J. Jance - Cruel Intent

“I just wish everyone would quit worrying about me,” Edie said. “You take care of your mother. If Grandpa ever finishes complaining, he can look after me.”

Athena piled into the front passenger seat of the Prius while Ali sat crammed in the back. With Chris at the wheel, they headed for the hospital.

Yavapai Medical Center operated more as a stand-alone emergency room than it did a full-service hospital. Although it had rooms that could accommodate the occasional overnight stay, the medical center’s physicians specialized primarily in stitching together minor cuts, setting broken bones, and delivering the occasional fast-arriving baby. Patients requiring more comprehensive care or longer stays were routinely transported to hospitals in Cottonwood, Flagstaff, or Phoenix. The fact that the EMTs had opted for local treatment gave Ali cause to hope they didn’t regard Leland’s situation as life-threatening.

“Do you know anything about Leland’s family?” Athena asked. “Is there someone we should call?”

If he had relatives living anywhere in the States, Ali was unaware of them. Even so, there was someone Ali was quite sure would want to be notified about Leland’s condition. Without thinking, she reached for her phone, only it wasn’t there-or rather, it still wasn’t there because it was still at her house, still sunk at the bottom of that tubful of water.

“Can I please borrow a cell phone?” Ali asked.

Without a word, Athena passed one back. With the help of directory assistance, Ali was connected to the Yavapai County courthouse in Prescott, where she asked to speak to Judge Patrick Macey.

“I’m sorry,” his secretary told Ali. “It’s impossible to reach Judge Macey just now. He’s conducting a trial.”

“This is urgent,” Ali insisted. “Perhaps his bailiff could let him know I’m on the phone.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Ali,” she said. “Ali Reynolds from Sedona.”

The woman sighed. “One moment, then,” she said.

Ali waited. She knew that Leland and Judge Macey had been involved for quite some time. She remembered hearing that the judge’s wife, after years of being confined to a nursing home, had succumbed to the ravages of Alzheimer’s. Prior to the wife’s death, there had been some need to keep the relationship under wraps due to objections from the judge’s grown children, but with their mother gone, Ali had assumed that-

A man’s voice came on the phone. “Why are you calling me?” Judge Macey asked.

The brusque response caught Ali off guard. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said. “It’s about Leland Brooks. I thought you’d want to know that there’s been a problem, and he’s been taken to the hospital in-”

“You had no business interrupting a trial,” Macey interrupted. “Do not call me about this matter again!” With that, he hung up.

Staring at the words CALL ENDED on the phone, Ali couldn’t help feeling sorry for Leland Brooks. From the way it sounded, far more than a phone call had been disconnected.

By then Chris had pulled up at the entrance to the medical center, where an empty Sedona patrol car was parked right outside the front entrance. With a start, Ali realized that Leland Brooks was being treated here, and so was the man who had attacked them. No doubt Peter Winter had been brought here to have the darts removed from his back.

“Go on in, Mom,” Chris suggested. “Athena and I will park and be there in a few minutes.”

When Ali stepped into the lobby, she was relieved to see that Dr. Peter Winter was nowhere in sight. She approached the reception desk, fully expecting to be rebuffed. After all, Ali was no relation to Leland Brooks; she was sure HIPAA rules would prevent hospital personnel from giving her any information concerning his condition. They might not even acknowledge that he had been admitted as a patient.

When Ali gave her name to the receptionist, however, the woman nodded knowingly. “Of course, Ms. Reynolds. Dr. Langston, one of our in-house doctors, is with Mr. Brooks right now and assessing his situation. If you’ll have a seat, I’m sure he’ll be with you shortly.”

Stifling her surprise, Ali did as she was told-she took a seat and waited. Because she still had Athena’s phone in her hand, she used those few moments to attempt to contact B. Simpson. There was a problem, however: This wasn’t her phone. She was used to dialing B. by simply using her directory. Without access to her cheat sheet of numbers, she was unable to recall B.’s. She had already dialed two wrong numbers by the time Athena and Chris came into the waiting room.

“Any word?” Chris asked.

“Not yet.” Ali started to hand the phone back.

“You keep it until we find yours,” Athena said.

“Thanks.” Ali stuffed the phone in her pocket.

“I just talked to Dave again,” Chris said to his mother. “He told me that both our house and Grandma’s are currently considered crime scenes. That means until they can get them processed, we’ll need to stay somewhere else. I can stay with Athena, but do you want her to find rooms for you and Grandpa and Grandma?”

Nodding, Ali leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “We’ll need a place for Sam, too,” she said. “Assuming anyone can catch her, that is. She’s probably petrified.”

Athena collected Chris’s phone and went to the desk to find a phone book while Chris turned to his mother. “Why?” he asked. “What happened there?”

Just thinking about it was enough to make Ali feel sick again. “He filled the tub with water, shoved my head under, and held it there. Repeatedly,” Ali said. “He did the same thing to Mr. Brooks.”

Chris knew all about Ali’s fear of water, and he was obviously appalled. He reached over and took his mother’s hand. “But who is this guy?” he asked. “And why would he do such a thing? Is he really a killer, like Dave said, and how did you and Grandma and Leland Brooks get mixed up with him?”

“Do you remember that identity thief B. and I were tracking?”

Chris nodded. “What about him?”

“B.’s a very smart man,” Ali said. “The man’s name is Peter Winter. We were actually able to lift his files right off his computer. It turns out they’re encrypted, so we still don’t know what’s on them, but whatever it is must be really incriminating. He was worried enough that he came here looking for me in hopes of getting them back.”

As if speaking of the devil, a pair of swinging doors opened, and there was Peter Winter himself. He was sitting in a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse, while the same two uniformed officers flanked the wheelchair. Winter wore the cuffs, but his clothing was gone. Instead, he was clad only in a skimpy hospital gown, with a single sheet thrown over his bare legs. The moment he saw Ali, his eyes sparked a look of pure fury.

“Bitch!” he muttered under his breath as the chair rolled past her. “You incredible bitch!”

To her surprise, Ali burst out laughing. She couldn’t help herself, and she was still laughing when the automatic outside door whirred shut behind him. Before she managed to get back under control, the swinging doors opened once more. A man dressed in scrubs strode into the lobby.

“Ms. Reynolds?” he asked, glancing around.

Stifling her laughter, Ali got to her feet and hurried forward. “Yes,” she said, “that’s me. Is Mr. Brooks going to be all right?”

“I’m Dr. Langston,” he said, “Mr. Brooks’s attending physician. We believe he’ll be fine. He’s very heavily sedated at the moment. That means that his blood pressure and heart rate aren’t entirely normal. We found two separate puncture marks on Mr. Brooks’s arm, marks that might possibly indicate he had been dosed with some kind of medication. Do you have any idea what drugs might have been administered?”