Ready to Die (Alvarez & Pescoli)

g long enough to snarf down his dinner.

Pescoli left her daughter’s room and started down the narrow staircase at the back of the house, to the basement and Jeremy’s room. Rapping on his door with her knuckles, she felt it give way, opening to a dark room where a lava lamp was slowly burping, its weird-shaped, gelatinous lumps giving off an eerie glow. “Jer—?”

“He’s not here!” Bianca called from the floor above. Pescoli looked up to find her daughter leaning over the rail. She’d found a pair of jeans and her hair, as she leaned, fell forward around her face. “I just texted him.”

“Where is he?”

Bianca gave her mother a knowing look. “Where do you think?”

“With Heidi.”

“You got it.”

“I thought it was over between them.”

“That was last week.”

Great. Pescoli had hoped that after the last breakup Jeremy wouldn’t get back with Heidi, but, it seemed, they were forever doomed to their on-again/off-again romance. Her only hope was that one of them would grow up enough to move on, get out of Grizzly Falls, start making a real life for him- or herself. So far, it wasn’t happening. Heidi was still in high school, and Jeremy was struggling with classes at the local community college. He seemed lost, sometimes not enrolled in college at all and working at the local gas station, only to “go back to school,” only to change his mind and make a stab at something else again.

All the while, he’d never been able to break it off with Heidi. The undersheriff’s daughter seemed to be his grounding point, which scared Pescoli to death.

“I texted him, he’s on his way,” Bianca said as Pescoli started climbing the stairs.

“Well, let’s eat. The pizza’s getting cold.”

“I thought you were making spaghetti.”

“Ran out of time. Maybe tomorrow.”

Bianca was following her into the kitchen. “I’m not really that hungry.”

“Why not?”

“I already ate.”

“When?” Pescoli asked.

“I don’t know. A few hours ago.” She leaned over again, scooped her wild curls together, and snapped a colored band around her fistful of hair.

“What did you eat?”

Bianca straightened. “A power bar and a Diet Coke.”

“Again?” Pescoli groaned. “Listen, I’m not going to get into it about the merits of eating well. We’ll skip that lecture tonight, but between you and me, the protein bar and soda? Doesn’t count as a meal. Maybe not even a snack.”

“You just said you weren’t going to give me a lecture.”

“I might have lied.”

“Geez.” Bianca stalked to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. She took a long swallow before recapping the bottle as Pescoli warmed slices of the pizza in the microwave and both dogs waited impatiently, eyes on the platter.

“You wouldn’t like it,” she told them as the first plate was the Vegetarian’s Delight. Looking at the thin, limp strips of peppers and onions, Pescoli silently agreed with the dogs. “Here ya go.”

“Yummy,” Bianca said without enthusiasm as she kicked out a chair and sat down.

“You usually love Dino’s,” she said as she shoved plate number two into the microwave and hit the Start button.

“Only pizza parlor in town.”