They'd never looked so good to Pescoli.

Tears burned behind her eyes, but she blinked them back, couldn't let them see her break down or give them any indication that she was suffering from nightmares of drowning with Billy Hicks's blue face looming in the water before her.

Fortunately, her injuries were relatively minor considering her ordeal. True, she'd almost died, but had been revived and, it seemed, examined by every doctor in the hospital. In the end she had more than her share of cuts and abrasions, bruised ribs, torn tendons in her shoulder that had been repaired, but all in all, she would live.

"We're not in trouble," Bianca ventured. She tossed her curls over her shoulder defiantly, but her skin was pale and the shadows under her eyes were real. She'd been worried. Scared.

"You were an angel when you stayed with Dad?" Pescoli asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Oh, Mom..." Bianca rolled her expressive Luke-like eyes. "I tried."

"Well, I know how hard that can be," Pescoli admitted and scared up a smile on her daughter's face. "What about you, Jer. I heard you took on Cort Brewster."

"Maybe." Jeremy's gaze slid away.

"He is my boss," Pescoli reminded him.

"He's a p.r.i.c.k!" Jeremy stuck to his guns.

"Jer!" Bianca cut in.

Pescoli tried and failed not to chuckle. "Let's keep that between us." She was a little light-headed, the results of pain medication.

"Do we have to go back to Luke's?" Jeremy tried to look as if staying with his stepfather was tantamount to sleeping in a den of hungry lions.

"Until I get out of here, yeah." Pescoli wasn't budging on this one.

Bianca said, "I don't know if I can take it."

"He's your father." Pescoli couldn't let them run free while she was laid up, no matter how much they complained.

"He's not mine," Jeremy pointed out.

"The doc says I'll be released in a couple of days. Until then, buck up. You can make a sacrifice for me, right?" When neither kid responded, Pescoli repeated, "Right?" again.

"I'm old enough to stay alone," Jeremy protested.

"Not by the law, my man. Not yet." Being a mother sometimes took more patience than Pescoli had. "And I don't think you've really proved a h.e.l.luva lot of maturity in the past few days."

Jeremy stared at her hard. With eyes that reminded her of his father, Joe. "I was worried about you."

Pescoli's throat closed. "I know. I appreciate it. And now I'm going to be fine, so, please, for the next two days, hold tough, deal with Lucky and Mich.e.l.le, and when I get out of here, we'll have Christmas in January."

He snorted his agreement.

"And Bianca," she said, "you're in charge of the snowman pancakes and flocking the tree pink."

"Ouch!" Jeremy said.

"Meeeow," Bianca responded and through the half-open door, Pescoli heard the sound of a doctor being paged. "Mo-om! That's so mean!"

"Must be the meds," Pescoli muttered but they all laughed. "Now, if you really want to get on my good side, go to Wild Will's, order a hamburger to go and smuggle it in here! Hey, what's that?" For the first time Pescoli noticed a small silver band around Bianca's left ring finger.

Her daughter flushed. "It's a Christmas gift from Chris. A promise ring."

Pescoli didn't like the sound of that. "Promise for what?"

Bianca twisted the ring. "Just, you know, 'cuz he likes me."

"Jer?" Pescoli glanced at her son. "What does it mean?"

"I don't know. Kinda like I promise to someday, like, get engaged to you."

Pescoli leveled her gaze at her daughter. "Is that so?"

Bianca was shaking her head. "No, not really." A lie.

"You're thirteen. There will be no promises."

"Mom, it was really sweet of him." Bianca wasn't going down without a fight.

"You heard me, Bianca." G.o.d, she had to get out of here. "You need to return it."

Sparks flared in her daughter's eyes. "But-"

"Okay, okay, we'll deal with this when I get home, but trust me, you're waaaay too young for any kind of promises besides 'I'll go to the winter dance with you.' Even that's a stretch." She pushed herself up in bed, felt her IV connection pull at her wrist and wished to h.e.l.l she could get someone to release her. "Look I'm going to find a way out of here, so you get the house ready, okay. We'll have Christmas." She saw the spark in Jeremy's eyes, "But until it's official and I call you, I'm afraid you're stuck with Lucky."

Her kids grumbled but left and she pushed the call b.u.t.ton for a nurse. She was going to be released come h.e.l.l or high water.

Within two minutes the door opened again and she said, "I need to get out of here ASAP," before she saw her partner striding into the room.

"You got that right!" Alvarez was shaking her head. Her hair was pulled tight into a bun at the base of her neck and she wore all black-sweater, slacks, boots, and jacket. Like she was going to a d.a.m.ned funeral. Only the hoops glinting from her ears broke up her somber attire. In one hand was a bouquet of white carnations and bright yellow daisies, in the other was a pack of Nicorette gum. "The Department's just falling to pieces without you. Anarchy reigns."

Pescoli grinned at the sarcasm. It wasn't like up-tight Selena Alvarez to joke, but here she was, her lips twitching, relief on her sharp features.

"You know, Pescoli, you scared me to death." She set the flowers on the ledge of a window overlooking the parking lot. Snow was falling over the asphalt that had been plowed earlier in the day.

"Didn't mean to." She winced as she pushed the lever on the bed to raise her head. "Have we located Hicks's body?"

"Not yet."

