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Regan’s athletic backside.
She’s sexy in a very earthy, darkly feminine way. But now she’s really slowing. Laboring. Those long, athletic legs straining.
This, I realize with a deep sense of self-satisfaction, is going to be easy.
Brandy Hooper was already dead, her skin blue, the gouges in her flesh attesting to her struggle against the rope that bound her to the tall, lone fir tree. A star had been carved into the bark of the tree above her head, and with it a note had been nailed into the trunk. Alvarez read it as a gust of frigid wind caused the page in her hand to flap and moved the stiff, frozen strands of the dead girl’s hair. As predicted, this message was identical to one Manny Douglas had received.
“God save us,” Alvarez said, feeling a quiet rage simmering deep within. Instinctively, for the first time in a long, long while, she made the sign of the cross over her chest, an automatic response from her childhood. As soon as she realized what she’d 426
Lisa Jackson
done, she felt embarrassed, flushing even in the harsh cold.
What the hell was that all about?
It’s Christmas and you’re scared to death. She cleared her throat as she observed the dead girl, a woman who had intended to become a doctor, whose life work was to be healing people. “This means that Elyssa O’Leary’s dead, too,” Alvarez said and heard the fatalistic note in her voice.
“We don’t know that.” Grayson’s expression was hard and he shook his head slightly, as if denying what was so obvious.
And Pescoli, what about her? Alvarez couldn’t stop thinking about her partner. Where was she? In what condition? Oh, Jesus. She had to stop herself from making the sign of the cross again. This case was eating at her, digging at her from the inside out. The crime scene team was on its way, the area cordoned off by deputies.
“I’ve seen enough,” she said, turning away, sensing the grains of sand slipping through the hourglass. There was nothing left to do for Brandy Hooper, but maybe they could still save Elyssa O’Leary. Who are you kidding? You just said she’s dead. You know it! But Regan Pescoli. She was still alive. Oh, God, she hoped so. And they had to find her.
“Billy Hicks did this,” Alvarez said, knowing it deep in her heart, urgency propelling her. Hicks was upping his game. What if he decided to kill again? What was to stop him?
“We’ll go to his cabin,” Grayson said.
The skies had cleared enough that the helicopters were up and Grayson had ordered the pilots to search the area near the old Kress Silver Mine. But it wasn’t enough for Alvarez.
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“We need evidence,” Grayson reminded her as they headed for her Jeep. “Linking Billy to the crime.”
“We’ll find it.” She was already opening the driver’s door. “Let’s just get to his place.”
“Make it fast,” Grayson stated grimly.
Oh, God, oh, God, don’t give up. Don’t! Regan was gasping for air, her mind racing as she tried to think of a way to save herself. Hicks was closing in on her; there wasn’t much time. The snow had stopped and she could see farther, though the sun against all the whiteness was blinding and she still didn’t know where she was. In a physical struggle with him, she would lose. Since she’d lost the knife, she had no weapon aside from a screwdriver.
She had to outwit him.
Somehow.
But inside she was shredding.
The physical toll was too much, draining her mentally as well.
Gasping, her heart feeling as if it would burst, she slogged forward, downward to God only knew where. The trees had given way and she was in an open glen, it seemed, and ahead, an extremely flat area, rimmed by the forest.
What? Why was the ground so perfectly even? A lake!
Frozen solid.
Snow covering the ice.
If she could reach the place before he caught her, the frozen water, maybe she could lure him out on it. He outweighed her by at least seventy pounds, 428
