Read Afraid to Die Online

Authors: Lisa Jackson

Afraid to Die (37 page)

Oh, God, she was trapped, his heavy body pinning her to the floor, his pelvis crushing hers. “Maybe I should start with you.” Roughly he mauled her breast and his teeth, yellowed and crooked, flashed in a new-felt power. “That's it.”
She flashed back.
To another time. Another struggle. In Emilio's car.
Oestergard wrapped his fingers in her hair and she saw it then, just above his head, the end of an ice pick left near the tub where he bathed, then froze and sculpted his victims.
“Like this?” he snarled, then looked up to the cage. “You can watch,” he said to Johnna, then froze. “What the hell?”
Alvarez heard the creak of hinges as the gate swept open.
“Fuck,” he yelled, moving a bit, giving her breathing room. It was now or never!
Throwing herself upward, her naked body crashing into him, she stretched her arm, reached up and knocked the ice pick to the ground. It rolled crazily away.
“No, you don't!” he screamed, straining for the weapon, intent on killing her; she saw it in the rage burning up his face.
“Stop!” Johnna yelled, and the maniac's attention diverted for the merest of seconds.
Alvarez inched her body away, her fingers scraping along the dirty floor before wrapping around the hilt of the ice pick.
He turned his head just then, his gaze fastening on her hand.
She reacted.
Threw herself at him, the weapon curled in her fingers. With all of her weight, she swung upward, shoving the pick with her good hand, thrusting it hard into the soft underside of his throat.
With a sickening sound, the pick jabbed through soft tissue to his larynx.
Rolling backward, Oestergard clawed at the offensive spike, gasping and spraying bloody spittle over the floor and Alvarez. She scooted away from him as he jerked out the ice pick and more blood spurted from his neck.
Johnna Phillips wasn't done.
Not satisfied with letting him die a slow, painful death, she reached for a pair of ice tongs. Using all of her strength, she swung hard, sending him to his knees. Blood gushed from his abdomen as he fell onto the cold stone floor, his head hitting so hard his glasses sprang from his face, showing off the scars that he bore near his eye.
“That'll teach ya,” Johnna said, breathing hard as she stood over the dying man. “Don't ever mess with a pregnant woman.” Footsteps thundered down the stairway, and Alvarez, barely able to climb to her feet, felt tears roll down her cheeks as O'Keefe, with Pescoli one step behind, appeared.
“Selena,” he whispered and ran to her, holding her close. “It's gonna be all right,” he said as she clung to him, though she didn't know how it ever would be. “It's over. Darlin', hang on. It's over,” he whispered as the room was suddenly filled with deputies and the notes of the Christmas carol were barely audible. Still, with O'Keefe holding her close, the lyrics whispered softly through Alvarez's brain and she mouthed the words, “All I want for Christmas ... is you.”
Epilogue
A
lvarez stared out the window of the town house. It was early. Not quite five and the ground outside her sliding door was covered in white. Most of the snow from the blizzard of three weeks earlier had melted, but a thin layer remained and there was talk of a new snowfall yet to come.
So what else was new?
Montana and the winter usually meant snow.
She turned on the lights of the Christmas tree and then the gas fire, warming the place. She was lucky to be alive and she knew it. If she didn't believe it herself, all she had to do was listen to everyone she met or reporters on newscasts, who all reminded her how close she'd come to death.
As it was, the Ice Mummy Killer hadn't survived the ordeal. Johnna Phillips had become a local heroine, the officials at First Union bank taking every chance they could to gain some good, free press from her help in getting rid of the serial killer who had terrorized the town.
Trilby Van Droz had survived but tendered her resignation. The sheriff hadn't accepted it and put her on a leave of absence, asking that she reconsider her decision after the new year. Gabe had been returned to his parents and Helena, where the DA was trying to work a deal with him as an accessory to the crime, and hopefully only probation; that was yet to be seen, but he was walking the straight and narrow for the time being and Aggie was opening up to the idea that he might be able to see Alvarez and have “some kind” of relationship with her.
