Deserves to Die (10 page)

And he’d returned right to his hometown of Grizzly Falls, Montana.

S
eated across the table from Santana in a booth at Wild Will’s, Pescoli frowned at the screen of her cell phone.

“Bad news?” he asked, taking a swallow of beer as he eyed her.

The restaurant was crowded and noisy, most of the tables filled. Waitresses and busboys flitted through the cavernous dining area decorated with rough plank walls, wagon wheel chandeliers, and the heads of game animals mounted on the walls beneath the rafters.

“Depends on your perspective, I guess,” she said and managed a perturbed smile.

They’d left on bad terms the other night when he’d called to offer his condolences about Grayson, and true to form, she’d been a stone-cold bitch, icing him out and pushing him away. Sometimes she wondered why he put up with her. They’d met in the parking lot after a brief phone call where Santana had suggested they have dinner at the familiar restaurant on the banks of the Grizzly River, just under the falls.

They hadn’t met in person since Dan Grayson’s death, only spoken on the phone. Seeing Santana again had brought tears to her eyes. Standing by his truck, he’d opened his arms wide and she’d stepped into them, letting him pull her close. He’d whispered, “God, Regan, I’m sorry.”

She’d felt like a heel for how she’d treated him and had let herself be wrapped in the warmth of his embrace. He’d smelled earthy, of leather and horses and a bit of musk. With the snow beginning to fall around them and the rush of the river tumbling over the falls in her ears, she’d closed her eyes and forced herself not to cry.

“I am, too,” she’d admitted. “Not just for Grayson, but for the other night. You wanted to come over and I . . . was dealing with a lot.”

“I know,” he’d said, but he hadn’t told her that her behavior was okay, because it hadn’t been.

But he did allow her to be herself and she knew he would never try to change her. Santana, more than anyone, understood how devastated she’d been with the loss of Grayson, that she had witnessed the horror of the sheriff being shot, and that she’d woken up screaming in the middle of the night, reliving the experience. She hoped the nightmares would cease or at least abate soon. Always before, whether it had been dealing with her grief after Joe had been killed or handling the aftermath of her own terror at the hands of a psychotic killer, she’d spent several weeks, even months reliving the horror in her dreams. With time and effort, she had shed the need to replay the awful scenes in her subconscious.

She only hoped the same would happen this time.

“So?” he said, nodding at the phone. “Work?”

With a quick shake of her head, she said, “Bianca’s a no-show. Again.” Pescoli didn’t want to think what that might mean. “Third time this week.” She glanced down at the text one more time. At Lana’s. Homework. Be home later. A frowning emoticon followed the word
homework.

She couldn’t help feeling that she was being played. Never before had one girlfriend taken up so much of Bianca’s time. Pescoli had considered this new friendship a good thing, as Lana was a more studious girl than those Bianca usually hung out with, the more boy-crazy crowd. However, she was second-guessing her daughter.

When she’d told Bianca about Grayson, her daughter’s face had clouded briefly. “I heard. Lana’s mom said something and Michelle called. It’s too bad.” Then she’d gone to her room.

Too bad?

It was a helluva lot more than that.

Irritated, Pescoli tapped the edge of her phone on the table then slid it into her pocket.

“You think she’s lying,” Santana stated.

“Not think. Know. Just don’t know why.”

“Maybe you’re being too much of a detective.”

Pescoli gave him a look. “I was a teenager once, you know. Not
that
long ago. So were you.”

His mouth quirked and his eyes glittered. “I remember.”

“So.”

“Maybe you should have a beer.”

“Not tonight. I need to be clearheaded.”

“To deal with your daughter?”

“Amen. She’s sharp. And then, unfortunately, I have to catch up on some work. At home.”

“Then you definitely need a beer.”

“Rain check,” she said and he lifted a shoulder, cool with whatever she wanted. God, she loved him. She did want to spend the rest of her life with him though she hadn’t yet slipped the engagement ring back on her finger. Santana had asked her about that, too, and she’d answered truthfully that she hadn’t wanted to deal with all of the questions at the department, or the ribbing from her coworkers, especially after Grayson had been attacked. Those who had noticed her engagement ring had been few, and no one seemed aware that she wasn’t wearing it anymore, or at least they weren’t saying anything. She’d assured Santana that she wasn’t backing out. She wanted to marry him. She just needed to do things her way.

