I’ve got a boyfriend?” she mocked. “Yeah, that’s right. But he’s not affecting my grades, okay? Maybe you’re just jealous or something.”

      Regan stared at her silently.

      “I mean, it wouldn’t hurt you to date. You know, get a life. Then maybe you’d be off my…case.” She swept her backpack from the counter and slid off the bar stool as Jeremy’s heavy tread pounded up the stairs again.

      “Gotta go,” Bianca said quickly and slid her phone into her book bag.

      “We’re not finished with this discussion,” Regan warned as Jeremy appeared in an oversized sweatshirt, sweatpants and a stocking cap pulled low over his forehead. As he slipped on a pair of sunglasses, Regan thought her son was a dead ringer for the Unibomber or half a dozen other police sketches of wanted men.

      Bianca had already grabbed a jacket and was out the door as Jeremy, keys jangling from one hand, followed after her.

      “What about your backpack?” Regan asked, eyeing her son.

      “In the car.”

      “So you didn’t do your homework?”

      “Oh, Mom.” One hand on the doorknob, Jeremy rolled his eyes just as Cisco shot into the house.

      She fought the urge to light into her son about his schoolwork. Now wasn’t the time. “Drive carefully. Some of the roads have been closed and there’s another blizzard predicted, for this after—” The front door slammed behind them and Regan walked to the living room to stare through the window as her son dutifully turned on the old pickup’s engine, then went about scraping off the windows as the defroster heated the glass from the inside. Even inside the house she heard the heavy beat of some indefinable rock music.

      “At least it’s not rap, at least it’s not rap,” she said, her mantra for the past five years. Within minutes, the windows were clear enough and he folded himself into his twenty-year-old Chevy truck.

      When had it come to this? When the kids took off without saying good-bye or buzzing her cheek with a kiss? Or even listening to her?

      She watched them drive away and waved, though, of course, neither of them turned to look back at the house. She felt a little like a fool. She had to do something about the kids. She knew they were both headed for trouble. Jeremy was still dealing with issues about his deceased dad and Bianca was trying to find a way to fit herself into her father’s new family.

      And it didn’t help that Regan was a single mom, working with the sheriff’s department on the first serial-killer case in this part of Montana that anyone could remember. She’d spent almost every waking hour trying to figure out who the bastard was and when he would strike again.

      It had been two weeks since the last body had been found. Wendy Ito had been identified by her two grief-riddled parents, the father stoic and grim while Wendy’s mother had dissolved into a rage of tears and had to be held up by her slight but rigid spouse.

      It had been hell.

      And all the interviewing in the world hadn’t brought the sheriff’s department, or the friggin’ FBI, for that matter, any closer to the killer. Wendy Ito’s new Prius hybrid hadn’t been located and none of the friends she’d spent the weekend with had been much help. No one, it seemed, had any idea as to the identity of the girl’s killer. Just like with Theresa Charleton and Nina Salvadore. But it wasn’t over.

      “We’ll get you, you son of a bitch,” Regan said as she walked back to the kitchen and dumped the remains of her coffee into the sink. She rinsed out her cup and left it with the ever-growing stack of dishes piling on the counters. “We’ll get you.”

      The trouble was, if the killer was still in his same pattern, it was about time for another “accident” where he, presumably, would stage the scene, shooting out the tire of his next victim, then showing up to “rescue” her. That’s how he did it. Shot out the goddamned tires. Bastard. Regan set her jaw.

      The ME was certain that the women who had been found staked to trees in desolate parts of the mountains had spent at least a week, maybe two, healing from the injuries sustained in accidents where their vehicles had skidded off the road. The medical examiner theorized that each of the dead women had received basic first aid, or medical care, before they’d been marched naked to the place where they would be forsaken and left to die.

      She wondered vaguely if there were others—victims who hadn’t survived the staged accidents, lucky ones, maybe, who hadn’t been made to suffer and die in the elements—but she dismissed the thought. No other wrecked vehicles had been discovered.

      After feeding Cisco and making sure the dog had ample water for the day, she walked to her cramped bedroom to change into slacks, a red turtleneck sweater because it was the holidays damn it, her shoulder holster, a jacket and boots. She then made certain the Christmas tree lights were unplugged and the exterior doors were locked, and headed through the attached single-car garage to her Jeep.

      There was a chance that today would be the day they caught the prick.

      Maybe they’d get lucky.

      Though a gambling woman by nature, Detective Regan Pescoli wasn’t ready to bet on it.

      Not yet.

      Jillian parked in her assigned spot under the carport, then made a mad dash to the front porch as raindrops assailed her from a nearly dark sky. Most of the row houses were decorated, their sparkling, colored lights tiny bright beacons in the gray drizzle that was Seattle in winter. Battling with her small umbrella at the curb where the bevy of mailboxes for her group of units was located, Jillian unlocked her box and found a large manila envelope wedged in, her name and address written in black marker and block letters that began to run in the rain.

      “Great,” she muttered, a gust of wind catching in her umbrella and turning it inside out as thick raindrops pelted her face. Ducking her head and sidestepping puddles, she dashed past the front lawns of two other row houses, then hurried up her front walk. The rain, blowing sideways off Lake Washington, pummeled her as she finally unlocked her front door and scurried inside. “Honey, I’m home,” she called as she entered, pulling the door shut behind her. It was her private joke, but every once in a while, as if on cue, Marilyn would come trotting from the kitchen at the back of the house, meow and greet her expectantly. Today, she wasn’t lucky, and after tossing her keys and purse on the side table, she set about opening the mail, starting with the envelope with the postmark of Missoula, Montana.

      Where Mason, her ex-husband, lived.

      So what was this? Some post-divorce court order?

      God, Mason could be such a bastard.

      But, then, why no return address? No printer-generated label from his law firm?

      Water from the hem of her coat dripping onto the hardwood floor, she tore the СКАЧАТЬ