Willing to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“I said I want a lawyer. I ain’t sayin’ one more word.”

That was their cue to leave. “You got it, Wynn,” Tanaka said, and they headed out, past the guard stationed at the door. “And, I’m guessing you’ll probably need an attorney, so make sure you get a good one. You’re going to need it.”

They left the room, a guard posted at the door, and made their way out of the hospital. Tonight they had a few more loose ends to tie up, double-checking camera footage, interviewing a store clerk and the motel clerk, then they’d wrap it up for the night and hop a plane in the morning. Destination: Missoula, Montana. They would rent a car and drive to Grizzly Falls to meet Ivy Wilde face to face.

Tanaka could hardly wait.

Brindel’s daughter was the key to this entire case; Tanaka could feel it in her bones. She’d gone through the obvious suspects, interviewing Paul Latham’s ex-girlfriends, his old business partners, his ex-wife, anyone who might have wanted him dead. She’d checked into Brindel Latham’s past as well and come up dry. Though she hadn’t cut Macon and Seth Latham off her list of suspects, and of course the missing Troy Boxer and Ronny Stillwell, the one person who might be able to point them in the right direction was Ivy Wilde, Brindel Latham’s daughter, who had been at the scene and taken off.

But there was a stumbling block squarely in her path.

She’d have to confront Regan Pescoli again. The person to whom Ivy Wilde had run, albeit in a circuitous path, and almost killing Wynn Ellis in the process.

Yeah, she was looking forward to interviewing Ivy. But dealing with Detective/Auntie Regan Pescoli was something Tanaka could definitely do without.

Chapter 20

Brooding in her room, Bianca tried to force herself out of her bad mood. Nothing was working. She’d tried listening to music, texting with her friends, playing video games, but she was still bugged. She walked to the window seat and stared through the panes to the lake. She usually liked the view, but today, with the gray clouds lying low against the treetops on the far shore, she found no peace, no tranquility.

The Ivy thing bugged Bianca.

But she had to put up with her cousin. Like it or not.

After all, Ivy had just lost her family, so Bianca needed to cut her some slack, but come on! Ivy just seemed so fake and she was really doing a number on Jeremy. And then she’d even given attention to Little Tucker and that seemed weird, too. And made Bianca uncomfortable. Not to mention that Ivy seemed to be helping herself to all of Bianca’s things, her clothes, her brush, her hair products, everything. It burned Bianca. Even if the girl had just lost her family.

At that thought Bianca frowned and told herself she was being childish and petty and totally without empathy.

Besides, there was a chance Bianca was being too hard on her because her own life seemed to be going to crap. Her father—ugh—she didn’t even like thinking of Luke Pescoli as her father, so let’s rethink that. Lucky had wounded her and she’d never forgive him, so there was that. His wife, Michelle, whom Bianca had heretofore adored as she was so funny, smart, and cute, now seemed like a fraud. Bianca was pretty sure Lucky and Michelle were going to divorce.

Already, it seemed Michelle had moved on. Her interest in her stepkids had waned along with her interest in being married to their father. It seemed Mom had been right about the woman Pescoli had referred to as a “Barbie Doll” all along.

She ran a finger along the glass and sighed, then crossed the room and flopped onto her bed. Even the pink paint on her walls bothered her. Maybe she should repaint. Black sounded good, or a dark charcoal gray.

No one understood her.

They tried.

And they failed.

School was another nightmare. Her senior year was a bust. She didn’t have a boyfriend, which was okay, but could admit she liked being part of a couple, if only to herself. Then there were her friends. They’d seemed to drift away after Bianca had been involved in the kidnapping and subsequent death of one of her abductors at her hand. Yeah, she’d had a little fame, or infamy, after the horror of last summer, but over the school year, her friends had found excuses to avoid her.

Which wasn’t exactly their fault.

Bianca had changed.

From the inside out.

You didn’t take a life, even in self-defense, and return to the way you had been before ramming a weapon into another person’s body. Suddenly, boy crushes, and fashion, the next party, and the latest reality series on TV didn’t seem all that important.

All the shrink sessions in the world couldn’t change the past or how profoundly it had affected you.

So, yeah, it wasn’t a surprise that for the first time in her life, Bianca felt completely and utterly alone.

She had her family, so that was something.

A lot more than Ivy has, her ever-guilty conscience reminded her.

And Mom was trying her best to “connect.” That was the word she used. So sometimes connect meant be a mom, other times be a friend, other times it meant Mom thought she had the right to look at her text messages or check whatever she was doing on the computer, always on the sly, but Bianca knew. But the bright spot was Tucker. He was a charmer with his dimpled, toothless smile.