Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Oh. Dear. God. No. No, no! Oh . . .

Headlights appeared behind her. Bright. Glaring.

Shaking, crying, and shrieking, she saw the side of the cliff rushing at her. She cranked the wheel. The Focus hit gravel and began spinning. The beams of her headlights splashed over the cliff face, then the road, then the guardrail as the car spun around, swerving wildly. She saw the truck that had been following her stopped on the road, its headlights glaring at her, its driver watching.

Her fender caught on metal.

Scraaaape! The Ford slid along the guardrail, metal screeching and groaning, sparks flying until the old rail and pilings suddenly gave way and her little car sped over the rim of the ledge.

Lindsay screamed as she plunged down, down, down into the great, black, yawning abyss, while the driver of the pickup did nothing to help.

CHAPTER 17

The morning after the meeting with Sphinx, Pescoli made a stop at a coffee shop, where she picked up a breakfast sandwich, decaf coffee, and hash browns and devoured every last bite before she drove to the office. “This has got to stop,” she said, aiming the conversation at her belly as she parked. She felt a gentle kick deep within her abdomen, as if her baby understood. “Yeah, I know. We were both hungry.?

?

And so it begins with private conversations with an unborn child, all the hopes and dreams of the future wrapped into the baby growing within you. Then, in a blink, it seems you wake up one morning and your kid has discovered a dead body and is furious with you for standing in the way of her chance at reality TV stardom.

She made her way into the station and noticed the air-conditioner unit was acting up again, her office feeling like a sauna. She flipped on the desk fan and had just settled into her desk chair when Alvarez, looking trim in skinny jeans and a T-shirt and open jacket, popped her head into the office. “Seen your email yet?”

“Just got here. Something up?”

“Donny’s not the baby daddy.”

“Hmmm.”

“The lab results came in late yesterday, Blackwater gave me the word last night and I double-checked.”

Pescoli had hoped that the paternity test would confirm what she’d thought was obvious, one little mystery solved. “Doesn’t mean he’s off the hook for the homicide. He could have found out and killed her in a fit of jealousy.”

“Possibly. Or . . .”

“Whoever the father is might have gone off when she told him. Killed her accidentally or intentionally. So who’s next up?”

“The Montclaires have no idea,” Alvarez said.

“You already talked to them?”

“I didn’t want it to come from some other source, and I thought they might have some idea who she might have been seeing.” Alvarez leaned a shoulder on the doorframe. “When I gave them the news, they were on their home phone, a landline with an extension. Glenn was icy, acted as if I were accusing his dead daughter of being . . . promiscuous. As if I were making some judgment call. And Helene, on the extension, started crying about her ‘baby’ and ‘grandbaby.’”

It all hit home with Pescoli, pregnant as she was, about not only losing the life of the nearly grown child, but the little unborn life as well. “Not pleasant.”

“No. I tried to talk to them about other guys she might have been seeing, but all I got was that she had a lot of ‘friends,’ and the only names that he actually gave me were Kip and Kywin Bell and Bryant Tophman. When I mentioned some of the others who were at the party, he’d heard of them, but didn’t think they were involved with Destiny. He reminded me that his daughter was a good girl and that Donny Justison was the reason she was dead. In Glenn Montclaire’s opinion, the mayor’s son is the embodiment of pure evil.”

“But not the father of Destiny’s infant.”

“Glenn’s not ready to acknowledge that.”

“Even though you can’t argue with science.”

“Tell that to the creationists.”

Snorting her agreement, Pescoli snagged her keys again. “Let’s go have a chat with Kywin Bell. Lara Haas claimed he was protective of Destiny Montclaire, so I’d like to hear what he has to say.”

“You think he might have been involved with her?”

“Or know who was.” She was on her feet again and stopped dead in her tracks as a cramp rolled through her abdomen. As it passed, she leaned against the desk. “Whoa.”