Chosen to Die (23 page)

Bianca strained forward. The news hadn’t been about Mom. Jeremy, somehow, had gotten himself into trouble again. It figured. He had dog food for brains! Cisco was smarter than he was by a long shot.

“Oh. All right. Thanks.”

Dad hung up the phone and Michelle said, “What about Regan?”

“Nothing new,” was the grim response.

Bianca clutched the jamb to her bedroom and slowly sank to the floor.
Mom, where are you?
She fought back an urge to cry and kept her eyes on the mirror’s reflection of Dad and Michelle, whose pretty face had taken on a decidedly tense expression.

“Well, what did Jeremy do?” Michelle demanded.

“Got in a fistfight with Cort Brewster and is in the drunk tank.”

“My God.” She was annoyed. “Over Brewster’s daughter? You’re not going to go get him, are you?”

Dad was looking around, as if for his coat. “You think I should leave him there?”

“Yes! He needs to learn some things.”

“In the drunk tank at the sheriff’s department? With his mother missing, possibly kidnapped?”

“He could have thought of those things first, instead of adding to the problem.”

“He could’ve. But he didn’t.” Dad was starting to get annoyed right back.

Michelle instantly switched tactics, reaching for him, one hand gently patting his chest. “Let him just think about a few things, that’s all I’m saying. I don’t want a big scene tonight, so let’s put it off till tomorrow, hmm? Maybe we can pretend that we don’t have your kids with us. Like it’s supposed to be.”

Bianca surfaced from her fear and misery to really look at her stepmother. Her dad was looking at her, too.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“I didn’t mean anything,” she said quickly. “I just—miss—having you all to myself, that’s all. I don’t want you chasing after Jeremy tonight.”

Dad heaved a sigh. Bianca suddenly, urgently, wanted him to go get Jeremy, bring him back, bring him home, but Michelle had gotten to him. “It wouldn’t kill him to spend a few hours in lockup,” he growled.

Michelle wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him in a way that made Bianca want to puke. She eased away from the door and back inside the bedroom. She felt angry and hurt. Michelle didn’t want them around, her and Jer. It was all an act. It had always been an act, she realized now.

Oh, Mom, come and get me!
she silently pleaded.
Hurry. I’m sorry. I don’t want to live with them. Come home!

Cisco trotted into the room. As if sensing her emotions, he came over to her and pressed his paws against her legs, looking up at her anxiously. She scooped him close and he licked her face, something that would’ve seemed gross before but now she welcomed.

“Oh, doggie,” she said brokenly, burying her face into his fur.

Mom, please be okay. Please, please, please, be okay.

“Any word on finding Pescoli?” Brewster asked, sticking his head in Alvarez’s office.

“No.” Selena was terse.

The undersheriff nodded and looked grim. He’d cooled off a bit over Jeremy, and Selena had called Lucky and told him where Jeremy was, but currently the kid was still in the drunk tank with Ivor Hicks. No one seemed to know what the next step should be, though Selena had made it clear she thought Jeremy should be released. She’d said as much to his stepfather, but Lucky hadn’t said whether he was coming down to collect him, which was just as well, she supposed, since Brewster probably would have tried to stop him.

“You should go home,” he said.

“I’ll go home when the sheriff goes home.” She was bugged that, after all his bad behavior, Cort Brewster felt he could tell her what she should do.

“Grayson’s still here?”

We’re all still here,
Selena wanted to say. Nobody wanted to leave with Regan at the mercy of this monster.

As if hearing his name, Grayson appeared in the hallway and stopped beside Brewster. “Jeremy’s stepdad coming to pick him up?” he asked Alvarez.

“That kid’s not leaving tonight,” Brewster cut in. He might have cooled off, but he sure as hell wasn’t giving in.

Grayson gave him a long look. “That kid’s mom is missing.”

“He hit me,” Brewster ground out.

“I’ve seen the tape,” Grayson returned.

Brewster whipped around to glare at Selena, who he knew had to have requested the tape be given to the sheriff. She returned his gaze coolly. Let him try to shift blame to her. The tape told the truth of the story.

“He’s going to be released,” Grayson told the undersheriff. “Alvarez…”

“I’ll get it done.” She got up from her desk.

“That damn punk hit me first!” Brewster said again, more forcefully.

“He’s being released, and you’re not pressing charges.” Grayson was immovable.

“Oh, yes, I am! I don’t care whose kid he is! And I don’t like his influence on my daughter. And I want him to know it.”

“I suggest you give this some more thought,” Grayson said pointedly.

