Willing to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“I don’t know what Ivy’s going to do. First off, she needs to talk to the authorities. Paterno and his partner are coming here to take her statement.”

“She’s not coming back to San Francisco?”

“Of course she is. Eventually. We just haven’t gotten that far. She’s pretty shaken up.”

“I thought you said she was ‘fine.’ ”

“I meant physically. There’s bound to be emotional trauma.”

“Oh, right. So much trauma. And for one so young.” Sarina’s voice broke. “What that poor girl saw . . .”

Pescoli thought about the man who was lying in the hospital now in Albuquerque, the assailant that Ivy had so handily dispensed.

Poor girl? Well, yes, but . . .

“She has a psychiatrist here. Dr. Yates,” Sarina said.

Pescoli already knew as much. From Chilcoate. “Good. Look, I won’t know what she has planned until she talks to the detectives from San Francisco.”

“Can I talk to her?” Sarina asked anxiously.

“Ivy’s sleeping now. I’ll have her phone when she gets up.”

“Okay. You know, she knows me better than anyone.. . .” She drew a breath. “I assume you’ve let Victor know she’s all right.”

“Yes.”

“And Collette?”

“I thought I’d leave that to you.”

“Okay,” Sarina said, always the one who wanted to pass along news of any kind, bad or good. “I’m sure Collette will want to talk to Ivy as well.”

“Yes,” Pescoli said again.

“What about Macon and Seth?” Sarina asked. “Have you talked to either of them?”

Macon and Seth. Heirs to their father’s estate. Pescoli hadn’t cut them from the suspect list despite their alibis, which were, in her estimation, wobbly at best. “You can call them if you want.”

“Oh, good. I do,” she said enthusiastically, then sighed. “You know, my boys want them to come and live with us, too.”

“Seriously?”

“I know, crazy, huh? Just what I need. Two more. Holy moley.”

“They’re men, Sarina. Basically on their own. Or they should be.”

“These days boys grow up slower,” her sister advised, as if she were an authority on all things male. “Look at Den—you know who, forty-two and going on fourteen.”

“I guess.”

“Isn’t Jeremy still living at home?”

“That’s different. He has his own apartment over the garage.”

A pause as Sarina let Pescoli hear her own excuses.

“When he gets out of school, he’ll move on,” Pescoli said, irked.