Grayson checked his watch. "Anything else?"

The discussion went on, different theories bandied about, all tips that had come through the hotline discussed and doled out, the notes left at the crime and map of the area where the cars and bodies were found pa.s.sed around.

They'd about wrapped up the meeting when there was a tap on the door and Joelle poked her head into the room. "Sorry," she said, and Alvarez half expected her to come clipping in with a tray of snickerdoodles, cranberry pinwheels, and Mexican wedding cakes, but instead she said, "I know you asked not to be disturbed, but Officer Slatkin is on the phone and he says he's got some information you're wanting."

Everyone went silent.

"Put him through on line one." Grayson motioned to Zoller, who was seated at the desk with the phones. "Put it on speaker." She did and in a few seconds the connection was made.

"This is Grayson. What've ya got, Mikhail?"

"First a confirmation. The bullet that was lodged in the back of Brady Long's chair is a match to those we found at two of the sites where the wrecked cars were located."

Alvarez's heart sank. So Star-Crossed had changed.

"Okay, what else?" Grayson asked.

"The tox screen came back on Wendy Ito. There were traces of Rohypnol in her blood."

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.d gave her a roofie," Chandler said coldly. "Date rape."

Alvarez frowned. "Except he didn't rape her. Never does."

"That's right. No sign of s.e.xual molestation," Mikhail Slatkin agreed over the speakerphone. "We're doing deeper tox screens on all the victims, to see if there are traces of any other date rape drugs, but they pa.s.s through the body fairly quickly."

"Do what you can," the sheriff said. "Thanks."

Zoller hung up as Dan Grayson surveyed his team. "Looks like this investigation just changed course." He rubbed the back of his neck and scowled. "I want to know who benefits from Brady Long's death. Find his will. Dig up what you can on his ex-wives or anyone he screwed over. Who he's dating, who he dumped, who he cheated, anyone with a bone to pick." Tapping the table with his fingers, he added, "Could be a pretty long list. Then check out his father, see if he's alive or dead."

"Holding on by a thread. Hospice has already been called in; Hubert's tough, he could last another two months or two minutes," Brewster said. "I called the nursing home and that's all they would tell me, but he won't be long for this earth."

Eyes thinning, Grayson said, "Then what about the sister? Paige, is it?"

"Padgett," Alvarez corrected.

"That's right. I'm thinking she's about to become a very rich woman."

Stephanie Chandler said coolly, "Searching for Long's killer is all well and good. However, there are still five dead women as well as two missing, including one of your detectives."

A tic developed near Grayson's left eye, and it was evident that he was trying to keep his simmering anger under control. "Make no mistake, Agent Chandler, nothing has changed as far as the victims of the Star-Crossed Killer are concerned. The investigation is ongoing and intense. We aren't letting up an inch. We're going to use every resource of this department to find that son of a b.i.t.c.h, but now the investigation has widened, taken an unforeseen turn. We're not only looking for a killer who gets off on letting his victims freeze in the wilderness, we're searching for a murderer with another reason to kill as well. Maybe something deep and personal. A vendetta, perhaps. I'd say the psychological profile of Star-Crossed just changed, so we're going to adapt." He was standing now, leaning across the table, the tic intense and rapid. "But it's my intention, no, make that my personal mission, to find the twisted p.r.i.c.k and throw his a.s.s in jail before he takes another life!" He looked around the table. "Now, let's make it happen."

They all scooted back their chairs and picked up their papers and coffee cups, but as Alvarez made her way back to the desk, she glanced out the window at the steely clouds and blowing snow that caked against the windows.

The storm wasn't abating.

Nor was the Star-Crossed Killer.

He wasn't finished and he told them so in the notes he'd left at each killing ground.

There was no note near Brady Long's body.

In that respect, Alvarez felt, sliding into her desk chair, Grayson was right. Long was a departure. Maybe killed by an accomplice? Or because he knew something? There had to be a connection. One that wasn't yet obvious.

Another copycat? That seemed beyond coincidental.

Then what?

She picked up copies of other missing persons reports, of women who seemed to have disappeared in the last six weeks. Flipping through the pages, reading the names as she looked at pictures from driver's licenses, or graduation photos, or snapshots taken by loved ones, Alvarez's heart sank.

Patricia Sorenson.

Alma Rae Dodge.

Holly Benjamin.

Tawilda Conrad.

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 h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l 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 p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l, 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.

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 appliqued 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 a.s.sumed, 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 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 Star-Crossed 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 b.i.t.c.h, 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? 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.

Thanks a lot, Dad.