Brewster bit back what he was going to say and Alvarez, hoping to defuse the situation, said, “Nate Santana called. Wanted to be part of the investigation. I told him to let us do our job, but he sounded unconvinced.”

“Jesus, what a loser,” Brewster muttered, and Selena wondered if he meant Santana or Jeremy. Didn’t really matter.

She had to push Brewster out of the way of the door as she headed into the hall.

“And send Hicks home, too,” Grayson said to both Brewster and Alvarez. “Call his son.”

“I already left a message for Bill,” Brewster said. “But the old guy’s probably sober enough now to release on his own.”

Grayson grunted. “Get ’em both out of the drunk tank and let’s concentrate on what really matters: who this bastard is, and where he’s keeping Pescoli.”

“Are we staying here all night?” Brewster asked.

“Leave, if you want,” Grayson said.

“I was just thinking we didn’t need to pay out more overtime,” he said lamely.

Alvarez turned down the hall, knowing she wouldn’t be heading to her apartment anytime soon. She couldn’t. Not until she was beyond exhaustion and she felt there was nothing further she could do to help Pescoli.

Regan lay on the cot, beaten and battered. She hurt all over, but not as much as her mind told her she ought to. Maybe she was dying. Maybe the fight had ruptured something inside her that was slowly killing her.

No. No, she didn’t believe that. There was something she had to do.

Save them.

She opened her eyes to almost total darkness. The fire was nothing but glimmering red coals. She was clutching the blanket with a death grip; she’d grabbed it for warmth in a twilight state of floating pain.

She had to save the other victims. Had to.

She couldn’t let the bastard win.

Carefully, she lifted her right wrist, about all the energy she had left. It was scraped raw, through more layers of skin than she believed a human possessed. Blood was everywhere. Hers. His, too, undoubtedly.

But as much as she hurt, as injured as she was, she couldn’t give up.

Setting her teeth, she slid to the edge of the cot and looked down at the weld. Her fight with her captor had taken a toll on it. An unexpected bonus for her. It looked very weak. Maybe weak enough to break?

Regan’s heart started pounding a deep, painful tattoo. If she could summon her strength, she might be able to free herself.

But would it be in time to save Elyssa and the others?

Determinedly, closing her eyes, clenching her teeth, she yanked hard on her right handcuff.

Jeremy gazed around the room, holding his breath. Two days until Christmas and he was stuck here in this drunk tank with an old man who smelled like a brewery and looked really crazy. The way his eyes, when he was awake, stared wide behind those huge glasses gave Jeremy the creeps.

And the cell itself was gross. Cement floor, cement walls, painted an ugly gray, harsh overhead light with a metal cage around it, and metal benches bolted into the wall. No window, just the front doors of the cage, which were thick bars of dull steel.

“It’s all Crytor’s fault,” the old guy was mumbling again. “If that Reptilian son of a bitch hadn’t tele-ported me up to the mothership from Mesa Rock, and then did all those experiments on me, none of this would be happening now.”

None of what?
Jeremy was tempted to ask, but he didn’t. Engaging the old coot was a mistake he’d already made once. For the next forty minutes, he’d heard Ivor-the-Nut-Case’s life story. For the love of God, the guy still wasn’t over his dead wife. Lily or Linda or…no, Lila, that’s what it was. One of the Kress girls who were all beautiful when they were young. So beautiful. She’d been dead for a really long time, it seemed, but Hicks still talked about her as if they’d been together just last week.

He was weird, weird, weird. Someone to avoid. But there was nowhere for Jeremy to hide, and since they were the only two people in the drunk tank, he was stuck listening to Ivor’s stories.

It would be different if he had his iPod or cell phone, but the undersheriff had confiscated both. God only knew how he’d handle Heidi when he got home.

Shit, what a mess.

“I saw a Yeti today,” Ivor said, then frowned. “Maybe it was today. Thought it was a wraith, but it was a Yeti. It killed Brady Long.”

“Huh.” Jeremy hoped he would just stop talking.

“It was white. All white. With a long club.”

“I thought Yetis were brown and furry.”

“That’s a Sasquatch, not a Yeti!” He glared at Jeremy, who reminded himself again not to engage the old geezer. Ivor mumbled some more but Jeremy closed his eyes and ears.

He tried to sleep and failed, so he walked around the perimeter of the cage, hearing voices of cops when the door to this end of the jail opened, and eyeing the drain in the middle of the sloped floor. He didn’t want to think what had gone down that hole with its dirty-looking cover.

“I bet they called my son,” Ivor suddenly said, sounding more of this world than he had since Jeremy had been thrown in with him. Jeremy squinted at the old man. Maybe he’d just needed to sober up. “They always call him. They never believe me, and they always call him.”

