Expecting to Die

CHAPTER 33
W
hen Lucky Pescoli opened a bleary eye, the sun was streaming through the
bedroom windows and his head pounded from a hangover that wouldn’t quit. His
stomach was queasy and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d tied one on
like this. It was a mother, a real rager.
He stumbled into the bathroom and peed as if he’d never quit before he really
woke up, blinking, shaking off, then seeing himself in the mirror, a middle-aged
man who needed to get his act together. Bits and pieces of the night before were
starting to tumble through his brain, but in painful shards, scraping and slicing
his gray matter. He opened the medicine cabinet, found a bottle of ibuprofen,
tried to remember the dosage, and said, screw it, pouring out three or four liquid
gels and swallowing them dry.
He closed the cabinet door, saw his reflection again, and recoiled. When had
he gotten so old? When had life passed him by? Suddenly he felt as if he were
riding a dying pony and everyone else in the world was racing by on
thoroughbreds. He knew he’d done something he shouldn’t the night before, and
he had a vague feeling that whatever it was would come back to haunt him. It
was that bad.
Still bleary, his booze-soaked consciousness trying to surface, he nearly fell
into the shower, then turned on the spray, the cold needles eventually turning hot.
Hands pressed against the plastic stall, he let the water run over his head, clear
his mind. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Otherwise he wouldn’t have
passed out . . . oh, man, how had he gotten home?
He lathered, smelled the booze still oozing out of his pores, and scrubbed
himself and his hair clean. Then he cranked on the handle and the steaming
water turned instantly frigid, causing him to suck in his breath and swear a word
or two before he turned the damned spray off, grabbed the pink towel hanging by
the shower—Michelle’s towel, he realized—and dried off.
Michelle.
Crap, that’s what had started it all—the fight. He’d found her cell phone and
had just been going to recharge it when, because he was suspicious, he’d scrolled
through the pictures, texts, and calls. More than a dozen, probably twenty or
twenty-five phone calls made to one number, a cell number he recognized as
belonging to Barclay Sphinx. Well, that could be explained, right?

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Michelle was an actress on his reality show, and though no one other than he
and Michelle knew it, she was the reason Barclay Fucking Sphinx had come to
Grizzly Falls in the first place. She’d been enamored with the man from the get-
go; loved his shows, especially Tarnished Stars.
After attending a seminar where he’d spoken, somewhere—Spokane? maybe
—and the success of Big Foot Territory: Oregon! she’d contacted the producer
about a sequel to the show set here, in Grizzly Damned Falls. As it turned out,
there was another group of Big Foot enthusiasts north of Missoula and Barclay
had been mulling over the idea anyway. Then, lo and behold, Bianca, his very
own daughter, had experienced her own Big Foot sighting, one that had ended in
the body of a local girl being discovered. What kind of cosmic stroke of luck
was that? A gift. From the fates. Not the dead girl, of course, that was a shame, a
horrible tragedy, but if anyone was to have found her, it was good fortune that
Bianca had stumbled into that creek.
From then on, because of the built-in publicity and hype, Barclay had been
interested.
And Luke—Lucky—Pescoli had thought his fortunes were about to change.
Through his daughter.
The only trouble was, Luke thought now, as he viewed himself in the mirror
and saw his face with its bloodshot eyes, Michelle hadn’t just found Barclay an
interesting producer or mentor or even stepping-stone to Hollywood, all of
which Luke could understand. But oh, no. Michelle, as proven by the pictures on
her phone, the late-night calls, and her general disinterest in her husband, had
fallen in love and into bed with that loser, scumbag, fucking ass-wipe of a
producer!
Michelle!
His Michelle!
The one woman in the world he’d been certain he could trust. She had adored
Lucky Pescoli.
Until that son of a douche bag came knocking.
At the thought of it, his blood boiled, and as he shaved off the stubble and
eyed his reflection, he hoped that he wasn’t seeing just the hint of a jowl
beginning on his jawline. He leaned closer to the steamy mirror. And nicked
himself.
“Goddamn it!” Luke cried, watching a small dot of blood bloom just under his
lip. He stopped it with a scrap of toilet paper he pinched off from the roll near
the toilet. As he did, he remembered the fight with Michelle.
Last night, when he’d returned from Regan’s with the news that his ex was in
labor, he’d found Michelle dressed for her part in the reality series, that of Regan