He asked, “What about Jeremy? He coming?”

“Legitimate excuse. He’s working.”

“Then I guess it’s just you and me.” Santana’s smile stretched wider and the twinkle in his eye turned a little wicked as the waitress brought a loaf of sourdough bread to their table and asked for their orders. “Ladies first.”

“The stew and a house salad,” Pescoli said, then Santana ordered the special—chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with country gravy. All of it sounded like heaven.

“You could come to my place after this,” he suggested once they were alone again.

“You mean ‘our’ place?” She sliced off a chunk of the bread.

“Not really ours until you move in.”

“I don’t think I’ll do that until you, er, we have heat and running water. Furniture, too.”

“Fair enough.”

As she slathered the bread with butter and held it up to him, a peace offering of sorts, he shook his head and said, “I thought you were going to cut back on your hours.”

“I was, but now we’ve got this new case.”

“There’s always going to be one, you know.”

“Yeah.” She bit into the bread.

“Maybe you need a long vacation away from everything for awhile. See how it goes.”

She almost choked. That’s exactly what was going to happen, whether she wanted it to or not. Pregnancy leave.

Something in her expression must have showed because he became deadly serious. “You’d tell me if we weren’t okay, right?”

She reached over and clasped his hand. “We’re okay,” she assured him.

He heard the sincerity in her voice and nodded.

By the end of her second shift, Jessica hadn’t learned a lot more about the dead woman found on the O’Halleran ranch. She’d heard plenty of gossip, just snippets from customers that had peppered into the conversations about work, family, kids, school, friends, or grandkids. One item was about a preacher approaching retirement age who was leaving his wife for a young parishioner. There was also a missing dog, an apparent suicide, and a homicide investigation of a man who was either pushed, or fell, from a mountain trail around these parts. The biggest news stories by far rippling through the dining area over the clink of flatware and the endless loop of songs from the fifties and sixties was the county losing Dan Grayson as its sheriff and the discovery of the body of an unknown woman found in a creek winding through the O’Halleran ranch.

Unfortunately, Jessica heard nothing substantive about the dead woman and though she told herself it was just coincidence—a woman’s body found in a deep pool of a local creek—she couldn’t help the tide of panic that rose within her.

He’s here,
she’d thought frantically
. He’s here somewhere in Grizzly Falls.

By sheer will, she’d forced herself to remain calm as the hours wore on. Even if he really had found away to chase her to Grizzly Falls, she hadn’t sensed anyone following her. So far. Several times during the day, she’d scanned the dining area, but he hadn’t been inside the diner, she was sure of it.

Yet,
she reminded herself.

She considered her options.
Slim and none.

Except for Cade.

God help her that her fate was dependent on the cowboy who had put her in danger in the first place. It was pure hell to think she needed to depend on him.

At the end of her shift, Jessica glanced outside to the parking lot in front of the diner. Empty of vehicles, the security lamps casting blue pools of light over the snow-covered asphalt, the area looked a little surreal. Again snow was falling, softening the edges of ruts made by earlier vehicles. From inside the diner, with its bright lights and wide bank of windows, she felt as if she were in a fish bowl, that anyone hiding in the shadows could watch her every move undetected. Feeling a sudden chill, she told herself she was imagining things. She was safe. For now.

Nonetheless she squinted, trying to peer through the veil of snow.

“Hey, hit the switch for the sign that says we’re open. Just turn it off, so we can go home. It’s that one there, the one with the piece of black tape on it. Yeah, over there.” Misty was shouting her orders from behind the counter and waggling a finger toward a toggle switch near the door. “Then flip the sign on the door for the morons who can’t figure it out even when the neon goes dark.”