Then her nightmares wouldn't cease.

Alvarez dropped the gum onto Pescoli's table near her half-full gla.s.s of water. "Merry Christmas. I thought you might be wanting to smoke and I thought since you're in the hospital and all, and New Year's is right around the corner, maybe you should quit. Like for good. Besides I don't think the doctors would approve if I brought in a pack of cigs."

Pescoli eyed her partner. "I'll give it some thought."

"Meaning 'b.u.t.t out'?"

"Something like that." But she picked up the pack of tasteless gum. "Seriously, how're things at the office?"

"Better. Since Star-Crossed is now officially over. Joelle wants us to have some kind of New Year's party, but everyone's dog tired and just wants to have some time with their families."

"You?" Pescoli asked and saw the shadow cross her partner's eyes.

"Nah. I don't have anyone around. I volunteered to cover some of the shifts."

"You could use a break."

"I'll get one." She nodded toward the bed. "Once my partner's back on her feet."

The door opened and a heavy-set nurse with apple cheeks swept in. "Can I get you something?" she asked as she hit a b.u.t.ton to turn off the call light.

"Yeah, how about a release," Pescoli said. "The doctor mentioned I might get out of here today and I need to get back to my kids and my job."

"Tomorrow, I think he said." Nurse Patterson wasn't easily bluffed. "But I'll check, Detective."

"Good."

The nurse backed out the door and Alvarez, her expression turning somber said, "Seriously, Pescoli, I know you and I, we're kind of oil and water, don't always get along, surely don't see eye to eye, but...what we do, it works."

"Yeah?"

"And there was a time when I knew that son of a b.i.t.c.h had you. I knew that your initials were part of his message and I thought that psycho had already killed you." Her eyes were dark as obsidian. "I was sure that we were going to find your body tied to a d.a.m.ned tree."

"It wasn't."

"Not quite. Christ, Pescoli, what the h.e.l.l were you thinking? Taking off on your own? Letting that son of a b.i.t.c.h get the drop on you!" She was agitated now, her cheeks flushed, more fl.u.s.tered than Pescoli had ever seen Alvarez who was usually wound so tight, under so much control.

"I was just thinking about my kids. I didn't ask the creep to shoot out my tire!"

"I know, but he was playing you. Somehow he was playing you!"

"He was playing everyone."

"Well...yeah." Alvarez took a step toward the bed. "That's true, but listen, I'm not kidding, if you ever scare the h.e.l.l out of me like this again, I might just have to shoot you myself!"

Pescoli nodded. "You can use my gun."

The storm in Alvarez's eyes broke and she let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "You're..."

"I know, I know. I'm everything you hate, but listen, we got him, didn't we?" Pescoli pointed out. "I'm alive and we got the mutt!"

"That we did, Partner." Alvarez, obviously unable to argue the point, let out a long sigh. "That we did."

Epilogue.

New Year's Eve "So, cowboy, what say we toast the New Year?" Pescoli said from the couch in her living room where the Christmas tree was already looking dead.

From the rocker on the other side of the coffee table, Santana raised a speculative eyebrow. "With what? Diet 7-Up?"

"I was thinking more in terms of champagne."

"You're still on pain pills."

"And you're no fun!" she teased, loving that she could goad him.

"Why don't we wait until you're 100 percent."

"That might take years."

"Maybe into next year."

"That's only an hour away." She shifted on the couch, felt pain in her shoulder and sighed. "I hate being laid up."

"Really?"

Regan half-smiled. She remembered nothing of the ordeal that had saved her life. They told her she'd "died." That she was blue and not breathing, that if not for Santana dragging her out of the frozen lake and administering CPR, she might never have come to.

It seemed impossible now. And though her fall into the ice and struggle for her life were only a week past, she felt as if it were a lifetime ago.

Billy Hicks's body had yet to be found.

Rescue attempts had failed.

Searches had turned up nothing.

But with the spring thaw, Pescoli and the rest of the Pinewood County Sheriff's Department were certain that what was left of the Star-Crossed Killer would rise to the surface. They would search again, when the weather broke, but for now, Hicks was floating in his own freezing, watery grave.

Which was just fine with Pescoli.

Elyssa O'Leary's body had been found, tied to a hemlock tree in the hills overlooking the basin. When Regan had learned of her pa.s.sing, she'd felt a personal guilt, wishing so much that she could have saved her. So much. But Elyssa seemed to be the last victim that he'd captured.

The FBI and sheriff's department had searched the tunnels of the old mine and torn Hicks's lair upside down. Regan had told them about his files and boxes of pictures of potential victims and the public was breathing a sigh of relief. They'd found papers indicating that William Liam Hicks had sometimes used the alias of Liam Kress, taking his middle name and his mother's maiden name, including the times he'd visited Padgett Long.

Was Brady's sister involved in his death? That was a murky area that was still in question. No connection could be proven that she'd hired Billy Hicks/Liam Kress to rid her of her brother, but agents Chandler and Halden of the FBI weren't giving up. There was evidence that Billy had stolen a copy of Hubert's will from the Long estate; a corner of one page with Tinneman's firm's name and a spatter of Brady's blood had been found in the dead embers of Billy Hicks's cabin.

Ivor was broken-hearted.

Disbelieving.