J. Jance - Cruel Intent

Peter had covered his tracks by working through websites based in Russia. When it became apparent that he’d need a U.S.-based server farm, he had chosen one in Deadwood, South Dakota, for three reasons. For starters, the name appealed to him. Deadwood had a certain ring to it, and that was how he liked to think of cheating women in general-as so much deadwood. He also liked the fact that Deadwood was a hell of a long way from his home and respectable lifestyle in Phoenix, or from Manny Wilkins’s phony condo office just off the Strip in Vegas. As long as Peter was careful to avoid attracting the attention of the feds, crossing multiple jurisdictional lines made things far tougher on the cops and easier for him.

Third, the server’s South Dakota location was attractive for economic, moneygrubbing reasons. With gold mining not exactly booming at the moment, local city and state officials had enacted a series of changes designed to attract and keep new businesses. The resulting tax savings meant that the IP server Manny had chosen was able to do the same job for a lot less money than vendors in other locations.

Securing Singleatheart’s business had been carried out by one of Manny Wilkins’s minions-Peter Winter in yet another cyber guise. Once the site was up and running, all Peter had to do was sit back and rake in the dough and the occasional victim.

On that particular Wednesday morning, Peter turned to his computer with no inkling that something was amiss, not until he went scrolling through the credit-card information from that week’s server-farm data dump. What jumped out at him from the very first listing of the day wasn’t the person’s name, Alison Reynolds, but part of her address-Sedona. The place where Peter had driven on Monday morning. Where he’d used a hammer to beat Morgan Forester’s pretty little face to a bloodied pulp. Where he’d managed to leave the murder weapon in the back of the victim’s husband’s pickup truck.

Was it merely a coincidence that someone else from Sedona was venturing through the Singleatheart website barely two days later?

No, Peter Winter told himself. There are no coincidences.

But there was something about the name Alison Reynolds that was spookily familiar. Just for argument’s sake, Peter went ahead and Googled the name to see what might come up. There was far more material than he’d expected, and none of it was good news for Peter Winter. A former TV anchor, Alison Reynolds now claimed to be a different kind of journalist-a blogger with an extensive following of fans. Over the course of the past two years, she had been involved in several high-profile homicide cases in Arizona and California. She had a concealed-weapon permit, and she was evidently well acquainted with a Yavapai County homicide detective named Dave Holman. And she was remodeling a house with Build It construction-the company owned by Bryan Forester.

The light came on in Peter’s head. That was why Ali Reynolds’s name was familiar: He had seen it mentioned somewhere in Morgan Forester’s computer files.

That’s not good, either, Peter told himself. Not good at all.

Was she nosing around because Morgan had confided in her, or was she doing her snooping on behalf of Morgan’s husband? Either way, Alison Reynolds was a woman who would bear careful watching.

From past experience, Peter knew that often the best way to watch someone like that was through her computer. A less adept man might have unleashed the dogs of war. Peter Winter didn’t need to. Ali Reynolds had unwittingly wandered into the world of Singleatheart, so she had also opened her computer files to the Trojan horse he kept hidden there. The next time Ali Reynolds opened her computer, he’d be there, too, able to follow her every keystroke.

Peter didn’t have a doubt in the world that observing what she said and did there would tell him everything he needed to know. And though he was tracking her activities online, he knew that if he needed to, he’d be able to take her out the old-fashioned way-just like he had Morgan Forester.

After dealing with her mother’s meltdown, Ali had no intention of going back to see Jacky Jackson. When she left the Sugarloaf, she headed for Andante Drive. She had just parked and walked inside when her phone rang. Glancing at caller ID, Ali saw a Cottonwood number in the window. “Hello?”

“Is this Alison Reynolds?” a strange woman’s voice asked.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Nelda Harris, Haley Marsh’s grandmother. I found your business card on a table in the living room last night. I believe you must have stopped by to see her sometime yesterday afternoon.”

Great, Ali thought. Now I’ll probably be caught in the cross fire on this as well. “Yes,” she admitted. “I did stop by.”

“May I ask why?” Nelda asked.

“Haley didn’t tell you?”

“No, she didn’t, and that’s why I’m calling-to find out. As her guardian, I need to know what’s going on with her.”

“I came to offer her the chance of a scholarship, Mrs. Harris. A scholarship she could have used to attend any college of her choice. She turned it down. She says she wants to go to work for Target.”

“An Askins scholarship?” Nelda Harris asked.

“That’s right. It would have paid her way to virtually any school in the country. I suggested she might want to talk this over with you. She seems to be under the impression that she’s a burden to you somehow. She wants to make her own way in the world, and she’s afraid that going to school will mean you’ll be stuck with her and her little boy for that much longer.”

“Whatever would give her that idea?” Nelda demanded. “I never said she was a burden to me, or little Liam, either. I wouldn’t.”

“And I’m sure you didn’t,” Ali agreed.

“Liam,” Nelda said, “stop that. Come away from there.” Speaking into the phone once more, she added, “Do you believe in good and evil?”

For a moment Ali thought the woman might be referring to her granddaughter’s cute little toddler. “I’m not sure-” Ali began.

“Not just good and bad,” Nelda interrupted. “I mean real good and evil.”

Earlier in her life, Ali might have been able to answer that question clearly in the negative-at least so far as evil was concerned. But now that she had met and unmasked Arabella Ashcroft, now that she had seen beyond the skin-deep physical beauty of April Gaddis, the young woman who had come within hours of marrying Ali’s former husband, real evil did have a presence in her life, and often a very human face.

“Yes,” Ali replied at last. “I suppose I do. Why?”

“Liam, please. Grandma’s on the phone. Come here and be still for a moment.” Nelda sounded exasperated, as though the toddler was taking advantage of her being on the phone to get into all kinds of mischief.

“Let me ask you another question, Ms. Reynolds…”

“Please call me Ali.”

“All right, Ali. I know you said Haley turned down your offer, but if I could convince her to change her mind-if we could convince her-would the scholarship still be available?”

“She doesn’t actually have the scholarship at the moment,” Ali corrected. “When she said she wasn’t interested, I took her at her word. It’ll most likely be awarded to someone else.”

“Please,” Nelda said as though she hadn’t heard. “I’d really like to discuss this with you, but not right now, when Liam’s driving me crazy. I need to put him down for a nap, but once he wakes up, we could drive up to Sedona to see you.”

Ali looked around her house. Aunt Evie’s very breakable knickknacks were still scattered here and there, well within reach of a toddler. And then there was Sam. A temperamental cat who didn’t do well with most adult strangers would probably have a complete meltdown if faced with a busy-bee little boy. And if this house wasn’t kid-proof, the construction site at Manzanita Hills Road was even less so.