“So you decided to settle down here?”
“Eventually.” Her eyes shifted, and she looked up at him again. “I went to college in Missoula, medical school in Seattle, and stayed for a while. I got married, then divorced and, since I'd inherited the farm, decided to move back.”
“No kids?”
She shook her head, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “He . . . wasn't âready.' ” She made air quotes, then, as if she'd thought better of it, shook her head. “It's over, has been for three years, and I told myself I'd try never to be catty about it, even if he is an easy target.” She lifted one slim shoulder, dismissing the man to whom she was once married. “So, how about you? What happened to Eli's mother?” She took a sip from her glass.
“She took a hike. Never hear from her.”
She thought about that long and hard.
“We do fine,” he stated firmly.
Her expression was neutral, but he bet she didn't believe him for a second. And the thing of it was, she was right. He remembered Eli's most recent crying jag, when he'd begged to find out where Leanna was. God, it tore his heart out, and he couldn't help wondering how scarred his boy was.
Before the conversation went any further, they were interrupted. “Hey! Doctor Lambert!”
Trace turned to see the receptionist for the clinic wending her way through the tables. She was balancing a glass of wine in one hand. The fingers of her other hand were laced with those of a twentysomething guy who sported a scruffy beard and wore a frayed stocking cap drawn down over his ears.
“Hi, Heather,” Kacey said.
“This is Jimmy,” she said quickly; then her gaze landed on Trace. “And you're Eli's dad, right?” She was nodding, agreeing with herself. “How's he doing ... oh!”
At that moment Eli came barreling back to the table. “I need more money!”
“Hey, dude, don't we all?” Jimmy said.
Eli cast him a who-the-heck-are-you glance. “To play the games,” he said to his father.
“I think maybe it's time to go.” Trace scraped his chair back.
“Wow.” Jimmy took a look at Kacey as she stood. “You kinda remind me of someone.”
“Miss Wallis!” Eli said; then his expression clouded as he remembered that she was gone.
“Shelly Bonaventure,” Heather said.
Jimmy snapped his fingers. “That's it. Man, you're like a dead ringer or something.”
“Or something,” Kacey said, and she, seeming to suddenly want to leave as quickly as Trace did, reached for the coat she'd tossed onto an empty chair.
But the kid was right. Trace was only vaguely aware of Shelly Bonaventure as an actress, but in the last week her picture had been splashed across the front of every magazine near the checkout stand of the store where he bought groceries. He'd also caught the end of an “in-depth” story on the woman when he'd been channel surfing the news for an update on the weather.
“She was from around here, wasn't she?” Jimmy asked.
“Helena, I think,” Heather said.
“Helena,” Trace repeated, his gaze meeting the doctor's.
Like Leanna. And Kacey.
“I think I'd better get moving,” Kacey said. “Thanks.”
Heather's gaze swept from her boss to Trace and Eli, and she had trouble smothering a smile.
“Can we see Sarge?” Eli asked again as Trace helped him with his jacket.
“Tomorrow, bud.”
“But I want to see him now.” Eli's gaze traveled through the window and across the street to the veterinary clinic.
“We have to let Dr. Eagle work with him.”
Eli's lower lip protruded, but he didn't offer up any further arguments. Kacey told Heather she'd “see her back at the office next week,” before they all eventually worked their way out of the crowded restaurant and into the icy night, where a few tiny flakes of snow were falling and the temperature was hovering just below freezing.
He and Eli walked the doctor to her car. As she fumbled for her keys before unlocking the Ford, she smiled up at him. “Thanks for the pizza.”
“No problem. Eli . . .” He nudged his boy. “Don't you have something to say to Dr. Lambert?” His kid looked up at him and blinked. “About the ice cream?” Trace reminded him.
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks,” Eli said, remembering his manners.
“Anytime. Take care of that arm, okay?” With one last glance up at Trace, she said, “Dr. Lambert sounds a little too formal anymore, doesn't it? It's Kacey.”
“Kacey,” Trace repeated.
Then she opened the door of her Edge and slid behind the wheel.
Still holding Eli's hand, Trace watched as she nosed the Ford out of its space and drove away. He bustled his son to his own truck, parked nearby, and as he headed out of town, he thought about her and Leanna and Jocelyn Wallis and Shelly friggin' Bonaventure.
Two were dead.
One was missing.
And the fourth, Kacey, had glanced guardedly over her shoulder as she'd shepherded Eli across the street earlier.
Three of them had ties to Helena.
And they all resembled each other.
As he slowed for the stoplight near Shorty's Diner, he wondered what the hell, if anything, their connection was.
Â
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She was home!
He heard the key in her lock, the creak of the kitchen door, and the sound of her footsteps as she crossed the kitchen floor.
