J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 1: Web of Evil, Hand of Evil, Cruel Intent

by Jance, J. A.

  Ali did the math. Haley would have been fifteen when her baby was born, and she was seventeen now. That meant little Liam was slightly past two.

  Nelda dissolved into tears. While Liam patted his grandmother’s arm consolingly, Ali looked around the room. Other than their table, the Sugarloaf was empty. Jan Howard was gone. Edie and Bob Larson were evidently hiding out in the kitchen.

  Nelda smiled at Liam through her tears while Ali wondered how much of the brutal story was soaking into Liam’s agile little brain.

  “What happened then?” Ali asked.

  “They arrested Patsy and charged her with rape. She tried to get off by turning state’s evidence, but that didn’t work. They arrested the guy, too. He was a repeat offender, and they’re both in prison now. He’s not supposed to get out for the next forty years. Patsy’s sentence is added on to what’s left of her other one. She won’t ever get out.”

  “Then Haley turned up pregnant.”

  Nelda nodded. “At the time, nobody told us about the morning-after pill. They probably should have, but they didn’t, and we didn’t know to ask. When we realized she was pregnant, I tried to talk her into having an abortion, but she wouldn’t. She told me it was against her religion, and that’s reason enough not to have one. But that’s also when I decided to sell out and move away. Yes, I know, I had told Liam that what those people thought or said didn’t matter, but when it came to Haley and the baby, I didn’t want them to have to put up with all that crap. We sold the farm, auctioned everything, and came here. There wasn’t much money. We had mortgaged everything to the hilt while Liam was sick. Fortunately, I was able to get work once we got here. It’s the perfect job, actually, since I work when Haley’s in school, and she works at Target when I’m home on the weekends.” Nelda glanced at her watch. “Speaking of which, I’m going to have to go soon or I’ll be late for work.”

  “What about the scholarship?” Ali asked.

  “I know how smart Haley is, and I want her to go on to school, but she won’t hear of it,” Nelda said. “She thinks that after all the years of looking after first her, then her grandfather, and now little Liam, it’s time for me to have some time off.”

  Ali nodded. “That’s pretty much what she told me. That she wanted to move out and live on her own. She’s already got a job lined up.”

  “I know about the job,” Nelda said. “At Target, but I want her to do better than that. Look what happened to me. I don’t have any education, either. That’s why I’m stuck working as a janitor. It was the best job I could get, and I’m glad to have it—at least I have some benefits. But I don’t want her to hit my age and be stuck in the same kind of rut. I know you said she’s only one of the candidates—one of the finalists—for that scholarship. I hope you’ll think about giving it to her and helping me talk her into taking it. I don’t want her to end up like me.”

  Ali reached across the table and took the older woman’s hand. “Scholarship or not,” she said, “Haley Marsh could do a lot worse than being just like you.”

  “What in the world was that all about?” Edie wanted to know after Nelda and Liam had driven away and Edie was sweeping up leftover oyster crackers.

  “She’s the grandmother of one of my scholarship candidates,” Ali said.

  “My goodness,” Edie said. “A senior in high school who already has a baby that old? Are you sure that’s the kind of person you’d want to be one of your recipients?”

  “Yes,” Ali said after a moment’s reflection. “I’m pretty sure she is.”

  Still overwhelmed by the sheer weight of Nelda Harris’s story, Ali left the restaurant with only a few minutes to spare. At the stroke of three, she pulled up in front of Marissa Dvorak’s modest home in one of Sedona’s least fashionable neighborhoods. A homemade wooden wheelchair ramp wound back and forth from the front gate to the side of the large front porch, where a dark-haired girl in a wheelchair sat waiting. She waved shyly as Ali exited the Cayenne.

  “Ms. Reynolds?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Ali answered. “Alison Reynolds.”

  When Marissa held out her hand in greeting, Ali saw that the fingers were bent at a severe angle. The skin on her wide face was pulled taut across features distended by steroids, but her smile was utterly sincere, and her excitement was only barely under control.

  “When Mr. Brooks called to set up this appointment, I went online and did some checking on you,” Marissa said. “I think I know what this is about.”

  “And what would that be?” Ali asked.

  “An Askins Scholarship, maybe?” Marissa asked hopefully.

  Since Haley had already turned down the scholarship, Marissa should have been the last finalist. Had it not been for Nelda Harris’s emotional plea, Marissa would have been the hands-down winner. Now Ali wasn’t so sure. “How about if we go inside and talk this over?” she suggested.

  The subsequent interview couldn’t have been more different from the one with Haley Marsh. Marissa was thrilled beyond measure. She was eager to go on to college. She already had a letter of acceptance from the University of Arizona and had banked several advanced-placement classes, but with two younger children at home—also adopted—Marissa and her family had been worried that her going to college could only come with a huge burden of student loans.

  Partway through the interview, Ali made up her mind. Haley Marsh was conflicted. Yes, she was certainly deserving and had been victimized by dreadful circumstances, but was it reasonable to attempt to push her into accepting a scholarship she didn’t really want? And even if coercion worked, was it fair to herd her into going to college against her own wishes? On the other hand, Marissa Dvorak was an equally deserving young woman, one who was thrilled at the prospect of receiving a scholarship. She already knew where she wanted to go and would be happy to accept some help in getting there.

