Expecting to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“It’s okay,” Bianca lied. She didn’t want anyone making a big deal about it. “Dad says that might change.”

“Really?” She frowned, pink lips pouting. “Well . . . maybe.” Then she found her smile again. “We’ll get through this tonight and see.”

“I’m hoping you can give me a ride home. Mom’s kind of tied up.”

“Right. The baby. Congratulations.” Michelle beamed. “How exciting for you. A new little brother, right? Luke called and said it’s a boy.”

“Tucker Grayson.”

“Like that ranching family that lives around here . . . oh, right, because of the sheriff, I get it.” She paused and sighed, glanced back at the set, where Barclay was talking to Mel and Lara. “But about that ride,” she said, her gaze sliding back to Bianca’s. “I’m afraid I can’t do it tonight, but don’t worry. One of your friends will take you home.”

“But I thought—?”

“Is it a problem?” Michelle asked, and the edges of her beatific smile faltered just a bit. For the first time ever, Bianca saw an edge of steel in her usually effervescent stepmother’s expression.

Bianca wanted to argue, to point out that Michelle had promised, but she saw Barclay looking at them and didn’t want to make a scene. Besides, she’d rather be with her friends if this was the way Michelle was going to act, and she spied Simone, Maddie, and Teej in the enclosure. “No,” she said. “No problem. Jeremy can pick me up if no one can take me home.”

“Great!” Back to bubbly Michelle. “Perfect.” And then she was off, eager to learn her lines that had been changed and get direction from the great Barclay Sphinx, whom Bianca was starting to think was, as her father had said, “a lying scumbag.”

Bianca followed after Michelle and then stopped to look over her shoulder. Out here, beyond the lights, she was alone, everyone else on the other side of the temporary fence.

It almost felt like she was being watched. That beyond the edge of light cast by the lights of the set, there was someone or something eyeing her every move.

She thought of the night she’d been chased by the monster, about how Destiny Rose Montclaire had been strangled, and she shuddered a little inside. There was nothing out here. Nothing malevolent. Her fear was unfounded.

The rustle she heard was just the flutter of bat wings, or the sigh of the wind rushing through summer-dry branches. The smell that came to her in the dry air was of smoke and musk and sweat, riding on the breeze and coming off of the set.

Yet the hairs on her nape lifted and her throat turned dry as desert sand.

“You’re an idiot,” she whispered, hobbling to the gate.

Whoever or whatever she thought was observing her from the creeping shadows was just in her overactive mind.

CHAPTER 31

Alvarez stared at the sleeping baby and her heart melted. He was, as Pescoli had said, perfect. Lying on his mother’s chest, his tiny lips moving slightly as he breathed, Tucker Grayson appeared at peace with the world. She felt a bit of an intruder in the hospital room with Santana and Regan, but she ignored it and gave in to her fascination with the dozing infant.

“You named him after Dan,” she said, and Pescoli nodded.

“We had names picked out for a boy and a girl. Tucker Grayson for this little guy here,” she said, stroking the baby’s fine hair with a finger, “and Sophia Danielle if he’d been a girl.” She glanced at her husband. Santana was sitting in the recliner positioned not far from the hospital bed, in a spot where he could watch and study his newborn son. “I suggested the idea, Santana came up with the names.” Regan smiled, looked exhausted but, in Alvarez’s opinion, never better. Strange as it sounded, there was a glow to her, despite the circles under her eyes and the scratches visible on her cheek. She’d explained about them, about the attack by Wilda Wyze at Wild Wills hours earlier, about Terri Tufts’s remark about her pregnancy, that it was a good t

hing Pescoli’s husband wasn’t “shooting blanks.” Probably, they thought, in reference to Terri’s own ex. Pescoli had heard about the discovery of Marjory’s body from Santana, who had seen it online less than an hour earlier, and she had agreed getting DNA on Marjory’s fetus was essential.

Though Pescoli had shown some interest in the ongoing cases, it was only peripheral. For now, she was far more wrapped up in this new baby than anything. Alvarez understood, would feel the same if the situations were reversed, but wondered if she’d just lost her partner to this little black-haired human.

“You have to get these guys,” Pescoli had said, and Alvarez had agreed. Now, she smiled at the small family but felt a pang on her heartstrings. She’d had a child in her youth, but instead of holding him close and planning a future with him, had given him up for adoption as the circumstances of his conception had been violent. There was no comparison to the making of this little bundle. Though Alvarez had reconnected with her biological son through Dylan, she’d never had this experience, this anticipation and complete and utter joy at the birth. For that, she felt sad, cheated, and yes, even a little guilty. Her son had deserved better and though he was with loving adoptive parents, in some small ways, she’d always felt she’d let him down—or herself down.

Her cell phone indicated a text had come in. From Zoller. Two of the people she wanted to interview had been brought to the station. Good. “Gotta run,” she said. “Looks like Kip Bell and Preston Tufts are waiting to answer a few questions.”

“Right.” Pescoli snorted a disbelieving laugh. “Keep me posted.”

“I will. Tomorrow.” Alvarez slid a final look at the baby, then said, “Get some rest. My guess is that this guy”—she pointed to the infant—“isn’t going to stay this way for long. You’ll be busy.”

Regan smiled. “Yeah.” She touched her child’s forehead. “But I’ll still want to know.”

“You got it,” Alvarez said and held up a hand as a silent good-bye to Santana before walking into the hallway and through the main lobby.

Her mind was turning with questions for the two men who were being brought into the station, the first being: Where’s your brother? To each of them. Why had the two older boys been found, but not Emmett Tufts or Kywin Bell, the two she really wanted to grill? If the deputies had gone to the shoot for Big Foot Territory: Montana! to round up the potential suspects, as Blackwater promised, why hadn’t they come back with the younger brothers?