by Lisa Jackson
“I already ‘talked’ with Dad.”
More good news. “And what did your father say?” she asked through gritted teeth. Luke “Lucky” Pescoli was hardly the epitome of parenthood.
“To get some rest.”
Perfect. “I’ll be there in fifteen. Now put your brother on the phone.”
“Your turn.” Bianca’s voice was a singsong reprimand as she obviously gladly turned the receiver back to her son Jeremy.
Again, Pescoli considered lighting up but thought better of it as the storefronts lining the street gave way to homes.
“Uh-huh?” Jeremy said as his way of greeting.
“Just wondering, what are you doing at the house?” When he’d moved out of her small place, little more than a cabin in the woods and the only home he’d ever known, this past summer, his leaving had been a blessing as well as a curse.
“Uh. . ’cuz it’s home.”
“You moved out. I didn’t want you to, but you insisted last summer,” she reminded him. “I thought you’d be at work.”
“They turned off the gas at my place. There’s no heat. Guess they, um, didn’t get the check in time. But that’s bogus, ’cuz I mailed it yesterday. It’s not my fault that one of my roommates didn’t get the money to me.”
“And your job?” she asked with extreme patience.
Hesitation. “Lou didn’t need me at the station today.”
“Is that right?” Jeremy had been pumping gas at Corky’s Gas and Go for nearly nine months, while he “decided” if he wanted to go to school. “Jer?” she said when he didn’t immediately answer. “Just tell me you didn’t lose your job.”
“Okay. I won’t.” He was defensive. Short.
Damn it all to hell. If only Joe were still alive. Jeremy’s father, another cop, had been great in a crisis. That is, until he was killed in the line of duty when his son was too young to really remember his father. So Pescoli had become mother and father to her boy, until she’d made the mistake of marrying Luke, who had tried to step in and had only made a worse mess of things.
“Wait for me. I’ll be home soon. And before I get there, would you please make sure Cisco’s had his dinner?”
“We’re outta dog food.”
“Then get some.”
“I, uh, don’t have any money.”
“Fabulous.”
“I gotta go. Heidi’s texting me.”
“Jeremy! Wait—” But the phone was suddenly dead in her hand. She hadn’t even had a chance to warn him off Heidi Brewster again. God, she’d hoped that teen romance had died a quick death last year.
Looked like her prayers hadn’t been answered.
But then, that wasn’t a big surprise.
Maybe she’d made a mistake by not moving in with her boyfriend, but she hadn’t thought it would be wise. Just because a man could turn her inside out in the bedroom was no reason to bring him home and slap the name tag STEPFATHER on him. As much as she thought she was in love with him, she’d decided not to go to that next level. Yet.
There was a good chance she was a commitment-o-phobe, or whatever you wanted to call it, but she’d been married twice and that might just be enough.
For a while.
Until her kids were raised.
Or until she was more comfortable with the situation.
You might lose him, that nagging inner voice warned, and she scoffed. Then it wasn’t meant to be.
She stopped at a small convenience store at the next crossroads, bought a small bag of dog food, a gallon of milk, and two Snickers candy bars to stuff into her glove box, along with the pack of Marlboros.
Just in case.
Then she hit the road again.
Twenty minutes later she was walking through the door from the garage of her little cottage. Cisco, her terrier of undeterminable lineage, shot off the couch, sped across the living room floor, and yapping excitedly, began doing pirouettes at her feet.
“Hey, I’m glad to see you, too.” After placing her groceries on the counter, she leaned over, patted Cisco’s scruffy head, scratched his ears, then straightened and walked through the dining area to the living room, where all six feet two inches of her son were sprawled, his feet hanging over the end of her couch. “I’m not so sure I can say the same about you.”
“Nice, Mom,” he said, not bothering to glance up as he stared at the television, where some reality show was playing out.
“Tell me about work.”
“Nothin’ much to tell.”
God, he looked like his father. Dark hair, intense eyes, sharp cheekbones, and two days’ worth of beard stubble darkening a hard, masculine jaw, a darker spot on his chin, where he’d managed to grow a soul patch. “Did you get fired?”
He finally looked up, glaring at her as if she were an idiot. “Just got my hours cut back, that’s all.”
“That’ll make it tough paying the rent or the gas bill.”
He lifted a shoulder. She wanted to spell it all out to him, about the consequences of his slacker lifestyle, but Jeremy had always been a kid who learned by experience rather than example. The cutting off of the gas and the cost of reconnecting would be a good object lesson.
She patted him on the shoulder. “I am glad to see you, you know. I just wish it was that you came over to see me, rather than because you were freezing your butt off at your apartment.”
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I know.”
“I’m going to check on your sister.” Another pat. “Could you please feed Cisco? There’s dog food in the grocery sack.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t move.
“I’m talking about in this century.”
“Very funny,” he said. But he did manage a slow grin, and it was a heart-stopper. Again, just like his father. No wonder Heidi Brewster hadn’t shaken loose.
