Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Bianca texted back: OK

Honestly, she didn’t know how she felt about it.

Have u heard from Lindsay?

It was kind of an odd question, as Bianca didn’t know Lindsay that well. They’d spent years together in school but had never been close. No. Why?

Her mom called looking for her. Asked if anyone had seen her since last night.

She’s missing?

I guess. Her car too. Gotta go.

Bianca stared at the phone. It had to be a mistake. Lindsay was probably just with a friend or a boyfriend or something. Her mom was probably panicking for no reason. Right?

But she had the same weird feeling that she’d experienced the other night, right after the dream, that something malevolent was happening.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Lucky asked, almost to himself, bringing Bianca back to the here and now.

“Who?” she asked just as she spotted Michelle’s Cadillac parked in the shade of a solitary pine. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’” His good mood vanished as he drove under an awning at the front entrance and headed toward some empty parking spots on the far side of the building that were still relatively close to the front doors.

“Michelle’s not supposed to be here?” Bianca asked.

He sent her a look. “She wanted to come, of course. She loves all things Hollywood and has a thing for Sphinx, which is probably good. But I thought it was best if it was just you and me. There might have to be some negotiating, and I thought it best if I handled it.” His lips pinched in irritation, something that didn’t happen much when he was dealing with his wife, but happened a lot when he and Mom got into it.

Bianca checked the mirror on the visor and cringed a little at her image. She’d worn as much makeup as she could, but her face was bruised and her chin . . . crap, would it ever be the same?

Probably not. There was a good chance she’d have to use any money she made from this reality show for plastic surgery. And a car. She

could see herself in a sporty little two-door rather than borrowing her mother’s old SUV or catching rides with her older brother in his pathetic excuse of a pickup. A car would be really nice, and her face fixed. She smiled for the first time that day.

Lucky parked near a solitary pine tree in the lot, then snapped his keys from the ignition. “Okay, let’s go!” He was out of the car in an instant and around the back, to help her climb out. Which was totally unnecessary.

Together, they walked across the lot to the front doors. Bianca still limped a little, but she thought it was more from the stupid splint than her injury and wished she could get rid of the thing.

As the sliding glass doors opened to the motel lobby, she shook off her doubts. This was cool. It was all cool. What was she worrying about? To hell with what Mom thought. She was going to sign the contract, and her dad, as her parent, would sign as well, so it would be legal.

Mom wouldn’t like it, but that was just too damned bad. It was her life and she was going to star in Barclay Sphinx’s reality show.

* * *

If Kywin Bell had been reticent to talk to the cops, Pescoli thought, his brother was downright inapproachable and rude. “What the hell are you cops doin’ here?” Kip demanded. Then, “Wow, are you pregnant or what?”

“You’re the first person who’s noticed,” Pescoli said dryly.

“Really?”

“No.”

He stared at her a moment, then went back to stacking paint cans on shelves in the windowless room at the back of A&B Painting and Supplies, a paint store housed in a long, squat strip mall only a few blocks from the sheriff’s office. A&B was at the far end of the building, its only neighbor a shoe repair store.

A plump woman with short white hair spiked around an apple-cheeked face and a name tag that read ARLENE, presumably the “A” of A&B, was helping a customer with paint chip choices when Alvarez and Pescoli ID’d themselves to her. She immediately excused herself, leaving the customer with several swatches in shades ranging from apricot to brilliant orange, and escorted the cops to this, a windowless “climate-controlled” room where all six-foot-five inches of Kip Bell was arranging plastic tubs and paint cans.

Kip, like his brother, took after his father, Frank, a real lowlife whom Pescoli had escorted to jail several times, the last for knocking around his ex-wife, Wilda, and shoving her into a wall. Though they were long divorced and Wilda remarried, they still had contact because of the kids and, like as not, when Frank and Wilda got together, things were going to get ugly. Wilda was large for a woman, tall and strong, and Frank was taller and heavier yet. Kip’s hair was a dark blond, a little longer, at least on top, than his brother’s, and he had several inches and over fifty pounds on Kywin.

“We just need to ask you some questions,” Alvarez said as Arlene retreated.