Ali Reynolds 08 - Deadly Stakes

by J. A. Jance

  Ali nodded. “What about it?”

  “I got tired of being the target of all that stone throwing,” Molly said. “I mean, here’s Gemma busily telling me ‘What you need to do is this’ and ‘What you need to do is that,’ when her own life isn’t exactly a model of perfect relationships. I figured she didn’t have much room to talk, and I told her so. Then I left, came home, and went to bed. That’s all there was to it.”

  “Then there was that odd moment when your mother said something about Gemma being asleep in the car.”

  “You may have noticed, my mother gets confused on occasion,” Molly said. “Things that happened months ago seem like yesterday to her. You have to know that Gemma was known to have a few too many now and then. A couple of months ago, when she was in no condition to drive, we brought her home from the club and left her in Mother’s car long enough to sleep it off. Once she sobered up, I took her back down to the club to pick up her car so she could drive herself home.

  “The whole episode offended Mother’s tender sensibilities and, like everything else to do with Gemma, it’s stuck in her very random access memory. At the time, she thought I should have brought Gemma into the house and put her to bed properly, in one of the guest rooms. Of course, Mama didn’t bother considering the physical impossibility of my being able to get a sleeping drunk up the stairs and through the house single-handed. That was all my problem, not hers. So periodically, Mama goes off on one of those ‘Gemma’s sleeping’ rants, just like she did last night. When that happens, I try to consider the source and ignore it.”

  Having heard what Luis had to say about Gemma’s drinking habits, Ali was tempted to accept Molly’s explanation at face value. Still, something about the supposedly plausible answer jarred. It was a little too smooth, too pat—as though it had been rehearsed or delivered before, verbatim.

  “What about your mother’s missing necklace?” Ali asked.

  That one caught Molly off guard. Her cheeks paled. “What missing necklace?” she asked.

  “You know,” Ali said with a careless shrug. “The one Gemma offered to come help find.”

  There was a momentary silence. Gradually, color seeped back into Molly’s face. Ali knew something important had just happened, though she wasn’t sure what.

  Shaking her head, Molly regrouped. “Oh, that,” she said offhandedly. “Same thing. As I said before, Mother gets confused from time to time. She had told Gemma that morning on the phone that she had lost her favorite necklace, one Daddy gave her for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Turns out Mama had it put away in an old jewelry box instead of the one she usually uses, so the necklace was never lost in the first place.”

  “Where is she, by the way?” Ali asked.

  “Mama? I asked her to stay out of the way while we were packing. She’s probably in her room, mooning over that damned photo album from Gemma and Chip’s wedding. She barely lets it out of her sight. Drags it with her everywhere she goes. It drives me nuts.”

  The night before, when Ali had seen Doris cradling the wedding album, she had assumed Doris was reliving her own or her daughter’s wedding. Apparently, that assumption had been wrong.

  “Your mother’s unrelenting focus on Gemma must be overwhelming at times.”

  “You think?” Molly asked with more than a trace of rancor. “Yes, in the wedding sweepstakes, I always come in second best. Actually, I’m so far behind the field that no one even knows I’m there. It’s especially helpful that my mother’s condition makes it possible for her to forget everything about everyone else, but she doesn’t forget a single thing about Gemma. That’s still all there, every bit of it, and Mama never hesitates to rub it in.”

  Ali’s iPad dinged, letting her know there was an arriving message, but she had no time to look at it. Somewhere in the back of the house, a door slammed shut, and heavy footsteps came rushing toward the living room. A heavyset man with a fleshy face and coal-black slicked-back hair appeared in the doorway between the dining room and living room.

  “If you’re here,” he demanded, “where’s the Jag?”

  “What do you mean, where’s the Jag?” Molly returned. “It’s in the garage, where it’s supposed to be.”

  “No, it’s not. It was there a few minutes ago, and you were in the shower when I took the Mercedes down to fill up with gas. Now it’s gone.”

  Molly looked at him, then wordlessly, she got up and left the room. Moments later, she was back. Once again her face had gone ashen. “She’s gone,” she said.

