by Lisa Jackson
“If you hear anything, let me know, okay?”
Bianca nodded, glanced at the phone. She chewed on her lip and looked tense.
“You okay?” Pescoli asked, sensing more.
“Sure.” No enthusiasm.
She prodded. “So how’s the ankle?”
“It still hurts.”
Pescoli started to get up but paused. “Are you sure about this—?” She motioned to the tablet and the frozen footage of the television show.
“Yeah, Mom, I’m sure,” Bianca snapped, suddenly defensive. “I know you don’t like it, think it’s a ‘crock’ and a ‘fake’ and whatever else, but I think it’s interesting and fun and might be, like Michelle says, a start of my acting career.” She jutted out her chin, her eyes focused on her mother’s face, almost daring her to engage in a fight.
“I think it’s a mistake.”
“I know.”
Pescoli wanted to go off the rails on the show, Barclay Sphinx, the whole preposterousness of the situation. She was tired of pretending she understood. “There is no Big Foot.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Bianca countered as she hit the button on her iPad to start the program going again. “Because there is going to be a TV show about it.”
“And that’s what matters?”
“Exactly.”
There was no use arguing. Her daughter was as stubborn as she was, and when Bianca set her mind, there was no changing it. So arguments about integrity or what was “real” in reality TV were going to fall on deaf ears. “Just let me know if you hear anything about Destiny or Lindsay, okay?”
But Bianca had already tuned in to the apparently fascinating story line of Big Foot Territory: Oregon!
So what was next, Pescoli wondered with an inward sigh, after Sphinx’s new series on Sasquatch? Something like The Real Housewives of Grizzly Falls?
She made a strangled sound and padded downstairs to the den and Santana.
* * *
Alone in her room, her ankle throbbing, Bianca was bummed.
Nothing seemed to be going right.
Destiny’s murder was always right there. Everyone was still talking about it, and there was even a vigil scheduled for later tonight.
Bianca wondered what had happened to her. Why had she been killed and left or dumped in the stream? It was unnerving. She glanced out the window to the fading sunlight. She couldn’t help but think she might know the killer. Wasn’t that what Mom thought, kept hinting at?
Worse yet, now Lindsay had disappeared. Had she really been kidnapped as some people thought? Or had she just taken off, tired of her parents butting into her life?
Why hadn’t she contacted anybody?
She’d gone completely dark, not responding to calls, texts, instant messages, or anything to do with social media. All of which was not like Lindsay. Bianca bit her lip and studied the bedspread, not seeing the pattern for the turmoil in her mind. Could Lindsay’s disappearance be a publicity stunt? Maybe she’d dropped out of sight to shine the light on herself a little more, as she hadn’t been part of the core group picked for the filming of the reality show. She’d been disappointed, and there was a chance she might do something overtly dramatic to make Barclay Sphinx notice her. Was that it?
Stupidly, she’d posed these very questions to Lara, Maddie, and Simone, and they’d jumped all over the idea, sure that Lindsay would turn up and all of the attention from the media and Barclay Sphinx and his production company would shine on her.
Simone had texted, I wouldn’t put it past her.
Maddie’s response was, Maybe. She was pissed that she wasn’t picked for filming tho this is extreme.
Lara’s reply said it all: I think Lindsay would do just about anything to get away from this town and her parents.
But would she really? Lindsay was kind of a pain, but disappearing for the sake of publicity, ripping out her parents’ hearts, causing all her friends and family to freak out?
Bianca tried to push her thoughts on Destiny and Lindsay aside. She had more than enough to worry about as it was. Somehow, with this damned ankle, she had to get through the vigil, and then psych herself up for the filming of the pilot later in the night.
She’d learned that the script had changed quite a bit from Barclay Sphinx’s original concept. The party of kids at Reservoir Point was no longer a large group but had been winnowed down to eight, four boys and four girls who’d come to the woods to drink, do a little weed, hang out around a campfire, and make out. That part wasn’t that great, Bianca thought, hastily slapped together, but the kids involved, who had all been to the original party, were stoked to be a part of the project. Lara Haas, Maddie, and Simone were all beside themselves to have been chosen. They’d been paired with Austin, Emmett, Kywin, and TJ and had a few lame lines between them—the kind of things adults imagined kids would say to each other. “Man, this is bad-ass weed,” or “Wanna go to the car so we can be alone?” That kind of dialogue. A few people the producer thought were essential would be in the peripheral area away from a campfire. They would only be shown smoking or drinking in a shot that panned the “crowd.” The script also called for several members of the Big Foot Believers to be in the woods as well. They were supposedly hunting for a Sasquatch and had frightened one of the beasts, which, in turn, then chased Bianca. Or something like that. Barclay insisted the scenes were going to be “fluid” and “works in progress.”
The changing of the party scene was okay, Bianca thought, as she glanced at her laptop, but there was another major alteration as well. The story line in this episode wouldn’t swirl around Bianca as she’d originally been told. Her experience with Big Foot was just the starting point, an “energetic” and “exciting” way to begin the season—a teaser. Also, the central plot of the episode wouldn’t concentrate on the murder—the finding of the body was just another dramatic point that was intended to grab the viewers’ interest.
