by J. A. Jance
“At least you didn’t lose the Bronco,” Ali commented, hoping to lift his spirits.
It took a little over an hour for the tow truck to show up and another hour after that to get the Bronco hauled to the secured area of a local garage. By the time Ali dropped her father off at her parents’, it was after one in the morning. Back home, Ali parked next to Chris’s Prius. Glad he was there, she was happy to creep into her own room and tumble into bed, where she fell asleep immediately. It seemed as though she’d been sleeping for only a matter of minutes when the phone rang again. As she fumbled to answer it, the clock on her bedside radio showed it was four-fifteen.
“Hello.”
“Ali,” Dave Holman said quickly. “I’m so sorry to wake you, but you said I should call you day or night.”
Ali switched on her bedside lamp and sat up. “Where are you, and did you find Crystal?” she asked. “Is she okay?”
“I’m in Vegas,” Dave said. “I just checked into the hotel, and we sort of found Crystal. That’s why I’m calling you.”
“Sort of?” Ali repeated. “How can you sort of find her? Either you have or you haven’t.”
“She called me on my cell a little while ago and wanted me to come get her.”
“Great!” Ali exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”
“Except she’s in Mund’s Park and I’m in Vegas,” Dave returned.
Mund’s Park was a way station on I-17, a few miles south of Flagstaff. It was forty miles and an hour’s drive from Sedona.
“It would take hours for me to get back to where she is,” Dave continued. “I offered to have the sheriff’s department send a patrol car to pick her up, and she totally freaked—like I was trying to have her arrested or something. And that’s why I’m calling you. Would you go pick her up, Ali? If you could take her to your place long enough for me to get back there…”
“I’ll be glad to,” Ali responded. “Where is she again?”
“That’s the thing,” Dave answered. “She called on her cell phone. She said she’s all right, but she wouldn’t tell me exactly where she was until I promised I wouldn’t send a cop car for her. We finally settled on my calling you. She said you should call on her cell and she’ll give you directions about where to come to get her. Jeez, Ali! The idea that she’s out there in the dark and the cold all by herself…”
Dave’s final sentence faded away, but Ali had heard the hard edge of anger in his voice—anger and relief and frustration all mixed together. By then she was already scrambling out of bed.
“I’m on my way,” Ali said. “Just let me find a pencil so I can write down the number.” While Ali searched frantically through the debris on her bedside desk, a concerned Chris appeared in her doorway.
“Mom,” he said. “I heard the phone. Is something the matter?”
“It’s Dave,” Ali said, waving him aside. “Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
Giving his mother a disapproving shake of his head, Chris disappeared back down the hallway.
“Okay,” Ali said. “I’ve got a pencil finally. Give me the number.”
She took it down. “All right,” she said. “I’ll call her as soon as you hang up.”
“I really appreciate this, Ali,” Dave said. “You have no idea how much.”
“Let’s just say it’s a little bit of payback,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m not going to cancel the Amber Alert or tell Roxie what’s happened until after I hear back from you and know for sure she’s in your car,” Dave continued. “Is that all right with you?”
“Sure,” Ali said. “That’s fine.”
“Thanks again,” Dave said. Then he hung up.
Ali immediately dialed the number he had given her. “Hello.” Ali could tell it was the voice of a young girl. “Who is this?”
“My name is Ali Reynolds. I’m a friend of Dave Holman’s. Is this Crystal?”
“Are you a cop?” the girl asked without answering.
“No, I’m not a cop,” Ali replied. “I’m a friend of Dave’s. Now tell me, is this Crystal Holman or not?”
“Yes,” a small voice answered.
“Where are you?”
“Mund’s Park.”
“I know you’re in Mund’s Park,” Ali said. “Your father already told me that much. Where in Mund’s Park?”
“The restaurant is closed right now,” Crystal said. “Just pull into the parking lot and wait there. I’ll come to you. What kind of a car will you be driving?”
