AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pescoli nodded, getting into the case. “So why were they up here? They drove. Did someone hide in the cab and force them up here, then shoot them?”
“No. Other tire prints.” Alvarez pointed to a set of tracks that was being painstakingly cleaned of fresh snow. “We’re hoping the weight of the vehicle compacted the snow to ice and that we can get pictures and even take a mold. We’ll see.” She rubbed her jaw beneath a nose that was turning red. “I think they came up here to meet someone, an accomplice, and there was a double-cross.” Cracking her neck, she added, “The connection of course is Ivy Wilde. First she shows up here, after fending off an attacker, no less, and then these two”—Alvarez hooked a gloved thumb toward the pickup—“appear. Dead. Not just a coincidence.”
“No.”
“We’ll need to talk to her.”
“I’ll bring her in tomorrow.”
“Tonight.” Alvarez’s jaw was tight. “With or without that lawyer she was requesting earlier today.”
“Okay. But if these guys were killed in the last forty-eight or seventy-two hours, she’s not a suspect. She’s been under my watch from the time she got here. Someone’s always been with her.”
“Even at night?” Alvarez asked.
For a split second Pescoli thought about how she’d found Ivy in Jeremy’s bed. “Yeah. And she doesn’t have wheels.”
“You have horses.”
“Oh, Jesus, now you’re reaching, Alvarez.”
“Am I?” she asked, and Pescoli couldn’t argue the fact that Ivy could have “borrowed” one of the horses or vehicles, though she was pretty sure someone would have noticed.
The sheriff walked up and Pescoli thought he might throw her off the case, remind her that though she was still on the county’s payroll, she wasn’t assigned to active duty. She was wrong. Blackwater nodded to her and said to Alvarez, “The MEs made the evident decision that the victims died of gunshot wounds, but there will still be autopsies, of course.” Then to Pescoli, “You need to bring your niece in for questioning, ASAP. Again. She’s squarely in the middle of this mess, whatever it is.”
“Yeah.” Pescoli was nodding.
“Is she your ward?”
“Not officially. She has a father.”
“He needs to be informed.”
Pescoli thought about Victor Wilde and his new family. “He’s kind of out of the picture.”
“So get him back into it. He’s legally responsible.”
“Okay. Ivy’s not going to like it.”
“You think I give a flying fuck what Ivy likes? Four people are dead, detective, including your sister. From what I can tell, the link to all four is Ivy Wilde, so get her the hell to the station.” He didn’t smile as the skin stretched tight over his bladed cheekbones. “Got it?” His dark eyes narrowed as if he expected her to argue.
She didn’t.
He was right.
If only in this case.
* * *
She couldn’t wait any longer.
Things were getting too out of control.
Ivy took a deep breath and glanced around this, “her” room in her aunt’s house, but of course it was never her room, never would be. Until she was eighteen she had little say in what was to become of her. The cops had been brutal this afternoon. If that Asian detective had her way, Ivy would be behind bars. Of course she was innocent; she hadn’t had anything to do with her mother or Paul’s deaths, well, not directly. But the cops might create a case that didn’t exist, plant evidence or whatever. It happened all the time on cop shows on TV.
She worried her lower lip. But, even if they didn’t go that far, they would likely send her to live with her father. Oh, God. She thought of Elana, the self-important bitch who ruled that house and her three daughters. They were all sniveling brats, but Larissa, the oldest, she was the worst, always creeping around and staring at Ivy as if she’d just shown up from Jupiter rather than the heart of San Francisco. God, they were irritating.
Or, maybe she would be sent to live with Sarina and her boys. No. She couldn’t let that happen.