Nor was the focus of the series about Bianca, or what had happened to Destiny Rose Montclaire. No, the “integrity” of the plot surrounded two feuding families of Big Foot enthusiasts whom Barclay Sphinx had hand-picked. That bit of information had caused a bit of a grumble with Carlton Jeffe and the local Big Foot Believers because, as it turned out, the actors chosen to be the series regulars resided somewhere north of Missoula, and it also happened that they—two couples with children—had originally pitched the idea of Big Foot Territory: Montana! to Sphinx months ago when his Big Foot Territory: Oregon! had first aired and showed signs of promise. So, essentially, not only were the feuding couples the brains behind the show, but the stars as well.
One of the series originators was actually a writer who had come up with several episodes. However, none of the ideas for the series had been as attention grabbing as Bianca’s story of being chased by a Big Foot and her subsequent discovery of the dead body of a classmate, so that was their big hook.
And they were rushing everything into production, Barclay had explained, to capture the public’s interest in the murder of Destiny Rose Montclaire. Which, according to her mother, was just using the tragedy for his own gain.
The upshot was the whole preproduction had been squeezed. Taking the pitched ideas and scripts, reworking them to fit with Bianca’s experience, and filming as quickly as could be done.
So, as it turned out, Bianca saw, the only reason the show was going to be filmed around Grizzly Falls was because of the murder, the actual real life-and-death tie to the area. And there was something just not right about that—something slimy and almost predatory about it.
Though her dad and Michelle had assured her the trailer at the end of the episode and the reward would help Destiny’s family, the whole idea left a bad taste in her mouth.
Michelle was disappointed that her role might not be continued beyond episode one, and possibly two, but she still saw opportunity. After all, Sphinx had practically promised them that their “backstory” would still be woven into the main plot of the
feuding Big Foot families. She seemed to think there was a strong chance that she and Bianca would be on camera again. Not so the other kids and extras. The jury was still out on Carlton Jeffe, Lex Farnsby, and Fred Nesmith of the Big Foot Believers. They would all appear in episode one, but that might be the end of their involvement, which was a case for more grumbling.
A chime indicated another text had come in.
She lifted the phone, stared at the screen, then sucked in a sharp breath.
The message was from Lindsay Cronin and said simply:
I’m not coming back.
CHAPTER 21
“We got the same text,” the Cronins reported when Pescoli stopped by their house on the way to the vigil for Destiny Rose Montclaire. Darlie was sniffling against her husband again as they stood in the open doorway, Pescoli in the shade of the porch’s overhang. When Bianca had received the text from Lindsay, Pescoli had reacted quickly, calling the department and filling in Zoller as well as Alvarez. Now, she was facing Lindsay’s parents.
Darlie appeared to shiver despite the heat, and a cardigan sweater had been tossed over her shirt. Roy, though round, had seemed to shrink a bit, as if his plaid shirt were suddenly too big. They looked as if they’d aged a decade in a few days. Their worry was extreme, their fear palpable.
Pescoli felt for them. “I understand there was a group text, but I was hoping there was more.”
“No,” Roy said, frowning.
“I called back immediately,” his wife said. “To Lindsay. The text came and I speed-dialed Lindsay. No answer. Then I texted and called and texted and called, leaving message after message, begging her to respond, but she didn’t.” Her eyes were flat, her cheeks red from weeping. “Why would she do this to us?”
“She wouldn’t, hon,” her husband assured her. “Not our Lindsay.” His jaw tightened and he squeezed his wife close.
Pescoli nodded. They were living a parent’s worst nightmare.
A dry breeze scuttled leaves and bark dust across the porch and plucked at Pescoli’s hair. Clearing her throat, Darlie reached into the pocket of her sweater, pulled out a Kleenex, and dabbed at the corner of her eyes. “We called Malcolm. He’s on his way back here from Boise now, should be here any minute. We hoped he’d heard something more, but he didn’t.”
“Got the same text as the rest of us.” Roy scowled darkly. “It’s like it went out to every damned person on her contact list on her phone. You know what I think, Detective?”
“What?”
“I think that whoever took her sent out that group text so everybody would back off. He knows we’re lookin’ for her, that we won’t stop ’til we find her and he’s pan-ickin’. Tryin’ to throw us off. Tryin’ to make us think she’s fine, maybe angry . . . alive and fine.”
Pescoli nodded; she’d had the same idea. “It’s an angle we’re exploring.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about angles and exploring or anything else. I just want my girl back.” He was angry, his lips pursed, but his chin wobbled a little, giving away his fear. His wife tried to say something, but the effort was too great and she ended up just sighing and squeezing out more tears.
“It’s what we want, too, Roy,” Pescoli said. “And we’re putting all of our resources into finding her.”
“You’d better, by golly.”
With that, she left feeling worse than she had before. She’d hoped Lindsay’s parents would have heard more from her, but like Roy, she was very suspicious that the text had come from Lindsay’s abductor . . . or her killer....
