“Did you hear me?” Bianca demanded.
“Yes. You said you got the papers. What papers?” Pescoli was wiping the counter, loading the dishwasher, but paused to look at Bianca.
“The ones to legally change my name.”
“You’re really going through with it?” Pescoli tossed her wet towel into the sink.
“I told you I was.” Bianca glanced at Santana, who was bent over, pulling on his boots near the back door, dogs swarming around him as he got ready to feed the stock. “Just my last name. I’m getting rid of the Pescoli part.” She hesitated, staring at her stepfather. “If it’s okay with you. I’ll change it from Pescoli to Santana.”
He didn’t straighten, just looked from his stepdaughter to his wife, then back as he tugged on the top of a boot. “This isn’t my call, Bianca,” he said. “Of course it’s fine with me, you know that. I think of you as my daughter as it is. No matter what your name. But this is something between you, your dad, and your mother.”
“Lucky doesn’t get a vote,” she said stubbornly.
Pescoli picked up the baby, who had begun to fuss a little, demanding attention. “Lucky will be pissed and you’ll have to deal with the fallout.”
“I’m never talking to him again.”
Santana jammed on the second boot and stretched to his full height. “I know you don’t get this yet, but life is long, people change, time has a way of smoothing out the rough edges of your life.”
“Or making more,” Bianca said, reaching for a towel and wringing it between her hands.
“Just don’t do anything you’ll regret,” he warned. “But as I said, it’s fine by me.”
“Mom?” she asked.
“Your call. But don’t do anything rash.”
“So I can be more like you?” she said, and Santana, reaching for his hat, smothered a smile.
“Yeah, that’s your mom, always levelheaded. On a smooth, even keel.” He slid the flat of his hand across the air indicating how even-tempered Pescoli was.
“Not so subtle point taken,” she said to her husband as he whistled to the dogs and walked outside, letting in a rush of bitter cold air.
“So it’s okay with you?” Bianca asked.
“Of course. Your name. Your life. But you probably have to tell your dad.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “Let him find out on his own. I said I wasn’t talking to him again and I meant it.” She slammed the dishwasher shut. “And as I said earlier, you might want to change your name, too. Once I’m Santana, the only person who will have the same one as you will be Dad. And everyone else will be Santana. Well, except Jer, but he doesn’t really count.”
“Don’t tell him that.”
“I mean he’s almost out of the house.”
“I’ll think about it.” And for the first time since deciding to marry Santana, she considered it again. There was a good chance that in this case, Bianca was right. Why the hell was she hanging on to a name that only brought heartache, pain, and fury with it? If Bianca really went through with it, so should she.
She fed and changed the baby and was about to put him down for the night when her cell phone chimed. Withdrawing it from her back pocket, she saw Alvarez’s number on the screen.
“I think you better get up here, to Cougar Point,” Alvarez said grimly as soon as Pescoli answered. “There’s something you need to see.” Then, before Pescoli could ask why, she added, “We’ve found two bodies, nearly frozen solid, left in the cab of a truck. Double-homicide. Looks like the victims might just be Troy Boxer and Ronny Stillwell, the two men Paterno and Tanaka were looking for.”
* * *
Pescoli didn’t waste any time. She texted her husband, left the baby with Bianca with little explanation, then tore out in her Jeep, following the directions she’d received from Alvarez straight to the spur of the old logging road. Police vehicles, blue and red lights flashing, beams reflecting on the snow, were positioned near the entrance to a narrow lane, crime scene tape strung between the trees. A fire truck and ambulance were parked just on the other side of an open gate, and a little deeper into the woods she saw a panel truck for the crime scene unit. A deputy was posted at the gate and barred anyone from getting by.
Pescoli wasn’t the first to arrive. A television crew had already set up with Talli Donahue, the blond reporter from KBTR, standing in front of the tape, her cameraman recording her report. She wasn’t alone. Manny Douglas, the reporter for the Mountain Reporter, was already on the scene. Dressed in an oversized ski jacket and matching insulated pants, he was seated in his older SUV and seemed to be dictating into his phone. At the sight of Pescoli’s arrival, he threw open the door and, as she got out of her Jeep, demanded her attention.
“Detective Pescoli,” he called. “Are you back on duty?”
“Not now, Manny.”