Jeremy actually climbed to his feet and said, “Come on, runt,” to the dog as Pescoli made her way down the short hallway and rapped on Bianca’s door before stepping inside the mess. Whereas Jeremy’s old bedroom downstairs had posters of basketball players and rock bands, Bianca’s room was a study in all things girl, from a canopy bed that she’d decorated with Christmas lights to a makeup desk and lighted mirror, where at least ten brushes of varying sizes stood in a jar next to baskets of lipstick, eye shadow, and God only knew what else. The walls were a shocking pink, a color she loved.
Bianca was curled on the bed, a silvery duvet tucked around her, a Pepsi One bottle on her nightstand, next to a pile of teen and fashion magazines that had spilled onto the bed beside her. While her laptop was playing some movie, she was texting on her cell phone.
“So what happened?” Pescoli asked as her daughter glanced up from her cell phone to offer a quick, aren’t-I-just-so-cute smile. Red-blond curls framed a face where freckles were barely visible across the bridge of her small nose and large hazel eyes. While her brother was the spitting image of Joe Strand, Bianca resembled her own father, Luke Pescoli. Fortunately — well, at least up until recently — Bianca seemed a lot smarter than her father.
Time would tell on that one.
“What do you mean?” Bianca asked innocently.
“Don’t play dumb. You know what I’m talking about. Why did you cut class? If you were sick, you could have gone to the office and they would have called me.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “You can’t always come, because of your job. And Chris said he’d give me a ride.”
“You mean his brother, Gene, did.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah. Big-time. Chris doesn’t have a license, and it’s a miracle that his brother still does.” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe he doesn’t.”
Bianca avoided her gaze. Not answering. Which was telling.
“Come on, Bianca, be smarter than this. If Gene Schultz had gotten into another accident or—”
“He didn’t, okay?” Bianca snapped.
Pescoli pushed some of the magazines to one side and sat near the foot of her b
ed. “You can’t cut class.”
“Jer did it all the time.”
“Case in point.” She shook her head. “His options now are limited. Don’t make that mistake.” Seeing that this was getting her nowhere, she said, “So, why did you come home?”
Bianca sighed. “I was just tired.”
“That’s not an excuse to—”
“And I felt weird. I don’t know. Like maybe I was getting the flu. Kara White and Shannon Anderssen both have it, and I think Monty Elvstead, and they’re all in my Spanish class. So I came home. Big deal.” She glared at her mother. “I couldn’t call you. You’re always working, and I wasn’t going to, like, sit in that outer room and have weird Mrs. Compton, the vice principal, look at me all day.”
“Isn’t there a health room?”
“That’s worse. It’s. . gross! I just wanted to come home. Geez. It’s not as if it’s against the law or anything.”
“Have you taken your temp?”
“No. And I’m not going to!”
“So what is it? Stomachache? Cramps? Sore throat?”
“All of the above, okay!” She burrowed deeper into her duvet, and the rest of the magazines slid to the floor. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“Not for a few more years. You’re kinda my job.”
“Seriously? That’s what I am? Geez, Mom, you’re so. .” The rest of the diatribe was thankfully muffled as Bianca flung an edge of the blanket over her head. One slim arm snaked from beneath the covers; her hand patted the bed, but before her fingers connected with her phone, Pescoli grabbed the cell.
“You won’t need this,” she said, pocketing the cell as she reached down to pick up the slick tabloids that had scattered onto the worn shag carpet.
The top magazine caught her attention with the headline SHELLY BONAVENTURE’S DEATH RULED SUICIDE. Beneath the bold letters was a picture of a pretty woman with a wide smile and eyes that glinted mischievously. Her skin was clear; her hair a tangled mass of auburn curls. As if she had the world by the damned tail.
Instead, Shelly Bonaventure, an actress Pescoli now remembered as having been on that vampire series Bianca had been hooked on a few years back, had become another statistic, yet one more senseless death in Hollywood.
Looked like things were bad all over.
Tucking the magazine under her arm, she walked out of the room and left her daughter sulking under her covers.
CHAPTER 3
Jocelyn Wallis felt like crap as she eyed the dark sky through her window. It wasn’t snowing. . yet, but a storm had been predicted, and there were patches of ice and snow on the roads and parking lot of her apartment complex. The temperature was below freezing, and it was only expected to drop.
If she didn’t take her run now, she decided, peering through the blinds, she might not get a chance in the next couple of days.
And Thanksgiving was next week; she was certain to pig out at her aunt’s house, so she should exercise in anticipation of the feast.
Besides, it wasn’t going to stay light for long; already the streetlamps outside the apartment building that she called home were starting to glow.
As a schoolteacher, she didn’t have a lot of daylight in the dead of winter, so she was confined to the treadmill during the week and jogging outside on the weekend, when the weather allowed.
Maybe she should forget it. She’d just felt so crummy the past few days. Not quite the flu, but her energy was low, and she found herself kind of zonking out.
Finishing a cup of leftover coffee from her morning batch, she threw the last swallow down the sink, checked her watch, frowned, then gave herself a quick mental kick and nearly knocked over the cat’s water dish in the process. That cat, her pet, was a stray that had shown up four weeks ago and had been MIA for the past two days. Jocelyn had looked for her, worried, and had called the local shelters, to no avail. When she got back from her run, she’d find Kitty, come hell or high water. Maybe she’d even come up with a name for her.
