The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson
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she added, “And the truth of the matter is, I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t know you from Adam and I end up here alone with you…or does anyone else live with you?”
“Harley.”
“Well…great.” She paused, then decided if she was in for a penny, she was in for a pound. “I think I remember that several women were killed up here. It made the news in Seattle.”
He nodded, a muscle working in his jaw.
Had she hit a nerve with him? Above the throbbing in her ankle and chest and the headache returning behind her eyes, she wasn’t as sharp as she should be, couldn’t read the unspoken innuendoes. Was he angry? Or afraid? A little of both?
“I haven’t been into town in a few days, obviously,” he said, making his way into the living area again, the dog on his heels. She moved out of the archway as quickly as possible and was surprised when Harley passed without so much as looking at her. “All communication has been out, but yeah, there have been women found out in the wilds, tied up to trees, I believe. Their cars were located separately, wrecked, a distance from where the bodies were discovered.”
Fear skittered down her spine and inside she was suddenly as cold as death. Her fingers, clenched around the hidden knife, began to sweat, and her heart was trip-hammering out of control. What did she know about this man?
Nothing but what he’s told you.
It could be a pack of lies.
It could be the truth.
But he’s all you’ve got, Jillian.
Be he saint or sinner, he’s all you’ve got.
“Were their tires shot out?” she asked, her voice a whisper that seemed to echo off the rafters high overhead.
He shook his head, but his skin had paled slightly and she couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or lying through his teeth. “I don’t know. But maybe. The police always hold back details, in case some nutcase claims responsibility.” His eyes darkened a bit, his nostrils flaring. He rubbed his chin as he walked to the windows and glared through the panes. “To weed the goats from the sheep.”
“The sheep being a killer in this case?” she asked, barely able to force the words past her teeth.
“Yeah. I guess so.” He was dead serious when he asked her, “Do you think you were targeted by this guy?”
“I don’t know.” How much could she tell this man, a virtual stranger?
He still looked through the window, his eyes thinning, as if he were trying to see further into the blizzard, catch a view beyond the pale. “Why the hell were you driving up on that ridge in the storm?”
“Why were you?” she responded.
He turned quickly, but his expression was hard as ever. “I was trying to find an alternate way to town for supplies. I was on my snowmobile and the storm was getting worse, but I did hear something.” He shook his head and rubbed a hand around his neck as he let out his breath and walked to the fire.
He’s hiding something, Jillian sensed, and her skin prickled in dread. He’s playing the same kind of cat-and-mouse game with you as you are with him.
She felt her heart drop.
“I thought…I mean, it was hard to hear because the engine on my Arctic Cat is pretty loud, but I thought I heard a rifle shot. Didn’t sound like a car backfiring.” His eyes found hers and she saw something in their gray depths, something dark and secret. She remembered someone near her car at the accident, a dark figure hovering nearby.
He walked to the fire again, his legs blocking the view of the flames, causing the room to darken. To shrink. While the wind never let up. Just kept shrieking.
“Okay,” she said quietly, not wanting to irritate him. “So you heard the shot, then what?”
For a second he didn’t answer and the soft hiss of the fire slipped through the room. “Then,” he finally said, “there was the sound of the crash, breaking limbs, groaning metal, someone screaming.”
Her throat turned to sand. Memories of the car’s horrific spin and plunge through the gaping white canyon cut through her mind. “Yes,” she said hoarsely.
He came a little closer, closing the distance between them. “Do you think you were a target?” he asked again.
She wanted to lie, but didn’t dare. He was too close. Her fingers squeezed around the crutch handle as well as the knife. “I…yeah, I think so.”
“And who would be out in the middle of the worst storm in a decade, lying in wait with a rifle, ready for target practice?”
She tensed inside. Wondered if she were talking to the very man who had taken aim at her, a sharpshooter who had intentionally shot at her.
“Tell me, Jillian,” he insisted, near enough now that she could feel the heat of his body, see the pores of his skin, notice the cruel turn of his lips. “Who do you think would want to kill you?”
Chapter Eleven
MacGregor’s question hung in the air between them while the dog, at last having given up bristling all over, turned in a circle in front of the hearth before settling onto a rag rug near the heat.
Her heart was pounding.
He was so damned close.
She thought about whipping out the knife, of telling him to back off, but she didn’t, not yet. Best to hold the weapon in reserve, she thought.
“I have no idea who would want to kill me,” she stated.
“Really?” MacGregor didn’t bother to hide his disbelief, but he backed up a couple of steps, giving her some space, allowing her to let out her breath and hear something more than the pounding of her heart in her eardrums. “You don’t have any enemies?”
“None that would want to murder me.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes.” But was she? Dear God, the man was making her paranoid.
“Someone took a shot at you.” He unzipped his coat and slid his arms out of the sleeves, as if he’d finally warmed up. Something jangled in his pocket. Coins? Keys? A metal dog whistle?
“Or they were taking potshots at cars. I don’t think it was intentional. At least, not at me.”
“No?” Again, he was openly sarcastic and she felt a dread as cold and sharp as the icicles hanging from the eaves of this cabin.
Just who the hell was he?
It could be that he’s part of some kind of elaborate plot to kidnap or even kill you, and so far it’s working, isn’t it? She reined in her thoughts in a hurry. She’d never been one to believe in conspiracy theories and wasn’t about to start now.
But Aaron had been.
He’d always been certain someone, probably some kind of government agent, had been out to get him. He’d believed that John F. Kennedy had been killed by a group affiliated with Russia, Castro or the mafia, and he had been certain that D. B. Cooper, the skyjacker who had jumped out of a plane in the Northwest in the early seventies, had received help and somehow miraculously survived. Jillian, though, had always been a realist.
Until now.
Until she was trapped by a snowstorm with a stranger in the wilds of Montana.
Until she might possibly be the victim of a killer in this frigid killing ground. Had this man shot out her tire then “rescued” her, only to eventually murder her? It took all her restraint not to slide a glance toward his gun cabinet, though she wondered what kind of rifles were locked inside.
She clasped her hands together tightly. “You think someone