Expecting to Die

Now you’re starting to think like Pescoli.
She sipped her rapidly cooling tea, the sweet scent of chai filtering up her
nose, the warm liquid soothing.
There was nothing in the files to suggest that Carolina had used her municipal
influence to save her kid’s reputation.
Anyway, Alvarez was definitely getting the cart before the horse. First, the
department had to have a confirmation that a homicide had been committed.
She flipped through the computer images, pictures of the rotting body in the
creek, pale hair floating around a decomposing face, then an earlier yearbook
shot of a blonde girl with wide, ingenuous blue eyes, a turned-up nose, and a
timid smile.
What happened to you? Alvarez thought, setting her cup aside to study the
image of the girl who appeared so innocent. So far, she didn’t have a profile on

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the girl, didn’t understand her relationship with her parents, family, or friends.
She’d just begun to scratch the surface of Destiny Rose Montclaire’s life.
Why, she wondered, would anyone want this nearly angelic-looking girl dead?

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CHAPTER 6
P
escoli opened a bleary eye and saw that it was ten o’clock and sunlight was
streaming through the cracks in the blinds to stripe the foot of her bed. Santana
wasn’t with her; he’d probably gone to the Long ranch to oversee the daily
routine and, it seemed, he’d taken the dogs with him or at least moved them
from the room. There were now three canines, a pack in Pescoli’s groggy mind.
She envied her husband’s energy; he’d been up as late as she, filling her in on the
trip to the hospital before he’d fallen asleep. Fortunately, Bianca’s injuries were
minor, and she was only supposed to wear a splint to stabilize her foot for a
week or two to make sure she didn’t tweak it again.
She threw back the covers but continued to lie in bed. The bedroom was warm
despite the fan moving the air slowly overhead and the summer breeze that
wafted into the room from the open sliding door that led to the deck.
She closed her eyes for what she thought was less than five minutes, but as her
gaze focused on the bedside clock she realized it was now nearly eleven. Great.
Every muscle in her body ached from lack of sleep, and she felt as if she could
just grab a few more minutes.... She closed her eyes again.
Get up!
She’d never been a morning person, but today was worse than ever. She was
so tired, and a headache from lack of sleep had started to bang at her temples. At
that moment, the baby kicked. Hard. “Okay, okay,” she grumbled. “You don’t
have to nag me, too.” The kicking continued and she sighed. So it was going to
be that kind of day.
Terrific.
With an effort she pushed herself up, waddled to the bathroom, used the toilet,
and turned on the shower. She peeled off her nightgown and stepped under the
spray as it began to warm, her skin goose-pimpling at the shock. Any remnants
of sleep were chased away as the water heated, pulsing jets throbbing over her
body, steam rising. That was more like it.
As she lathered, she thought about the night before, the party, the dead girl,
Bianca’s weird story about being chased by a hairy monster.
Big Foot, my ass.
Just kids messing with each other.
Except that a girl is dead. Most likely murdered.