Now, Alvarez remembered her last visit with him in the hospital where he'd held her hand for a couple of seconds under Aggie's watchful eyes. “I'm glad I met you, Gabe,” she said, her throat catching when he released his fingers.
“Me, too.” His eyes glistened, but he didn't cry. Aggie, though, turned away. “I'll call you when I'm out of here,” he promised.
“You do that.” She was so incredibly grateful he was all right.
Aggie let out a little sob even though Alvarez had already assured her that she'd never intrude in Gabe's life.
It was amazing that they'd ever connected, but Gabe was smart, had searched the Internet, joined chat rooms, had found a way to hack his way into the court documents meant to protect his identity.
“Stay in school,” she told him.
“I will. Maybe I'll become a cop.”
Again a squeak from Aggie.
“Better walk the straight and narrow,” Alvarez advised and then, while Aggie's back was turned, she brushed a kiss over his forehead. “Be good, Gabe, cuz if you aren't, I'll hear about it.”
A grin stretched across his face and she, after touching Gabe's mother on the shoulder, had left the room. But his image—those dark eyes, that incredible smile, the shaggy hair and irreverent attitude—all of it had stayed with her. Always would.
Also, she had another connection to him. Through O'Keefe.
But not everything had ended well in the case.
The victim in the Oestergard house had indeed been Jon's wife, Dorie. The prevailing theory, which originated with Johnna Phillips, was that the wife had started questioning Oestergard and hinted that she might want to come down to the barn.
The series of caves beneath the Oestergard property had become part of a folk legend, and once all the crime scene evidence had been secured, teenagers had snuck into the place as a form of initiation or as the ultimate risk in games akin to Truth or Dare.
She walked up the stairs now, her leg paining a bit. She'd taken time off from work, but Pescoli was clamoring for her to return, as she was getting tired of working with Brett Gage. She'd admitted that Santana was pressuring her to move in again and even Pescoli had admitted that it was “time to fish or cut bait,” probably because of her ongoing problems with her kids.
Joelle had seen that Alvarez had gained five pounds on the goodies she'd dropped by, and O'Keefe had pretty much settled in, for now, or at least until she returned to work.
Now, she walked into the bedroom to find Dylan propped up by pillows, the cat beside him, the dog in his bed on the floor, curled into a ball. Roscoe raised his head when Alvarez walked into the room and thumped his tail.
“Traitor,” she said, bending down and patting his head, her heart welling. “Both of you.” But she wasn't angry, just thankful the dog had so miraculously survived when all of them had been sure he was dead.
“Hey, I wondered what happened to you?” O'Keefe said as she settled back into her side of the bed.
“Just counting.”
“Silverware?”
“Yeah, that's it. I get up and count silverware.”
“Well, not sheep or you'd still be in bed.”
“Maybe all the ways you irritate me.”
He laughed then, and she was glad she hadn't said “blessings.” Theirs was a relationship still developing. She was rethinking some aspects of her life, even planning to reconnect with her family in the coming year, but, for now, she was content to let things happen.
O'Keefe was talking about moving to Grizzly Falls, but so far it was just talk.
Was it time to take their relationship to the next level?
She didn't know, but for now, she thought, nestling into his arms, she wasn't going to overthink it. She heard the dog give off the soft yips of a puppy dream from his bed, and O'Keefe chuckled, deep in his throat.
It was, she admitted to herself, a sound she could live with for a very long time.
From t(he #1
New York Times
bestselling author
Lisa Jackson comes a gripping novel of suspense in
which a mother's worst fear is only the beginning of
a terrifying nightmare ...
In Ava's dreams, her son, Noah, looks just the way she remembers him: a sweet two-year-old in rolled-up jeans and a red sweatshirt. When Ava wakes, the agonizing truth hits her all over again. Noah went missing two years ago, and his body has never been found. Almost everyone, including Ava's semi-estranged husband, Wyatt, assumes the boy drowned after falling off the dock near their Church Island home.