“It’s an SUV,” Ali said. “A blue SUV.”
“Okay. Just pull into the restaurant parking lot and turn your lights off and on,” Crystal said. “I’ll be able to see them and come to you.”
Mund’s Park, a natural clearing in the forest of the Mogollon Rim, had once been the summer headquarters for a major cattle-grazing operation homesteaded by a guy named James Mund, but the cattle were long gone. Now Mund’s Park’s wintertime major claim to fame was as the only gas station stop on I-17 between Verde Valley and Flagstaff. There were a few hardy souls who lived there year-round, but many of the residents were of the “summer only” variety. That meant that during the winter months a lot of cabins and campers sat empty, and Ali knew that unoccupied homes were often attractive to certain segments of society.
“Did you break into someone’s house?” Ali asked.
Crystal said nothing, and that was answer enough. No wonder she didn’t want her father to send a cop car to pick her up.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Ali told her.
Ending that call, she redialed Dave’s number. “Okay,” she said. “I’ve talked to Crystal. She told me where to meet her.”
“Thank God,” Dave breathed.
The relief in his voice was heart-wrenchingly apparent. Ali could find no good reason to mention the breaking-and-entering part of the equation. As a law enforcement professional, Dave would probably figure that out on his own soon enough.
“Drive carefully,” he urged.
“Don’t worry,” Ali said. “I will.”
Before Ali left the house, though, she stopped in the hallway closet long enough to strap on her holstered Glock. Ali had a license to carry a concealed weapon. If she was going to go driving around by herself in the middle of the night, she was going to have her nine millimeter along—just in case.
Better to have it with her and not need it than the other way around.
{ CHAPTER 6 }
Out in her frigid car, Ali turned on her heated seat and once again headed for I-17. This time she merged into the northbound lanes rather than the southbound. She actively disliked doing nighttime driving on that particular stretch of the freeway. For one thing, during the winter, it was often icy in spots—icy or snowy or both. This time snow wasn’t the issue. There had been a single big blizzard just before Christmas, but by now most of that had melted away. All that was left lingered along the highway in murky gray strips or lay in a patchwork of shady spots off in the woods. The real danger that particular night consisted of wandering herds of elk who liked to make leisurely nighttime crossings of the highway, meandering across the busy lanes with zero regard for oncoming vehicular traffic.
As she approached the Mund’s Park exit, Ali saw flashing emergency lights. As she slowed for the turn, it was clear from the collection of vehicles that someone had come to grief on the far side of the southbound lanes. Tow trucks had probably removed the damaged vehicles, but a few cops were still in attendance busily completing paperwork.
Ali pulled into the deserted restaurant parking lot and flashed her lights. She was feeling tired and more than slightly resentful toward her teenaged charge. For the better part of five minutes, nothing happened, then a figure materialized out of the darkness on the far side of the Cayenne and tapped sharply on the window. Ali rolled it down.
“Crystal?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes. Hurry. I’m freezing.”
>
Ali unlocked the passenger door and a shivering Crystal Holman scrambled inside. “Are you all right?” Ali asked, switching on the interior light.
Crystal didn’t answer. Her teeth were chattering. She was wearing jeans, tennis shoes with no socks, a rhinestone-decorated lightweight denim jacket, and a black T-shirt that didn’t come close to covering her bare middle. No wonder she was cold. What might work as outerwear for school in wintertime Las Vegas wasn’t nearly enough for wintertime Mund’s Park.
Ali reached in the back and collected the featherweight wool shawl she kept there. When she handed it to Crystal, Ali caught a glimpse of the girl’s face. In the tearstained remains of layers of makeup, Ali noticed the clear outline of a hand on Crystal’s right cheek. “You’re hurt,” Ali said. “Who hit you?”
“I’m all right,” Crystal said.
“If you’ve been assaulted, we should call and report it.”
“No. We don’t need to report anything. Can we please just get out of here?”
