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“ She might have had a few drinks.”

“ Yeah and a little meth.” Mouledoux was sinking the hook. “I’m betting if I were to come inside and have a look around, I’d wind up taking you two down to the hoosegow. Wouldn’t that be something, mother and son sharing a cell?”

“ You’d need a warrant.” If fear had a smell, Finch would be reeking.

“ And I have one, but I don’t necessarily want to use it.” He tried to look sincere. “I’d rather tear it up and I would if somebody could corroborate your mother’s story.”

“ Anything to help the police.” Finch reached up to his collar, fingered the badge. “What do you need?”

“ The problem is nobody seems to know anything about this mysterious woman she saw running off with a gun in her hand.”

“ Nobody seems to know what happened to the two cops either,” Finch said.

“ I’m taking this one thing at a time. I need the girl. Maybe she can explain what happened here. We know she killed two, maybe three people, maybe more. Then you’re right, there’s those missing policemen to think of.”

“ So you think the cops vanished, like my mom said?”

“ I don’t know what to think, but I know this, I need someone else who has seen this cousin of Amy Eisenhower, who could pass as her twin sister, otherwise I’m going to have to think your mother was a bit too under the influence, maybe illegally. So if you knew anybody who’d seen these two look alike girls together next door, say maybe a couple months ago, that’d really help the case.”

“ Jeez, yeah, I saw ’em. I thought they were twins.”

“ You see Dr. Eisenhower taking pictures of these girls, you know, like maybe you were looking outside that back window there?” Mouledoux pointed toward Eisenhower’s backyard.

“ Come to think of it I did.”

“ You’ve been a big help.” He turned to go, turned back. “You should know I appreciate you telling me this and that it’ll help catch a killer.” Mouledoux smiled. “And you should also know it’s against the law to lie to a police officer. So, if anybody else comes asking-”

“ I’m not stupid, Detective Mouledoux.”

“ I never thought you were.”

Chapter Eleven

Izzy felt like she was running on emotional overload as she pulled into the gas station in McCloud, a tiny Northern California town nestled among tall pines. The sunrise promised to be gorgeous. Lately she’d been spending her mornings enjoying every one as if it might be her last; sunsets too, because at the rate the cancer had been moving through her body, they could’ve been.

She got out of the car, reached into her oversized purse, pushed the forty-five aside, got out her wallet, withdrew a credit card, but stopped herself as she was putting the card in the pump. She jerked her hand back as if she’d been scalded. What had she been thinking? Hadn’t she told Amy to destroy her cell phone, because she didn’t want her tracked? Hadn’t she seen enough detective shows on television? Use the card, tell them where you are.

Oh shit! She’d used the card to rent that motel in Susanville. How bloody stupid. She was going to have to be more careful, because she was sure they’d track her there and now they’d know she was heading to California, where they’d figure she was either going north, to Canada maybe, or south to L.A. and perhaps Mexico beyond.

She put the card back in her wallet, started for the convenience store and the cash register inside.

“ I’d like to fill it on three,” she told a smiling teenager. He had hair yellow as the sun she’d been watching so much these past few weeks. It was long and framed a freckled face with twinkling blue eyes and a golden smile. He was watching CNN on a small ceiling mounted television.

“ Sure thing.” He tapped on a computer screen as she laid three twenties on the counter. “That little girl’s gonna live. They say it’s a miracle.”

“ The one they got out of the well?”

“ Yeah, she rallied during the night. It looks like she’s gonna make a full recovery.”

“ That’s great.”

“ Yeah, it’s good when you can start the day with a positive news story.”

“ It is.” She returned his smile. “I’ll be back for the change.”

“ Okay.”

When she got back he was still engrossed in CNN, but his smile had been wiped away, replaced by a furrowed brow.

“ Something happened to the girl?”

“ No, breaking news,” he said. “Someone went on a killing rampage in Reno.”

“ What?”

“ Six people dead. Three doctors, a lawyer and two security guards, plus another doctor is missing and presumed dead. They all worked at St. Catherine’s Hospital.” He looked worried. “My mother’s there. She’s having cataract surgery.”

“ Did they catch the killer?”

“ No, she’s still at large.”

“ She? A woman?”

“ They’re calling her the Slaughter Queen.”

And for the next five minutes or so Izzy watched newscaster Nick Nesbit on the overhead television with the freckle faced kid and learned that the Slaughter Queen had killed two hospital security guards and hospital CEO Aaron Shaffer at Dr. Isadora Eisenhower’s house. Seventy-seven-year-old Dr. Eisenhower was missing and presumed dead. From there the Slaughter Queen went on to kill Dr. Carmin Romero in his home and then onto young Dr. Elizabeth Jordan. Three doctors dead and one missing, but that wasn’t enough for the Slaughter Queen as she’d also killed the hospital’s lawyer, Simon Drake. Six dead, one missing and who knew who else was on her list.

Nesbit, who looked as serious as Izzy had ever seen him on television, went on to say the killer was somehow related to Dr. Eisenhower, perhaps a niece, they weren’t clear on that, but the police had pictures and they hoped to have them distributed to the media within the hour. Meanwhile they had this description: she was Caucasian, had shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes, was very attractive, weight about one fifteen and was about five-six.

“ Maybe her medical insurance didn’t cover her doctor bills,” the kid said.

“ What makes you say that?”

“ She killed the lawyer, too.”

“ I can’t believe a woman could do that.” But she could half believe it, even though she didn’t say it, because she’d killed the two security guards and though she hadn’t killed Shaffer, she’d watched him die. But the others, Romero, Jordan and Drake. She knew them. Who could’ve done it? Someone who knew about her, because the odds were way too far out of the ballpark to assume the crimes weren’t related.

Back in the car, she continued north for about fifteen minutes. When the road met Interstate 5, she went north, got off at Mount Shasta and found a Rite Aide drugstore, where she started for the hair dye. She’d always wondered if blondes had more fun. She didn’t think she’d be having very much of that, but she needed a change.

Then she saw a display of scissors and all of a sudden she knew how she’d disguise herself, because that’s what she had to do, alter her appearance as radically as possible. She picked up an electric shaver, like the one she’d used to shave her head after she’d started chemo, then she went looking for the mascara. Though dying her hair blonde had been her first idea, she’d’ve had to rent a motel room. Plus it would take a lot longer to dye her hair than it would to cut it off.

The hair had been nice, but it had to go, because she had no illusions about whose picture they were going to be showing on the news. Shaffer’d told someone and that someone had told someone else and eventually, pretty quickly actually, someone had probably gotten the bright idea to use a photo of Amy. And Izzy, except for the eyes, looked just like her. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if they’d doctored a photo of Amy, giving her brown eyes.

Leaving the Rite Aide, she got back on the freeway, taking the off ramp at the Weed rest area. It was early and except for a couple truckers sleeping in their cabs, the rest stop was deserted. In the restroom, she plugged in the shaver and gave herself a quick bootcamp type haircut.