Left To Die (43 page)

Pescoli’s shoulders tightened. “He’s not talking to me. But I think I’ll live.” With a glance toward the undersheriff’s office she added, “So far, I haven’t spoken to Cort. He’s probably gonna want Jeremy run out of town on a rail or strung up by his balls.”

“He’s just a kid.”

“A stupid kid.” She threw up one hand. “For someone as smart as all get-out, he can be dumber than dirt.”

“They all are sometimes. We all made major errors in judgment growing up.”

Pescoli glanced up at her and squinted, as if she were trying to figure out what really made her partner tick. “I stole my dad’s car and wrecked it. Three girls with me. We were all lucky no one was hurt. But there wasn’t any booze or drugs involved. What about you?”

Alvarez didn’t like where this was heading. Too personal. “The usual stuff. Cutting out of school, smoking behind the gym, sneaking out. It wasn’t major, I guess, because I was pretty focused. But I think it’s pretty normal.” She didn’t say that she’d trusted the wrong people, that one in particular had abused that trust and her life had never been the same.

“It’s different when it’s your own kids, y’know? You would lay down your life for them in a heartbeat, and the next second you want to throttle them. I’m gonna have to break the ice with Brewster, but not yet.” She picked up a well-worn stack of papers, her eyes on Brewster’s office.

Alvarez took an experimental sip of her tea. “Did you get the information Zoller retrieved on the vics?”

“Yep.”

“I was going to call you last night,” Alvarez started, but Pescoli waved her aside.

“It was a crazy night,” she said dismissively. “But look at this. I’ve been doing a little research on Jillian Rivers, the victim who’s different from the others. I double-checked her story, you know, about the ex-husband and the photos.” She motioned to a stack of photographs, copies of the originals they’d found with Jillian Rivers’s things at MacGregor’s cabin.

Alvarez picked up the snapshots of the man walking across the street. The photograph was grainy and the man could have been the dead husband, she supposed, as she glanced at another shot, one of Aaron Caruso’s driver’s license, which was over ten years old. There was a resemblance, but nothing definite that she could see, no telltale ID marks like a tattoo or scar or even a mole in the same place.

“I googled Jillian Rivers aka Jillian Caruso, as well as her first husband, and I located newspaper articles from the towns where she lived.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Got here early,” Pescoli explained, again glancing toward Cort Brewster’s closed door. “Anyway, it turns out that this husband she told us about, the first one, Aaron Caruso, he didn’t just disappear. He disappeared with a whole lotta OPM.”

“Other people’s money?” Alvarez was about to drop the photos but stopped. “An embezzler? Scam artist?”

“Bingo. You got it. Look at this.” She handed Alvarez several newspaper articles that she’d printed out, along with reports from an earlier investigation involving the SEC.

Selena placed her cup on the end of Pescoli’s desk as she skimmed the articles. “So Caruso left his wife holding the bag.”

“Only it was empty. Far as anyone can tell. At that time, there was no indication that she had any money. And he took half a million dollars, ten years ago.”

Alvarez stared again at the photos. This guy in the old cap? He absconded with five-hundred grand? “None of the other victims had anything like this in their past.”

“Another anomaly.” Pescoli leaned back in her chair and tapped the ring finger of her right hand with her thumb. “Jillian Rivers is the victim who falls away from the usual MO. The killing site was only partially correct. The little open space in the forest and the single tree with her tied up naked—that was right. But that’s about as far as it goes. The note left at the scene wasn’t right, the star carved over her head wrong. The rope that bound her was different. The shoe size of the doer was smaller, the fact that he carried her rather than prodded her along in her bare feet another difference. This isn’t an evolving MO. It’s something else.” She held Alvarez’s gaze, squinting a little as she thought. “I bet whoever wants Jillian Rivers dead was just trying to throw us off. They’re the copycat.”

“So we need to go back to motive,” Alvarez thought aloud.

“Exactly. I think we should find out who inherits if Ms. Rivers meets an untimely end. She’s probably got some assets. Life insurance. Bank accounts. Retirement plans. Real estate. Whatever. Let’s see if she has a will. She’s got no kids, right?”

“Just a mother and a sister with a couple of kids.”

