Chosen To Die. Lisa Jackson
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know her place. Do not lose it now, not when you’ve come so far, not when you’re so close.
Not when you have so much to do.
Not just here, with these women, with him. He’ll be here soon. You must calm down. You have to be ready. Your aim can’t be off even in the slightest. The shot has to be spot on.
I close my eyes. Count to ten. Then twenty. I feel the stiffness in my shoulders relax a bit and I listen for the sound of the storm, the shriek of the wind, the pounding of sleet, but there is nothing. Only silence over the crackle of the fire.
Peace.
And yet, despite my pep talk and the quietude of the winter day, it’s all I can do to hang on to my temper, to focus on the bigger picture, the greater good.
My work is too important to allow myself the luxury of becoming overwhelmed. I must be rock steady. And yet I’m rattled. Deep down. The bitch got to me and I have trouble repressing my anger.
Me.
Who is usually so calm.
It’s that bitch of a woman.
Detective.
Regan Pescoli is rattling me and I can’t let that happen. Not now. Not until it’s over.
To find some relief I pick up her pistol, feel the smooth steel in my palm. There’s just something about a weapon that brings a feeling of calm. I run the barrel over my cheek and down my neck, closing my eyes and reveling in the feel of it. I can’t let a pain in the ass like Pescoli unnerve or derail me; not now when I need all my concentration.
Slowly I breathe more easily and I walk to my bar and pour a cool glass of vodka. It steadies my nerves, takes the edge off. I have to forget about Pescoli for a while.
It seems I have bigger fish to fry.
I put down the pistol and grab the rifle.
It’s time.
I know him.
The thought hit Pescoli hard as she lay on the cot, her arm still handcuffed to its leg.
I know him, and the whack job is smart enough to realize that I might recognize him.
Groggy and weak, she forced herself up on one elbow and noticed a bit of light coming through a high window. Morning? Dawn?
For a second she thought of Santana. His image seemed to be with her each time she awoke in this cold, dark room. Her dreams had been rife with images of him, and each time she’d awoken to find herself here, alone and trapped, she’d blinked hard to call him back. Did he miss her? Suspect that something had happened to her? That was the trouble with their damned no-strings relationship; neither knew what the other was doing. She’d told herself that was the way she’d wanted it. Now she knew it was all a lie.
The grim thought that she’d never see him again hit her viscerally.
Don’t go there. You will. You have to. You’re a mother, for God’s sake, you can’t just give up and lie here in a pool of self-pity. For God’s sake, Pescoli, do something to save yourself!
Gritting her teeth, she ignored the throbbing in her head, the dull ache that was her shoulder, and the hurt of her ribs and tried to move. Pain seized her chest but it was bearable. She’d been certain her ribs were broken in the accident, then cracked further when the psycho who had abducted her had sat on her while injecting her with God only knew what. Some kind of sedative, she figured, something to keep her dull and lifeless and maybe even to deaden the pain as she somehow had slept, and now she hoped that her ribs were bruised, not broken. They still hurt like hell, but she could move a bit and each breath no longer killed her.
As near as she could remember, he’d been back once since the time he’d straddled her, to check on her, offering her water and soup, not feeding her, but leaving a spoon and a tin cup of something that smelled like chicken bouillon, and a hospital bedpan—the ultimate humiliation.
The bastard had poked and prodded her as she’d lain motionless, unable to lift herself up, her brain mush.
That’s why he keeps the place dark, she thought now as her mind began to clear, her brain coming into sharper focus. It’s why he rarely enters, why when he does he wears dark glasses, a baseball cap, and a beard—probably a fake one at that. A disguise.
The trouble was, she didn’t have any real clue to his identity. At least not yet. She eyed the doorway and the crack of light coming from beneath it. Once in a while a shadow passed, then paused, as if he were on the other side, peering through a peephole she couldn’t see, or pressing his ear against the wooden panels to listen to her.
It made her skin crawl to imagine that he could observe her. Don’t think about it. Concentrate on getting out of here. If he’s afraid you’ll recognize him, then he must fear that you’ll expose him somehow.
If that were the case, then he had to think she might escape. She didn’t kid herself for a minute into believing that he planned to keep her alive indefinitely or release her, not after all the effort he’d spent in capturing her, not after the way he’d treated his other victims.
Still, he was uncertain.
Otherwise he wouldn’t be afraid of letting her see his face.
Somehow, she decided, as the first splinters of dawn cracked through the small window high overhead, she had to unmask him and make good her escape.
And she had to do it soon.
Before it was too late.
Finally! A damned break in the weather!
Brady Long eyed the clearing skies with satisfaction. After a week of this damn bleak, sub-zero forecast, he was finally able to climb into his JetRanger and make the trip between Denver and Grizzly Falls. The ride was a little rough, but Brady had always been up for a challenge, whether it was on the back of a particularly mean-tempered Brahma bull, or climbing the sheer face of a cliff thousands of miles above the valley floor, or helicopter and extreme skiing or skydiving or whatever it was that brought him the next big rush of adrenaline.
He lived for it. A daredevil by nature, he never had understood placidity or fear. Life was to be lived on the edge, and those who took the safe road in life, who kept to their boring, secure ruts, were just plain wusses or sissies or pussies. Take your pick.
Maybe he’d been born with too much testosterone running through his bloodstream, but he liked it that way. And so did most women; at least the ones who interested him had said so.
Or, he thought now, as he flew his chopper over an ice-encrusted river that ran through the ranch, the women who were attracted to him were really interested in the size of his wallet. The name Long had been associated with copper, then silver, and even gold mines for generations.
A woman could show interest because he was good-looking, or because he was a challenge, or because he was fearless or because he was “richer than God,” as one particularly buxom young blonde had whispered into his ear early one hot summer night. He didn’t care what turned them on, just as long as they got there.
Yeah, the Long wealth made some flock to him, like vultures on the trail of a dying lamb.
And he was the sole heir…well, not technically. There was Padgett, but she was in no condition to contest his claim to their father’s fortune, a wealth that was legendary in this part of Montana. And, he knew, his father had sown more than his share of wild oats, so there was always the chance one of Hubert’s bastards, or his and Padgett’s mother’s, might get wise and make a pitiful claim. But if that were the case, he, and a team of lawyers that he would hand-pick, would fight any and all would-be Longs either by exposing them for the frauds they were, or for whatever other demons they were hiding in their pasts, or by settling out of court. It was amazing what a few hundred thousand would do in an effort to make an uncomfortable situation disappear.
Flying low, the chopper’s rotors whomping in the crisp morning air, he