It was amazing how crisp the quality of the sound was, and he settled deeper into his chair to listen remotely as she snapped on the radio and ripped something that sounded like paper. Oh, of course. Her mail!
Though he had no camera equipmentâhe hadn't risked that yetâhe could imagine Acacia walking through her house, kicking off her shoes ... running the bathwater. . . .
That a girl ...
In his mind's eye he watched as she pinned up her hair, then stripped off her clothes, tossing them into a corner in the bathroom. Then, naked, her nipples tight and hard with the cold air, she would settle herself into the steaming tub.
Would she add a stream of bubble bath and let the foam surround her? Perhaps light a candle or two and watch the flames flicker and gleam against the cold panes of the frosted window? Would she sink down low enough in the tub that the tendrils of hair on her nape would become damp? Would the water drops glisten on her long legs as she hooked her ankles over the rim of her old claw-footed tub?
He licked his lips and traced the tip of his finger along that narrow little scar at his temple, the spot where she, with his knife, had sliced his skin so neatly.
His heart was beating loudly in his ears as he heard a soft little splash over the headphones. He didn't really have time for this; there was so much to do and yet ... He leaned back and closed his eyes. His heart was beating fast now; his breathing a little shallow; his cock coming to life.
Imagining the slim column of her throat, he envisioned the very knife with which she had forever scarred him, a shining blade that sliced neatly across her white skin. As her eyes widened in her surprise, drops of blood formed, glittering gemlike upon her skin before running in dark rivulets down her sternum and over her breasts to slide into the water and bloom a deep scarlet. White bubbles floated, dissipating, becoming stained, as she sank into the warm pool.
He let out a soft moan at the image, a ripple of pleasure moving through him.
Now!
“No.” His own voice startled him, but he told himself to hold on to his patience, that he couldn't give in to primal urges. There were others who had to be dealt with first! “Wait,” he told himself, but deep within him, in the darkest corners of his heart, he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold out much longer. With Acacia Collins Lambert, it was personal.
As he listened via the tiny hidden microphone to the gentle lap of water surrounding her, he imagined her lying in her own cooling blood. Soon, she would breathe her last.
Again he traced his scar, running his finger along the thin white slice, the cleaved hairline at his temple. Barely visible, but a reminder. His eyes narrowed, and he stood to look into a round mirror he'd placed on the wall over his desk.
For a moment, he thought he saw her behind him.
Acacia!
Staring into the mirror and laughing at him! As if she expected him!
Startled, he whipped around.
But no one was there. Of course not. What he'd seen was the coatrack and a sweatshirt with a hood dangling from one hook.
His breathing slightly erratic, he returned his gaze to the mirror again, and the scar that she had left.
Few people noticed the thin white line.
Fewer had asked about it.
But he knew.
And every day he remembered.
CHAPTER 18
“
I
'll be damned.”
Leaning back in his desk chair, Trace stared at the computer monitor, where, after sifting through public records, he'd found that Jocelyn Wallis, too, had been born in Helena, Montana.
Four for four. What were the chances of that, especially considering the small size of the town?
And you've known three personally. Coincidence?
What the hell did it mean?
Nothing?
Of course not. As the pages stacked in the tray, he lifted off the first set and read through them again, trying to figure out a connection. Coming up with nothing, he lifted a hand high overhead, stretching out his shoulder muscles, then rotated his head. Yawning, he snapped off the computer and checked the clock. Midnight had come and gone, and Eli had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the television. Trace had tried to get him to bed earlier, but his son had protested that he couldn't be alone in his own room because he missed Sarge. Was worried about the mutt.
Trace left the small parlor that he used as a den and found his son sprawled over the crushed pillows of the couch. In sleep, his hair at odd angles, dark lashes lying against his cheeks, Eli looked nearly angelic. Except he'd traded his wings for a bright blue cast.
The boy had been a game changer for Trace.
Before becoming a father, Trace O'Halleran had been known for too much drinking and an interest in the wrong kind of women. He had sown more than his share of wild oats but had stopped the minute Eli had come into his world and rocked it. He'd always heard kids changed everything, but he'd never really thought about it. Until he became a father.
Now he leaned down to pick up his boy from the couch. Eli didn't so much as crack one eyelid as Trace carried him up the old staircase to his bedroom on the second floor.
The room was a mess. Toys and books scattered everywhere, clothes near, but not in the hamper, his twin bed unmade. Light from the window, that eerie gray/white of a snow-crusted night, spilled over the rumpled quilt.
Gently, Trace lowered him onto the bed, then tucked the quilt around him. Sighing in his sleep, Eli rolled onto one side.
His son.
