The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson

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      “Okay, so what have we got?” Alvarez asked as the Jeep, buffeted by the wind, slid on the icy terrain.

      “You mean besides diddly-squat?” Pescoli was driving, her eyes narrowed as she tried to keep the rig on the road. Despite the windshield wipers slapping frantically at the continuous flakes, visibility was nil in the near whiteout. The road they were driving had already been closed, the plows unable to keep up with the storm. Ahead of them, the vehicles driven by the officers at the scene slowly eased along the uneven mountain terrain.

      “Yeah, besides that.” The police band crackled and the defroster blew enough hot air that Alvarez pulled off her gloves with her teeth, then unzipped her jacket. The interior smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and the cup holders were filled with half-full drinks.

      “We’ve got his MO.” Pescoli glared through the window as she drove, her gaze fastened on the snowy road, her eyebrows pulled together.

      “Which so far only links the Subaru to the other cars we found.” Alvarez didn’t like the turn of her thoughts. She was certain the crumpled Subaru would show up registered to a woman who had gone missing, a woman who even now was being held hostage somewhere within the surrounding five miles. So close, and yet eons away in this blizzard.

      As Pescoli drove, Alvarez put a call in to the State of Washington DMV, finally connected, only to be placed on hold. When the clerk on the other end returned to Selena, he refused to give her any information over the phone but promised to fax the car’s registration, as well as e-mail it to the sheriff’s department. By the time Alvarez and Pescoli returned to the office, the car owner’s identity would be available.

      Not so the killer’s.

      “So if this car has been in the ravine two, possibly three, days, how much longer do you think he’ll keep her alive?”

      “Don’t know,” Alvarez said, concentrating on the taillights of Watershed’s rig, the closest vehicle in their mini-convoy of county-owned pickups, SUVs and cars. The tow truck was behind them all, dragging what was left of the Subaru to the lot where it would be gone over again and again as investigators looked for evidence pointing to the killer. If only the guy would leave a fingerprint, or a hair, or some damned piece of evidence for them to work with.

      So far, the killer had been lucky. No hairs, no fibers other than from the yellow plastic rope used to bind the victims to the trees, no fingerprints on the notes or vehicles, no witnesses to his crime. They had bullets, no casings, and poor impressions of boot prints in the snow. The blood samples the department had collected were all from the victims, and the damned carvings in the trees, all of which seemed to have been cut by some kind of hunting knife, gave no indication, except for a guestimate, of the killer’s height. There had been no semen left in or on the victims, no evidence of rape.

      Their profile of the killer was weak.

      What they believed was that the killer was a male who wore a size-eleven shoe and was between the height of five feet ten and six three. But again, this was primarily assumption. The paper the notes were written on was common computer paper, available in any office supply store or department, the ink from the pens unremarkable, a common blue from disposable ballpoints.

      And the notes he left, damn. What the hell did they mean?

      Pescoli down-shifted as they came to a hairpin corner and Watershed’s truck slipped a bit. “Son of a bitch,” she muttered under her breath as her rig slid, then found enough traction to right itself. “Remind me why I don’t live in Phoenix or San Diego. You know, where cold is seventy?”

      “You’d hate Phoenix. And the desert gets cold at night.”

      “Not this cold. But okay, then San Diego. I think I might move there. Next week.”

      Alvarez couldn’t help but smile at the image of Pescoli, in her boots, jeans and down vest, roller-skating on a sidewalk near a beach in Southern California.

      “Laugh if you want to, but I’m doin’ it. When we get back to the office, I’m searching for job openings from LA south.”

      “Good luck.”

      Pescoli actually flashed a quick we-both-know-I’m-full-of-crap grin.

      The roads improved closer to town, where traffic had beat the snow into slush that was bound to refreeze. De-icer trucks were busily spraying the streets as both pedestrians and vehicles battled the elements.

      Pescoli eased into the lot. She parked her Jeep as close to the main door as possible, then switched the engine off. Alvarez zipped up her jacket, pulled on her gloves and tugged her hood over her hair as she stepped out of the vehicle and hurried inside.

      Once at her desk, she peeled off the layers again, then found the fax from the Washington DMV. According to the car’s registration, it belonged to a thirty-six-year-old woman named Jillian Colleen Rivers, whose address was listed as Seattle. An e-mail came through as well, with a picture of Jillian Rivers as good as any of those licensing photos could be.

      “Jesus,” Alvarez said, staring at the picture of a woman who might already be dead. Shoulder-length dark brown hair, eyes listed as hazel on the license but appearing gray in the photo, strong nose, small mouth, easy smile, high, pronounced cheekbones, maybe the hint of freckles.

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