“Not until your father knows you’re safe,” Ali said.
“You call him, then,” Crystal said, huddling in the far corner of the seat. “I don’t want to talk to him right now.”
Dave answered his cell the moment it rang. “Got her,” Ali said.
She heard Dave’s heartfelt sigh of relief. “She’s okay?”
From what Ali could see, Crystal was a long way from okay. “Medium,” she said.
“Put her on the phone,” Dave said. “I want to talk to her.”
Ali held the phone in Crystal’s direction. She sat with her arms crossed, staring straight ahead, and refused to take it.
“That would be a no,” Ali said into the phone.
“She won’t talk to me? What the hell’s going on with that girl?” Dave demanded.
“I’m not sure,” Ali said. And she wasn’t.
“I’ll get in the car, head back down there, and straighten her out,” Dave said.
Ali doubted Crystal was in any condition to be “straightened” just then.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ali told him. “You’ve already driven five hours tonight. We don’t need you to crash and burn driving another five back to Sedona. Let Roxie and everyone else know that Crystal’s safe. Get yourself a decent night’s sleep. I’ll take Crystal home with me. You can pick her up in the morning.”
Although it already is morning, Ali thought.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
Ali knew Crystal was frightened and upset. She had come to get the girl, and Ali was prepared to be sympathetic and understanding, but Crystal’s adamant refusal to speak to her father was puzzling. Still, the warmth in the vehicle had worked its magic. At least Crystal’s teeth were no longer chattering.
“You should have talked to him,” Ali said. “You put your whole family through hell, Crystal. He just wanted to hear the sound of your voice so he could tell for himself that you were all right. Are you going to call your mom?”
“He’ll call her,” Crystal said defiantly. “Can’t we just go? Do we have to sit here all night?”
“You need to fasten your seat belt,” Ali reminded her.
“My mom doesn’t make us wear seat belts,” Crystal replied.
By then, Ali’s sympathy was pretty much stretched to the breaking point. I can’t help it if your mom’s an idiot, Ali thought. “Either fasten your seat belt or get out and walk,” Ali said firmly. “It’s up to you.”
“But you told my father you were taking me home,” Crystal argued.
“Yes, I did, but seat belt use is required in this state, and it’s nonnegotiable. I won’t break the law by letting you ride in my vehicle without one. So you choose. It’s either use your seat belt or get out. Which is it?”
With an exaggerated sigh, Crystal flung herself around in the seat, located the seat belt, fastened it, and then settled back into the seat. “Satisfied?” She scowled.
Ali shoved the Cayenne into reverse. Moments after exiting the deserted parking lot, they were back on the freeway. As they headed south, Ali wanted to know more about what Crystal had been up to, and since kindness didn’t seem to work, maybe a touch of toughness would.
“Whose house did you break into?” Ali asked evenly.
“Who says I broke in?” Crystal returned.
“Do I look stupid to you?” Ali wanted to know. “You weren’t standing around outside dressed like that the whole time you were waiting for me, and if you’d been loitering over by the gas station, somebody would have called the cops.”
There was a pause. “I didn’t hurt anything,” Crystal said finally. “I was cold and hungry, and I didn’t have any money. Only there wasn’t any food in the house. Not even crackers.”
Since being tough was working, Ali didn’t let up. “Well, boo-hoo-hoo,” she said with zero sympathy in her voice “Everybody should leave some food lying around the house so whatever burglars happen to break in won’t have to go hungry. Why did you run away?”
“You’re not a cop. You can’t ask me all these questions.”
“No, I’m not a cop,” Ali agreed. “I’m just the poor dope who’s spending a couple of hours of her beauty sleep saving your butt from freezing to death. So consider this a replay of the seat belt situation. Answer the questions or I’ll stop the car and let you out.”
There was another long period of silence. Finally Crystal said, “I wanted to come see my dad. I wanted to come live with him.”
“But you wouldn’t talk to him on the phone just now.”
