Expecting to Die

The show about ghosts in Darby Gulch. Another intellectual masterpiece.
Mel paused. Shook her head. “Another attack. Wow.” Then, back in the
moment, “We’re already setting up for tonight. We’re filming again. Try not to
disturb anything. Seriously. Barclay—Mr. Sphinx, he won’t be happy.”
Not my problem, Pescoli thought and didn’t believe it anyway. Sphinx seemed
like a publicity hound to her and was always looking for some way to get
attention and promote his project, so she’d bet he’d turn Lara’s misfortune into
his own advantage. Hadn’t he done just that with Destiny Montclaire’s death?
“This is public property,” she said, stepping in. “And a continuing homicide
investigation. We have the authority to be here, as my partner said, and we
should be done quickly.” To Alex, she added, “Try to avoid the equipment and
set—unless the attack occurred there—and show us where the attack happened.”
The conversation was over. She was already striding past two guys in watch
caps sipping coffee and Mel, who was extracting her mobile phone from her
pocket again, no doubt contacting Sphinx.
Fine. Bring it on.

---

Alex took the lead, striding up the trail where shafts of morning sunlight
filtered through the branches overhead to dapple the ground. Alvarez was close
behind. Pescoli fought and failed to keep up. She wasn’t one of those pregnant
women who ran miles, or did yoga or any kind of weight training or aerobics.
She’d taken care of herself except for gaining a few extra pounds, but now her
lack of exercise regimen and approaching due date were catching up with her.
The only good news was that, as she lagged behind, she heard bossy little Mel
give Manny Douglas his marching orders off the site. Hearing the reporter
smarmily discharged was satisfying, and brought a smile to her face.
Breathing hard, she trekked up part of the dusty trail that curved around the
banks of the creek. The water was a small trickle at this point, cutting through
the thickets of pine, hemlock, and aspen, sunlight dappling the ripples that
twisted into shadow again. It was still early, not quite eight o’clock, and already
she thought the day would be a scorcher, the August sun unforgiving.
She felt a twinge deep inside. Cursing the damned Braxton Hicks
contractions, she paused to catch her breath and noted that there were hundreds
of footprints in the dust of the path. Even the dry weeds and low-lying brush that
flanked the trail had been trampled by dozens of boots, sneakers, flip-flops,
sandals, whatever. But she didn’t see any huge, bare footprints, large enough to
cause her to think that a Sasquatch had wandered past.
She moved along and caught up with Alvarez and Alex O’Hara at a spot
where the trail was split, each side cutting around an old snag from a tree that
had fallen long ago.
“It was about here,” he was saying. “I saw her phone, just there.” He pointed
at a bleached, exposed root from the long-dead stump. “I handed it to her and
then, while she was turning it on, I decided to take a piss, but I didn’t want to do
it in front of her, even in the dark, so I went up the hill, over here. . . .” He hiked
up around a copse of pines and disappeared behind it. They followed.
“And?” Pescoli said.
“Well, then I was kinda, y’know, midstream when I heard her scream.”
“What did you do?” Alvarez said, eyeing him through her sunglasses.
“I yelled and finished, y’know. Quick as I could. I mean, I thought, Oh, shit,
what now? Then I took off down the hill. . . .”
Alvarez wandered around the area behind trunks of the trees, bent down,
picked up some dirt and sniffed it as she rubbed it through the tips of her fingers.
“Smells like urine.”
He looked scandalized. “I told ya.”
“Okay, so then what?” she asked, straightening and dusting her hands.
“I found Lara. She was all messed up, and this . . . thing. . . was crashing

---

through the forest. I had my phone—we’d used the flashlight app looking for
Lara’s cell—but I couldn’t see him and even though I took a picture, it didn’t
show.” He dug into the back pocket of his jeans and came up with the phone,
showing that the last two pictures were the night-dark forest. As Alvarez slipped
her sunglasses onto her head and squinted at the phone, Pescoli peered over her
shoulder.
Nothing. Just blurry dark images of . . . who knew what?
“So then I called nine-one-one,” he said. “She was hurt. I didn’t know how
bad. The cops and EMTs and even someone from the fire department came.
They took her to the hospital in an ambulance, and I followed, to be sure she was
okay.” When they didn’t say anything, he added, “And that was it. I’ve been at
the hospital since then.”
They asked a few more questions, got no more information, then searched the
hillside for any kinds of clues and came up empty, nothing that either confirmed
or denied Alex and Lara’s story.
Once they’d returned to the staging area of the set, Pescoli was sweating, her
stomach rumbling. Sure enough, Manny Douglas was still hanging out just
beyond the periphery of the set, and he wasn’t the only reporter who had arrived.
A white television news van emblazoned with the red and blue logo for a local
station had pulled up on the far side of the barricade. Nearby, positioned in front
of a huge boulder, a trim newswoman with layered auburn hair and a smile of
perfect white teeth was holding a microphone and speaking to Barclay Sphinx
while a cameraman stood to one side recording the interview.