J. Jance - Cruel Intent

“Who are you?” she said to the man. “What do you want?”

“You tell me,” he replied. Obviously, he was enjoying this dangerous game of twenty questions.

On the trail of a possible identity thief, Ali and B.’s amateur sleuthing had led them to Singleatheart. This man had evidently doubled back on the same trail and had come looking for them in return-looking for Ali. Devoid of her Glock, all she could do was bluff.

“You’re from Singleatheart,” she said.

He smiled again-a chilling grimace that filled Ali’s soul with dread. “I’m just not from Singleatheart,” he told her deliberately. “I am Singleatheart. Who helped you find me? Who helped you destroy my files?”

“Does it matter?” she said. “And what makes you think I had help?”

“I know you had help,” he returned. “You may be a lot of things, Ms. Reynolds, but you’re no computer genius. I saw what equipment you have lying around here. There’s a Mac down in the basement-one your son evidently uses-but that’s it. Less than basic.”

“And I suppose you consider yourself some kind of self-styled computer genius?” Ali replied. “Maybe you are, but once we break your encryption code, we’ll have all your secrets.”

She knew it was dangerous to taunt him, just as it was dangerous to taunt a coiled rattlesnake, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to do something to unsettle him. Words were the only weapons at hand.

“So you didn’t only destroy my files,” he snarled at her. “You stole them.”

Without warning, he sprang from the couch and crossed the room, brandishing the gun like a club. Before she could raise her hands to defend herself, the blow fell. The weapon slammed into the flesh of her cheek with a tooth-jarring intensity that sent her sprawling, bouncing off the door and sliding across the tiled entryway. As stars exploded in her vision, she came to rest against the legs of the burled-wood table. The room spun and swam around her. Blood spilled from the cut on her cheek and slopped into her eye, blurring her vision that much more. She tasted blood in her mouth as well, and the pain was more than she could imagine. But by then he had grabbed the crewneck of her sweatshirt and was hauling her to her feet.

“Who helped you?” he snarled.

He was mere inches away. She could feel his hot breath on her face.

“No one,” she managed. “I didn’t need any help.”

“That’s a lie,” he said, shaking her as though she were a rag doll. “You just said ‘we.’ Who’s we?”

With that, he let loose of her shirt and gave her another powerful shove, one that sent her careening across the room. She landed backward onto the couch, hitting the back of it hard enough that her head snapped whiplash fashion. The room spun around her again. When it stopped spinning, he was looming over her once more.

“Who helped you?” he repeated. “It sure as hell wasn’t that useless little Brit.”

For the first time since the confrontation had begun, Ali put it together. This guy was here, in her house. He had driven here in Leland’s truck and let himself in with Leland’s keys. For all she knew, Leland Brooks was lying dead in the basement.

“What did you do to him?” she managed. “Where is he?”

“Indisposed at the moment, I’m afraid,” the man replied. “He refused to tell me what I wanted to know. Maybe he didn’t say because he didn’t know. But you do know, and you’re going to tell me!”

“Where is he?” Ali demanded. “Is Leland hurt?”

It was all she could do to force the words out past her already badly swollen lips. She wondered in passing if her jaw was broken, but the pain was so intense that it was almost as though she were observing someone else’s battered and bloody body and hearing someone else’s labored voice.

Staring down at her, he said nothing. The fact that he wouldn’t answer her questions was answer enough. In a moment of appalling clarity, Ali knew that whatever horrors had already been visited on poor Leland Brooks would also be coming to B. Simpson as soon as this monster knew who B. was. And when that happened, Ali knew it would be her fault for dragging Leland Brooks and B. Simpson into this nightmare along with her.

“Tell me what I want to know!” her tormenter ordered. “Tell me now or else.”

“Or else what?” she spat back at him. “Go to hell!”

He reached for her then. She thought for a moment he was going to hit her again, but just then a bell sounded, and it was enough to make him hesitate. The ringing seemed to be coming from the far distance, like the bell signaling the end of a round in a boxing match. It took a moment for her to realize that the sound was coming from her cell phone. It was ringing from the spot inside her bra where she sometimes stowed it. The same place Edie Larson carried hers.

“Don’t answer that,” her attacker ordered in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t even think about touching it.”

It wasn’t until he was headed back up I-17 that Dave Holman realized he’d never bothered to turn his phone back on when he’d left the Morrisons’ house after the interview with Jenny. As soon as he turned it on, he saw he had six messages. Four were from the office, telling him with increasing urgency that his warrant was ready, and did he want to be on hand when they went to search Ali Reynolds’s house? Two of the voice mails were from Ali herself. After calling in to the office and letting them know he was on his way, he tried calling Ali back. When she didn’t answer, Dave felt a small surge of relief. He knew that she’d been pissed at him this morning when he’d told her about the search warrant, and she probably still was. He’d talk to her later and try to smooth her ruffled feathers. She had offered to show him files purported to be from Bryan Forester’s computer. And even though he had turned her down, he should probably attempt to revisit that decision. In the meantime, he had another problem.

Dave now suspected that Bryan Forester had at least one accomplice in the plot to murder his wife. Dave was also thinking that one of those accomplices could have been Matthew Morrison. Sure, Bobby Salazar had sworn that Morrison hadn’t been behind the wheel of the car turned back in on Monday, but if Matthew wasn’t involved in the Forester homicide, why had he killed himself? Jenny Morrison had taken the position that her husband’s death was accidental. Dave’s homicide-detective gut told him it was definitely deliberate.

This wasn’t just idle speculation. Dave sensed there was some kind of connection between Matthew Morrison’s dead computer and Bryan Forester’s overwritten files. Someone had made a concerted effort to obliterate the information on three different computers. That meant the data from one of those held an important clue, a key to everything that had happened. All Dave Holman had to do was find it.

Neither Ali nor the intruder said a word while the phone continued to ring. It was maddening for Ali to know there was someone on the other end of the line. If she answered, there might be enough time for a desperate scream for help. But she knew better. By the time she flipped the phone open, she would be dead. If help came at all, it would come too late.

After ringing five times, the phone subsided into silence. The man was still standing over her, holding the gun.

“Who helped you?” he demanded again. “And where the hell are your real computers?”

Ali didn’t answer. A trickle of coppery-tasting blood ran across her tonsils. As she fought off her gag reflex, her phone jangled again. This time she knew it was announcing a voice mail-a message she didn’t know if she’d ever have a chance to hear, much less return.