“I only know what the doctors tell the department,” Pescoli said. “He’s alive, holding steady, but has a long way to go. You might get more information from the hospital.”
“I doubt it.” Jordan’s smooth brow was etched in concern.
“I’m sure the undersheriff will hold a press conference,” Pescoli said. “Hopefully there will be more information then. So, what do I owe you?”
She smiled down at the dog. “This one’s on the house. Grayson’s a good guy and I hate that this happened to him. Besides, this guy here,” she said as she stroked the dog’s head, “is a favorite of mine. I’m just glad he’s okay after a night out in the elements.”
“The department would—”
“I know, but no.” Shaking her head, the vet was having none of Pescoli’s attempts to pay, so she gave up. Once outside, Sturgis jumped willingly into the backseat of her Jeep to sit up and peer out the window as she drove.
“Wish I knew what you saw,” Pescoli said to the dog as she nosed her vehicle out of Dino’s lot and turned in the direction of her home. Through town, she passed storefronts decorated with painted snowmen and Santas and elves, as well as the First Presbyterian Church with its lighted creche. Now that Christmas was over, all the decorations seemed tired, as if they couldn’t stand to be adorning buildings and trees for one more day, let alone another week. “Perspective,” she told herself, knowing it was from her own viewpoint, that she was one of those people pulling at the bit to bury the current calendar and start the New Year. While others turned nostalgic as January approached, she was glad to shed the previous 365 days.
“You know, you’re wishing your life away,” Santana had once told her when she admitted, not for the first time, how good she’d feel once a particularly hard week was over. They’d been driving in his truck, heading to a rare dinner out, he at the wheel, she in the passenger seat. It had been autumn with the weather beginning to turn.
“Yeah, well, don’t give me any of that ‘live for the moment’ stuff. I get it, okay?” She’d finished her flat Diet Coke and tossed her empty cup into the trash, a grocery bag he’d tucked just behind the driver’s seat. “I just think some of those supposedly special moments aren’t that great.”
“Could that come with being a cop?”
She’d stared out the windshield as fat drops of rain had drizzled down the glass. “Trust me, it’s not all the ‘dark underbelly of society’ that gets to me. It’s just the way I’ve always been, ready for the next challenge.” She’d swiped at the condensation collecting on the passenger window. “The way I was born.”
He’d lifted a dark eyebrow in disbelief but had let any further argument slide. Thankfully. She hadn’t been in the mood for an ideological discussion and figured those kinds of talks were better left to the great philosophers, of one she definitely was not.
Santana had learned when to press an issue and when to back off. Well, most of the time. The arguments that did flare between them were always white hot, furious, and, it seemed, rarely resolved.
She thought about the ring he’d given her and the realities of marrying him. If nothing else, it would be interesting. “And challenging,” she said aloud and caught her worried expression in the rearview mirror. “Commitment-phobe,” she told herself and knew that she had to come to some decision soon.
Santana wasn’t the kind of man who would wait around forever; he’d said as much and she believed him. And though it was true that the attempt on Grayson’s life had thrown her and the department into a tailspin, Santana would still want an answer.
She drove into the garage, killed the engine, then, carrying both pizza boxes and her laptop case, shoved open the back door with her hip. Sturgis bounded out and eagerly followed her into the house. Cisco, spying an intruder, barked loudly, the hackles on his neck rising and his teeth flashing. “Enough!” Pescoli said to her dog as Sturgis, intimidated by the smaller terrier, immediately sat beside her. “We’re all friends here.”
Cisco wasn’t about to be appeased and rather than rush up to greet her, climbed onto his favorite pillow on the couch and growled his dissatisfaction, all the while staring at the offending Lab. “Yeah, fine. Whatever,” Pescoli said as she slid the pizza boxes onto the counter, the laptop on the table, and unwrapped her scarf. She yelled loudly, “I’m home. With pizza!”
When no one appeared, she walked down the short hallway and heard music pounding from her daughter’s room. Knocking softly on the door before pushing it open, she found Bianca, clad only in her bra and a scrap of underwear, standing in front of her full-length mirror. Scowling at her image and cocking her head, she pulled some skin from her tiny waist.
“What’re you doing?” Pescoli said and Bianca visibly jumped.
“Mom!” She grabbed a hoodie that was tangled in the sheets of her unmade bed and threw it over her head. “Don’t you believe in knocking?”
“I did knock.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I wonder why.”
Pushing her head through the sweatshirt’s neck, Bianca said angrily, “You should wait ’til I answer.”
“Too late.” Pescoli walked over to Bianca’s desk, where between the bottles of fingernail polish and makeup, Pescoli found her daughter’s iPod docking station. She yanked out Bianca’s phone and the pounding music suddenly ceased.
“I was listening to that!”
The device vibrated in Pescoli’s hand. “So what were you doing, there at the mirror?”
“Just looking, okay? I’m going to be taking that trip with Michelle and I want to make sure I look okay in a bikini. Give me my phone.”
“You look fabulous.”
“You think so?”