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As the warm water flowed over her, she brushed her teeth in the shower, a
trick she’d learned from Santana, rinsed quickly then turned off the faucet and
grabbed a towel from its hook. Her headache had lessened, but now she was
ravenously hungry. Eyeing the scales across the room as she towel-dried, she
frowned, cast a look in the mirror, and decided to forgo the morning routine of
depressing herself by checking her current weight.
In less than ten minutes, she was fully dressed in gawd-awful maternity
slacks, a T-shirt, and a light jacket, her hair twisted into a loose, wet ponytail,
what little makeup she bothered with, lipstick and a brush of mascara, applied.
“Ready for the day,” she muttered as she pulled on lightweight boots that were
getting tight. Just like everything else.
Pushing open the door of the master bedroom, she started down the hallway,
then heard Bianca’s voice through the nearly closed door of her room. Pescoli
rapped softly, then pushed on the door to find her daughter in a pool of pink
blankets, cell phone pressed to her ear as she sat, cross-legged on her bed, a
purple splint visible over her ankle.
As in Pescoli and Santana’s bedroom, bright Montana sunlight was piercing
through the curtains, illuminating Bianca’s room with its stark white walls,
accented by every shade of pink imaginable. The light fixture was a small
chandelier, the carpet a silvery gray, curtains, bedding and art bright splotches
ranging from bubble-gum pink to almost lavender, nothing Pescoli would have
ever chosen.
Santana and Pescoli had built this cabin in the last year and had decided to
allow Bianca to decorate her room to her taste, create her own space. They’d
thought it would help her adjust to the fact that her mother had remarried, Bianca
now had a stepfather, and yes, on top of all that, she, nearly finished with high
school, was soon to become an older sister.
So far, the plan had worked—even if all the girly touches were the antithesis
of everything Pescoli had ever believed in and, unfortunately, an homage to
Michelle, Bianca’s ever-irritating high-maintenance stepmother. Pescoli had
grown up a tomboy and athlete and had never had any interest in princesses,
castles, fingernail polish, or jewelry. Not so her daughter.
“Yeah . . . I know . . . I’m okay . . . I know! Really scary. Freaked me out . . .
umhmm,” Bianca was saying into her cell. She glanced up at her mother, and
even from across the room, Pescoli noticed the two tiny stitches that held the
skin beneath her chin together. “Yeah, that would be nice. Tell Michelle thanks,”
Bianca was saying. “I’m just glad I don’t have to go to school. I look awful. Like
something out of The Walking Dead . . . oh, yeah. Seriously freaked me out . . .
What? Sure . . . of course. I will . . . Love you, too. Bye, Daddy.” She hit a

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button, disconnecting the call, then started immediately texting someone.
“Hey,” Pescoli said. The room smelled faintly of fingernail polish. Clothes
were strewn over the floor, desk chair, makeup table, and window seat.
“Hey.” Bianca didn’t look up, her fingers flying expertly over the phone’s
smooth surface.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Not great.”
“How not great?”
“I dunno. I kinda hurt all over. My arm and shoulder and leg, but this”—she
pointed to her chin—“it’s sooo awful. I mean, I might have to have plastic
surgery.”
“I doubt it.”
“You don’t know. Mom, I can’t have a scar, not on my face!” Bianca was
nothing if not a drama queen.
“Let’s not go off the deep end, okay. Wait until it heals. It could add character
to your face. You know, like Harrison Ford.”
“He’s a man, Mom. An old man.”
“That ‘old man’ is still a bona fide heartthrob, let me tell you.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “It’s going to take forever to look okay, if it ever
does!” She was texting again.
“How’s the ankle?”
“It hurts! Bad!” But Bianca hadn’t really mentioned it until her mother
brought up the subject. A good sign.
“Take care of it, okay? I have to go to work.”
“You know, Mom, I’m pretty sure that girl was Destiny.” Her lips folded over
themselves as she tossed the idea through her brain. “I mean, I can’t be a
hundred percent, but I thought about it last night—I couldn’t stop thinking about
it—and I saw her face, the way it was in the water all, you know, rotting, the
flesh falling apart.”
She shuddered, finally dropping the phone into her lap as she met Pescoli’s
eyes. “And I think it must be her . . .”
Pescoli navigated her way over a river of strewn clothes to take a seat on the
end of the bed. “You’re right. About the girl being Destiny, I mean. Alvarez
texted me earlier this morning. The ID was confirmed by her parents.”
Bianca blanched. It was one thing to conjecture, another to learn the truth and
have reality hit. “Oh, God.” She blinked, then bit her lip. “So . . . what happened
to her? Was it—? Did someone kill her?”
“Don’t know yet. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Absently rubbing one forearm with her fingers, she asked, “Do you . . . do you

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think it was one of the kids, the ones that were there?”
“Have no idea. But we do know that whatever happened to her didn’t occur
last night. Time of death’s all wrong. It was sometime before, but we haven’t
really pinned it down yet. Long before your party got started anyway. Whose
idea was it to meet up at Reservoir Point?”
She lifted a shoulder. Eyed her phone as a soft ding alerted her to the fact that
another text was arriving. “One of the boys. I don’t know. Probably Austin. He’s
kind of in charge.”