The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson

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      Jillian thought she would go out of her ever-lovin’ mind. She stared out at the expanse of snow sparkling in the sunlight and knew this was her chance to finally get out of here.

      And go where?

      How?

      She had to wait for him. MacGregor had talked about it and had left with a chain saw hours before. She’d watched as he’d driven off on the snowmobile, hearing the big engine roar, but once the sound from the Arctic Cat faded, she’d waited, hoping to hear the grind of saw teeth biting through wood.

      No such luck.

      The dog, having finally accepted her, was curled up near the door again, the fire stoked. Jillian had tried to get into several of the books she’d found but couldn’t. She was too jangled. Too wired. Too anxious to get out of here. Time was moving along, and if she wanted to find out if Aaron were really alive—or just get back to her real life!—she couldn’t be waylaid any longer.

      So what about MacGregor? Are you just going to leave him here?

      “Of course,” she bit out. The man was nothing to her. Yeah, she found him a little bit intriguing, but she chalked that up to being alone with him in this isolated canyon. She knew of Stockholm Syndrome, how a hostage came to trust, even depend upon, her abductor; how once rescued she wouldn’t turn on the very person who kidnapped her.

      Was that what this was? The root of all her fantasizing?

      She remembered his lips brushing her cheek.

      So he kissed her. Big deal.

      So he was attractive. Who cared?

      So he was mysterious. Then run the other way!

      Adding wood to the fire, she listened hard, hoping to hear the roar of the snowmobile, but no sound broke the silence of the cabin. She dug in her bag and fiddled with her cell phone, trying it in every corner of the house, but just when she thought she might get a signal, the screen would flash and show “no service.”

      “Great,” she muttered to the dog, walking to the windows and wishing MacGregor would return. She still didn’t hear the growl of a chain saw ripping through fallen trees, nor the buzz of an approaching snowmobile.

      As she gazed out the window she wondered exactly where she was. He had a stack of maps on the table, so she flipped through them before selecting one that she thought encompassed the area.

      She saw roads and rivers and towns, including Grizzly Falls and Spruce Creek, both of which rang bells in her mind. She noticed Missoula and stared at the letters, thinking of Mason and how she was certain he was the one who had lured her to Montana.

      But did that make sense?

      Why would Mason want her to come here?

      Why would he want to kill her?

      There had, at one time, been life insurance, of course. A policy worth several hundred thousand dollars that Mason had insisted upon, but she didn’t even know if the policy was in existence any longer.

      And the voice on the phone. Had it been Mason, disguising himself? Whispering so that she couldn’t identify him?

      Why now?

      As far as she knew, he was happily married to his new trophy wife. So why dredge up Aaron now? He’d been presumed dead so long Jillian barely remembered what he looked like. She searched a stack of astrological charts and maps on the table and found the envelope with the pictures that were supposedly of her dead husband. Holding the images under the light of a kerosene lantern, she studied the man carefully, trying to remember.

      Was he Aaron?

      Maybe. There was the beard and sunglasses and baseball cap pulled low over his eyes partially obscuring his face. And the extra weight, while Aaron had always been trim.

      But ten years had passed. A decade. She’d remarried and divorced in that time. And now, if he were alive, Aaron would be just a few months shy of forty.

      Frowning, she wondered if the man in the photo was Aaron or an imposter. Even more likely, was he an unsuspecting target? A man whose resemblance to her dead husband had prompted the photographer to snap the pictures. These weren’t posed shots, but pictures of him on the street, walking into a store, near a sidewalk where cars were parked on a snowy street.

      “Who are you? Just who the hell are you?” she whispered to the picture, and at the sound of her voice the dog climbed to his feet, metal ID tags jangling on his collar. With a glance at her, he walked to the front door, where he whined loudly and scratched.

      “Need to go out?” she asked, with a glance outside.

      Where the hell was MacGregor?

      Gone. Not coming back. Maybe someone, whoever you thought was outside the other night, attacked him.

      Now she was being ridiculous, letting her paranoia get the better of her.

      Harley whined loudly.

      “Yeah, yeah, I know. Hold onto your horses.” She hitched to the gun cupboard and, feeling a little foolish, grabbed the loaded rifle with her free hand. She didn’t like the idea of having to use the weapon, but knew she could if threatened. Grandpa Jim had seen to that.

      She СКАЧАТЬ