Expecting to Die

That was fast.
Unshaven, in a turtleneck, jacket, and jeans, Barclay was saying, “. . . such a
scare. Yes. I feel fortunate that Miss Haas is all right.”
“Is she a member of the Big Foot Territory: Montana! cast?” the reporter
asked.
“Yes, yes.” Barclay was nodding, stroking his soul patch, his eyes thoughtful
behind his glasses. “A good little actress.”
“What part does she play?”
“In the first episode, she’s one of a group of local kids we hired to kind of
recreate what happened at the first sighting, but I’m still working through the
upcoming scripts, so who knows?” He gave a smile. “I like to use as much local
talent as possible.”
His assessment of the situation, while echoing what he’d said at the Big Foot
Believers meeting, wasn’t what was actually happening with the series, at least
not according to Bianca. She’d been under the impression that the continuing
plot line was going to swirl around feuding families from somewhere north of

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Missoula. Maybe Bianca had gotten it wrong, which Pescoli didn’t believe, or
maybe Sphinx had changed his mind again, or even maybe the producer was
playing to the audience as these local reporters could stir up some buzz about the
series, start the ball rolling, get some statewide, regional, even national coverage.
Time would tell, of course, but time was something she didn’t have much of.
Her cell phone jangled. She checked the screen. Sage Zoller. “Pescoli,” she
answered, still watching the producer work his audience.
“Thought you’d want to know. Nine-one-one got a call about a break in a
guardrail. A road deputy went out to check and reported that it’s broken, right on
a curve of the road leading to Horsebrier Ridge, almost at the summit.”
Oh, no. Pescoli’s heart was ice.
“The deputy looked over the edge and thought he saw a car buried in the
brush about a hundred feet down or so. We got an emergency crew out there,
EMTs, firefighters, and a couple rappelled down the cliff. Turns out to be a Ford
Focus, registered to Lindsay Cronin.”
“Anyone inside?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“Yeah. One. Dead. Female. ID says it’s her. Lindsay Cronin.”
Pescoli fought the urge to throw up right here, at Reservoir Point, with a
television camera rolling. “Let’s go,” she said to Alvarez, then to Alex, “I’ll need
a sample of your DNA ASAP, and I’ll want one from your brother.”
“What? We didn’t do anything!”
She gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him. “I’m going to get one
from everyone who knew Destiny Montclaire, any boy she even said hello to.
Tell your brother and get down to the station.”
“I’m not gonna do it.”
Pescoli turned on him. She was tired of all the arguments, the hiding behind
lawyers, the petulance of it all. Now two girls were dead. Who knew how many
more? Her stomach roiled and anger sped through her veins. “Then I’ll go
through the system. But that looks pretty bad that you’re refusing, so think it
over. You’ve got about twenty minutes. Then, if I haven’t heard that you’ve
voluntarily given up a sample, I’ll get a court order and if you don’t comply I’ll
throw your ass in jail and I’ll force the issue. Got it?”
“Jesus, all I’ve done is try to help,” he complained.
“Then you can help a little more.” She flashed a cold-as-ice smile. “Just do it,
Alex.” And then she and Alvarez were striding back to the car. Thoughts of
Lindsay Cronin crowded Pescoli’s brain. An accident? In the middle of the
night? After talking to Kywin Bell?
She remembered Lindsay as a preschooler, a shy little girl, but curious.
Intelligent . . . and again, like with Lara Haas, that was a long while ago for

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Pescoli, who recalled Lindsay through her preschool days, and then later, when
she and Bianca were in the primary grades of elementary school and on sports
teams together—that was, until Bianca turned her attention away from anything
remotely athletic.
And now Lindsay was dead.
She felt a numbness deep inside, a dark pain for the loss of such a young life,
a girl on the brink of becoming a woman, who was not so unlike her own
daughter. Maybe it was Pescoli’s pregnancy, hormones going crazy so near the
birth, or perhaps she was growing soft as she aged, or more probably because
Lindsay’s death, like Destiny’s before her, hit so close to home.
Pescoli felt sucker-punched. For the love of God, maybe everyone around her
was right; maybe she should turn in her damned badge and give up investigating
homicides, when one human takes the life of another.
“What’s going on?” Alvarez asked, snapping Pescoli back to the here and
now. “Who called?”
“Zoller.” She was at the Jeep and was in control again, pushing aside her
emotions, trying to think rationally, like a cop. “Looks like we found Lindsay
Cronin, in her car, at the bottom of Horsebrier Canyon.”
“Oh, God.” Alvarez expelled a heavy breath. Seeing Pescoli trying to lever
herself behind the wheel, she ordered, “Come with me. I’ll drive. Let’s get on
this.” And with that, she headed to her Subaru.

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