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Those were just a few, and every one was a possible victim of the Star-Crossed Killer. Alvarez tucked the pictures aside and walked to Pescoli’s desk. Messy. Unkempt. Photos of her two kids tacked to a bulletin board along with notes and reports and her calendar.
Alvarez hoped to hell she was still alive.
“Hang in there,” she whispered, touching the desktop before sitting down at Pescoli’s desk and switching on her computer. Zoller and a computer geek had gone through everything, but Alvarez wanted to look for herself.
“Where the hell are you?” she wondered aloud, her headache coming back with a vengeance as she went through her partner’s favorite bookmarked Web sites, then searched her recent history, and finding nothing that would help. Alvarez sighed, thought about Jeremy cooling his heels in a jail cell, and wondered if anything would ever go right. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Grayson about the kid, and Brewster was still pissed as hell, so for now, Jeremy would sit. Unless Lucky Pescoli wanted to step up to the plate. Unlikely.
And it didn’t hurt Jeremy to think about his actions even though the fight really had been instigated by Brewster, the second in command. Great role model, Cort. Way to be a good cop and a Christian. 256
Lisa Jackson
Alvarez closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. They needed a break in the case. In the weather. In anything. Learning nothing more, she headed back to her own cubicle and nearly tripped over the secretary.
“Press conference is starting!” Joelle announced as she flipped on a red cape decorated with felt Santa faces appliquéd onto the scarlet background. To Alvarez they seemed to be leering, and more creepy than cute. “Aren’t you going to stand by the sheriff?” She tugged on a pair of black gloves and walked toward the front doors.
Of course, Alvarez thought, reaching for her jacket.
“I can’t be there,” Joelle added. “I promised my niece I’d take her to see Santa Claus. He’ll be down at the courthouse tonight during the concert in the park.”
“Tonight?” Alvarez glanced to the darkened, frozen window.
“Bad weather doesn’t stop Santa,” Joelle said.
“He lives at the North Pole, you know.”
“Does he?”
“Of course.” Joelle flashed a bright smile, then pulled the hood of her cape up over her bouffant hairstyle. A white ball topped the hood, making it more, Alvarez assumed, festive. “You know, Selena, it wouldn’t hurt you to believe just a little. I know that we’re in a bad way here, a real pickle, but that doesn’t mean you can’t believe in the spirit of Christmas.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Alvarez zipped up her jacket and headed for the double doors that would lead outside to the spot on
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the porch where the press had gathered. Some of Joelle’s advice she’d take to heart. When it came to Sheriff Grayson, Alvarez would stand by him until kingdom came and went again. Grayson was a good man. A smart, determined civil servant. He spoke with authority and conviction, he backed up his beliefs with action and took the duties and responsibilities of a sheriff to heart. But tonight, she thought, as the winter wind whipped through her and rattled the chains on the flagpole, dumping more and more snow over the ground, Grayson was kidding himself. She hoped beyond hope that they would be able to stop StarCrossed before he struck again. She wanted desperately to believe that no more bodies would be discovered.
But she was a realist.
Santa Claus didn’t exist.
And Star-Crossed was going to kill again. Chapter Nineteen
Soon, I think, as I sit at my table, my neat boxes of notes, pictures, IDs, and personal treasures spread around me, the fire burning soft and hissing snakelike, reminding me of my purpose. Yes, Elyssa’s time will be soon. The storm is supposed to slow a bit, which will make conditions perfect for a lesson in survival . . . just like my own. How many times did my mother take me into the snowy wilderness and advise me on the skills of survival and what it would take for me to “become a man”? She, the bitch, was right, of course, but I always thought my father should have been there to stop her from leaving me to find my way home in mid-winter. She encouraged me to live off the land and I learned to shoot small prey at an early age. I was good at it. Received her rare praise and found deep satisfaction in controlling the destiny of some other living thing. Should that jackrabbit live? Could I really kill a squirrel from a hundred feet?
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Could I lie still and motionless long enough for the doe to leave her fawn?
Yes, my mother taught me much.
And my father . . . he left me to my own devices and my mother’s authority.
