J. Jance - Cruel Intent

Ali tried to answer, but another set of body-racking coughs rocked her. She tried to say “Enough,” but she couldn’t speak. All she could do was nod.

He dragged her up off the floor and pulled her sopping-wet body into the bedroom. Grasping her under her shoulders and knees, he lifted her and then dropped her on the bed. The movement dislodged more water from her lungs and set off another spasm of choking. Turning her head to cough, she noticed Leland’s body wasn’t exactly where it had been. He was still and unmoving again. Either Leland had moved himself or he had been moved.

Maybe Leland’s alive, Ali thought. Why else would he be duct-taped? Maybe I’m not alone in this after all.

“So tell me,” her tormentor urged. “I’m waiting.”

She looked up at him. He was no longer training his gun on her. Instead, he was using a towel to dry it. Evidently, in the course of their epic struggle, she had managed to knock the weapon-a.357, from the looks of it-into the tub. Ali knew that didn’t count in her favor. Just because the gun had gotten wet didn’t mean it wouldn’t work. If he aimed it in her direction and pulled the trigger, it would fire, and she would be dead.

“Well?” he pressed. “Who was it?”

And that was when the answer came to her. It was an answer to her prayer, and it came to her out of the blue. He’s waiting for me to tell him something. But I don’t have to tell him the truth.

The truth would mean divulging B. Simpson’s name and address, but Ali already knew that B., by his own admission, wasn’t armed. He was tall and imposing and could probably defend himself under most circumstances, but not against a determined killer armed with a.357.

If she told the man that the cops had helped her, it would be over. He’d kill her and be done with it. What Ali really needed was a bargaining chip, something she could use to divert him long enough to get help. And where would she find that? She needed an ally who was armed to the teeth and who would be utterly fearless when it came to fighting back.

With a start, Ali realized she knew just such a person.

“My mother,” she whispered aloud.

“Your what?”

“My mother,” she repeated.

“You’re saying your mother did this? No way!” he blurted. “I read all about your parents in some of those articles on you. Don’t they run some stupid restaurant or something?”

That he could so easily dismiss her parents and their life’s work made Ali that much more determined. She had paid a huge price to be able to lie to this man. Now her very life depended on making sure that lie was believable.

“It’s true,” she insisted between coughs. “All of it. Mom helped me grab your files. It’s her hobby. She does it for fun.”

The disbelief on his face was clear. He simply couldn’t get his mind around the fact that he might have been bested by a woman or, rather, by two women-Ali and her mother. That was absolutely unacceptable.

“For fun? No!” he exclaimed. “You can’t tell me that an old woman who makes her living cooking in some dinky restaurant is some kind of computer genius. That’s not possible. It makes no sense.”

“It’s true,” Ali said again.

“Where did she go to school, then?”

Ali knew that in order to convince him, she would need to come up with a whole series of telling details.

“Mother’s family was poor. When it was time for her to go off to college, there wasn’t any money, especially since she wanted to become an engineer. Back then engineering schools weren’t interested in enrolling women, so she taught herself.”

That bit was taken from B. Simpson’s nonstandard education. He didn’t have an engineering degree, either.

“But she was always curious about how things work,” Ali went on. “She was forever taking stuff apart and putting it back together and improving whatever it was in the process.”

That, of course, was more like Ali’s father. It was how Bob Larson had kept his beloved Bronco in working order all these years.

“She taught herself programming, too,” Ali said, warming to her story. “A couple of years ago, when a friend’s computer got taken down by a virus, Mother made it her business to become a self-taught expert in worms and viruses.”

That last whopper may have been a step too far.

“I suppose next you’re going to tell me she’s also an expert at encryption?” the man asked sarcastically. “Is that another of your remarkable mother’s spare-time specialties?”

“You’re right,” Ali said. “Mom doesn’t know anything about encryption, but she has a friend who does, an elderly friend who specialized in code-breaking during the Cold War. He and his new wife have a winter home in Yuma. Mother asked him to come help out. They’ll be driving up later on this afternoon.”

The man’s momentary expression of dismay was immediately replaced by something cold and calculating. Once again the gun was aimed squarely in Ali’s direction.

“Where are my files, then?” he asked. “Who has them right now, and who has access to them?”

“They’re on my mother’s computer,” she said. “At her house.”

“Where’s that?”

“Here in Sedona. Down by the highway.”

“And where’s your mother?”

Ali glanced at her watch. It wasn’t waterproof, so the glass was covered with a layer of steam from being dunked in the tub, but the watch was still running. It was two o’clock. Soon the restaurant would be closing for the afternoon. Her father and Jan would be cleaning up and putting things away. Her mother, having arrived early to do the Sugarloaf’s morning baking, would have gone home to rest, to put her feet up and have an hour or so of peace and quiet before her husband came in for the evening.

“She’s home now, too,” Ali said.

“Call her, then,” the man ordered. “Have her come here and bring her damn computer with her.”

Ali knew that wasn’t going to work. Asking Edie to bring over her computer with its nonexistent files would provoke an immediate storm of difficult and impossible-to-answer questions. Fortunately, when Ali reached for her phone, it wasn’t there. It had disappeared from under her bra strap during the struggle in the bathroom. It was probably sitting on the bottom of the tub.

“I can’t,” she said. “I lost my phone.”

The man checked his own watch and abruptly changed his mind. Turning away from Ali, he rummaged in her closet, found a jogging suit, and tossed it in her direction.

“Get out of those wet clothes and put these on,” he ordered. “We won’t have your mother come here. We’ll go see her instead.”

Dave had put himself out on a real limb by letting Ali know in advance that the search was coming. Having run that risk, Dave was annoyed when he arrived at the Manzanita Hills house and found that his officers were on the scene and armed with their search warrant but Ali hadn’t bothered to show up. She hadn’t sent Leland Brooks, either. With no keys available, Dave had no choice.

“Cut the padlock on the Mini-Mobile,” he ordered. “If you can jimmy the lock on the front door, do it. Otherwise, knock it down.”

The uniformed officer had just swung open the door on the metal storage unit when Bryan Forester’s Dodge Ram pulled into the driveway. He jumped out of the cab and came running over to the officers, who were about to step inside.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

So Ali did tell him, Dave thought grimly. Too bad for him, he got the news too late. “Back off, Bryan,” he ordered. “My officers have a warrant to search this site.”

“There are valuable tools and equipment in there,” Bryan objected. “I don’t want people messing with them.”