“He’s mad at me.”
“If you wanted to come live with him, you should have asked; you should have discussed the custody situation with the adults in your life instead of running away.”
“There wasn’t any use in asking,” Crystal said. “Mom wouldn’t let me.”
“How did you get here?” Ali asked. “It’s a long way from Vegas to Mund’s Park.”
Again there was a pause before Crystal answered. “I hitchhiked,” she said at last.
Ali was appalled. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
“I didn’t have enough money for a bus ticket,” Crystal explained. “And the guys who gave me rides were mostly pretty nice. The one who gave me a ride from Boulder City even bought me lunch in Kingman.”
“For free?” Ali asked.
“What do you mean?”
“He gave you lunch for free?”
Crystal shrugged. “Pretty much,” she said.
“What does ‘pretty much’ mean?”
“All he wanted was a blow job,” Crystal said.
Ali almost wrecked her car. “He what?”
“A blow job. You know what that is, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Ali replied grimly. “I do know what blow jobs are.” Why the hell do you?
Crystal shrugged again. “So I gave him one. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“You gave him a blow job for what, a Subway sandwich?”
“No. KFC.”
Ali could barely believe her ears, and she knew when or if Dave heard the full story, it would totally break his heart.
“I suppose you know what that makes you then,” Ali said. “If you’re selling sex for money or food, you’re a prostitute.”
“Blow jobs aren’t sex,” Crystal asserted. “That’s what the boys at school say—that you can save your virginity for marriage and still do blow jobs now. Just ‘friends with benefits.’ No problem.”
For a moment, Ali was beyond speechless. When she was finally able to reply, she measured her words very carefully. “Some boys will say anything to get what they want out of a girl. But if I were a nice man looking for someone equally nice to marry, a blow-job virgin wouldn’t be first on my list.”
Ali waited for Crystal’s response. When none was forthcoming, Ali glanced in her direction. The enveloping warmth of the vehicle must have affected Crystal because she had nodded off in mid-conversation. W
ith her body sagging against the car door, she sat there with her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open, breathing deeply. Ali realized that she probably hadn’t even heard Ali’s parting remark.
As Ali drove on through the cold winter night, her heart went out to Dave Holman. He has no idea what he’s up against.
In the cold hard predawn darkness, a single vehicle, an SUV, slowed and then rolled to a stop in the middle of the Burro Creek Bridge on U.S. 60 north of Wickenburg. While the driver stayed behind the wheel, two people got out. For a few moments they milled indecisively around on the bridge deck. Finally they went to the rear of the vehicle and pulled something heavy from the luggage area.
They carried it over to the guard rail, hoisted it, and then shoved it over the side, letting it plummet to the floor of the canyon, hundreds of feet below.
The driver honked the horn impatiently. “Let’s go!” he yelled. “Somebody’s coming. We’ve got to get out of here.”
By the time Ali drove back into Sedona, it was already after six. Ali started to drive straight home. Then, at the last minute, she pulled into the Sugarloaf parking lot instead. As soon as the car stopped, Crystal stirred, sat up, and looked around.
“What are we doing here?” she asked sleepily.
The tough-broad act seemed to be working, so Ali kept at it. “You said you were hungry earlier. I’m willing to buy you breakfast, but on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“The people who own this place are my parents. They’re also friends of your father’s. So, when we walk in the front door, I want you to turn right just past the cash register, go straight into the restroom, and use soap and water to scrub that god-awful mess of makeup off your face.”
For a moment it looked as though Crystal was getting ready to argue, but the air in the parking lot was heavy with the scent of Edie Larson’s freshly baked sweet rolls. Eventually they carried the day.
“All right,” Crystal allowed gracelessly. “I’ll do it.”
It was early yet. When they entered the Sugarloaf, only the corner booth was occupied, filled with a bunch of regulars, a crew of construction worker bees who had to be on shift by 7 A.M.
