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“I know, but he was playing you. Som
ehow he was playing you!”
“He was playing everyone.”
“Well . . . yeah.” Alvarez took a step toward the bed. “That’s true, but listen, I’m not kidding, if you ever scare the hell out of me like this again, I might just have to shoot you myself!”
Pescoli nodded. “You can use my gun.”
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The storm in Alvarez’s eyes broke and she let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You’re . . .”
“I know, I know. I’m everything you hate, but listen, we got him, didn’t we?” Pescoli pointed out.
“I’m alive and we got the mutt!”
“That we did, Partner.” Alvarez, obviously unable to argue the point, let out a long sigh. “That we did.”
Epilogue
New Year’s Eve
“So, cowboy, what say we toast the New Year?”
Pescoli said from the couch in her living room where the Christmas tree was already looking dead. From the rocker on the other side of the coffee table, Santana raised a speculative eyebrow. “With what? Diet 7-Up?”
“I was thinking more in terms of champagne.”
“You’re still on pain pills.”
“And you’re no fun!” she teased, loving that she could goad him.
“Why don’t we wait until you’re 100 percent.”
“That might take years.”
“Maybe into next year.”
“That’s only an hour away.” She shifted on the couch, felt pain in her shoulder and sighed. “I hate being laid up.”
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“Really?”
Regan half-smiled. She remembered nothing of the ordeal that had saved her life. They told her she’d “died.” That she was blue and not breathing, that if not for Santana dragging her out of the frozen lake and administering CPR, she might never have come to.
It seemed impossible now. And though her fall into the ice and struggle for her life were only a week past, she felt as if it were a lifetime ago. Billy Hicks’s body had yet to be found. Rescue attempts had failed.
Searches had turned up nothing.
But with the spring thaw, Pescoli and the rest of the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department were certain that what was left of the Star-Crossed Killer would rise to the surface. They would search again, when the weather broke, but for now, Hicks was floating in his own freezing, watery grave. Which was just fine with Pescoli.
Elyssa O’Leary’s body had been found, tied to a hemlock tree in the hills overlooking the basin. When Regan had learned of her passing, she’d felt a personal guilt, wishing so much that she could have saved her. So much. But Elyssa seemed to be the last victim that he’d captured.
