The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson

Чтение книги онлайн.

      “What the hell does that mean?” Watershed whispered.

      Trilby Van Droz was still on her knees at the victim’s side, Pescoli beside her. The sheriff ordered Brett Gage, the chief criminal deputy, to follow the trail broken in the snow. He, along with a deputy in charge of the dogs, took off toward the east end of the clearing.

      “How the hell would someone get in here?” Grayson asked as the ambulance’s siren screamed louder.

      Pescoli rubbed the woman’s wrist. “Can you hear me?” she asked. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the ambulance slide to a stop in the old, snow-covered parking lot of the dilapidated lodge. “What’s your name? Who did this to you?”

      “She’s unresponsive,” Deputy Van Droz said. “I haven’t been able to get a word out of her.”

      Two EMTs, carrying their equipment, hurried toward the woman lying in the snow. With one quick examination the shorter of the two rescue workers, a black woman with a no-nonsense look on her face, whipped out a two-way and called for a chopper. “We need to get her out of here,” she said, giving the helicopter directions, then hanging up. “It’ll take too long to drive her back to the hospital.” Her dark eyes moved back to the victim as she told the detectives, “Chopper on its way. Should be here in five. So all of you just back the hell up and let us work!”

      The detectives and FBI agents took a few steps backward, while the woman and her partner, a tall man still in his twenties, worked quickly, monitoring the victim’s vital signs, administering oxygen, covering her and tending to her. In the distance, the sound of a helicopter’s rotors sliced through the air.

      “The scene’s been destroyed,” Chandler said, frowning, her gaze traveling over the mashed snow and solitary tree.

      “It’s like the others,” Pescoli said.

      “But there may be evidence buried here.” Chandler’s gaze scanned the trodden-down snow and the poor woman who lay motionless on the gurney.

      “The crime scene investigators will figure that out,” Pescoli said as the rescue helicopter came into view and the news chopper flew to a spot higher in the sky, never quite giving up its vantage point.

      “War to the scientists,” Watershed said.

      “What?” Pescoli frowned.

      “The note.”

      “We can figure that out later,” she snapped, uninterested in the stupid clues the killer had left behind. Now they had a victim who was alive, one they could save, one who could potentially name her attacker.

      To hell with the damned note.

      “Did that copter happen to find the car?” Chandler asked as a basket was lowered. “We’re still missing two cars, assuming this person isn’t Jillian Rivers.”

      “She’s not,” Pescoli said as she noted the victim’s tiny nose and wide mouth. Her hair was short and streaked with shades of blond, a widow’s peak was evident, and her eyes were a brown so intense they were nearly black. She was tall and thin, probably five nine or ten, so gaunt her ribs showed, her feet at least a size nine. Pescoli remembered the pictures she’d seen of Jillian Rivers. Even if Rivers lost weight, cut and dyed her hair and wore dark contacts, she wouldn’t resemble either woman they’d found today.

      “So where the hell is she? Why do we have her car and not this woman’s or the Jane Doe we found up at Cougar Pass?” Agent Chandler asked, her eyebrows knit in frustration, her breath fogging in the cold air.

      “We’ll find her,” Halden, her partner, said. He was the calmer of the two, though he, too, was irritated, his mouth set and grim, his eyes scanning the surrounding area, where the dilapidated, graying buildings of what had once been a profitable hunting lodge were partially hidden by snow-laden trees and rocky hills. It was desolate up here, the whole area looking decrepit and forgotten, a testament to death.

      The victim was transferred to the rescue basket and winched skyward as the helicopter started moving, heading back to Grizzly Falls, just as the crime scene team arrived.

      “How the hell did he get them to two different places, miles apart?” Chandler muttered angrily.

      “One at a time. First the victim at Cougar Pass and now this Jane Doe.”

      “Her initials being HE or EH, if the pattern remains the same.”

      “It is,” Chandler said. “He’s just escalating.”

      “Not just escalating,” Pescoli said. “So far he’s duplicating. He’s not killing closer together; it’s like he’s doing a two-for-the-price-of-one thing. Two women in one day.” She was worried as she stared at the note and the tree to which the victim had been lashed. Traces of blood were visible on the bark, and drops of red dotted the snow. Whoever this woman was, she had struggled and fought.

      “What the hell does that mean?” Grayson asked.

      “I don’t know.” Stephanie Chandler was shaking her head. “We need to find out who these women are.”

      “I’ve already called in both sets of initials to Missing Persons on the walkie,” Alvarez said. She was still standing near the entrance to the crime scene, making certain everyone was signing in as she waited for the crime scene team to arrive. “They’re checking.”

      “Call dispatch. Have them bring in every available detective,” Sheriff Grayson said. “And I don’t want to hear any complaints about it being Sunday or a few days before Christmas or even that their kid has the flu. I want every available road deputy at the department when we get back into town. Overtime’s no problem. Screw the damned budget. Are the cell phone towers working again?”

      “Not all of them, not yet,” Watershed said. “Just like the electricity. It’s spotty.”

      A muscle worked in the sheriff’s jaw and his lips were flat beneath his moustache. He lifted his hat from his head, and staring at the pine tree, the would-be death scene, he raked stiff, gloved fingers through his hair. “I hate this son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

      Pescoli silently agreed. She prayed that they had found this victim in time. That EH or HE or whoever she was would live. And not just survive. Oh no. Pescoli hoped that the woman would be able to name her attacker and testify against him at the prick’s trial.

      Yeah, that’s what she wanted, Pescoli thought as she shaded her eyes against the lowering sun and watched the helicopter disappear over the craggy summit of the mountain.

      It would serve the bastard right.

      Detective Gage returned with the dogs and the bad news that the trail had gone cold, ending up at a lower parking lot for the old lodge where tire tracks led away. The crime scene team would take tire and footprint casts, which were tricky but not impossible in the snow. With Snow Print Wax sprayed onto the tracks several times and followed by the dental stone impression material, clear casts could be created. Once the impression material hardened, experts would make duplicate prints and study them, trying to figure out the make and imperfections in the tire tread and boot prints. Methodically, experts would go through the painstaking process of finding out who had СКАЧАТЬ