Nope. She wouldn’t think that way. Not yet. But as she climbed behind the wheel of her Jeep, adjusting the seat back a little farther to accommodate her ever-widening girth, she couldn’t help but imagine Lindsay Cronin’s face superimposed on the corpse of Destiny Rose Montclaire.
Would they find Lindsay, strangled, her body submerged in one of the dozens of mountain streams near Grizzly Falls?
“Damn it all to hell,” she muttered, starting the car and easing into traffic. After receiving the text, Bianca had checked with all of her friends and sure enough, they’d received copies of the message: I’m not coming back, but nothing more. Like Lindsay’s parents, several had tried to reach out to the girl, by texting or calling or using social media, but there had been no response, at least none that Pescoli knew of.
So why send the text?
To make people believe Lindsay was alive and letting everyone know she was leaving for good? That didn’t make any sense. But then, nothing did.
On her way to the vigil, she called Alvarez at the station. So far, Lindsay’s car hadn’t been located, nor had she used her debit card on her bank account, and the only activity on her phone was the one very recent text.
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. This case disturbed her at an emotional level, the kids involved being in Bianca’s circle of friends. Was that it? Were they being targeted because they knew something?
Frowning, she drove to a stop sign and waited for a thirty-something woman pushing a stroller. Backed by the lowering sun, her profile in silhouette, the mother was distracted, phone in the hand as she pushed the stroller, her concentration on the screen.
Pescoli squinted, was reminded of her own kids as little ones, thought about the baby about to be born and the coming years, first smiles, giggles, tentative steps, running and swimming, heading off to preschool before she knew it. Just like Jeremy and Bianca . . .
The baby kicked and she was reminded that the birth was imminent, happening soon. In the next week she’d be going on maternity leave. But could she? While these cases weren’t solved? “You’ll have to wait,” she told her unborn child as she drove toward the church. She was rewarded with more little kicks.
Another tough little kid, she thought, as willful as her first two. She’d silently blamed Jeremy and Bianca’s fathers for all their stubborn, headstrong traits, but now, if baby number three proved as mulish as her other two, she might have to take another hard look at herself.
* * *
For some reason, everyone seemed to think that Bianca would know what had happened to Lindsay. Just because her mom was a cop and investigating the case didn’t mean she was privy to any new information, yet her friends had all seemed to elevate her to the position of Information Central, even though she knew nothing.
“Come on,” Maddie had wheedled in a phone call while Bianca was sorting through her closet, wondering what was appropriate to wear to a vigil. “You must know something. Your mom’s all over this.”
“Even if she did know something, she wouldn’t tell me.” Maddie had argued some more, but Bianca had finally hung up and, after a fruitless search for something perfect, closed the closet door, figuring jeans, a black top, and zero jewelry would be good enough.
Then Lara had texted: Where the hell is she? You think maybe this is one of her high drama stunts to gain attention? It would be just like her! Tell your mom not to be fooled!
While she was zipping up a pair of boots, Rod Devlin private messaged her: I’m worried about Linds. What if something happened to her? What’s your mom say?
And on and on. Making her more nervous than she was before, and that was pretty nervous. She still had the uncanny sensation that she was being watched. Wherever she went, she had this feeling that someone was observing her and waiting. For what? She couldn’t guess. Nor did she know who it was or even if he existed. Maybe she was making it all up, her mind going a little crazy after finding Destiny’s body. She probably should see a shrink.
Or maybe everyone else should just leave her alone. All of her acquaintances, from Austin Reece to Bryant Tophman and Simone Delaney, were all over her. Bianca was beginning to think the whole group was a bunch of morons. Even Seneca Martinez, who had been her friend since before they’d started school, left her a text: I’m really worried about Linds. In fact, I’m weirded out by everything that’s going on. Your mom will catch whoever did this, tho’. Right? And soon?
She’d woken up from that one with a headache. The dream had receded, but it had left her with a vivid image of making out with Austin Reece, which totally grossed her out. In the dream, she’d really been into the make-out session, turned on to the point of considering sex with him.
As if that would ever happen.
Ugh!
If that was what was in her subconscious, her brain was a very scary place.
* * *
Hoping to have a one-on-one with Austin Reece, Alvarez drove to his parents’ home, a huge, sprawling stone house in a gated community that bordered the one private country club in Grizzly Falls. She’d gotten through the gate by showing her ID to a guard, who called and warned whoever was at the Reece home that she was coming.
She’d met Austin’s father in the ornate, two-story foyer. Stiff backed, thick hair prematurely gray, wearing rimless glasses and a polo shirt and pressed slacks, Bernard Reece allowed her inside but didn’t move from the marbled main hallway. He stated firmly that he would not allow his son to be interviewed unless he or another attorney was present during the questioning.
“I think I’ve made it crystal clear that Austin isn’t going to speak with you or anyone else from your department alone. I know how this works.”
There was no arguing. She tried. Got nowhere. “Then bring him into the station tomorrow. Early,” she suggested and kept her tone even, her gaze direct. “Sit in.”