“Got it.” Jessica pushed on the switch, then twirled the two-sided hanging placard on the door so that it read C
OME
I
N,
W
E’RE
O
PEN
to anyone looking at it from the interior and S
ORRY,
W
E’RE
C
LOSED
to potential customers peering through the glass.

Misty slapped at another switch near the doors to the kitchen and half the interior lights turned off. “That should do it,” she said, one hand on the swinging doors. “You’d think people would understand that when we’re closed, we’re goddamn closed.” She was in a bit of a snit as the last customer had come in fifteen minutes before closing, idled over her meal, texting and playing some game on her phone before asking for a doggy bag and leaving half an hour after the restaurant was supposed to close.

Nell was a stickler for attending to each person who walked through the door and so, though the doors had been locked, the customer was not hurried out the door.

A bare fifteen minutes since the customer had left, almost forgetting the leftovers she’d asked to be bagged, the floors had been quickly mopped, chairs squared around each table, booths brushed off, each station cleaned. All the tables were sparkling, coffee mugs turned face down on the Formica surfaces, condiments refilled and standing at the ready for the morning crowd that was due to arrive within eight hours.

With one last glance through the windows, Jessica started untying her apron as she walked through the swinging door to the kitchen.

Armando and Marlon were long gone and Nell was in the office with the door shut, where, as each night, she was counting the day’s receipts and balancing the cash register.

Connie, one of the teenaged bus girls, was swabbing the kitchen floor with a mop that had seen better days, while sterile glasses were still steaming in the open dishwasher. The warm room smelled of pine-cleaner that didn’t quite mask the lingering odors of deep-fryer grease and coffee.

“I can’t believe this,” Misty said, digging through the purse she’d retrieved from her locker area. Shaking her head, she crumpled the empty cigarette pack she’d located and tossed it into the trash. “Anyone got a ciggy?”

As Jessica shook her head, Connie gave a quick nod, reached into her pocket, and withdrew a pack of Marlboro Lights. To Jessica, she said, “I’m eighteen, okay?”

“I owe ya,” Misty said, shaking out a filter tip, then flipping the pack back to the girl, who slipped the pack quickly into her pocket.

Jessica tossed her dirty apron into a bin with other laundry and unlocked her locker to grab her purse.

Misty, still clutching the cigarette, was shrugging into her jacket.

Jessica asked, “So did you hear anything about the woman who was found in the creek?”

“Just bits and pieces, same as you.” Misty zipped up the jacket. “I did catch it on the news as I passed by the office. Nell had it on. It was that woman from the station in Montana. Oh, God, what’s her name? Nia Something-Or-Other, not that it matters. All I heard was that they haven’t IDed her yet. Kinda sounds like they suspect foul play and I don’t blame them. You wouldn’t believe the nutcases that have blown through here lately.” Her lips, faded now as most of her makeup had worn off, twisted downward. “Not too long ago, Grizzly Falls was a sleepy little town, no trouble other than a drunk getting into a fight or shootin’ up the W
ELCOME TO
G
RIZZLY
F
ALLS
sign. Now, though, it seems we get more than our share of psychos. And I’m not talking about our local weirdos like Grace Perchant. She’s the gal who owns wolf-dogs and thinks she talks to ghosts.” Misty shook her head. “Or that idiot Ivor Hicks who still claims he was taken in some kind of spaceship or something and experimented on by lizard people. No, those are our usual Grizzly Falls oddballs. That’s not what I’m talkin’ about. Nuh-uh.”

Connie stopped mopping for a moment and nodded to Jessica, letting her know she should listen up.

Misty went on. “Just a little while back some lunatic killed women and then displayed them in the snow or some other fucked-up thing. Damn serial killer, that one was. And he wasn’t the first. Right, Connie?”

“Sure thing.” Slightly heavy, Connie was sweating as she leaned on her mop. “My mom is thinking about moving away and she’s lived here all her life. But she had faith in Sheriff Grayson. He always caught the nutcases. Now—” She shrugged, indicating who knew what the future might bring, then carried her mop and pail to the back door.

Misty jabbed the unlit cigarette between her pale lips. “The trouble is, the way things are going, another psycho’s probably coming down the pike.”