Part 29 (1/2)

Good for him, Pescoli thought, wondering how her son had held a job here because she suspected that Jeremy, if not a habitual user, had dabbled with weed more than a time or two. However, it seemed he'd grown out of that phase of his life, or somehow managed to hide it from her.

”Do you remember this guy's vehicle?” Alvarez asked, pointing to the picture of Ryder.

”Beat up old pickup, maybe? It had out of state plates, I think. I kinda noticed that because sometimes it gets a little boooring around here, if ya know what I mean. But it didn't have any special marks or b.u.mper stickers or anything on it, that I noticed. It was kinda like the type everyone else around here drives.” She glanced out the plate gla.s.s window as a man in ski gear filled the tank of his sedan.

She slid her gaze back to the picture of Ryder on the counter. ”With him though it fit, y'know. He looked like a cowboy type. Well, again, like everyone else around here.” She rolled her expressive, mascara-laden eyes and then thought of something. ”Wait a minute.” Her gaze zeroed in on Pescoli. ”Aren't you Jeremy's mom? Jeremy Strand? I think I read about you in the paper awhile back. He, like, saved your life, shot a guy who was trying to kill you.”

Pescoli nodded. She was proud of Jeremy, how responsible he'd become, and she did owe him her life.

”Tell him 'hi,' from Jodi,” the girl said as a big bear of a man walked into the convenience store, a gust of freezing wind and snow following after him. ”Brrr. It's soooo cold.”

”Do you remember anything else about the guy in the picture?” Alvarez asked.

Jodi shook her head and the top knot wobbled precariously again. ”He was in here for, like, half a second.”

She was about to turn her attention to the next person in line when Pescoli said, ”Hold on a sec.” She took two steps to the candy counter and returned with an oversized package of Peanut M&M's. ”I'll take these. You want anything?” she asked Alvarez and when her partner declined, paid for the bag. ”I don't need a receipt.”

Jodi rang up the sale, then turned her attention to the older man with the silvery stubble, rimless gla.s.ses, and a baseball cap with a John Deere logo. He was fis.h.i.+ng in his back pocket for his wallet so that he could pay for gas, a pack of Rolos, and some chewing tobacco.

”For my grandson,” he said, half-flirting with the clerk.

”Oh, I like Rolos, too,” the girl said as Alvarez opened the door and Pescoli opened her bag of candy with her teeth.

”The Rolos? Those are for me.” The old geezer winked at Jodi and started pulling bills from a slot in the well-used wallet. ”The tobacco? That's for Josh.”

Perfect, Pescoli thought as the bag popped open and peanuts threatened to spill out every which way. She managed to corral them and thought, Way to go, Gramps. Get the kid hooked. Great idea.

Maybe it was a joke, the old guy's way of flirting. Pescoli hoped so as she winced against the bitter cold, plopping a couple candy-coated chocolate peanuts into her mouth. Together, she and Alvarez half-sprinted past the gas pumps, where two cars were being refueled, to the spot where her Jeep was parked, already collecting snow.

”Want some?” she asked again as they climbed inside and she held the open bag toward her partner where Alvarez was dutifully snapping on her seat belt.

”No.”

”G.o.d, they're great,” Pescoli threw a few more into her mouth, then tossed an empty coffee cup onto the floor in front of the back seat and dropped the open bag into her vacant cup holder.

”Maybe to ten-year-olds or pregnant women.”

”Especially ten-year-olds and pregnant women. But trust me, they're for everybody.” Pescoli jammed her key into the ignition and sent her partner a don't-even-go-there stare which Alvarez ignored as her cell phone rang sharply.

Plugging one ear to block out the ambient noise of the Jeep's engine, she answered, ”Alvarez.”

Pescoli strapped her seat belt into place, cranked the heat to the maximum, then slammed the gears.h.i.+ft into reverse and backed out of the gas station.

”Yeah . . . yeah . . . Okay, I got it,” Alvarez said. ”We're on our way.” She hung up. ”Looks like we're going to the River View Motel. One of the deputies on the search found out where Ryder's been staying. The River View is on-”

”I know where it is. Just down the road.” Pescoli wouldn't admit it to Alvarez, of course, but a few years earlier when she'd first started her affair with Santana, they'd sometimes stayed in little out of the way no-tell motels where they would have complete privacy. Away from her family. Away from her job. Away from Brady Long, the rich pain in the a.s.s Santana used to work for. The River View, as well as a few other motels scattered around the outskirts of town, had been a great little rendezvous spot.