 
Ava has spent most of the past two years in and out of Seattle mental institutions, shattered by grief and unable to recall the details of Noah's disappearance. Now she's back at Neptune's Gate, the family estate she once intended to restore to its former grandeur. Slowly, her strength is returning. But as Ava's mind comes back into focus, her suspicions grow. Despite their apparent concern, Ava can't shake the feeling that her family, and her psychologist, know more than they're saying. But are they really worried for her well-being—or anxious about what she might discover?
 
Unwilling to trust those around her, Ava secretly visits a hypnotist to try and restore her memories. But the strange visions and night terrors keep getting worse. Ava is sure she's heard Noah crying in the nursery, and glimpsed him walking near the dock. Is she losing her mind, or is Noah still alive? Ava won't stop until she gets answers, but the truth is more dangerous than she can imagine. And the price may be more than she ever thought to pay ...
 
 
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Lisa Jackson's newest novel,
YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW,
coming next month wherever hardcover books are sold!
Prologue
A
gain, the dream creeps in.
It's a foggy, gray day and I'm in the kitchen, on the phone, talking to someone ... but that part changes. Sometimes it's my husband, Wyatt; other times it's Tanya, and sometimes it's my mother, though I know she's been dead a long, long time. But that's how it is... .
From the family area, the room right next to the kitchen, here in this house, I hear the television, soft cartoon voices speaking, and I know that Noah's playing with his toys on the rug in front of the flat screen.
I've baked some bread—the kitchen is still warm from the oven—and I'm thinking about Thanksgiving. As I glance out the window, I notice that it's nearly dark outside, dusk at hand. It must be cold, too, as the trees shiver in the wind, a few stubborn leaves hanging on to thin, skeletal branches. Across the bay, the town of Anchorville is invisible, shrouded by fog.
But inside this old mansion, the one my great-great-grandfather built, it's cozy.
Safe.
Smelling of cinnamon and nutmeg.
And then, from the corner of my eye, I see movement outside. It's Milo, our cat, I think, but I remember that Milo, a prince of a tabby, is dead. Has been for years.
I squint, suddenly fearful. It's hard to see through the fog rolling in from the sea, but I
know
something's out there, in the yard, behind the hedgerow of roses where the scraggly bushes are thin and bedraggled, a few shriveled petals visible in the dead blooms and thorns.
Creeeaaaak!
My skin crawls as a shadow passes near the porch.
For the briefest of seconds, I fear there's something evil lurking just beyond the arrow-shaped spikes of the surrounding wrought-iron fence.
Creeeaaaak! Bang!
The gate's open, swinging in the buffeting wind.
That's when I catch a glimpse of Noah, my son, in his little hooded sweatshirt and rolled-up jeans. He's gotten out of the house somehow and wandered through the open gate. Now, in the twilight, he's running joyfully, as if he's chasing something, down the path to the dock.
“NO!”
I drop the phone.
It knocks over my water glass in slow motion.
I spin around and think I'm mistaken, that surely he's in front of the couch by the TV, that ... I see the room is empty, some Disney thing—
Aladdin
?—still playing. “Noah!” I scream at the top of my lungs, and take off at a dead run.
I'm in my pajamas and my feet feel as if they're in quicksand; I can't get through this damned house fast enough, but as I race past each of the windows looking out at the bay, I see him running through the descending darkness, getting closer and closer to the water.
I pound on an old pane with a fist.
The window shatters.
Glass sprays.
Blood spurts.
Still he doesn't hear me. I try to open the French doors to the veranda overlooking the bay. They don't move. It's as if they're painted shut. Blood drizzles down the panes.
I slog forward. Screaming at my son, and for Wyatt, I run in slow motion to the doors. They're unlocked, one swinging open and moaning loudly as I push myself onto the porch. “Noah!”
I'm crying now. Sobbing. Panic burns through me as I nearly trip on the steps, then run past the dripping rhododendrons and windswept pines of this godforsaken island, the place I've known as home for most of my life. “Noah!” I scream again, but my voice is lost in the roar of the sea, and I can't see my boy—he's disappeared beyond the dead roses in the garden, no sight of him in the low-hanging mist.
Oh, please, God, no ... let him be all right!