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—how was that for an ironic twist? Then he’d discovered her phone and the
incriminating evidence, and that’s when the fight had ensued. She’d stormed out
and refused to see him when he’d driven up to the set of the reality show.
“It’s over,” she’d hissed as he’d approached her. She’d been standing near a
bank of audio equipment and he’d had to step over cords to get close to her. “I
mean it, Luke,” she’d warned. “We’re through. Got it?” Her eyes had been on
fire and her small frame had actually shivered with rage. “Don’t you ever come
here, to my workplace, again!”
“Your work place? But—”
“Leave. Me. The. Hell. Alone.” She’d inched her chin up a fraction. “Don’t
blow this for me, Luke, and don’t blow it for Bianca if she still has any chance
here. Just go. I’ve already talked to a lawyer.”
“You’ve what?” He’d been struck dumb, nearly collapsing. “No! I’m not
ready to—”
“Should I call security?” She’d pointed to a burly guy about the size of a
mountain, a man who looked like he knew the inside of a cage fight intimately
and was watching Luke with eyes buried deep in his skull. With that, she’d
turned, leaving Luke physically, possibly permanently.
He’d known that, in part, she was right. He couldn’t mess up this opportunity
—this gift from heaven—for her or his daughter. Things were already dicey as it
was. Bianca was losing out to that lying, fake-faced Lara Haas. A situation that
had to be fixed. And quickly.
Rather than risk infuriating Michelle any further or causing a scene, he’d
driven into town for the first of several drinks, then bought a bottle and, with a
half-hatched plan running through his brain, decided to turn things around.
For all of them.
But now, scraping the last of his beard away around that tiny cut, the memory
of what he’d done next rolled through his brain.
Jesus.
He leaned over the sink and immediately puked.
* * *
Could anyone ever sleep in a hospital? Between being woken up to take vital
signs, the noise of other patients and staff, and, of course, a tiny baby in a
bassinet right next to her, Regan was certain she hadn’t dozed for more than five
minutes at a stretch.
Santana had spent the night, rising at dawn from the small couch/ bed built
into the wall and dropping a kiss on both her and the baby’s heads before he’d

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left, earlier this morning. She, groggy as hell, had been vaguely aware and had
vainly attempted to mumble a quick, “Love you.”
That had been over an hour ago. Since then, she’d been woken twice—once
by the nursing staff, the other by little Tucker, whom she’d held to her breast and
tried to nurse. He was getting the hang of it, and soon, she knew, her milk would
come in.
Weird that. Weirder still she’d been offered a lactation nurse to help get him
started, a service that hadn’t been available at the hospital where Bianca and
Jeremy had been born nearly two decades earlier. Through her attempts at
slumber, her thoughts, even dreams, had returned to the homicide investigations
that had been ongoing, but they seemed almost as if they belonged to another
woman as her whole life had shrunken to revolving around the needs of this one
tiny baby. Tucker moved in the small bed beside her, made a soft little
whimpering noise, then drifted off to sleep again. Regan envied him and was just
closing her eyes again when she heard someone enter the room.
“Not now,” she said, certain the nurse on the latest shift wanted to take her
temperature or blood pressure or God-only-knew-what other vital sign. Whoever
it was didn’t take the hint. She heard footsteps approach.
She opened one eye and spied her husband, his face drawn, his dark eyes
without a hint of his normal sense of humor, staring down at her. “What?” she
said, immediately awake, her detective’s mind leaping to the worst conclusions
possible.
“Bianca didn’t come home last night.”
“Where did she stay?” She blinked. “Where is she?”
“Don’t know.”