Trace's jaw tightened at the secrets he'd kept from Eli. Someday he'd have to come clean, he supposed. It was Eli's right to know that Trace wasn't his biological father. But when Eli learned that unforeseen bit of information, the questions would start, and they would be as difficult as the ones fielded the other night, when Eli had been upset and demanded to find his mother.
And Trace wouldn't have answers.
The truth of the matter was that Leanna had never revealed Eli's biological father's identity. Trace had surmised she might not know, and even if she had, she certainly hadn't cared. Theirs had been a white-hot romance that had started in a bar with one too many drinks and ended with a brandnew pregnancy. Trace had done the right thing: he'd married Leanna and adopted Eli. He'd then eventually come to grips with the fact that she'd either miscarried or lied, because the baby she'd claimed to be carrying, Trace's child, never came to fruition.
Not that it had ever mattered.
The fights had begun, the accusations flung, and one night she'd just up and left. He'd woken up to an empty bed. Her car was gone; her clothes had been cleaned out of the closet; her phone, laptop, and makeup were missing.
All she'd left was her boy.
Which was just as well.
As he stared into the room where Eli lay sleeping, he couldn't imagine that he could love any child more. He didn't understand why she'd left, but when the divorce papers came, and she gave up all custodial rights to her son, Trace had signed quick and fast.
There had been a few phone calls and a handful of visits, but they had petered out over the years. He couldn't remember the last time he'd talked to Leanna. When Eli had called her six months ago, the phone had been disconnected.
You should have tracked her down.
He deserves to know his mother, no matter what kind of a heartless bitch she is.
For all you know, she could be dead.
Like Shelly Bonaventure.
Like Jocelyn Wallis.
He decided he would make a few calls about Leanna in the morning. He had a couple of ancient numbers he'd found on a scrap of paper in the desk drawer just last month, when he was searching for a new book of checks. One was a number in Phoenixâhadn't she had a girlfriend who'd relocated down there?âand the other number was for somewhere in Washington, which he didn't understand.
His thoughts turned to Acacia “Kacey” Lambert again, and he told himself to give it up for the night. Nothing sinister was going on. Strange things sometimes happened. Stripping off his shirt, then kicking off his jeans and socks, he fell onto the bed, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh.
Kacey Lambert's face formed in his mind, and he told himself he was a damned fool.
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From her cell phone, Alvarez left a message for Jonas Hayes at the LAPD. Though she didn't expect the detective to be working on a Saturday morning, she knew he'd hear his voice-mail message eventually and, she hoped, get back to her. She didn't really believe that the deaths of Shelly Bonaventure and Jocelyn Wallis were linked, but she believed in being thorough.
And the fact that the victims resembled each other troubled her.
She left some food out for the skittish Jane Doe, but the cat was hiding again.
Give it time,
she told herself as she downed a power shake of frozen blueberries, banana, yogurt, and some wheat germ blended into a froth. “Breakfast of champions,” she said under her breath, then grabbed her gym bag and headed outside.
Of course the snow had iced over, glazing the walkways and gardens, but she eased her Jeep out of the slippery lot and onto the county road, which had been plowed sometime during the night.
Fortunately, traffic into the heart of Grizzly Falls was light as it was early, a weak sun just starting to brighten the eastern sky, a few pink streaks of dawn playing in the clouds. She turned on the radio, and as a weather report faded, the beginning notes of “Up on the Rooftop” popped through her speakers, but she barely noticed. She'd pushed aside all her mortification over the Thanksgiving debacle with the June Cleaver clone Hattie and her two kids at Grayson's house. What a mistake that had been.
Sister-in-law . . . oh, sure!
Ridiculously, she felt her cheeks turn hot. “Never again,” she vowed, switching lanes around a slow-moving truck hauling a load of baled Christmas trees, and a chorus of children's voices blared from the radio:
“Ho, Ho, Ho!
Who wouldn't go?”
She found the exit for the gym, took the corner, and eased into the near-empty parking lot.
“Up on the rooftop,
Click, click, click!”
“Oh, stop already!” Alvarez snapped off the radio as she nosed into a parking space not far from the main doors of the massive building that housed an Olympic pool, saunas, weight rooms, and several basketball courts. She signed in and grabbed a towel, then made her way to the ladies' locker room, where she stashed her bag.
She hoped that she could exercise her muscles and relax her ever-spinning mind. Today her routine would be a cardio workout of forty-five minutes on the elliptical machine, then another half hour of weight lifting on different machines dedicated to toning and strengthening specific areas of her body.