“Well, maybe he’ll pick you up,” Jeremy said hopefully. Had anyone called his stepdad? Or, had the undersheriff put a stop to that before it happened?

“I don’t want to be a burden.” Ivor dropped his chin to his chest and sighed. “It’s not my fault. It’s Crytor’s. But nobody wants to believe me.”

The old guy fell asleep just like that, snoring enough to make Jeremy go deaf. A burden. Well, yeah. He was a complete nutcase, so he was definitely a burden.

Thoughts of his mother crept in though Jeremy tried to keep them at bay. He didn’t want to think about her. About what could be happening to her, if she wasn’t dead already.

Nobody was saying that Mom might be in the hands of that sicko killer. Nobody wanted to tell him that. But he knew that’s what they were thinking. God, he hoped they were wrong, but where was she? Where was she?

With an uncomfortable twinge of conscience, he reviewed his own actions the last few days. He’d been in police custody twice this damn week. And he’d been a jerk to everyone; his mother, for sure. If he could only take it back! He’d do everything different. He would. He
would
.

He just needed a chance. Another chance. With a look to the snoring old man, Jeremy walked to the bars and wrapped his hands around them. He wanted to cry. Could feel the burn at the back of his eyes and moisture collect in his nose.

Mom…

Swallowing, he fought back his emotions. If he yelled, would someone come for him? He had to get out. Had to help his mom.

He was just getting ready to try when the locked door at the end of the hall clanked open and Mom’s partner walked through, looking drawn and determined.

“Are you here for me?” he asked.

“I’m releasing you, yes.”

“To my stepdad?”

“To your vehicle.”

Jeremy wondered what that meant. “And Mom?”

“We’re still trying to locate her. The sheriff has asked that the charges against you be dropped.”

Relief flooded through him, tempered by deeper worries. He looked back at Ivor, still snoring. “Glad I don’t have to listen to him being abducted by aliens anymore. Or all about his dead wife, one of the beautiful Kress women, or the fact that a Yeti killed Mr. Long.”

He thought her lips might break into a faint smile, but it didn’t quite happen. “Ivor’s a colorful character.”

“So, it wasn’t a Yeti, huh?”

“Not as far as we can tell.”

She unlocked the door and he slipped through. He wanted to ask her more about his mom, but it was clear there was nothing she would tell him. “So, I’m outta here.”

“I would go home to your stepdad and stepmother and sister,” she said.

“Yeah.” But Jeremy was already making other plans. Maybe he’d go to Ty’s. Do something.

“Go be with your family. We will find her,” she assured him as she walked ahead of him and then unlocked the door at the end of the hall.

He nodded, hurrying through the door, then heading upstairs to collect his cell phone and keys.

Tydeus Melville Chilcoate didn’t trust anyone.

Especially strangers who appeared at his remote cabin in the middle of the worst friggin’ snowstorm in decades. And yet, here was this guy standing on his broken-down front stoop. He didn’t unlatch the chain, which he knew wouldn’t hold anyone who really wanted to get in, but the shotgun he had in the hand hidden behind the door casing would probably do the trick.

“Chilcoate?” the tall dude asked. His eyes were dark beneath the brim of a cowboy hat that was collecting snow. “I’m Nate Santana. I work…er, worked for Brady Long.”

Chilcoate’s hand tightened over the stock of the gun, but he kept his cool. “I heard what happened to him. Bummer.”

“Yeah.” The guy didn’t seem to believe it. “I got your name from Zane MacGregor. He said you could help me.”

That prick!
MacGregor was supposed to keep his mouth shut about Chilcoate, that was part of the deal! “You talked to him recently?”

“Just did.”

“Well, shit.” Chilcoate reluctantly cracked open the door and Santana walked inside. “Stay right there,” he ordered and the man stopped short. “What is it you want?”

“I need help finding out who killed Brady Long,” Santana told him. He handed Chilcoate a rolled-up map, a list of names, and a scratched-out biography, of sorts, on the man in question. “I got as much stuff as I could think of. Names of marksmen. Maps of the area. What I know of Brady.”

“You were a friend of his?”

“I knew him a long time.”

“And you want to find his killer,” Chilcoate reiterated.

“What I’m looking for is a connection between him and this damned Star-Crossed Killer. I think they’re the same man.” The man’s eyes darkened and his jaw was granite.

“Just a minute,” Chilcoate said, pointing Santana to his worn recliner, which he reluctantly sat in, looking as if he might jump up and attack someone given the least provocation.

