Afraid to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

“Look, it’s freezing out here, but we need to talk,” she said.

“There’s a bar down the street.”

“Uh ... no.” She thought of some of the off-duty deputies who hung out there. In fact, none of the surrounding restaurants could provide her with the sense of privacy she needed. The same could be said of a lot of places in town. Because of the recent homicides in Grizzly Falls, and her part in solving the crimes, she’d been interviewed on television and photographed for the local paper. She was a recognizable face. “Look. Why don’t you come to my place?” she suggested with difficulty.

One of his dark eyebrows lifted. “Any particular reason?”

“There’s something I want to tell you and it would be best done in private.”

“Fine,” he said, stepping away from her SUV. “I’ll follow you.”

Sliding behind the wheel of the Subaru, she wondered if she’d made a vast mistake. However, it was too late to change her mind. As she fired up the engine, she glanced in the side-view mirror before pulling away from the curb and she caught a glimpse of O’Keefe climbing into the old Ford that had been parked down the street.

She knew that being with him was a mistake, but she didn’t feel she had any choice. She did want to find out about Gabriel Reeve, locate the boy and determine if he was her son. And she wanted her dog back.

Nosing the Subaru away from the curb, she hit the gas and pulled a quick U-turn, passing O’Keefe and a news van that had rolled to the station and was idling near the parking lot. In her rearview, she caught the Explorer turning around with a little more difficulty, then its headlights bore down on her as she slowed for a red light.

Feeling more than a little bit of apprehension at confiding in O’Keefe, Alvarez switched on the radio and noticed that snow was beginning to fall again, the storm that had been promised rolling across the Bitterroots.

Why, she wondered, did she feel as if it were an omen?

“This is sooo lame!” Jeremy was trying to unwind last year’s exterior lights in the living room and wasn’t happy about it. The strand was strung out over the couch and part of the recliner before kinking its way across the carpet while the television was tuned in to some pre-game basketball talk show.

“What’s lame about it??

?? Pescoli asked from the kitchen, where Cisco was dancing around her feet, hoping for a scrap. Not that she cared why Jer was complaining. She was used to it. Leaning over the stove and one of the two working burners, she tasted the spaghetti pie sauce, a recipe that Joelle had passed out, via e-mail, earlier in the month. Pescoli had seen it while cleaning out her in-box and printed it out as it looked like something everyone in the family would eat.

Even Bianca, who was currently off her vegetarian diet, a regimen she imposed upon herself and the family every time she saw some show on television on the conditions of animals raised for feed, or some show about healthy eating. Either way, Pescoli didn’t care, as long as she knew ahead of time, before she made a pot of beef stew or roasted a chicken. Today, she thought, she was safe.

“Why do we even put up lights on the house?” Jeremy complained. Lying on the floor, desperately in need of a haircut and a shave, his jeans almost falling off his butt, he plugged in the strand and thankfully, all of the bulbs glowed, casting tiny pools of eerie-colored light onto the furniture and carpeting.

“ ’Tis the season. Hey, we always put up lights. And, come on, we have to have some traditions around here.” She poured the sauce over the pasta and cheese pie, sprinkled a little more mozzarella over the top and shoved the heavy pie plate into the warming oven. Cooking wasn’t really her thing, and if she were being honest with herself, she’d have to admit that the case was on her mind. She hadn’t been able to shake the image of Lara Sue Gilfry enshrouded in ice all day and there was still Len Bradshaw’s “accidental” death while hunting that hadn’t been solved, not to mention whatever the hell was going on with Alvarez, Dylan O’Keefe and the runaway kid wanted for armed robbery. Nonetheless, Pescoli couldn’t work twenty-four-seven. Besides, her kids needed her. There had to be a balance in her life. She was going to have family time, damn it, no matter if her kids hated her for it.

And what about Nate Santana? Where does he fit into all this? He’d been patient. A saint with a demon’s wicked smile. But even he wouldn’t wait forever; she needed to decide what to do about him.

“Maybe it’s time for new ones,” Bianca offered up from the kitchen table, where she was supposed to be signing Christmas cards but was spending most of her time with her phone, texting.

Pescoli said, “New traditions?” as she’d lost the thread of the conversation while testing the sauce and musing about her complicated life.

“Mmm. Michelle’s even going to change the color of her tree this year.” Bianca, fingers still flying, glanced up and Pescoli was caught off guard, taken by how much her daughter looked like Luke. That was the way of it; both her kids resembled their fathers much more than they did her, which wasn’t a bad thing. Joe had been rugged, a real he-man, and Luke, damn him, was almost Hollywood handsome with a bad-boy, slightly off-center smile that could melt even the coldest heart. As evidenced by the fact that he’d convinced Regan Strand to marry him.

“No more pink-flocked tree?” Pescoli asked, trying to hide the sarcasm in her voice. Why Luke’s current wife bugged her, she didn’t know. Yes, Michelle was younger and prettier and made herself up like a Barbie doll, but she wasn’t as dumb as she acted and Pescoli certainly didn’t want her cheating ex back. Never. Luke was just no damned good. At least not for her. Handsome? Yes. Narcissistic? You betcha. And he and Michelle seemed to somehow get along.

Good.

Truth to tell, it was the whole stepmom thing that got to Pescoli. Michelle, barely a decade older than Bianca, was into pampering and fluff and fake fingernails and hair extensions, platform heels and the damned Kardashians and Jersey Shore, for God’s sake. All things Pescoli avoided like the plague. So the fact that she was influencing Bianca really got under Pescoli’s skin.

“Michelle is thinking of going retro with one of those aluminum trees with spinning, colored lights on it.” Bianca, as always, seemed in awe of the woman’s inspiration.

“Why doesn’t she really go retro and cut her own in the woods, you know a real tree with real needles and real pitch, one that smells of fir or pine and maybe isn’t perfectly shaped?”

Bianca rolled her eyes. “Because she’s not into that, Mom. What she’s planning to do with the house this year? It’s really kinda cool.”

Of course it is. “And your dad is okay with this? The retro thing?”

“He doesn’t care,” she said with a lift of her slim shoulder. “As long as it doesn’t block his view of his new TV.”

“Another one?” Oh, God why did she even bring Luke up?