J. Jance - Hand of Evil

As Ali watched the image materialize she realized that, good as it might be, the information Sandy was providing merely placed the guy at the confrontation in Basha’s. Crystal, however, had been at the scene of the almost fatal attack in Mund’s Park. Would she recognize the subject of the drawing as one of the toughs she had seen there?

Enthralled by the sketching process, Ali had momentarily stopped paying attention to Crystal. Now, though, wanting to show the drawing to Crystal, Ali discovered to her dismay that the girl was no longer there. While Ali had been otherwise occupied, Crystal had simply vanished.

When Crystal reached the park, Curt’s car still wasn’t there. She stood there for a moment, undecided. What if Ali came looking for her?

Looking around for a place to hide, Crystal spotted a thick clump of sharp-leaved dusty bushes close to the parking lot. She ducked into them. The ground underneath was dirty and dusty and strewn with garbage-dead drink containers and empty grease-covered McDonald’s wrappers-that had been totally invisible from the outside. But the fact that the trash had been invisible from the outside meant that Crystal was, too. As she settled in, her nose began to run. Her eyes itched like fire. She was grateful to have her father’s long-sleeved and oversize sweats protecting her from the smelly, prickly leaves while she waited-seeing without being seen.

The parking lot was full of people. Two vans with signs that read SUNSHINE DAYCARE pulled up and parked in the two spots closest to Crystal. Several women and seven little kids clambered out of them. While the attendants pulled out a series of multiple-child strollers and began loading children into them, Crystal caught sight of the Explorer. It pulled into the lot and stopped a few parking places beyond the vans.

The women and kids and strollers were right there in front of Crystal-only a few feet away. If she popped out of the bushes right then, Crystal knew she’d startle them and draw way too much attention to herself. So she waited, willing them to move on; willing her itchy nose not to sneeze. But then, just as the crowd started moving out of the way, something happened in one of the middle strollers-one containing three toddlers. The middle child began howling and whacking away with one little fist at the child on his right. The whole parade came to a stop, while the lady pushing the stroller tried to figure out what was going on.

Come on, Crystal urged silently. Get out of the way.

But they were still there, milling in front of her, when beyond them, Crystal saw the door of the Explorer come open. A man stepped out. Crystal could barely believe her eyes. It wasn’t Curt-it wasn’t him at all. But the man driving Curt’s truck was someone Crystal recognized. She had seen him once before as a frightening figure caught in the Explorer’s headlights-someone wielding a baseball bat.

Crystal gave a sharp intake of breath. One of the women seemed to notice. She looked around, frowning, but then her charges drew her attention once again, and she turned back to the kids in her stroller. Moments later the whole group moved on, clearing the way between Crystal and the Explorer.

Shaking with dread and afraid of being seen, Crystal stayed where she was and waited. While she watched, the man who wasn’t Curt pulled a phone out of his pocket and began pressing buttons. A moment later, Crystal’s cell phone buzzed, announcing a text message. The vibration startled her so much that she could barely pull the phone out of her pocket. With her breath coming in short, shallow gasps and with her fingers trembling so much she almost dropped the phone, Crystal read the message:

“WRU?” Where are you? CU wanted to know.

CU was Curt’s handle, but he wasn’t the one who had been sending Crystal messages. The man in the parking lot, the man driving Curt’s Explorer, was the one who had offered to give Crystal a ride back home to Sedona. So what did all this mean? If Curt wasn’t here-if he wasn’t the one driving his truck or using his phone, Crystal wondered, where was he? Was he dead? Had those awful men from Mund’s Park used a baseball bat on Curt the same way they had on Kip Hogan? She had seen two of them get Curt’s SUV. Had they found Curt while Crystal was hiding in the restroom and taken him away? If they had killed Curt and almost killed Kip, what would they do to Crystal if they ever found her?

Without ever emerging from the bushes, Crystal used her trembling fingers to key in her response.

“UHA.” Under house arrest. “SRY.”

Over in the parking lot, the man who wasn’t Curt muttered something under his breath and kicked the tire. Then he jumped into the Explorer, slammed the door behind him, and drove away.

Watching him go, Crystal Holman was smart enough to know that one thing and only one thing had saved her-that howling little boy who had been so intent on beating up his seatmate. If it hadn’t been for him, Crystal knew she would have been a goner.

When Ali first noticed Crystal was gone, she wasn’t all that concerned. Thinking she might have simply responded to a call of nature, Ali got up and went across the lobby to the women’s restroom. Unfortunately it was empty. Crystal wasn’t there and no one else was, either. With rising apprehension, Ali hurried over to the lobby entrance where a uniformed security guard was stationed just outside.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Did you see a girl come out this door in the last few minutes? She was wearing a pair of oversize sweats.”

“Blue sweats? Long blond hair in a ponytail?”

Ali nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Sure, I saw her,” the security guard said. “Just a couple of minutes ago.” He pointed. “Headed off toward Thomas on foot.”

Ali headed that way, too. As she did so, she pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the call history until she found a number that had to be Crystal’s. When she reached Thomas, she paused on the sidewalk and looked in both directions. Nothing, and when Ali called Crystal’s cell phone, there was no answer on that, either.

She had ended the call and was hurrying back toward the parking garage when her phone rang. Hating the idea of having to tell Dave what was really going on and that his runaway daughter was once again on the lam, Ali was relieved to see her son’s name in the caller ID window.

“Hey, Mom,” Chris said. “I’m at lunch. I thought I’d call and see how things are going down there. How’s Kip?”

“Still in surgery,” Ali told him. “And everything else is a disaster. Believe it or not, Crystal just took off again.”

“You mean she ran away?”

“Evidently. There’s a woman here working with Sandy on a set of composite drawings. I got caught up in that. Crystal must have realized I wasn’t paying attention and made her getaway. I never expected her to pull a stunt like that.”

“You should have,” Chris counseled. “She’s a teenager after all.”

“You never did any of this stuff,” Ali countered.

“Don’t be so sure, Mom,” Chris said with a laugh. “Most of the time I was lucky and didn’t get caught.”

By then, Ali was back at her car. “I’m hanging up now,” she said. “I’m going to drive over to the freeway and see if I can spot her between here and there. Maybe Crystal’s trying to hitch a ride back home.”

Once in her Cayenne, Ali drove straight to I-17. Heading north, she checked entrance and exit ramps as far as Bethany Home Road, all to no avail. Frustrated beyond bearing but still stalling on making the necessary call to Dave, Ali was on her way back to the hospital when her phone rang again.

Ali was almost sick with relief when she heard the missing girl’s voice. “Crystal!” she exclaimed. “Where are you?”