“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 bed. “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.
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
