Born To Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Oh! I thought she said she called you yesterday. . . .”

“She didn’t.”

“Then . . . well, I’m sorry to have bothered you. If you hear from her, would you have her call Mia?”

“I won’t. But, yeah, sure. At the school?”

“That, too, but if she could call my cell?” Mia sounded seriously worried. “This is just not her usual style. Jocelyn is the most focused, dedicated teacher I know. She just wouldn’t not show up and leave her students high and dry. . . . It just doesn’t make any sense. Well, thanks.”

He hung up and turned to find Tilly standing in the doorway, not even trying to hide the fact that she’d been eavesdropping. “That was the school again, right? About Jocelyn Wallis?”

“A friend of hers,” he admitted.

Tilly’s expression was dark. “I heard from my niece that she didn’t show up today. It was odd.”

“The niece again,” Ed clarified.

“Her friend said she called me yesterday, but I didn’t get a message.” Trace saw Eli slide farther down in his chair. “Or did I?”

The boy shook his head, but Trace walked to the ancient wall phone that was an answering machine as well. No light was blinking, no message waiting, but when he pressed the button to see who’d called, WALLIS, J. showed on the screen.

“Did you hear a message from Miss Wallis?” he asked his son, but Eli was already shaking his head.

“Uh-uh . . . there wasn’t any message.” The boy looked stricken, but Trace believed him. He poked a few buttons, heard nothing, and a cold feeling crawled slowly up his spine. He hung up and found Tilly staring at him.

“Maybe you’d better go check it out,” she suggested. “We’ll stay here with Eli.”

“But I want to go, too,” his son protested.

“What?” Tilly said with mock horror. “And get out of a rematch? No way, Jose! This is my chance to dominate!” She sent Trace a quick glance, and he got the message.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said and headed out the door, leaving the Zukovs in charge as he strode to his pickup with Sarge at his feet. “Fine. You can come this time.” He opened the driver’s door of the cab, and the dog hopped inside, settling into his favorite spot in the passenger seat.

Trace climbed behind the wheel, started the old Chevy, and wondered what the hell he’d find at Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment.

“Probably nothing,” he told himself, ramming the truck into gear and flipping on the wipers. But the sensation that he was about to step into something bad hung with him as he stared through the windshield to a dusk that promised a darkness he couldn’t comprehend.

CHAPTER 6

Once again, Pescoli’s daughter was a no-show.

“I assumed you knew that Bianca wasn’t in school today.” The counselor, Miss Unsel, sat behind a massive desk piled with folders and surrounded by bound copies of college catalogs and directories. The only natural light came from windows mounted high overhead, and the room had a slightly musty smell to it.

“I dropped her off right before the first bell.” Pescoli was terse.

Miss Unsel, with a thick black braid that fell over one shoulder, turned her palms upward. “She wasn’t in her homeroom for attendance. Mr. Cohn marked her absent, as did every other teacher in her block.”

“She hasn’t been here all day. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“Yes.” Peony Unsel was nodding her head in agreement, the end of her braid moving against the bright stripes of the serape she was wearing. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“That’s why I’m here. I was hoping you could tell me, well, us, because she was supposed to be here.”

The counselor picked up a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses and studied her computer screen, then typed in another command or two and said, “She’s failing two classes, Spanish and algebra, and just getting by in the others.” Miss Unsel regarded Pescoli over the rims of her glasses. “But she missed two major tests today, one in U.S. history, the other in English.”

Pescoli’s heart sank. “She can make them up?”

The counselor was nodding. “If she has a valid excuse and her teachers agree, I don’t see why not. It’s our mission to help our students become successful adults.” She offered Pescoli a beatific, “Kumbaya” type smile that Pescoli couldn’t help thinking had to be fake.