Usually, somewhere in the middle of her routine, she would zone out, and whatever issues she was trying to work through on a case would start to unravel, but today, as she made her way through a series of arm, leg, and torso machines, no answers came on the Jocelyn Wallis murder. Alvarez had spent hours going over the woman's phone records and through her bills, even her garbage, but nothing had leapt out at her as odd or suspicious, no blinding lightning bolt of insight had illuminated her mind. The ex-boyfriends had alibis. The paperwork was benign.
No will had been located, at least not yet, nor had any life insurance beneficiary been uncovered.
Jocelyn Wallis was a schoolteacher who didn't have a lot of friends and had no known enemies, with no link to Shelly Bonaventure, aside from where she'd been born and her looks. The case was frustrating as hell.
Swiping her forehead with the towel, Alvarez settled into the seat of a leg press and upped the weight. Her muscles were loose now, and she was able to do three sets of fifteen reps, though she strained. When she was finished, sweat dripping from every pore in her body, she still knew no more than she had when she'd taken her first step into this two-storied, state-of-the art gymnasium.
Heading for the showers, she told herself the truth would appear. She just had to dig a little deeper. Work a little harder.
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Kacey rubbed the kinks from her neck as she glanced at the clock in her office. Two fifteen in the afternoon. The day had flown by with appointment after appointment, and, again, with a few extras squeezed in. The fact that it was a holiday weekend,
the
shopping weekend of the year, didn't deter flu viruses, chest colds, infections, or thumbs from being dislocated.
She'd looked down enough throats and into enough ears for a full day's worth of work. On Saturdays the clinic was scheduled to close at three, but rarely did that happen, not when so many working parents arranged doctors' visits around their job schedules.
Fortunately, Kacey worked only every other Saturday, while Martin took the other weekends. They also alternated on Fridays, so that they each had two consecutive days off each week, a plan that worked for the entire staff.
Now her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten anything since a banana at six in the morning. The three subsequent cups of coffee hadn't been enough to sustain her. Reaching into her desk drawer, where she kept her stash of granola and candy bars, she found a Snickers and promised herself a healthy tuna salad with tons of vegetables for dinner.
Maybe.
Practice what you preach,
she told herself, invoking one of her grandmother's, Ada's, timeworn bits of advice as she peeled off the wrapper. How often had she suggested her patients eat healthy, balanced meals, drink eight glasses of water a day, and avoid too much sugar? “Too often,” she said aloud, then, ignoring the stacks of files on her desk, bit into the chocolate and caramel and sighed contentedly.
She'd felt a little off all day and attributed it to a restless night filled with worries about intruders and dark pickups, along with the more pleasant fantasies about Trace O'Halleran.
She reminded herself that he was her patient's father, strictly off-limits, but after running into him at the veterinary clinic yesterday and spending time with Eli and him, she'd had trouble pushing the rugged rancher from her mind.
She'd just taken the last bite of her Snickers when there was a tap on the door and Nadine, the weekend receptionist, poked her head inside. “Your next appointment called, a new patient, Mrs. Alexander. She's running fifteen minutes late, but Helen Ingles is here and asked if you would work her in.”
Kacey nodded.
Nearing sixty, Nadine was trim, her jaw strong, and her eyebrows were plucked to a fine line. She wore little makeup, lavender-framed glasses, and let her gray hair feather around her face. Her pale lips were pursed into a knot of disapproval.
“Something else?” Kacey asked.
“This morning I was the first one in, and that damned circuit breaker had tripped again. Not a light on in this place!”
An ongoing issue. “Would you put in a call to the landlord?”
“I already left a message on his answering machine and shot him an e-mail,” she stated primly. Once in the military, Nadine Kavenaugh was a stickler for detail and didn't like anyone who, as she put it, “couldn't get their act together.” Routines were not to be changed.
“Good.” Whirling her desk chair around, Kacey tossed the candy wrapper into her wastebasket, then grabbed her lab coat. As the chair stopped, she saw that Nadine's skinny eyebrows had dipped below the rims of her glasses. Obviously, she didn't approve of the changes in the schedule or much of anything else, for that matter.
“I'll put Mrs. Ingles in room two,” she said with a bit of bite, “and when Mrs. Alexander gets here, in one.”
“I'll be in as soon as Randy takes vitals.”
Huffing her disdain through her nose, Nadine closed Kacey's door, but through the thin panels Kacey heard her sharp footsteps marching back to the main reception area.
Slipping on her lab coat, she checked her pocket for her stethoscope, then paused to take a look at her e-mail. She'd hoped for some word on the birth records she'd asked about, even though she knew no state offices had been open for the past three days. Her grandfather's warning,
Don't be gettin' the cart before the horse, there, Missy,
echoed in her ears, and as expected, there wasn't a response. Then again, maybe she was tilting at windmills. Just because a couple of women who resembled her had died, and her mother was a little weird about her family, weren't reasons to go off the deep end.