Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

Alvarez was sliding through the statements, all of which were highlighted. “So the Bell brothers were with each other.”

Sage nodded. “And other kids in and out of their group, too. No one’s admitting to meeting up with Destiny.”

“Except for Donny Justison,” Alvarez said.

“Yeah, and he’s lying about it. First, Veronica Palmero gives him an alibi he didn’t use, and then he says that he didn’t meet Destiny in the woods. That she came by his house. Either way, he’s a liar.”

They’d already thought that she might have been killed somewhere else and brought to the creek, but had no proof. Nothing was coming together.

“Do we have statements for any of her other acquaintances, people who knew her and weren’t at the party on the night she was found?” Pescoli asked Sage.

“Yep. Cousins, old boyfriends, her family. Everyone is accounted for. And as far as we can tell, she didn’t have any kind of secret life. No one would profit from her death. She had no money and there wasn’t an insurance policy on her.”

“So the last person, aside from the killer, to see Destiny Montclaire alive was Donny Justison,” Alvarez said.

Pescoli added, “Unless he is the killer.”

“Uh-huh.” Alvarez rubbed the back of her neck. “And the people she texted that night were Lindsay Cronin and Kywin Bell.”

“That’s right,” Zoller said. “Now Lindsay Cronin’s dead and Kywin claims he never got the text.”

Pescoli said, “Just like he never got the text from Lindsay Cronin. Someone’s lying.”

“No. Not just someone. The whole lot of them,” Alvarez said shortly. “If you scroll through these statements, they’re like Swiss cheese, filled with holes. But yeah, Kywin’s definitely hiding something. I know he’s lying, I can feel it, but his reaction to the missing texts seemed genuine. He insists he’s never seen them before.”

“An act,” Pescoli said. “Just like his old man.” She leaned back in the chair, trying to get comfortable. It was impossible.

“There’s an interesting thing, though,” Sage said. “It might be nothing, but I went over the phone and text records of Kywin Bell. Nothing.” She brought the phone records up on screen. “But when you compare them to his brother’s? Kip’s. Take a look.” She split the screen and both records came up. “If you notice, Destiny called Kip as well. They knew each other, obviously, but more than that, she seemed to pocket-dial him a lot. Those are the short conversations, or non-conversations, that only lasted a second or two.”

Pescoli leaned closer to the screen.

“I tend to pocket-dial the same couple of people,” Zoller went on. “It happens. But what’s noteworthy is that on the dates of the missing texts, take a look, there’s a quick call to Kip that didn’t last for even two seconds. They didn’t connect, so I thought originally that she’d hit the wrong number by accident, or pocket-dialed him . . . but what if she didn’t?”

“You mean it was what? A signal?” Pescoli felt a sizzle of excitement.

“So that he would get a message on his brother’s phone?” Alvarez was thinking aloud, her thoughts in sync with Pescoli’s.

Zoller said, “She pocket-dialed him a lot, so I didn’t think anything of it at first. But maybe those times when he didn’t pick up were somehow a signal back so then she didn’t text Kywin.”

“Why?” Pescoli asked.

Alvarez posed, “Because she was seeing Kip on the side and was supposed to be dating Kywin?”

“No one says Kywin was involved with her,” Pescoli pointed out. “Destiny Rose Montclaire, yes. But Lindsay?”

“Let’s ask him,” Alvarez said.

They tossed the idea around some more. Then Pescoli stood and stretched for a second. “Sorry,” she said. “I can only sit in one position so long.” She settled into her chair again and asked Zoller, “What do we know about Lindsay Cronin’s accident?”

“The accident reconstruction crew spent hours at Horsebrier Ridge. They think she swerved, as if to avoid something, or as if something was in the car and forced her to turn sharply. She lost control and went through the guardrail. There was no indication that she was actually run off the road, but that’s still a possibility. It seems unlikely at her age that she would have had a heart attack or anything debilitating. She didn’t have any medical history of anything like seizures.”

“But she could have dropped her cell phone and reached for it. Something like that,” Alvarez said. “Or a malfunction of the vehicle.”

“It’s possible,” Zoller agreed. “Once they get the car out of the canyon and go over the mechanics.”

Pescoli grumbled, “So we really don’t know anything more except it’s a helluva coincidence.” The baby kicked and she shifted in her chair again.

“Not really, but on a side note, I found some pictures of the missing Big Foot costume.” The picture came up on the screen. “It’s not been located, but here’s what it looks like.” Sure enough, an image of a man in a shaggy ape suit appeared. “It’s the same color as the one in Carlton Jeffe’s film, unfortunately.” Zoller seemed a little disturbed. “I was hoping there would be differences, so that there would be less doubt that the creature is real.”