“I’m talkin’ female friend. You know, so you can talk it to death.”
“Yeah, I do know.” And it was more than Grayson guessed, as Pescoli didn’t think he, or anyone else at the station for that matter, knew that the runaway who had broken into her house could be her kid, though that was likely to come up. The sheriff understood that Alvarez would need some moral support. Though a private person, this kind of trauma needed discussion, with either a shrink or family. In Alvarez’s case, Pescoli was the closest she had to either, at least within a hundred-mile or so radius.
She hung up and opened the oven door. Cisco, thinking there might be a treat for him somewhere, hurried into the kitchen and stared into the oven as well. Inside, the casserole bubbled, melting cheese beginning to brown on the top.
Shaking her head, Pescoli told the ever-hopeful mutt, “I don’t think so.”
The kitchen was already warm from the heat of the stove, the smell of melting cheese filling the air. Using kitchen mittens that showed burn marks from earlier mistakes, she retrieved the glass casserole dish and set it on the stove. It, too, had a chip or two from around twenty years of abuse. Idly, she remembered that her aunt had given her the damned thing at a shower thrown for her, just before she’d married Joe, when she’d been pregnant with Jeremy.
She glanced down the hallway leading to the back stairs. Her son was holed up in his bedroom, where he’d been for the better part of the last thirty-six hours. Though he’d claimed to have taken his final later in the day yesterday, she wasn’t certain she believed him.
She didn’t want to think about how her life had come to this, from the promise of a new life and showers where baking pans were given to the expectant bride to a boy who couldn’t quite make the necessary steps to be a man nearly twenty years later. Down the stairs she went and tapped on the door.
No response. However, she knew he was inside.
Pushing open the door, she found him seated on the side of his bed, game controller in hand, earphones over his head, gaze trained on the television screen where some kind of bloody army game was being played. Currently, mazelike rooms of some kind of concrete bunker flashed and snipers appeared around corners before Jeremy deftly vaporized each one in a blood spray that turned the set a fiery red.
“Hey,” she yelled and he, as if mesmerized, didn’t so much as look up at her. “Rambo!” She touched him on the shoulder and he jumped ten feet.
“Mom!” he cried, his concentration blown. “Oh, shit! Look.” He flung an arm at the screen. “I’m dead!”
Cisco, sensing the excitement, yapped and hopped onto the unmade bed.
Scowling hard, as if he wanted to rage at his mother but thought better of it, Jeremy asked, “What?”
“I have to run out.” She was dead serious and he, calming a bit, caught on.
“Why?”
“There was a shooting over at Alvarez’s place.”
“What? Is she okay?” For the first time in weeks, she saw a glimpse of the caring boy he once was, a glimmer of the man he could become.
“Oh, sorry. I said that wrong. Guns were fired, but no one was hit. Everyone, including Selena, is okay, the suspect in custody, but, still, I need to see her, talk to her.”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” He was nodding his head, the earphones sliding to one side. “I get it. Sure.”
“That means family dinner will have to be postponed.”
“That’s okay.” He righted the headset.
“Tuna noodles a
re done. So go ahead and eat it when you want. I’ve even got salad in a bag in the refrigerator. It comes with its own dressing.”
“Okay.” Absently, in the illumination of the television screen and oddly shifting glow of his lava lamp, he petted the dog, who put his chin on Jeremy’s jean-clad thigh.
Pescoli doubted her son would even open the bag. Greens just weren’t his thing. “Don’t know when I’ll be home.”
“I’m going out later, anyway.”
“How much later?”
“Unknown.”
“Jer?” she chided, and thought she caught a whiff of marijuana. Quick as it came, it disappeared, as his window was cracked just an inch. For now she ignored the scent. “It’s snowing.”
He actually grinned, looking so much like Joe that her heart melted. “Yeah, I know. Mom, this is Montana. In the winter. It’s always snowing.”