LITMIR.BIZ

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sky during the time of abduction.”

      “Or death,” Halden added.

      Chandler nodded. “Maybe our guy is into stargazing or astronomy or astrology.”

      Alvarez frowned. She’d thought of the night sky, of course. She’d also thought about witchcraft, or devil worship, or anything to do with the dark arts. Stars meant a lot of different things to different people.

      “He could just be jerking our chain,” Brewster said. “Maybe the stars are for decoration.”

      “They’re part of his MO,” Chandler disagreed. She traced her finger over the stars on each of the notes, which had been blown up and put near the pictures of the victims. “He’s too precise. See how perfectly the initials are written, almost as if he traced them? If you put the pages one atop the other, you’ll see that the letters remain in exactly the same positions, but the star moves. I’m willing to bet he’s on some kind of astronomical calendar.”

      “Hey, isn’t the twentieth when the astrological sign switches? Around the twentieth of the month, the signs of the zodiac change,” Pescoli offered. “Though I think it varies a little; I’m not really into it. If it means anything.”

      “I don’t like the word ‘zodiac,’ not when we’re talking about serial killers,” Grayson said.

      “Jesus, no,” Brewster agreed. “That bastard terrorized San Francisco during, what? The sixties or seventies? I remember my mother talking about it. She had a sister in the Bay Area at the time and was worried sick.”

      “Made a movie out of it,” Alvarez said.

      Pescoli nodded. “Never caught, was he?”

      “Never.” Chandler’s face grew even more taut, the sharp angles of her cheekbones and chin prominent. “But Zodiac would be too old to be our guy, if he were alive, which I doubt.”

      “Could be a copycat. Someone who knows about the original. The killings are different, yeah,” Pescoli said, “but the Zodiac’s name might have been inspiration. And he plans the murders meticulously.”

      Alvarez had a mental image of a man with a pen, sitting at a desk, carefully creating his notes, all the while plotting the death of the woman he had captured, a woman probably bound and caged, locked in a dark, airless room, a frightened, injured woman who couldn’t comprehend the extent of her jailor’s depravity.

      A killer who planned out his victim’s capture and death in minute detail, all around the position of the stars in the heavens.

      “These killings are way different from Zodiac’s. Let’s go check on Ito’s car, unless you have anything else,” Grayson said. Chandler and Halden discussed tips that had come in, none of which had developed into a true lead, then concluded the meeting.

      Alvarez was left cold inside. Just the mention of the Zodiac killer chilled her to the bone. The monster had been on a rampage, picking out his victims, sometimes disabling cars. One woman had nearly been decapitated, others were shot at point-blank range, sometimes trophies were taken and the police were forever being taunted.

      And he was never caught. Never.

      Grayson scooted his chair back and gave a short whistle to his dog, a black Lab named Sturgis who rarely left his side. The dog, a reject from the K-9 unit, had been with Grayson for a couple of years, ever since the department had decided not to “hire” him. They’d been inseparable ever since and Alvarez had wondered if the Lab was some kind of replacement for the wife who had dumped him. Usually the retriever stayed in Grayson’s office, but today, he’d been allowed into the task force room and now trotted happily, tail wagging, at the sheriff’s boot heels. They disappeared into his office as Alvarez and Pescoli headed for the side door to the parking lot.

      She walked with Pescoli outside to the parking lot and tucked her hair into a stocking cap. A sharp wind was blowing, dusk descending rapidly, and it was cold as hell. Already Pescoli’s Jeep was collecting ice on its windshield.

      “Cheery little meeting,” Pescoli said, unlocking her Jeep and climbing behind the wheel while Alvarez slid into the passenger side.

      “Yeah, a real upper.”

      They discussed the case as Pescoli flipped on the heater and wipers, driving away from the town, toward the hills. “Merry Christmas,” Pescoli said under her breath as she reached in the console for her pack of cigarettes, cracking the window. “Mind if I smoke?”

      “Yeah, but it’s not gonna stop you, is it?”

      “Sure it will. For a while.” Pescoli dropped the cigarette into her near-empty pack, which she tucked back into the console. Meanwhile, the police band crackled, officers talking to each other while they drove through the foothills. She didn’t light up until she’d driven to Star Fire Canyon, near the area where the car was discovered, and parked as close as possible.

      This time there was no safe way down to the bottom of the ravine, though two deputies and a firefighter rappelled down the side of the sheer hillside to the narrow creek bed below.

      “How the hell did Bob Simms find the car?” Alvarez asked.

      “He patrols all the woods around here. Doesn’t matter what the weather,” Deputy Pete Watershed said.

      “He must be half mountain goat.” Pescoli drew hard on her filter-tip and stared down the embankment. “Hell, that’s a drop.”

      “He wears snowshoes or cross-country skis.”

      “Doesn’t matter, the man’s a damned mountain goat.”

      Alvarez eyed the surrounding area, looking for the spot in the road where the Prius was hit.

      As if reading her thoughts, Watershed pointed up to the next ridge. “We think the car was shot up there. It’s a little off the beaten track if she were returning to Spokane, but when it’s clearer weather there’s a ridge across the canyon. From there a shooter with a sniper rifle might be able to make the shot. If conditions were right.”

      Alvarez squinted against the falling flakes and coming darkness, trying to understand what madness would consume a person and make him lie in wait in the bitter cold. She imagined seconds ticking off before he took aim and fired, blowing out the tires of his victim’s vehicle.

      None of the victims’ phone records had helped. The friends who’d left messages on their cell phones, MySpace pages and other computer lists—none had yielded any clues. The three victims had nothing in common aside from the fact that they’d been stalked, abducted, then abandoned, naked, tied to trees, to die alone.

      Deep in her jacket, Alvarez shivered, her thoughts turning to Jillian Rivers. Was she even still alive?

      Jillian used the time that MacGregor was out of the cabin to snoop. She didn’t know anything about him, so this was her chance. She maneuvered around the cabin with one crutch, ignoring the pain as she carefully searched through drawers and cupboards, looking for some clue as to his identity, his life, his past. She felt a little guilty, as if she were a trespasser, but all she had to do to allay the sense of wrongdoing was remind herself that he’d brought her here. She was his guest, and prisoner.

      From the books in the bookcase she gleaned that he was interested in hunting, fishing, astronomy, backpacking, survival in the wilderness, first aid and medicine. In drawers, he had maps that covered the states of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming. Topographical maps, road maps, forest service maps, even satellite maps.

      But there wasn’t a framed photograph in the place; not on the mantel, walls, bookcase or tables. Not one single snapshot. It was as if he kept the images of his life hidden, even from himself.

      “How odd,” she said under her breath, then wondered if she was wrong. Dead wrong. This cabin might just be his mountain retreat, his second home.

      His lair, her mind taunted, as if he were the serial killer she’d heard something about. Rationally, she’d

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