  “You mean you can just say so?” Marissa asked when Ali told her the scholarship was hers. “You can decide just like that?”

  “Actually, I can,” Ali said. “Of the three finalists, you’re the most viable. If it’s all right with you, we’ll make the official announcement in a press release sometime in the next week or so. In the meantime, you’re welcome to let people know, especially your parents.”

  “They’re not going to believe it.”

  “You’re a remarkable young woman,” Ali said. “I think they will.”

  Ali went on to tell Marissa about the terms of the scholarship—how much she would get and the GPA she’d need to maintain to receive it in subsequent years. When Ali left the house at four-thirty, she felt a real sense of relief and accomplishment. Months earlier, when Arabella Ashcroft had first broached the subject of Ali taking over the administration chores on the Askins Scholarship, Ali had been reluctant. Now, having seen firsthand the tremendous difference the award would make in smoothing the road for Marissa, Ali felt thankful to be involved.

  As late as it was, Ali went straight home to Andante Drive, where she was astonished to find Leland Brooks’s Mazda pickup still parked there. Several scatter rugs, freshly laundered and hung out to dry, decorated the rail on the front porch. From inside, she heard the wail of a vacuum cleaner. She opened the door and found the furniture pushed to one side of the room while Leland vacuumed where it had once stood. When she shut the front door, he turned off the noisy machine and faced her.

  “Why are you still here?” Ali asked.

  “Because I’m cleaning,” he said simply. “As I told you, I came to get an idea about the kitchen situation—about cooking and serving equipment as well as dishes. Those all appear to be quite adequate. As for the rest of it, your quarters wouldn’t pass even the most rudimentary inspection. If you expect to have your home ready to receive guests by Thanksgiving, I’m going to need to spend some time here, whipping it into shape. Vacuuming will do for today, but what this carpet really needs is a thorough shampooing. I’ve reserved a shampooer for first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Ali f
elt a pang of guilt. She and Chris were reasonably neat and conscientious about putting things away, but neither one of them excelled at the kind of deep cleaning required to measure up to Leland Brooks’s fastidious standards. That was one of the drawbacks about living with a professionally trained butler. He called the shots in the nicest way imaginable, but he still called the shots.

  “How are things at the construction site?” he asked, carefully wrapping up the power cord and attaching it to the vacuum’s stem. Ali tended to shove the vacuum cleaner into the broom closet and toss the cord in after.

  “When I left,” Ali said, “my understanding was that once the wallboarders finished work today, our job would be shut down until Mr. Forester gives the word.”

  “That’s probably just as well,” Leland said. “It also means that it won’t be a problem if I’m working over here for the next little while, giving the place some spit and polish.”

  “About that,” Ali began. “It seems to me that Chris and I should be responsible for cleaning up our own mess.”

  “Madam,” Leland said, “for the past several months, while I’ve been stuck at the construction site, you’ve barely tapped my potential. I’ve been quite frustrated. Bored, really, almost to the point of giving notice. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that, so let me tackle the work here and get it done. It will give me a chance to show you what I can do—what I’m capable of.”

  “What about the part where you offered to clean Billy Barnes’s clock?” Ali asked with a smile. “Was that part of showing me what you can do?”

  “Boasting for its own sake is in very bad taste,” Leland said. “But I was trained by the Royal Marines, and I still know the moves. Over the years, I’ve had to use them more than once.”

  “The next time Jacky shows up, I might let you use some of those moves on him.”

  “You think he’ll be back?” Leland asked.

  “Of course he’ll be back,” Ali answered. She handed him Marissa Dvorak’s file folder. “By the way, I talked to Marissa Dvorak and made up my mind. She’s this year’s recipient.”

  “That stands to reason, since Miss Marsh turned it down,” Leland replied. “Would you like me to prepare a press release to that effect?”

  “Yes, please,” Ali said. “I told her you would.”

  Leland nodded. “Very well.” He looked around the room. “I got a start on things today, but since I’m going to be shampooing the carpet tomorrow, I hope you won’t mind if I leave the furniture where it is.”

  Ali knew Leland Brooks was more than capable of pushing the leather couch around, but there was no need for him to do so twice. “Of course not,” she said. “This is fine.”

  “You can expect me here bright and early,” he said. “You may want to be out and about. As for your Cayenne, if you’ll pardon my saying, that could also use a good detailing.”

  “Trying to keep me in line must be a real trial for you,” Ali said.

  “On the contrary, madam,” Leland said with a fond smile. “Occasionally, I find it quite stimulating.”

  CHAPTER 9

  As soon as Chris knew Leland Brooks had left, he ventured upstairs. “Is the cleaning Nazi gone?” he asked. “He was here working up a storm when I got home from school. What was that all about?”

  “Thanksgiving,” Ali told him. “With everything that’s going on with the contractor, we came to the conclusion that there’s no chance of having dinner at the new house. Leland came over here to see about whipping this one into shape.”

  “You’re not going to let him clean my studio, are you?”

