Free Vanessa Gray Bartal - Lacy Steele 07 - Icy Grip of Murder by Vanessa Gray Bartal

didn’t do, and we both know I didn’t kill Jenny.”
    Larva’s eyes searched the landscape
for a rescue or inspiration. Then he burst into tears. “She killed my dog.”
    “What?” Michael said.
    “Before she disappeared, she got
mad at me for something and killed my dog.”
    “Why was she mad at you?” Michael
asked.
    “I don’t know. Does it matter? She
killed my dog. Who does that? She’s insane.”
    “Is that the reason you don’t want
to talk to me? Because you’re afraid of Jenny?” Michael said.
    In lieu of an answer, Larva swiped
his hand under his nose, leaving a trail of clear liquid.
    “For Jenny to retaliate against
you, she would have to show herself. She would have to prove she’s not dead.
She’s not going to risk that,” Michael said.
    “You don’t know that. You don’t
know her. She’s crazy.”
    “I do know her, and she is crazy,
but she’s not as smart as you think she is or as she thinks she is,” Michael
said.
    “Huh?” Larva said.
    “Nothing. But if you see Jenny,
tell her I want to meet.”
    Larva nodded. “But I don’t know
where she is. And even if I did, I wouldn’t see her. You shouldn’t either.
She’s scary. She’s bad news. Jenny is better off dead.”
    “I can’t disagree with you there,
but unfortunately I need her alive,” Michael said. He said goodbye to Larva and
they drove away.

Chapter 8

 
    They picked up pizza on the way
back to the motel. Lacy thought three larges was too much. “Trust me,” Michael
said, and he turned out to be right. Though she only ate a piece and a half,
somehow all of the pizza disappeared. For dessert, they raided the snacks from
her suitcase, although those had grown suspiciously slim somehow, too.
    “What did we actually learn today?”
Jason asked, a Twizzler hanging out one side of his
mouth like a limp cigarette.
    “I can’t look at you when you do
that,” Michael said.
    Jason ate the candy, drawing it
into his mouth a bite at a time.
    “Much better,” Michael said
sarcastically. “It’s not what we’ve learned so much as what I’ve surmised.”
    “Which is,” Lacy prompted.
    “First of all, my suspicion that
Jenny is alive was confirmed. Second, at least one or maybe all
of the group is working with her. There’s no way she could survive up
here without help, and there’s no one else I can think of who would help her.
Third, she’s working on something big. Louse was right; a haul of money is the
only thing that would keep her out of action this long.”
    “So it sounds like we need to
figure out who is helping her and what she’s working on,” Jason said.
    “Right,” Michael agreed.
    “How do we do that?” Lacy asked.
    They were silent a minute as they
tried to come up with a plan. “My brain hurts. I need to stop thinking about
everything for a while,” Michael said. “I need a distraction. I need
entertainment.”
    “Want to watch TV?” Lacy asked.
    “No, I need something better than
TV, something psychologically gripping. Something that will make me weep and
laugh,” Michael said.
    “We are not reading Pearl’s play,”
Lacy said.
    “C’mon, Lacy, I know you want to.
Besides, she’s going to keep bugging you until you do.”
    Lacy looked at her phone and saw he
was correct. Though she had turned it off, she had four missed calls. All of
them were from Pearl. “All right, but it never leaves this room. I don’t want
it to get around that we were making fun of her.”
    “Promise,” Michael said. He eagerly
picked up the manila envelope and pulled out the manuscript.
    “What are you guys talking about?”
Jason asked.
    “Pearl wrote a screenplay,” Lacy
explained.
    “I don’t want to read that,” Jason
said.
    “You should. You’re the star,”
Michael said. He held up the title page.
    “ Officer Canticle and the Lion’s Den, ” Jason read aloud. “That can’t
be what I think it is, can it? Pearl wouldn’t actually write a dramatized
version of her arrest and