Pushing thoughts of her missing cat aside, Jocelyn walked quickly to the second bedroom, which basically collected the overflow from the rest of the living area. Books and discarded clothes were piled on her ironing board, an old television set was propped on the dresser she’d had since she was ten, bags of clothes that no longer fit were piled in one corner, ready to be donated to the church thrift store, and even a few Christmas presents that she’d bought at a school bazaar had been labeled and tossed onto the twin bed she used for guests.
And who are those guests?
The truth was, ever since she’d moved back to Grizzly Falls two years earlier, after her second divorce, no one had stayed with her.
“Pathetic,” she told herself.
In one corner was her “office,” where her computer and printer were tucked on an old desk, and where she kept her personal files. The closet was filled with clothes she hoped to wear again, once she slimmed down, and paperwork for art, science, and math projects for the coming school year.
Quickly, before she changed her mind, or the storm broke and changed it for her, Jocelyn slipped out of her jeans and sweater and into jogging pants, shirt, and fleece jacket. She scraped her hair into a ponytail, snapped it into a rubber band, pulled on a baseball cap, and tucked her feet into her favorite pair of Nikes. She took another cursory glance around the apartment for her cell phone but didn’t see it; the damned thing had been missing since last night.
She hated to leave without it but didn’t have much of a choice. Not if she was going to get in the exercise she’d promised herself.
“Tough,” she muttered under her breath.
Then she was out the front door, where she took a few minutes to stretch on her small porch and push the earbuds of her iPod into her ears and select a playlist of dance songs.
Now or never!
She took off, the bottoms of her shoes slapping time to “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga, her arms pumping as she accelerated to a comfortable speed as the first flakes of snow began to fall.
At the entrance to the apartment complex, she turned south, starting along the same route she usually jogged. She could make her course either two miles or three, depending upon where she turned back. Today, she vowed to herself, she’d go the entire three-point-one miles. Maybe if she got her blood moving fast enough, she could shake the feeling that she might be coming down with the damned flu, which was making the rounds at Evergreen Elementary, where she worked.
She was getting into her rhythm, the music pounding in her ears, her breathing regular as she jogged through the puddles of slush and avoided the few cars and trucks that were moving along the roadway. A dark blue pickup trailed after her for a few blocks, not passing, and she glanced over at the driver as he finally pulled around her. They didn’t make eye contact; he was too busy fiddling with his CD player or phone or something that kept his attention away from the road.
Idiot, she thought as he finally passed her, taking a corner three blocks down, his taillights glowing red until they disappeared.
Adjusting the volume of her iPod, she concentrated on the course. She still felt low. Maybe it was the flu. It was certainly that time of year, and a grade school was a great breeding ground for all things contagious.
Or her malaise could be the result of overindulging in her favorite junk foods. She had been on a real bender this weekend and had devoured nachos, pizza, and two pints of ice cream, one of mint chocolate chip, and one of jingle-berry ribbon, in honor of the holidays.
Stupid.
She was thirty-five and had put on ten pounds in the past four years, ever since transferring to Evergreen Elementary, where the fourth graders she taught were difficult and the parents. . Well, she didn’t want to think about them. Talk about overbearing! Half of them acted like she didn’t know her job; the other 50 percent didn’t seem to care what their kid did in school. Their attitude was they didn’t want to be bothered.
Sometimes she wondered why she stuck with it.
Because you feel like you’re making a difference.
Because you like the paycheck and benefits.
And because you really like having most of the summer and two weeks at Christmas off!
Then why did she have to keep reminding herself? she wondered as she passed a laurel hedge in serious need of trimming. She looked over her shoulder before crossing the street.
She thought she saw the same dark pickup creeping up behind her, and she went instantly on alert as she was completely alone and the apartments and houses had dwindled a little as she’d reached the outskirts of town.
But the truck turned down a side street, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Don’t let your imagination get the better of you.
Still, she couldn’t help but feel a little anxious, her nerves strung more tightly than normal. Darkness was settling more quickly than she’d expected, the winter air stark and cold, trees shivering, their naked branches rattling over the steady beat of a Black Eyed Peas song.
Concentrate on your breathing.
She glanced over her shoulder again. The truck was nowhere in sight, and the snow was really coming down.
Good!
She was already breathing hard and blamed her lack of breath on cigarettes. She had quit twice before but had taken up the habit again after the breakup with Trace O’Halleran a little over six months ago. Her blood still boiled when she thought of the sexy cowboy and how she’d pinned her hopes on him, even though they’d dated such a short period. Tall and rangy, with wide shoulders and a slow smile that showed off just the hint of a dimple when he was really amused, the rancher had gotten to her. In a big way. He was a single father of one of her students last year, and she’d zeroed in on him on Back-to-School Night.
And it had been a mistake. Of course. She should never have gotten involved with him. When it came to men, she always jumped in feetfirst, without really thinking. Didn’t she have the divorce papers to prove it?