The chill of the Pacific sweeps over me, but it's nothing compared to the coldness in my heart. I dash down the path strewn with oyster and clamshells, sharp enough to pierce my skin, and onto the slick planks of the listing dock. Over the weathered boards to the end where the wharf juts into the mist as if suspended in air. “Noah!”
Oh, for God's sake!
“NOAH!!!”
No one's there.
The pier is empty.
He's gone.
Vanished in the mist.
“Noah! Noah!” I stand on the dock and scream his name. Tears run down my face; blood trickles down my cut palm to splash in the brackish water. “NOAH!”
The surf tumbles beyond the point, crashing and roaring as it pummels the shore.
My boy is missing.
Swallowed up by the sea or into thin air, I don't know which.
“No, no ...
no
.” I'm wretched and bereft, my grief intolerable as I sink onto the dock and stare into the water, thoughts of jumping into the dark, icy depths and ending it all filling my mind. “Noah ... please. God, keep him safe ...”
My prayer is lost in the wind ...
Then I wake up.
I find myself in my bed in the room I've occupied for years.
For the briefest of instants, it's a relief. A dream ... only a dream. A horrible nightmare.
Then my hopes sink as I realize my mistake.
My heart is suddenly heavy again.
Tears burn my eyes.
Because I know.
My son really is gone. Missing. It's been two years since I last saw him.
On the dock?
In his crib?
Playing outside under the fir trees?
Oh, dear God, I think, shattered, heart aching ...
I can't remember.
Chapter 1
“I
'm serious, you can't tell a soul,” a breathy voice whispered. “I could lose my job.”
Ava Garrison opened a bleary eye. From her bed, she heard the sound of voices beyond the big wooden door that stood slightly ajar.
“She doesn't even know what's going on,” another woman agreed. Her voice was deeper and gruffer than the first, and Ava thought she recognized it, a headache pounding behind her eyes as the nightmare retreated into her subconscious. The pain would recede, it always did, but for the first minutes after waking, she felt as if steel-shod horses were galloping through her brain.
Inhaling a deep breath, she blinked. The room was dark, the curtains pulled, the rumble of the ancient furnace forcing air through the registers, muting the conversation beyond the heavy oak door
“Shhh ... she should be awake soon ...” Breathy Voice again. Ava tried to place it and thought it might belong to Demetria, Jewel-Anne's dour nursemaid. For a woman not yet thirty, tall, slim Demetria always wore a severe expression that matched her harsh hairstyle, dyed black and pulled back, restrained by a heavy clip at her nape. Her only concession to whimsy, it seemed, was the hint of a tattoo, an inky tendril that curled from beneath the clip to tease the back of her ear. The tattoo reminded Ava of a shy octopus, extending one questioning tentacle from beneath its hiding spot of thick, dark hair and tortoiseshell clip.
“So what is it? What's going on with
her
?” the second voice demanded.
Oh, Lord, did it belong to Khloe? Ava felt a jab of betrayal; she knew they were talking about her, and Khloe had been her best friend while growing up here on this remote island. But that had been years ago, long before fresh-faced and happy-go-lucky Khloe had turned into the unhappy soul who couldn't for the life of her let go of a love that had died so swiftly.
More whispering ...
Of course. It was almost as if they wanted to have her overhear them, as if they were taunting her.
Ava caught only phrases that were as crippling as they were true.
“... slowly going out of her mind ...”
Khloe again?
“Has been for years. Poor Mr. Garrison.” Breathy Voice.
Poor Mr. Garrison? Seriously?
Khloe, if it were she, agreed. “How he's suffered.”
Wyatt? Suffered? Really? The man who seemed intent on being absent, always away? The man she'd contemplated divorcing on more than one occasion?
Ava doubted her husband had suffered one day of his life. She could barely restrain herself from shouting, but she wanted to hear what they were saying, what the gossip was that ran rampant through the wainscoted hallways of Neptune's Gate, this hundred-year-old house built and named by her great-great-grandfather.
“Well something should be done; they're richer than God!” one of them muttered, her words thin and reedy as she walked away.
“For God's sake, keep your voice down. Anyway, the family's making sure that she gets the best care that money can buy ...”
The family?
