Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Michelle, too, was smiling.

“We’ll get the mayor involved. You’ve got her name?” Sphinx asked.

“Right here,” Fiona replied, glancing at her computer screen. “Carolina Justison.”

“I’ll need that number.”

“Just sent it to your phone.”

“Good. Include the cop’s, Bianca’s mother, and the sheriff’s number as well.”

“I did.”

“God, love ya, Fi,” he said.

“Sure, sure.”

“Mom won’t like it,” Bianca said, earning her a reproving look from Dad.

“I said I’d take care of it,” Lucky reminded her a bit tightly.

“Good, good. And even if she’s not a believer, which I sense she’s not, we can make that work, too. It’ll add a little tension to the story line.” He glanced at Bianca. “I’m loving this. All we need to get started is a contract.” With a nod to Fi, he said, “I’ll pass the baton to my assistant and she can get through all the legal stuff. You’ll be paid, of course, as will all of the extras, people from the club last night, I’m thinking. Like those two or three guys who were mixing it up at the end of th

e meeting?”

“Ivor Hicks and Fred Nesmith?” Luke asked.

“Sure. Or guys like them. Local color. We need passionate people, very . . . rural, almost backwoodsy. Authentic. People that would be fascinating to our demographics, so no accountant or insurance salesman types, if you know what I mean. We want to see the raw side of Montana, the real gun-totin’ cowboys and hunters and maybe some anti-government folks. Fi will take over, and when we’ve nailed down the contract, we’ll talk story line and character development.”

“Character development?” Luke asked.

“I’d like to work out Bianca’s character.”

She said, “Uh . . . I’m me.”

“Of course, of course, but maybe a . . . more condensed version of you, if you will, a stronger, more potent version.” He turned his gaze from Bianca to his assistant. “Fi, why don’t you . . . ?”

Fiona smoothly segued into the point woman, directing them all to look at their computer screens. She laid out everything. All explained neatly and concisely.

And in the end, Bianca and Lucky signed.

She was, Michelle insisted, on her way to being a star.

Bianca wasn’t sure about that, but she did know that, when she got home and admitted to her mother what she’d done, there would be hell to pay.

* * *

The Cronins hadn’t seen or heard from their daughter since the night before.

“Normally, I wouldn’t worry,” Darlie said as she sat on the edge of a worn couch next to her husband. Pescoli and Alvarez were in chairs on the far side of an oval coffee table. “But this is so not like Lindsay.” Darlie folded her hands over her lap, then refolded them nervously. Petite and blond, she wore a skirt and lacy top and kept glancing at her husband, a round man with a paunch, thinning brown hair, and a clipped mustache. Today he hadn’t shaved, and silvery stubble covered his jaw and chin. He was in jeans and a T-shirt and he stared, for the most part, at the floor.

She handed Pescoli a neatly typed list of Lindsay’s friends. She swore she knew of no one who would want to hurt her daughter. At that statement, she reached silently to her side, and her husband’s large hand clasped over her outstretched palm.

“I keep telling myself she’ll come home, that her phone is out of battery or turned off or lost or whatever, but . . .” She swallowed hard, the cords of her neck straining as she thought of the direst of consequences. Clearing her throat, she said, “We just want her back. We’ve called her brother. He’s studying at Boise State, and Malcolm offered to come home, but we didn’t see any reason for that; not unless he hears from her.”

After taking her statement, they all walked through her room, saw the open window and the pillows bumping up under the covers.

“This is how you found the bed?” Pescoli asked.