J. Jance - Cruel Intent

“You tried one,” Bryan said. “You came home.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that my husband screwed around on me,” Ali said. “Coming home didn’t fix it for me, and leaving home won’t fix it for you, either. And uprooting your girls from everything that’s familiar is the last thing they need right now. It’ll make things that much worse for them. Stay here, Bryan. Look your demons in the eye.”

“Including Billy Barnes?” he asked.

“Especially Billy Barnes,” Ali told him. “Especially him.”

“I’ll think about it,” Bryan said. With that, he ground out his cigarette and strode inside.

Ali parked in a no-parking zone in front of a Dumpster. She went inside the mortuary and found a spot to sit on one of the extra folding chairs that had been set up around the perimeter of the chapel to accommodate the standing-room-only crowd. Ali could see why Bryan might have a problem with some of those folks. Cindy Martin, the manicurist who had been only to happy to blame him, was sitting there as big as life on the end of the fourth row. Ali suspected that many of the other people in attendance were ones who had been quick to think Bryan was responsible for his wife’s death and to dish out rumors and innuendo.

Others, however, were clearly there in a show of support. Ali wasn’t surprised to see that Mindy Farber, Lacy and Lindsey’s teacher, had taken time off to be there for them.

The service, conducted by the Reverend C. W. Stowell, was a low-key affair, dignified but distant, as though the minister had been asked to officiate without knowing too many details about either the deceased or her family. From Ali’s point of view, that was a good thing. It gave the two little girls sitting quietly in the front row something to remember about the loss of their mother. As Mindy Farber had told them, it was a way of saying goodbye.

Ali ducked out during the final benediction and went back to the hospital, where she found Leland, fully dressed except for shoes, waiting for her in the lobby.

“The doctor came around and told me I could go, but he said that with this arm, I’m in no condition to drive. He said I needed to have someone come pick me up. I’ve been trying to call you, but your cell phone isn’t working.”

And won’t ever work again, Ali thought.

The nurse came forward to wheel Leland’s chair out to the Cayenne. “Just drop me off at the house,” he said once he was loaded into the passenger seat. “I’ll be fine.”

“No,” Ali said. “We can go by your place and pick up some clothing, but for right now Sam and I are staying at the Majestic Mountain Inn, and so are you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Leland said. “I’m perfectly capable of staying on my own.”

“You may be capable of it,” Ali said, “but you’re not doing it. End of discussion.”

After checking Leland in to a room three doors down from hers, Ali went up to the house and collected clothing for him from his fifth wheel. At her house there was clear evidence that a search had been conducted the day before. The locked front door had been battered open and was closed now with a piece of plywood that had been screwed into the casing with wallboard screws. The padlock on Bryan’s storage unit dangled unlocked on the hasp. A quick look inside told Ali all was in order, but she picked up her phone-Athena’s phone-and called Dave Holman.

“It’s bad enough that your guys had to break my door down,” she said, “but they also left Bryan’s toolshed unlocked. What if someone had come by during the funeral to steal his stuff?”

“I’ll go by the hardware store and pick up a new padlock,” Dave said. “Then I’ll be right there.”

True to his word, Dave arrived under ten minutes later.

“What were you hoping to find here?” Ali asked as Dave struggled to liberate the padlock from its childproof plastic container.

“Syringes,” he said. “But as you know, the ones we were looking for turned up somewhere else.”

“And in someone else’s possession,” Ali added.

Dave nodded. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Most of the time the culprit turns out to be the husband.”

“Or the boyfriend,” Ali said.

“You’re not going to give me a break on this one, are you?”

“No,” she said. “Since I was right and you were wrong, I see no reason not to rub it in.”

He laughed at that. They both did.

Dave freed the padlock, threaded it through the hasp, locked it, and handed Ali the key. “We found photos,” he said, turning serious and changing the subject.

“What kind of photos?”

“Souvenirs,” he said. “Pictures of five dead women, one of whom happens to be Morgan Forester. We’re pretty sure one of them is Rita Winter. We don’t know who the others are yet, but as of now it’s pretty clear that Bryan Forester wasn’t involved in any of it.”

“What about Singleatheart?” Ali asked.

Dave shrugged. “I asked Winter about that,” he said. “He sneered at me and said, ‘Figure it out.’ So that’s what we’re doing-figuring it out. I think you and B. Simpson were on the right track. Identity theft probably played a big part in it. It made money for Winter, but I think he used Singleatheart as a way to mess around with people’s lives. People signed up with them looking for romance, but he ran it with cruel-rather than romantic-intent. I’ve already got one suicide I can lay at Winter’s door, and there may be more. I most likely can’t bring him up on criminal charges for that, but the widow might be able to file a civil suit against him-assuming Winter has any actual assets.”

“Won’t having his files help you with all that?” Ali asked.

“That depends,” Dave said.

“On what?”

“On whether or not a judge rules our having them constitutes an illegal wiretap.”

It took until Monday for things to get back to seminormal. Complaining about the cost, Edie and Bob Larson bailed out of the hotel first and were back home by Saturday evening. Ali convinced Leland that he needed to take it easy for a few days, but by Monday morning he insisted that he was well enough to go home to his fifth wheel. By Monday afternoon Ali and Sam were back home, too, in the house on Andante Drive in Skyview.

As soon as Ali let Sam out of her crate, the cat made a beeline for her safe-haven hidey-hole in the laundry room while Ali wandered through the house. She’d had a locksmith come through and change all the locks, for safety’s sake, but knowing that the house had been invaded-that she and Leland had both been attacked there-left her feeling nervous and uncomfortable.

Chris, Athena, and some of their friends had spent the weekend cleaning up the mess left behind by the water and the investigation; they’d also reshampooed the carpets. Even though none of the damage was visible, Ali still felt Peter Winter’s ominous presence in her home and in her life.

Athena’s phone rang. Ali had been too busy in the intervening days to go to the store to replace the one that had died in her bathtub.

“Hello?” Ali said.

“Hello,” a woman’s voice returned. “Is Athena Carlson there?”

“I’m sorry,” Ali said. “I’m Athena’s fiancé’s mother. My phone was damaged last week, and she’s letting me use hers temporarily. I can give you Chris’s number, if you like. You can call her on that line.”

There was a momentary hesitation on the other end of the phone. “Alison?” the woman asked warily. “Is this Alison Larson, then?”

No one had called Ali Reynolds by that name in years-decades, even. “Yes,” Ali said. “Who is this?”

“It’s Jeanette. Jeanette Reynolds, Dean’s mother. I can’t believe I’m actually hearing your voice. Athena tracked Angus down over the Internet. She sent him an e-mail at work, introducing herself and asking if we’d like to be in touch. We were overjoyed to hear from her. This is the phone number she left in the e-mail in case we wanted to call. I know it’s a bit awkward for us to come horning back into your lives like this after so many years, but yes, we’d be so honored to have a chance to finally meet our grandson, and we’ll be thrilled to come to the wedding. He’s the only grandson we have, you know. We wouldn’t want to miss it.”