Left To Die Read Free Page A

with the sheriff.”
    Pouring herself a cup, Selena didn’t think Dan Grayson gave a flying fig about who made the coffee, but she kept her views to herself. Joelle’s smug self-satisfaction about all things domestic was no big deal. If she considered the kitchen her little kingdom, so be it.
    “Hey!” Cort Brewster, the undersheriff, strode in with a newspaper tucked under his arm.
    “How’s it going?” Alvarez asked, offering him just a hint of a smile. Brewster was a good guy, happily married, the father of four, but there was something about him that put her on edge a bit. A glint in his eye, maybe, or the way his smile didn’t always meet his gaze. Or maybe she was being super-sensitive. Brewster had never done anything untoward to her, or to anyone else in the department as far as she knew.
    “If the coffee’s not to your liking, I’m sorry,” Joelle said, flinging up her hands in resignation. “It was, er, already brewing when I got here.” Her perfect little pink-tinged lips puckered a bit and her eyebrows shot up as if she were a schoolmarm pointing out that little Timmy had been playing with himself under the table.
    “My fault if the coffee tastes like sewer sludge,” Alvarez admitted. “I made it.”
    Brewster laughed as he found a ceramic mug in the cupboard and poured himself a tall cup.
    Joelle, miffed, strutted out of the kitchen, her high heels tapping indignantly down the hallway.
    “Looks like you stepped on someone’s toes this morning,” Brewster observed.
    “It’s every morning.” Selena poured herself a cup. “Working here should be considered hazardous duty.”
    “Meeeow,” Brewster murmured into his cup.
    “Comes with the territory.” She shrugged and headed to her desk. Her shift wasn’t due to start for another forty-five minutes, but a few of the night crew were trading stories and packing up.
    Her phone rang and she answered it with a grunt of acknowledgment as she sat down.
    “Alvarez? This is Peggy Florence in dispatch. I’ve got a call I think you should hear.”
    From the tone of the dispatcher’s voice, Selena guessed what was coming and braced herself.
    “Came in two minutes ago. From Ivor Hicks. If he can be believed, we’ve got ourselves another one.”
     
    “…and it’s another sub-zero-degree day in this part of Montana, blizzard conditions on the roads and another storm rolling in this afternoon.” The radio announcer sounded way too chipper considering the news he was delivering. “Coming up after this, we’ve got an extensive road report and school-closure list, so stay with us at KKAR at ninety-seven point six on your FM dial.”
    He segued into the first notes of “Winter Wonderland.”
    Regan Pescoli buried her face into her pillow and groaned at the thought of rousing. Bing Crosby crooning about the joys of snow wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, not this morning. Her head was thundering, her mouth tasted like garbage and the last thing she needed was to roll out of a nice warm bed and head to the sheriff’s department office where all hell was surely breaking loose with this last storm.
    Besides, it was still only November. There was still a lotta time before Christmas.
    She slapped at the damned radio without opening her eyes, missed and realized belatedly that she wasn’t in her own bed. Holy crap! Lifting an eyelid, she focused on her surroundings only to recognize the scarred, shabby furniture of room seven at the North Shore, a small, local motel where she stayed overnight with her sometime lover. Never mind that the low-slung concrete-block motel was situated at the south end of town, near the county line, and there was no shore, no river, no lake and certainly no ocean for miles.
    She blinked at the mocking, red digital display of the clock radio: 7:08. If she didn’t get cracking, she’d be late for work.
    Again.
    “Oh hell,” she muttered, untangling her legs from the faded striped quilt of the queen-sized bed.
    He