Chilcoate then headed into the larger of his two bedrooms, an area designated for his office. He closed the door on the secondhand chairs, scarred cabinetry, and massive television that made up most of his living space. He didn’t like having Santana sitting in the middle of it, but whatcha gonna do with friends like MacGregor?

Within the bedroom’s walls were a desktop computer, several telephones, and radio equipment. This was all a front, containing basic home office equipment when Chilcoate needed so much more. The basement, down a narrow stairway, was where he had a whole intel room set up—his own “control central”—but the basement was an area he had no intention of sharing with anyone, least of all a stranger who knocked on his door late at night. Damn MacGregor! He, better than anyone, knew that Chilcoate needed privacy and secrecy. Chilcoate dealt in information, and it was imperative his world was kept private and under the radar of the general populace.

Muttering to himself, he impatiently dialed MacGregor’s cell phone, counting the rings, glancing toward the door as he waited for him to answer. Finally he picked up, his voice sounded distracted and rushed, which pissed Chilcoate off to no end, even though he understood the reason for it. “Hey, man,” Chilcoate said without preamble. “You send this Santana fellow to me? What the hell are you thinkin’?”

Zane MacGregor was a boyhood friend of Chilcoate’s, his one true friend. Chilcoate had helped Zane recently with that crazy copycat who’d gone after his girlfriend. The copycat they’d all thought was the Star-Crossed Killer.

MacGregor said, “Santana’s after the real Star-Crossed Killer. Even though it turned out that Jillian wasn’t one of his targets, the bastard’s still out there, killing women. He’s in your ’hood, Chilcoate. I thought you could join forces with Santana and bring him down.”

“No one knows about me,” he reminded him. “That’s the deal. You know that.”

“You gotta stop being so paranoid, Chilcoate. You gotta help Santana get the killer.”

“The police are on it.”

MacGregor laughed. “Like you believe any arm of the government is straightforward and capable! Sure, man. Let the police handle this.”

Chilcoate ground his teeth. He was right, of course. Chilcoate had actually been in the military where he had honed his skills in electronic surveillance and computer hacking. He was considered a genius by some; a serious threat by others. His disillusionment with all things government was a by-product of his own paranoia and secretive nature. But that didn’t make the government right!

“You want me to get involved?”

“Yes,” MacGregor stated emphatically.

“You’re putting a real strain on this friendship. It hasn’t been a week since you were here,” he grumbled.

“You want this bastard to keep killing women?”

“Hell, no. But I’m not a one-man army.”

“Santana is.”

Chilcoate thought that over. He glanced toward the closed door and thought about the man seated on the other side of it. “You know him well?”

“Well enough. You’ve probably made a judgment on him by now. What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t want to be tracked by him.”

He grunted in agreement. “Then help him out. Like you helped me.”

“Okay, Chilcoate said reluctantly, clicking off and reaching in a pocket for his smokes. Lit one up, thought carefully. He opened the bedroom door and let Santana get an eyeful of the upstairs equipment. He couldn’t afford for anyone to see what was in the basement. “All right,” he told the intense stranger. “I’ll get to work. I’ll let you know when I have anything.”

Santana nodded. “Got any kind of time line on when that might be?”

“Go home. Go to bed. Tomorrow’s another day.”

The tall man smiled faintly, a flinty movement of his lips that held no humor. “Make it fast.” Then, “Please.”

Chilcoate walked him to the door and as soon as it was closed behind him, he threw shut all of his special locks. He stubbed out his cigarette and waited, counting to ten, as he heard the engine of the man’s truck fire, then heard the crunch of tires on snow as Santana turned the vehicle and left.

Chilcoate waited five more minutes before heading down the narrow stairway to the basement and his true operation, ducking under ductwork, aware of the hidden cameras he’d placed in the cobwebby corners himself. At the back wall, in an alcove ostensibly designed to hold firewood, he hit a switch and the wall swung open, revealing an array of sophisticated, state-of-the-art computer and photographic equipment, radios, and cameras.

He rubbed his hands together as he dropped into a rolling desk chair that groaned under his weight. Now that Santana was gone and he was safe, he was starting to look forward to the task at hand. Time to hack into government computers and find out as much as he could about Brady Long, that fucked-up killer they called Star-Crossed, and how the police were faring in catching him.

I can’t believe that she duped me!

The damned detective nearly ruined everything!

Worse, the voice in my head keeps pounding at me:
The taunts you made were a mistake! You were too cocky!
I can hear
her
voice telling me that I’ll never amount to anything, that I will end up like my father.

Fat chance, Mother!

And yet, I wasn’t prepared for how clever the detective turned out to be, how unafraid.

That will never do…