  “He will unless you stop him,” Ali said with a laugh. “Since he seems to be a force of nature, I’m not sure that’s possible.”

  Chris took a soda from the fridge and hustled back downstairs. Ali was in the bedroom changing into her comfy sweats when her phone rang. Caller ID told her the number was restricted.

  “Ms. Reynolds?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s B.”

  The B. in question happened to belong to Bartholomew Quentin Simpson. Named after his maternal grandfather, Bart Simpson had been ten years old when the other Bart Simpson first appeared on local TV screens, thereby consigning Sedona’s Bart Simpson to a peculiar form of childhood hell. Subjected to unending teasing, he stopped answering to any name but his first initial, since using both of them, B.Q., didn’t work for him, either. The one initialed B. had retreated into the solitary solace that computers had to offer. By seventh grade, he had taken apart his father’s old Commodore 64 computer and put it back together.

  By eighth grade, B. Simpson had taught himself to write computer code. To his parents’ dismay, he had dropped out of high school his junior year after selling his first video game to Nintendo. He had gone to work for them long enough and well enough that he’d been able to “retire” at age twenty-eight. He had returned to the Sedona area, where, although he had never played golf, he bought himself a golf-course-view home. Rather than hitting the links, he had started his own computer security firm called High Noon Enterprises. His company motto was “It takes a hacker to catch a hacker.”

  Now that B. Simpson was back in town, he easily could have been one of Sedona’s most eligible bachelors, except no one really knew he was there. He lived alone and worked odd hours, usually coming into the Sugarloaf for breakfast just as Edie and Bob Larson were closing down for the day. It was Bob who had brought B. Simpson’s painful childhood history and the existence of High Noon Enterprises to Ali’s attention.

  “The way I understand it, he’s sort of like an Internet version of an old-fashioned gunslinger,” Bob Larson had told his daughter. “As much time as you spend online, you should probably have someone like him in your corner. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone shipped you one of those awful viruses. Or worms.”

  In the end, Ali had signed up with B.’s High Noon Enterprises more to shut her father up than because she was worried about being hacked. In the three months since she’d been a paying customer, it had seemed like a needless expense. As far as she could see, preventing cyber crime seemed about as exciting as watching grass grow.

  “Good to hear from you,” Ali said now to B. “What’s up?”

  “You won’t think it’s good to hear from me when you find out what I have to say,” B. warned her. “You’ve got yourself a Trojan.”

  “Excuse me?” Ali asked.

  “A Trojan horse,” B. replied. “In your computer. Twice each day I run a monitoring check on all the computers I have under contract. Today your noontime analysis came up positive.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that as long as your computer is connected to the Internet, someone else can see everything you do there. He can take over control of your computer. He can gain access to your files and change them. He can also send mail that’s ostensibly from you, even though it isn’t. You don’t use a multiple-computer network, do you?”

  “No,” Ali said. “I’m usually on my air card.”

  “That’s good,” B. said. “If there are other computers operating on the same network, the bad guy can gain access to those as well. If he’s inside your computer, he’s also inside your network.”

  Suddenly, cyber crime sounded a lot more ominous. Ali was surprised to find herself feeling spooked and vulnerable. Knowing that a crook could operate inside her computer made her feel like someone had broken into her house and penetrated her personal safety zone.

  “What should I do, then?” she asked. “Turn off the computer? Unplug the damn thing and shut it down?”

  “No,” B. said. “If you do that, it might tip him off that we’re on to him. I want you to leave the computer on. Try to use it more or less the way you usually do.”

  “Why?”

  “Computers that are connected to the Internet are two-way streets,” B. explained. “Whoever sent you the Trojan did it over the Internet. I’m going to try to return the favor and send one right back to him. Wh
ile he’s monitoring your every keystroke, I’ll be monitoring his keystrokes. If he makes a move, I should be able to begin tracking him down.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ali said. “If he has that kind of total access to my computer, shouldn’t I cancel my credit cards and shut down my online banking? Should I report this to the police?”

  “It’s my experience that banks are a whole lot more interested in identity theft than cops are. If there’s a murder or even an armed robbery, the cops are all over it. With identity theft, they’re not until and unless we can prove that a crime has actually been committed. They’ll get on the bandwagon once we’ve accumulated enough evidence that it’s easy for them to make a case without having to expend much effort. Right now the best thing that could happen is that the guy will try to rip you off. In order to catch him at it, you’ll need to monitor your credit-card and bank transactions very carefully. Be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, but don’t use your computer to do it.”

  “If I’m not supposed to use my computer,” Ali objected, “how am I supposed to go about monitoring anything?”

  “I have a couple of spare laptops lying around,” B. said. “I’ll be glad to lend you one of mine to use for the time being. If you don’t mind, I can drop off a loaner for you a little later this evening. You can insert your air card and use that for anything you don’t want exposed to prying eyes.”

  “You’ll drop it off,” Ali murmured. “Does that mean you know where I live?”

  “Yup,” B. replied, “I’m afraid I do. It was right there in your computer files, plain as day. And I’m not the only one who would know that, either. If I found it out, our sneaky little friend can find it out, too.”

  “Great,” Ali said. “See you when you get here. The sooner the better.”