“And an ex who’s an attorney, lives in the state and might have drawn up her will while they were still married. If she hasn’t changed it, then he could inherit. Maybe he got wind of the fact that she was going to rewrite it?”

“A big leap there,” Alvarez pointed out. “Just because he’s an ex—”

“Yeah, well, I go by the theory that the only good ex-husband is a dead ex-husband.”

“What about the other victims?”

Pescoli scowled. “Therein lies the problem. Nina Salvadore had a small insurance policy on herself; the beneficiary was her kid. Theresa Charleton and Wendy Ito had no insurance and, as far as we can tell, their estates aren’t worth much. Neither owned their homes and their cars are totaled. Theresa Charleton’s Ford Eclipse isn’t worth much now, and Wendy Ito still owed a lot of money on her Prius, so the bank will get the insurance proceeds to pay off the loan. Neither woman had a will, so whatever Charleton had will go to her husband, and Wendy Ito’s estate, if there is anything, will go to her parents.”

“We’re still missing a car.”

Pescoli nodded. “But when we find it, I’m betting it’s emptied out. Just like the others.”

“And all the heirs seem grief-riddled?”

“You got that right. If I get one more call from Lyle Wilson, I might just scream.”

“Wilson? The brother of Theresa Charleton?”

“He seems to think that if he calls more often, we’ll catch the killer sooner. Like we’d slack off if he didn’t keep nudging us.”

“He feels helpless and doesn’t know what to do.”

“Well, he can back the hell off, that’s what he can do.”

“You tell him that?” Alvarez took another long swallow of tea, the hot liquid soothing her throat.

“Not in so many words, no. But he got the message.”

“I bet he did.” Alvarez coughed, nearly spilling her tea.

“Hey, are you sick or something?”

“Nah, maybe a cold coming on.”

“You’ve got to nip that in the bud.” She opened a drawer to showcase an array of over-the-counter meds. “I’ve got anything you need…take the daytime non-drowsy stuff.” She found a packet of cold tablets and a bottle of ibuprofen.

“This is like a drugstore,” Alvarez said.

“Yeah, I know, but I can’t afford to be sick.” She tossed the packet to Alvarez, who caught it without slopping any of her tea. “Neither can you.” She glanced at her watch. “Get ready, we’ve got a meeting in half an hour. The phone lines in the task force room have been going nuts, the Feds have been doing their own thing and Grayson’s got to come up with a statement for the press.”

“Sounds like fun,” Alvarez muttered as she slid out the card of cold tablets and popped one from its blister pack. Usually she wasn’t a fan of medication bought without a prescription, but today she was willing to try anything.

“Fun?” Pescoli glanced at her partner. “You really do need to get out more.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

It took Jillian nearly two hours to secure her release from the hospital.

Dr. Haas, tall, reed-thin, with short silvery hair and deep crow’s feet around his eyes, tried to intervene, to convince her that she needed more time to allow her system to recuperate, but she was having none of it.

“Fine.” The doctor, thin lips pinched, nostrils slightly flared, finally acquiesced, albeit unwillingly, as MacGregor waited, leaning insouciantly against the wall, jean-clad hips resting on the edge of the counter that encased the sink. “I can’t stop you.” Haas handed her a prescription and signed the orders for her release. With a final disapproving glance, he swept out of the room, and Jillian, after hobbling to the bathroom, dressed with difficulty in the clothes that the sheriff’s department had left for her. Shoes were a problem, as nothing fit over her wrapped ankle, but her boot-cut jeans were a godsend.

“I don’t know how you think you’re going to track down your dead husband and outrun a killer on crutches,” MacGregor commented.

“One crutch,” she corrected, “and remember, I have you, right?”

He inclined his head. “I think I’ve got as much at stake in this as you do. The sheriff’s department and the FBI released me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still on their radar for this mess.”

“And you’re not willing to sit around and wait for them to catch the guy either.”

“Nope.” His face was grim. “Whoever he is, he set me up, too. Shot my dog. Left you out in the woods to die. Pointed the authorities in my direction. No, Jillian, I’m not going to wait for the detectives. They’d just as soon pin this on me and I wouldn’t be the first innocent man locked away.”

She knew he was thinking of the time he’d done in Colorado. “Good, then let’s get out of here. I was thinking we should start in Missoula, since that’s where the envelopes that I received were postmarked. That’s where I was heading in the first place.”