I pour myself a drink and push aside the fuzzy memories of my youth. I'm much too tired to take Elyssa out today, and I still want to relish the memory of the last seconds of Brady Long's life. I sip the cool drink, feel it slide down my throat and begin to warm my blood. Just one drink. No more. I still have much to do.

Elyssa, the twit, is able to walk again, and she's been here long enough to trust me, yet be anxious about leaving. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Maybe then I'll take her outside. I'll have to be extra attentive to her tonight, just in case. Ease her concerns and witness how far she's willing to go to bend to my will.

She's a pretty thing.

But dull.

Unlike Regan Pescoli.

I look at the door to Pescoli's room again, think about her lying on the cot. She'd kill me if she could, and that's interesting. A challenge. Makes my blood sing in my veins. I can't wait until it's her turn.

But not yet. There is a plan, remember? One you must stick to.

My gaze slides across the table to the neat stack of notes I've worked so painstakingly to create. Starting with the first, Theresa Charleton and her initials: TC.

How exciting the schoolteacher had been! I spread my copy of that note-the one I left for the police to find-on the table, checking the position of the star over the letters. Did they have any idea that the position of that particular heavenly body was precise? That it changed with each of the notes as I left them with the women? Nina Salvadore, the computer programmer and mother, was the second, and Wendy Ito, the fiery Asian woman who mistakenly thought her martial arts training would save her, was third. Think again, b.i.t.c.h. All those lessons didn't help!

Rona Anders, a drab, drab woman, who had kept whining about her fiance, was next, and finally it was Hannah Estes's turn-the b.i.t.c.h who had been found alive, rescued, and nearly survived. That had been close. She could have pointed me out in a lineup, but without her my message to the police would not be complete.

I eye my copies of the notes I left. So perfect. Even to the precise location of each different star in the sky. Could the police guess? Were they smart enough to figure out what I was telling them?

They now had five notes. Soon they would be studying the end message, trying to solve the puzzle of it, attempting to insert the initials of the two women they will find in the near future, wondering if there are more bodies stiff with the cold, dead and waiting in the vast forest.

I smile and take another drink, allowing a melting ice cube to slide slowly into my mouth.

WAR THE SC IN.

Will the cops be smart enough to figure out where the new initials will fit into the message? Will the FBI agents be able to help, with all their computer programmers and cryptographers? I doubt it. After all, they're led by that useless piece of flesh with a badge, good old Sheriff Dan Grayson.

I snort at the thought of him. What a poor excuse for the keeper of security for the county! I bet he's squirming now. Good. I love the fact that I get to deal with him and he, who has been touted as so smart, so clever...has no friggin' clue.

Maybe I should help Grayson and his pack of cretins out...even give them a little taste of what is to come. It would be nice to shake them up a little after their incredible gaffe of chasing after the wrong person...a woman, no less.

Desperate, that's what they are.

I spy the notes that I've planned to use in the future. Perfect copies waiting to be tacked to the trees over the heads of the appropriate women. Hmmm.

It's taken years of planning-years-because the time has to be right; the potential women with the right initials to be driving through the Bitterroots. I have backup plans, of course. Groupings of women with the same initials who are potential targets, because it's a d.a.m.ned hard trick to make the message work. That, too, can change, as I have several potential notes that will spell out essentially the same warning. So my bases are covered.

The tidy boxes I've kept, dozens of them with notes and files on all the women, prospective candidates for my work. They're alphabetized by name, have pictures attached, usually taken discreetly by my cell phone, or even with the woman's permission. I have cards on each one with information about where they work, where they're from, what they like to do, and most importantly, their travel plans.

Many, hundreds, have been discarded. Their names weren't right, they had no plans to drive through the mountains in this part of Pinewood County. Those are mostly the ones I met years before, when my plan was first forming.

I sip the vodka while the fire burns brightly and Pescoli plots her escape on the other side of the door. I don't yet know how she plans to do it, but it will be done, I'm sure. I wish now that I'd hidden a small camera in the room and make a note to myself to do so in the future.

It's one detail I hadn't thought of when drawing up my plan. I replace several boxes, slide them into their individual slots in a cupboard I built years before. Oh, yes, this has been a long time in the making.

Mother, I think, would be proud.

At my attention to detail.

I mentally pat myself on the back for my patience. It has served me well over time-while waiting for the perfect shot, or for antic.i.p.ating that the right woman driver will make a trek over the mountains, or for the exact moment to kill Brady Long.

And it has been worth every second of the wait.

I have to remind myself to hold on to my patience as well as my temper in dealing with the detective. She has a way of rattling my nerves, making me edgy and unsure, sparking my temper into anger.

And that won't do.

Not yet.

I look at the door of her silent room again.

I feel my rage, but I'll keep it under rein.

For a little longer.