”We're too late. He's already checked out.”

”d.a.m.n.” Pescoli pulled into traffic which, because of the storm, was light. ”Always a day late and a dollar short. But maybe he left something behind.”

”Maybe.”

Her partner didn't sound too convinced or even hopeful, but surely something would break in the case. It d.a.m.n well had to.

”It's time to go,” Ryder said, packing up the last of the electronic equipment. ”We've wasted too much time already.”

If Anne-Marie had hoped he would change his mind, that he'd hear her tale of battery and pain and give up the outrageous bounty placed on her head by her family, she'd been sadly mistaken. Yes, his eyes had reflected some empathy and a fierce anger as she'd explained about her husband's abuse, but in the end, once she'd finished talking, he'd said nothing for a second, then had clipped out, ”I didn't know what you went through.”

She realized that, overall, he didn't sound all that moved by her story. Instead, he was staring at her coolly as if she were some interesting, maybe dangerous, specimen. She suddenly understood that he was second-guessing her, wondering if she were lying again. Of course.

She walked to the window and flipped open the blinds. It was daylight and she saw both vehicles parked outside. Hers with more snow piled upon it near the sagging building she thought had once been used as a garage, his truck parked a few yards back, probably where he'd slid to a stop without headlights so as not to wake her. He'd parked carefully, wedging his pickup between two trees, guarding the lane so that no other vehicle could pa.s.s and she couldn't get away.

She didn't bother asking him how he'd sneaked in on her as he'd obviously been in the place once before to plant his electronic equipment, so he'd no doubt used his same breaking-and-entering skills.

Snow was still falling and the tracks of both vehicles were covered, his less so as it was parked beneath a canopy of branches and had been stationary for a shorter amount of time. Was she really trapped? If she couldn't convince him to let her go, would she really be forced to return to New Orleans with him?

Thinking of reuniting with her family, of the disappointment carved on her father's face, the disgrace in her mother's eyes, and the hurt on her grandmother's proud visage, she knew she couldn't return to Louisiana. Ever. Even if she could face the condemnation and shame, there was her husband, who seemed to have vanished, as well. No doubt she would be a suspect in his disappearance, or, worse yet, if he should suddenly show up in New Orleans again, she would have to look him in the eye and see him smirk at her fear.

Her stomach turned over at the thought of him. No. She'd never go back. Ryder wasn't going to take her. He just didn't know it yet. Mind turning with thoughts of escape, she started to close the blinds, then stopped. Had she seen something outside the window, some movement that she'd caught from the corner of her eye? She squinted hard, staring through the s.h.i.+fting veil of flakes, but whatever it was had disappeared.

Another deer perhaps.

Or, more likely, a figment of her imagination.

She told herself it was nothing, but couldn't quite shake the feeling that something outside wasn't right. Then again, nothing inside the dilapidated cabin was right, either.

”You can see why I can't go back,” she tried.

”If you're telling the truth.”

She knew it. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't believe her. ”Come on, Ryder. You think I made that story up?”

”What I know is you're a liar, Anne-Marie, and a good one, if I recall.”

”Everything I said to you was the G.o.d's honest truth. Who would make up something so . . . so brutal?”

”Who would rob their d.a.m.n grandmother?”

Anne-Marie was dying inside. She'd bared her soul to him. Stupidly.

”You told me how much she meant to you. So, it's not making a whole lot of sense to me that instead of running to her and confiding in her, asking for her help and protection, or insisting she take you to the police, you decided to steal from her. From the one woman you swore you adored.”

Anne-Marie's throat clogged and she fought tears. The biggest regret in her life had been sneaking in the back door when she'd known her grandmother was sleeping in the next room and with nervous fingers opening the safe that was hidden behind a shelf in the pantry. But she had. When the safe had opened, she'd scooped up the bills that had been stacked so neatly within, money she'd used to escape, to buy her vehicle, to purchase her new ident.i.ty, to visit a dentist for appliances and a costume store for the extra padding and wigs. And for the doctor in Oklahoma City. ”I can't go back,” she said again.

His expression hardened. ”Maybe not willingly,” he said, crossing the room.