Ava's head was throbbing as she threw off the thick duvet and her bare feet hit the plush carpet that had been cast over hardwood. Fir ... it was fir planks ... she remembered, planed by the sawmill that once was the heart of Church Island, named without a drop of modesty by that same great-great-grandfather who had built this house. One step, two ... She started to lose her balance and grasped the tall bedpost.
“Everyone in the family ... they need answers ...”
“Don't we all?” A sly little snigger.
Please, God, that it wasn't Khloe.
“But we don't own any part of this damned island.”
“Wouldn't that be something ... if we did, I mean.” The voice sounded wistful as it retreated.
Ava took a step and a wave of nausea washed up her throat. She thought she might throw up as bile teased her tongue, but she bit down hard, took a deep breath, and fought the urge to vomit.
“She's crazy as a loon. But he won't leave her,” one of them, she couldn't tell which, said, and the words were as crippling as they were true. She silently cursed her cloudy memory, her fractured brain.
Once, she'd been brilliant, at the top of her class, not only a stellar student but also a businesswoman with the acumen of ... of ...
what
?
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to the doorway and peeked out. Sure enough, two women were stepping down the stairs, their bodies slowly disappearing. But neither one was Khloe, as Ava's mind had suggested. They were Virginia Zanders, Khloe's mother—a woman twice the size of her daughter and the cook for Neptune's Gate—and Graciela, a part-time maid, who, as if sensing Ava in the doorway, glanced over her shoulder and offered a smile as saccharine as the iced tea that Virginia poured on hot summer days. Half the size of her companion, Graciela was petite, with lustrous black hair knotted at the base of her skull. If she wanted to, Graciela could turn on a brilliant smile that could charm the coating off an M&M. Today, her smile was more like that of a Cheshire cat, as if she knew some deep, dark, and oh-so-private secret.
About her employer.
The hairs on the backs of Ava's arms lifted. Like a snake slithering along her vertebrae, cold seeped down her spine. Graciela's dark eyes seemed to glint with a secret knowledge before both she and Virginia were out of sight, their footsteps fading.
With a quick push, Ava slammed the door shut, then tried to lock it, but the dead bolt was missing, replaced by a matching faceplate to cover the hole left in the door. “God help me,” she whispered, and drew in a long, calming breath as she leaned against the door.
Don't give in. Don't let them make you the victim. Fight back!
“Against what?” she asked the dark room; then angry with her plight and her attitude, she stalked to the windows. When had she become such a wimp?
When?
Hadn't she always been strong? Independent? A girl who raced her mare along the ridge over the sea, who climbed to the topmost spire of the mountain on this island, who swam naked in the icy, foaming waters of the Pacific where it poured and swirled into the bay? She'd surfed and rock climbed and ... and it all seemed like a thousand—no, make that a million—years ago!
Now she was trapped here, in this room, while all those faceless people were speaking in hushed tones and assuming she couldn't hear them, but she could; of course she could.
Sometimes she wondered if they knew she was awake, if they were taunting her on purpose. Perhaps their soft, condoling tones were all part of a great facade, a horrible, painful labyrinth from which there was no escape.
She trusted no one and then reminded herself that it was all part of her paranoia. Her sickness.
With pain shooting behind her eyes, she stumbled to the bed and fell onto the pillow-top mattress with its expensive sheets, waiting for the pain to abate. She tried to raise her head, but a headache with the power to make her tremble stopped her, and she had to bite down so that she didn't cry out.
No one should suffer like this. Weren't there painkillers for this sort of thing? Prescriptions to stave off migraines? Then again, she took a lot of pills and couldn't help but wonder if the pain slicing through her brain was because of the medication rather than in spite of it.
She didn't understand why they were all out to torment her, to make her feel as if she were crazy, but she was pretty damned sure they intended just that. All of them: the nurses, the doctors, the maid, the lawyers, and her husband—most certainly Wyatt.
Oh, God ... she did sound paranoid.
Maybe she was.
With extreme effort, she gathered her strength and eased off the bed again. She knew that eventually the stab in her brain would slowly dissipate. It always did. But when she first woke up, it was always a bitch.
