Born To Die

smile. Good Lord, what was wrong with her?

“I haven’t authorized any overtime.”

“And I haven’t asked for any, have I?”

“Or comp time.”

She nodded. “As I said, just tying up some loose ends.”

“Go home. It’s a holiday,” he repeated.

She lifted a shoulder. The truth was that she never made a big deal of holidays. Most of her family was in Woodburn, Oregon, and her studio apartment was really just a place to crash, not exactly homey or a place she’d want to invite the few friends she felt close enough to have over. Besides, they all had families and, holiday traditions. Pescoli had dropped by earlier and, upon learning that Alvarez had no plans for the day, had offered a halfhearted invitation for Alvarez to join her. Though she had declined, Alvarez had felt a stupid pang of regret that she was entirely alone, especially when Pescoli had hurried out the back door on her way to meet Santana. Alvarez, glancing out the window and watching Pescoli’s Jeep drive off through the falling snow, had sighed. She could imagine Pescoli and Nate Santana enjoying a quiet meal alone, in front of a crackling fire, a turkey roasting in the oven of Santana’s rustic cabin, making love until long into the night.

The thought had jolted her.

Time to get a pet, she’d told herself and gone back to work, here at her desk in the department offices.

Now, with Grayson watching her, she said, “It’s quiet here. I get a lot done when no one’s around. No distractions.”

“What about later? What’re you doing?”

“I was thinking Chinese takeout.”

He actually smiled, his lips twitching beneath the mustache. “Great as that sounds, and, y’know, it does, why don’t you stop by my place?” Her stupid heart nearly skipped a beat. “Got a few friends comin’ by. Around six. Real casual.”

So they wouldn’t be alone. Good. “Maybe I will.”

He chuckled again. “That sounds like a thinly disguised ‘No, thanks.’”

“A bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool maybe.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” His eyes, as brown as her own, pinned her and silently accused her of trying to placate him. “And get the hell outta here.” With a nod, as if he were agreeing with himself, he whistled to the dog, then made his way toward the back door, the sound of his boot heels and the click of claws fading away.

She leaned back in her chair and reminded herself that Grayson was her boss. Yeah, she found him attractive in that grizzled ranch-hand way. With his long legs, slim hips, and broad shoulders, he was built like a cowboy, tough as leather, and, as far as she knew, had lived all of his life in the area. He’d been married once, and she didn’t really know all the details there; Grayson kept a lot of his personal life close to the vest, which was another reason she admired him. She did the same.

Today, though, she hadn’t been lying. The offices, for once, were nearly silent, aside from the hum of the furnace as it forced warm air through the vents. She was able to get a lot of work done without coworkers, ringing phones, fax machines, and e-mail blasting at her every ten seconds. But she wasn’t playing catch-up, as she’d told Grayson.

Instead she was reviewing Jocelyn Wallis’s autopsy and tox screen.

The autopsy indicated that the victim had heart disease, more advanced than she might have known. According to the ME, Jocelyn’s arteries were partially blocked and could have been from a woman twice her age, the result probably of bad genes and a hard lifestyle. She probably would have suffered a heart attack if her condition was left untreated and might have died young. There was no sign of recent sexual activity, but along with evidence of the over-the-counter meds she’d been taking, there were traces of arsenic in her blood.

She looked through the report that listed the contents of the victim’s stomach and found nothing out of the ordinary. It looked like chicken vegetable soup and coffee and little else.

Odd. Rather than the evidence absolving her of her suspicions, just the opposite had proved true. Glancing at a photo of the victim, she said, “So what happened to you?”

And more importantly, who did it?

Jocelyn had two ex-husbands, one living outside of Laramie, Wyoming, the other in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada. Both had ironclad alibis and, it seemed, had had little contact with their ex-wife. Without children or custody issues or jointly held businesses, there had been no reason for them to keep in contact with her.

Also, Jocelyn had next to no life insurance, just enough to bury her. The beneficiaries listed were her parents. Nothing out of the ordinary there. She still owed on her car, so no one would end up with a vehicle. However, her phone records were more interesting. Aside from her girlfriends, she had called Trace O’Halleran a couple of times, though it seemed as if she’d just left messages; the calls were short.

Something? Alvarez wondered. He had gone into Jocelyn’s place, admitted to doing so; his fingerprints would probably match several latents they’d collected. He was one of the only persons they’d found who knew where she hid her spare key, though anyone could have found it.

Still… Trace O’Halleran was the last man she’d dated with any kind of interest. And he was the one person someone at the school had called when they were worried about her.

He seemed normal enough, but even calm, even-keeled people could be pushed into violence given the right situation.

He was worth checking out.

Clicking off her computer, she decided it was time for a little more investigation. Even though it was Thanksgiving, a skeleton crew was working in the crime lab, so she made a quick call and asked Mikhail Slatkin, the investigator on duty, to meet her at Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment. Now that she had proof that Ms. Wallis didn’t just die of a misstep, she needed to take another, deeper look at her home, life, and job.

He dressed in dark slacks, a crisp shirt, and a casual sweater, then checked his hair in the mirror and decided his look for the command performance on Thanksgiving Day was perfect. Impeccable.

Truth be known, he detested the holidays, all of them, but he put on a good front, pinning on a smile and driving through the snow to his sister’s home, a lakeside manor always in some phase of reconstruction.

His large family collected here each and every third Thursday in November, at his sister’s home, and he was expected to show, which he always did. He feigned interest in all their petty little problems, even played with his nieces and nephews, deflected any questions about his personal life and the women he dated.

Because he knew they didn’t care. In fact, they didn’t trust him. He was, and always would be, the outsider. No matter how hard he tried to fit into their close-knit group.

He brushed his lips across his sister’s cheek as he handed her a bottle of expensive wine that both she and her husband fawned over. He swung his niece off her chubby legs and heard her giggle in delight. He, after all, was the “fun” uncle. He even went to the trouble of going outside and trudging through the snow to view his nephew’s snowman and snow fort, from which the niece, of course, was forbidden.

Inside he was charming, even suffering through one of his sister’s guided tours of what they were “doing” to the house this year — a complete gutting and remodeling of the guest bathroom in the south wing.

“God help us that it gets done before Christmas. Lord, is that only five weeks away?” his sister said, looking around at the gaping holes where sinks and a toilet had once stood. Tile and grout had been displaced; the mirror, still hanging, was cracked in one corner. She sighed heavily. “I guess I’ll have to get on that builder!”

“It’s going to be great,” he answered, forcing enthusiasm.

“I hope so. Then you can stay with us! You’ll have your own suite, and the kids would love it.” Her eyes darkened just a shade with the lie. “I’d love it, too.” Her hand touched his arm then, lingering just a bit too long. She retracted it quickly when her husband walked in, his voice booming, “Welcome to our nightmare. The continuing nightmare.”

They made their way downstairs, and shaking off his sister and her oaf of a husband, he saw that the music continued to play, the wineglasses were always refilled, that his father was never out of the conversation. Of course, he was in charge of carving the turkey, even deigning to wear one of his brother-in-law’s stupid man aprons.