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Like always.
“But he’s determined to talk to someone about Pescoli and considering how things are with Undersheriff Brewster, I thought you might be able to talk to him.”
“I’m on my way,” Alvarez promised and hung up. She didn’t know what she’d say to the kid. She wasn’t good with teenagers, but she’d give it her best shot.
“It’s no big deal,” Bianca said, miffed that Michelle would even try to deter her. Bianca was nervous, wanted to get out. Her worries about her mom ate at her and, as she flipped through the channels of her father’s monstrous television, she couldn’t concentrate on the reality shows that she usually loved. As many stations as the satellite dish provided, there wasn’t one that caught her interest. So she’d texted her boyfriend and they’d made plans.
But Michelle, usually so cool, seemed to think she needed to suddenly assert her stepmotherly authority. As if!
“Chris and I are just going down to the concert at the courthouse,” Bianca said from the couch. She rolled her head around, so she could see into the dining room where Michelle was adjusting the strands of silvery tinsel that she’d looped through the chandelier that hung over a round glass and wroughtiron table.
“Is that right?” Obviously Michelle wasn’t buying Bianca’s admittedly lame excuse. “Why?”
“Duh! It’s Christmas.”
“I think you should stay home. Does your mom 234
Lisa Jackson
let you go out on dates? Does Chris even drive?”
Michelle’s neatly plucked eyebrows drew together as she looped the tinsel through a curlicue of wrought iron.
“His brother is taking us. He’s got his license.”
“And what time is the concert?”
Michelle sure wasn’t the pushover Bianca had thought she’d be. At least not since she’d lost her job as a teller in a local bank that had shut its doors. Now she was taking this whole stepmothering job a little too far. “Around seven? I’m really not sure. We were going to get something to eat and then go there.”
“In this?” Michelle looked through the window to the falling snow. “I don’t think so, honey.”
“But—”
“Look.” Michelle spread her fingers wide, red fingernails decorated with tiny white snowflakes standing out like claws. “Your dad’s got a lot to worry about with the storms shutting down the interstate so he can’t make his usual run,” she said. That much was true. As a truck driver, Lucky was losing money daily while the roads were impassable. He’d planned to take some time off at Christmas, his first ever that Bianca could remember, but the weather had taken away his options. “And let’s face it, he’s worried about your mom.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“Don’t give me that look. He is. And then there’s Jeremy. Your brother blew out of here and we can’t get him on the cell phone. He’s supposed to be grounded.”
“But I’m not,” Bianca wheedled, reminding Michelle that she was the “good kid” of the two.
“Just hear me out, Bianca.” Michelle’s voice had a
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tone in it that Bianca didn’t like, hadn’t noticed before.
“You’re not my mom.” And at that Bianca felt tears bloom in her eyes. Hot, scared tears. She’d tried not to think about what might be happening to her mother, and she’d spent the last few hours texting and talking to Chris, but she couldn’t just stay cooped up here.
The back door slammed shut and she looked up to see her father walk inside, the scent of cigarette smoke clinging to him as he hung up hi
s jacket in the front closet. He caught the angry glare Michelle tossed his way.
“What?”