With a hand on the bed to steady herself, she walked carefully to the window, pushed back the curtains, and opened the blinds.
The day was gray and grim, as it was on that day ... that horrid day when Noah ...
Don't go there!
It serves no purpose to relive the worst moments of your life.
Blinking, she forced her mind back to the present and stared through the watery, leaded-glass panes that looked out from the second floor of this once-elegant mansion. Autumn was seeping toward winter, she thought as she squinted, looking toward the dock where twilight was descending, fingers of fog sliding over the blackened pier.
It wasn't morning but nearing evening, she realized, though that seemed wrong. She'd been asleep for hours ... days?
Don't think about it; you're awake now.
Placing a hand against the cool panes, she took in more of her surroundings. At the water's edge, the boathouse had grayed over the years, the dock next to it listing toward the wind-ruffled waters of the bay. The tide was in, foamy waves splashing against the shore.
So like that day ...
Oh, sweet Jesus.
A chill, as cold as the depths of the sea, washed over her, a chill that was born from within.
Her heart clutched.
Her breath fogged on the window as she leaned close to the glass.
The back of her neck tightened in a familiar way; she knew what was coming.
“Please ...”
Squinting, she stared at the end of the dock.
And there he was, her tiny son, teetering near the edge, a ghostly image in the fog.
“Noah,” she whispered, suddenly terrified, her fingers sliding down the pane as panic surged within. “Oh, God, Noah!”
He's not there. It's your fractured mind playing tricks on you.
But she couldn't take the chance. What if this time, this one time, it really was her boy? He stood with his back to her, his little red, hooded sweatshirt damp in the misting fog. Her heart squeezed. “Noah!” she screamed, beating on the glass. “Noah! Come back!”
Frantically she tried to open the window, but it seemed nailed shut. “Come on, come on!” she cried, trying to force open the sash, breaking her nails in the process. The damned window wouldn't budge. “Oh, God ...”
Propelled by fear, she yanked open the door and raced barefoot out of her room and down the hall to the back stairs, her feet slapping against the smooth wood of the steps. Down, down, down she ran, breathless, one hand on the rail.
Noah, oh sweet, sweet baby. Noah!
She burst from the stairway into the kitchen, then through the back door off the kitchen, across the screened porch, and out to the sweeping grounds of the house and beyond.
Now she could run. Fast. Even though night was falling swiftly.
“Noah!” she yelled as she sped along the weed-choked pathways, past the deadened rosebushes and through the dripping ferns to the dock where darkness and fog had disguised the end of the pier. She was breathing hard, screaming her son's name, desperate to see him, to witness his little face turn around and look up at her, his wide, expectant eyes trusting ...
The dock was empty. Fog playing in the shadows of the water, seagulls crying hollowly in the distance.
“Noah!” she screamed, running over the slick boards. “Noah!”
She'd seen him! She had!
Oh, honey ...
“Noah, where are you?” she said over a sob and the rush of the wind as she reached the end, the last board cutting into her feet. “Baby, it's Mama ...”
One last, wild search of the dock and boathouse told her he was gone. She didn't hesitate but jumped into the icy water, feeling the rush of frigid cold, tasting salt water as she splashed and flailed, frantically searching for her son in the dark depths. “Noah!” she yelled, coughing and sputtering as she surfaced. She dived back down into the black water again and again, searching the murky depths, desperately hoping for some glimpse of her son.
Please, God, let me find him. Help me save him! Do not let him die! He's an innocent. It's I who am the sinner. Oh, dear Jesus, please ...
Again and again, she dove, five times, six, seven, her nightgown billowing around her, her hair loosened from its rubber band, exhaustion overtaking her as she drifted farther and farther from the dock. As she surfaced slowly one more time, she was vaguely aware of a voice.
“Hey!” a man yelled. “Hey!”
She dove down again, her hair floating around her, her eyes open and burning in the salty water, her lungs so stretched she thought they might burst.
Where is he? Noah, oh, God, baby ...
She couldn't breathe, but she couldn't stop searching. Had to find her son. The world grew darker and colder, and Noah grew ever more distant.

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