LITMIR.BIZ

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skepticism as she’d walked closer to stand near the side of Jillian’s elevated bed. “All you heard was his side.”

      “True. And I believe him.” She’d met the bigger cop’s stare. “I want to see him.”

      “He’s in custody,” Pescoli said.

      “For what? My God, didn’t I just tell you? The man saved my life!” Jillian had understood why they’d considered MacGregor a suspect, but to actually hear the words from the detectives made it so much more real, so much more painful.

      The softer-spoken detective, Alvarez, suggested, “Why don’t you just tell us what happened from the beginning? Why were you in Montana in the first place? You’re from Seattle, right?”

      So Jillian told them everything she could remember, from the time in Seattle when she’d received the phone calls from an anonymous caller about Aaron to when she received the pictures of the man who was supposed to be her dead husband. She explained what she remembered of her car accident and the rescue, then of waking up in Zane MacGregor’s cabin. She didn’t hold back. She was convinced that MacGregor had saved her life. She believed she’d seen someone else lurking in the trees on the day of the accident and later MacGregor had found evidence that someone had been watching the cabin. MacGregor had not only offered her a loaded rifle but he’d also left her with the dog to guard her.

      Pescoli and Alvarez interrupted her a few times, but for the most part, they listened as she explained that Zane MacGregor had been as desperate as she to find a way out of the cabin and into town. He’d been worried about her, had wanted to get her to a doctor.

      She had been convinced the truth would only help MacGregor. But she’d been wrong.

      After the interview, she realized that the more she tried to assure Pescoli and Alvarez that Zane MacGregor was innocent, the less they had believed her.

      Which was downright infuriating.

      The good news, if there was any, was that they’d brought her things to her. The suitcase with her clothes, as well as her purse with her wallet, ID and credit cards. They were still “processing” her bags, whatever that meant. The only item missing was her cell phone, which, Alvarez had explained, they wanted to hold on to for “a day or so.” It bugged the hell out of Jillian not to have the phone. In the cell’s memory were stored all of the phone numbers of her friends, family and business associates, as well as text and voice messages she’d saved.

      Assured that they would release the cell phone “as soon as possible,” they’d asked a few more questions and thanked her, as if to end the interview. Alvarez had clicked off the recorder and Pescoli was one step from the door.

      “Wait a minute,” Jillian had called, and both women stopped in their tracks. “I just want to say again that Zane MacGregor never did anything that would indicate he wanted me dead and he had ample opportunity. I was unconscious, unable to walk on my own, nearly immobile with my bruised ribs. If he wanted me dead, believe me, I would be.”

      The cops didn’t say a word and she couldn’t help but add, “I know you’ve got a serious problem on your hands with this serial killer. You have to find him. But keep looking. You’ve got the wrong man.”

      Alvarez met her gaze. “We’re checking into all possibilities, Ms. Rivers. MacGregor is only one person of interest.”

      “But I told you—” she started, then read something she didn’t like in the smaller woman’s eyes. Though she had been trying to hide it, Detective Selena Alvarez, the one detective she’d trusted, hadn’t believed her story, or at least not all of it.

      “Oh my God,” Jillian had whispered, aghast. “You think…you think what? That I’m lying? Or…or that I’m confused or that I’ve fallen for my abductor?” Her heart sank as the two women stood in front of the doorway, blocking her view of the nurses’ station.

      “Right now, Ms. Rivers,” Pescoli said, “we’re not sure what to think.”

      “I’m telling you, it’s not MacGregor.”

      “Duly noted. Thanks.” Pescoli, obviously irritated, stepped out of the room.

      “We might have more questions later,” Alvarez said and took the time to return to Jillian’s bedside. “If you think of anything else, or have questions of your own, please call.” She left her card on the table near Jillian’s water glass. “This,” she added, tapping the card with a slim finger, “has my direct line at the sheriff’s office, as well as my cell. Thanks again.”

      And then she left, walking briskly to catch up with her partner.

      Jillian had picked up the card and slipped it into her wallet. She’d thought she’d been finished with questions but she’d been wrong.

      Within the next hour the FBI had sent agents Halden and Chandler to double-team Jillian one more time. As if she’d remember something new.

      They’d gone over the same information but were a little more reserved and held back their emotions better than the local cops had.

      Not that Jillian had liked them much better.

      Stephanie Chandler, tall, blond and athletic, without so much of a hint of a smile in her blue eyes, had led the interview, while her partner, with his slight southern drawl and easy smile, had come up with a few questions of his own. Of the two, Craig Halden had seemed vastly more relaxed and approachable. But Jillian had suspected the good ol’ boy charm was an act and she was damned tired of answering questions.

      “Okay,” she’d finally said, her eyes focused on Chandler. “I’ve already said everything I know to Detectives Pescoli and Alvarez. You can check with them. It’s all on tape.” She shifted in the bed, her IV tugging on her wrist, the bedclothes starting to wrinkle.

      Halden, as if he agreed with her, had nodded thoughtfully. He’d offered the kind of aw-shucks grin meant to put her at ease. The country-boy smile had only had the opposite effect and ratcheted up her anxiety level. “Yeah,” he said. “We know. This is just routine.”

      “I wouldn’t think there is anything routine about a serial-killer investigation,” Jillian countered, and for the first time saw a twitch in his partner’s arched eyebrows. Despite her cool façade, Stephanie Chandler was an intelligent woman who didn’t miss a trick.

      Which wasn’t surprising. The woman was an FBI agent, after all.

      So Jillian had felt a little outgunned and unnerved. In the span of her lifetime, Jillian had never considered the police the enemy. Sure, she worried about speeding tickets whenever she was being followed by a police cruiser, but her uncle had been an Oregon State police officer and one of her cousins was with the Reno, Nevada, police department. Aside from a few drinks before she was twenty-one, experimenting with pot a total of twice and inadvertently running a red light or pushing the pedal to the metal on the freeway, Jillian had never broken the law.

      The only time she’d had the slightest inclination to think the authorities might not be looking out for her best interests had been in Suriname when Aaron had gone missing. Maybe it had been the language barrier, or a natural distrust of foreign police fostered by the news and movies or her own prejudices. Whatever the reason, Jillian had doubted that the men in power in that remote area of the jungle were on the up-and-up.

      “The thing is,” Jillian told the federal agents, “the only reason I was in Montana in the first place was because of the pictures I was sent, the phone calls I received, all indicating that my first husband, Aaron Caruso, was alive.”

      “Caruso as in Robinson Crusoe?”

      “Spelled differently,” Chandler said.

      So they had already checked. “You’ve looked into it,” Jillian said.

      Chandler nodded. “When your car was located, we started searching for you.”

      “And digging into my personal life.”

      Chandler

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