Expecting to Die

CHAPTER 8
B
ianca slept until nearly four in the afternoon, only waking when she tried to
turn over and the pain in her ankle brought her to the surface. Or the nightmares
of monsters and dead girls with flaxen hair and black empty eye sockets startled
her awake. Each time, she would fall back to sleep. She finally roused and found
Cisco curled up next to her. After her mother’s pointed comments earlier, Bianca
had turned off her phone and now clicked it on. It had blown up with messages
while she’d been asleep, dozens of texts and four unanswered calls. Despite what
she’d halfheartedly promised, she checked her texts and listened to her voice
mail, but whoever had been calling hadn’t left a message.
“Your loss,” she said to the empty room.
For now, she ignored the texts. She wasn’t in the mood to rehash what had
happened the night before.
And she was still mad at Maddie for ditching her.
She rolled over, and Cisco, who had snoozed the day away with her, gave out
a startled yelp, then bounced to the floor.
“Sorry,” Bianca said around a yawn.
She felt awful. Groggy and sore. In a bad mood.
Clumsily, because of the damned cast that couldn’t get wet, Bianca wrapped
her ankle in plastic, then forced herself through the shower. Afterward, she
found a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, then managed to get dressed. Her hair was
wet, curly, and currently a dark blond that she wasn’t that crazy about, but she
couldn’t worry about that now. She pulled it away from her face into a wet,
messy bun and didn’t bother with makeup. She looked like a freak anyway with
the scrapes and bruises visible on her face and bare arms. And where could she
go with the stupid soft cast?
Nowhere.
Not that she had anywhere she needed to be.
She worked part-time as a waitress at a local diner, but had already left a
message with the manager that she’d be out of commission for a few weeks, so
she was stuck here, at home with the dogs and her cell phone.
“Lame,” she said into her reflection, then grimaced at the sight of her messed-
up face. She felt bad about Destiny. Dear God, no one should end up rotting in a
creek. And though she hadn’t admitted it to her nosy cop of a mother, the kids

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who’d been up at Reservoir Point were asking her a million questions about the
girl. Somehow they’d all figured out the victim was Destiny, long before Mom
had shown up in Bianca’s room this morning.
She hobbled down the stairs, made her way into the kitchen, and then, hearing
her phone ring again, cursed herself for leaving the damned thing on her bed.
She muttered as she grabbed a container of mixed berry yogurt and a spoon, then
headed up the stairs again. Of course she didn’t reach her room by the time the
phone had stopped ringing, and of course whoever it was who’d phoned
—
PRIVATE CALLER
was listed on the small screen—didn’t leave a message.
As she dug into the yogurt, she perused her texts, discovered nothing new, and
switched on her television, a recent addition to her room, compliments of Dad
and Michelle, a gift for her seventeenth birthday.
The phone rang again, and this time, she snagged it from the bed and
answered with one hand while muting the TV with her other.
“Is this Bianca Pescoli?” a husky male voice asked when she answered.
“Yes.”
“My name is Carlton Jeffe, and I live here in Grizzly Falls. You may have
heard of me.”
She hadn’t but didn’t say so and waited for him to go on.
“Well, see, I’m the president of our local club, the BFBs. Y’know, the Big
Foot Believers.”
Her stomach tightened. So that’s what this was about. “Okay.”
“And I heard that you had a close encounter with a Sasquatch last night, that
one of them chased you up around Reservoir Point. Is that right?”
Again, she didn’t answer.
Jeffe said, “You saw one.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Well, honey, it’s all over town. Bryant Tophman is one of our members. He
let me know. Me and some of the other guys, organizers, y’know.”