J. Jance - Hand of Evil

“I’m scared. Can you come get me, please?”

“Where are you?”

“At the park where we went earlier this morning. The parking lot by that little lake.”

“What are you doing there?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just come get me,” Crystal insisted. “Please.”

There were dozens of questions Ali wanted to ask, but Crystal sounded so upset-so desperate-that Ali stifled all of them. “I’m on my way,” she said grimly. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

More furious than she was relieved, Ali swung into the parking lot with a squeal of tires. At first Crystal wasn’t visible, but as soon as Ali stopped the car, the girl emerged from beneath some oleanders and came sprinting toward the Cayenne. Once inside, she fastened her seat belt without having to be reminded.

“What in the world were you thinking?” Ali demanded. “Why did you leave the hospital? What are you doing here?”

But whatever was going on with Crystal and no matter how scared she was, she wasn’t prepared to give a straight answer. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she half-sobbed. “Can’t we just go back to the hospital?” she begged. “Please. I won’t do it ever again. I promise.”

For two days Ali had done her best to be understanding and sympathetic toward this troubled child. Now she was in no mood for Crystal Holman’s latest set of drama-queen histrionics.

“I should hope not,” Ali said.

Crystal sat huddled miserably on the far side of the car, but instead of watching where they were going, she seemed to be concentrating on traffic in the rearview mirror. Her verbal response, when it finally came, was the last thing Ali expected.

“Thank you,” Crystal said.

For what? Ali wondered. For picking you up or for giving you hell?

“Are you going to tell me what you were up to?” she asked.

“I just needed to get out of the hospital for a while,” Crystal said. “I needed to be by myself.”

“That’s probably a lie,” Ali said. She held out her hand. “Now give me your cell phone.”

“My cell phone?” Crystal repeated with a gasp. “Why?”

“Give it to me,” Ali repeated.

“You’re taking my cell phone away? How come?”

“Because having a cell phone is a privilege, not a right,” Ali replied. “At the moment, as the person who’s supposed to be looking after you, I’m declaring that your behavior doesn’t warrant any privileges.”

After a long moment’s hesitation, Crystal sighed, plucked her cell phone out of the pocket of her sweats, and dropped it into Ali’s open palm.

“Are you happy now?” Crystal wanted to know.

“Hardly,” Ali answered. “I’m not going to be happy until I can hand you back over to your father and turn you into his problem instead of mine.”

Back in the hospital lobby, Detective Lee Farris had arrived on the scene and taken charge of the situation. He had moved Sandy Mitchell and Madeline Havens to the far corner of the room and had commandeered both a small table and a power outlet for Madeline’s computer. By then all three sketches had been completed. While Lee began questioning Sandy, Madeline used a tiny portable scanner/printer to run off copies of the composite drawings.

With no one paying particular attention to her, Crystal wandered over to the printer and picked up one of the sketches. She looked at it for only a moment. Then, turning deathly pale, she let the paper slip from her hand. “I’ve gotta go to the restroom. I’m gonna be sick.”

As she raced away, Ali picked up the fallen sketch, which turned out to be the one of the empty-eyed man she had seen earlier. Crystal may not have picked the sketch out from a law-enforcement-approved montage, but her reaction was enough to convince Ali that for Crystal Holman, the chilling likeness was of someone she recognized.

Ali followed Crystal as far as the restroom door, where the very convincing sound of retching made it clear that Crystal really was sick. Before Ali could storm inside and confront her about any of it, however, Crystal’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket. When Ali went to answer, she discovered it was a text message rather than a voice call, a message from someone called CU. Does that C stand for Curt? Ali wondered.

“WHERE R U?” the message read. “WENT TO PARK. U DIDNT SHOW.”

The words confirmed Ali’s worst suspicions. Crystal hadn’t gone to the park just to get away from the hospital. She had gone there to meet this person who was now text-messaging her. And wasn’t it possible that this was also the same guy Crystal claimed she couldn’t contact, Curt with no last name? And why was he so eager to be in touch with Crystal now? Ali was reasonably sure he was looking for a second helping of whatever sexual favors Crystal Holman had been offering.

Staring at the screen, Ali wanted to reach through the phone and grab CU by the neck. Much as she would have enjoyed strangling him, she also knew someone needed to convince him to come forward and tell the authorities whatever he knew about Kip Hogan’s attackers. Since Detective Farris was fully occupied with interviewing Sandy Mitchell at the moment, Ali decided to take matters into her own hands. And fingers.

Ali and Chris had been sending text messages for years. When she had been working late hours at the station, text messaging had afforded her the simplest means of staying in touch with her son. And because she had been considered “in the know” on that topic, she had done a series of stories designed to help clueless parents have some idea of what their kids were doing and saying with their now ubiquitous cell phones.

Ali hesitated for a moment. Would she be able to reply without letting CU know that someone other than Crystal was responding? What’s there to lose? she wondered.

“WENT,” Ali said, keying in her response. “CAUGHT.” Ali had had to think a minute. “UHA.” She was pretty sure that meant under house arrest, but she had no way of knowing if CU understood what she was saying.

“WAYN?” That one was easy. Where are you now?

“HOSPITAL”

“ST FRANCIS?”

“Y” YES.

Inside the restroom the toilet flushed. That meant Crystal would be coming out soon. “L8R,” Ali wrote. “PAW” Ali knew that was universal teen speak for “parents are watching.”

Ali shoved the phone back into her pocket just as Crystal emerged from the restroom. “Better?” Ali asked.

Crystal nodded wanly. Either the girl really was sick, or she was doing an excellent job of faking it. She went over to a love seat and lay down on it, covering her eyes with her arm. Meanwhile, the phone was once again vibrating in Ali’s pocket, announcing the arrival of another message.

Just then Bob Larson bounded into the hospital lobby. Ali hadn’t expected him until much later-not until after the restaurant closed in the early afternoon and he had a chance to drive down.

“My Bronco’s still in the shop,” Bob explained. “Franco gave me a loaner and your mother let me off early, so here I am. What’s happening?”

Crystal’s phone vibrated impatiently. “Detective Farris from Flagstaff is here interviewing Sandy,” Ali told him. “And we now have a set of composite drawings of the guys Kip confronted the other day.”

“Are they the same ones who beat him up?” Bob asked.

“Could be,” Ali answered. “We don’t know that for sure.”

Bob glanced at Crystal, who was still sprawled on the love seat. “What’s going on with her?” he asked. “Is she okay?”

“She claims to be sick,” Ali said. “But I’m not sure I believe her.” With that, Ali walked over to the love seat.

“Sit up, Crystal,” she ordered. “I need to talk to you.”