“Any place special?”

“Well, I was going to start with Mason, my ex. He’s the only person I know there, I mean, the only one who has any axe to grind with me.” She paused. Something wasn’t right about the whole Missoula thing. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was an idea tugging at the back of her mind, a notion that she couldn’t quite grasp, a feeling that Missoula, Montana, was all wrong. Even a decoy. But that sensation faded in an instant, a wispy thought that escaped her.

MacGregor seemed to sense it. “What?”

“Nothing, just…I don’t know. Missoula seems off somehow. As if whoever sent me the photographs
wanted
me to head there. I knew it before I left Seattle but I couldn’t help myself.” She tried to call back the image that escaped her. “I feel like if we go to Missoula, we’re playing into his hands.”

Frowning, MacGregor walked to the window and stared outside, where sunlight was beginning to melt some of the snow. “Have you got any other ideas?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Then for right now let’s go somewhere private. Plan our next move without the chance of anyone overhearing. Somewhere out of town.”

“What about Harley?”

“We’ll stop by the veterinary clinic. I’ve already called Jordan. She’s waiting.”

“Jordan?”

“The vet.” He picked up Jillian’s travel case. “She’s a friend of mine.”

“A good friend?” she asked, more than curious. There was something in the tone of his voice that caused a bit of envy to run through her veins.

He glanced over his shoulder as he held the door to the room open. “Very good,” he said as she hitched her way through with one crutch.

“Should I be jealous?”

His smile spread easily over his beard-darkened chin. “Very.”

For the first time since meeting the two FBI agents, Alvarez finally understood what Craig Halden’s role was in his partnership with Stephanie Chandler. Usually content to let his partner do most of the talking, he’d always hung in the background, making a few comments, but mostly watching from the sidelines. A good ol’ country boy who was skating along on his job.

Not so.

Today the show was all Halden’s, and his affable demeanor evaporated under the new, hard-nosed agent who was stepping up in the investigation. Not that Stephanie Chandler took a backseat; that wasn’t her style. But today, when all hell was breaking out among the news people and the public, and the case against Zane MacGregor, who had been their only serious suspect, had broken down, Halden had stepped up.

He stood at the head of the long table in the task force room and brought everyone up to speed. The FBI, too, was convinced that MacGregor wasn’t their man, that Jillian Rivers’s abduction was the result of a personal attack against her, someone who was using the Star-Crossed Killer as a decoy. The psycho they were looking for was an organized, systematic serial killer. He wouldn’t have made the mistakes that had occurred at the intended killing site of Jillian Rivers.

So now they had two killers and two cases, and their focus at the moment was on the Rivers woman.

Agents Halden and Chandler had studied the theory that Aaron Caruso, a scam artist who had bilked investors out of their savings, might still be alive, but again, there was no proof. The pictures and e-mail and voice messages may have been just a lure to get Jillian Rivers to Montana.

Trouble was, other than her ex-husband, Mason Rivers, who was in Spokane at the time of the shooting, Ms. Rivers had no known enemies.

“Could be someone pissed off about losing their nest egg,” Watershed offered.

Chandler frowned. “Ten years is a long time to hold a grudge.”

“Not if you need the money now,” Pescoli said. She was seated at the table, wedged between Watershed and Alvarez, while the agents were walking back and forth in front of the geographical maps and pictures of the victims. “Not if you’re suddenly desperate, your life is falling apart and you need a scapegoat.”

“But murder?” Chandler asked. “Elaborate murder?”

“Could be the guy’s been waiting for the opportunity and then the Star-Crossed Killer comes along and he thinks he’s got his ticket.” Watershed glanced toward Grayson for support.

Grayson grimaced and rubbed his chin. “We should take a look at the victims of Caruso’s scam, see if anyone lives in the area or within a hundred-mile radius.”

“I’ll do it,” Zoller offered. For once she wasn’t manning the phone and was seated at one end of the long table.

“Good.”

“But that’s just one side of the equation.” Halden tapped a finger on the map of the area, the spot near MacGregor’s cabin where Jillian Rivers had been found. “If our copycat is after Ms. Rivers for a reason, he won’t kill anyone else.”