  “Did you give her the medicine?”

  Molly nodded.

  “Are you sure she took it?”

  “It’s gone.”

  “Did you up the dose?”

  “I gave her the usual amount.”

  “Crap,” the man muttered. “How could you be so dumb? I’ve been trying to tell you all along that she might end up developing a tolerance for the stuff. But did you listen? Of course not.”

  “I’m sorry,” Molly murmured.

  “And today of all days!” he continued to rage. “We’re on a very tight schedule here. We’ve got a plane to catch. Losing track of your mother right now is the last thing we need!”

  “I’m sorry,” Molly said again.

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it,” he said, ignoring the apology. “How the hell did this happen?”

  “I don’t know. When I got out of the shower, I noticed that the dead-bolt key was missing from the entryway table. As far as I knew, Mama was in her room. I thought maybe you had taken the key.”

  “What makes you think I’d use the front door to get to the garage?” the man said. “Do I look stupid? We’ve got to find her. Where do you think she went?”

  “I don’t know. The last thing we talked about was going to Palm Springs.”

  “Would she try driving there on her own? How could she? Does she have keys to the Jaguar? Where are those?”

  “In my purse?”

  “Are you sure?”

  With Molly and the stranger embroiled in their heated argument, and with Molly searching her purse for keys, Ali stole a moment to tap her iPad over to the message page, where she was startled to see two photos—mug shots—of the very man who was standing in the doorway.

  The message from Stuart was short and to the point: “Barry Handraker is VERY bad news. Armed and dangerous. If he’s involved in any way, get the hell out. Now!”

  Unfortunately, the warning had arrived a few seconds too late, and getting out wasn’t an option. Ali sent the message away so no one else would be able to see it.

  “What the hell are we going to do now?”

  “I have no idea,” Molly said, crossing the room. She sat down hard on the sofa and buried her face in her hands. “There’s no telling where she’s gone. She might have gone down to the club. That would be my first guess. Do you want me to call and check?”

  It seemed possible to Ali that both Molly and her husband, locked in their furious blame game, had forgotten her presence in the room. Cautiously, she leaned over, slipped the iPad into her purse, and pulled out her iPhone, intent on dialing 911. Before she could slide the phone to the on position, however, Barry crossed the room in two gigantic strides and knocked the device out of her hands. The phone sailed across the room, whacked into a wall, and then tumbled to the floor.

  “Who the hell is this broad?” he demanded, grasping Ali’s wrist and holding it in a numbing grip that twisted her arm and half lifted her out of the chair. “What’s she doing here? Is she a cop?”

  “She’s a writer,” Molly answered. “She told me she’s working on a piece about Gemma.”

  “Like hell she is. I’m betting she’s undercover and that she’s really after me. Check her purse. If she’s a cop of some kind, there’ll be ID.”

  “I’m not a cop—” Ali began.

  “Shut up!”

  Molly dutifully retrieved the purse and emptied it onto the coffee table. The Taser came out first and landed with a hard thump. N
ext came the wallet and the iPad, followed by a compact, several tubes of lipstick, a random collection of pens, and some loose change.

  Barry recognized the Taser at once. “That’s a civilian Taser, not a law enforcement one, but I don’t know many writers walking around armed with Tasers, do you?” He turned his full attention on Ali, giving her a hard shake. “Who are you working for?” When she didn’t answer, he looked at Molly, who was still thumbing through Ali’s wallet. “How much does she know?”

  Molly stopped and chewed her lower lip before she answered, as though reluctant to do so. It occurred to Ali that Molly was also scared of Barry Handraker. What was it Stuart had said about him in that last text message? “VERY bad news.”

  “She knows about Mother’s necklace,” Molly whispered.

  “The one Gemma went off about?” Barry asked.

  Molly nodded. Ali wasn’t sure what she supposedly knew about the necklace that maybe was or wasn’t missing, but whatever it was, Barry Handraker didn’t like it. The viselike hold on her wrist tightened. He leaned down and snarled directly in Ali’s ear, his breath hot on her cheek. “Tell me who you’re working for. Are you some kind of bounty hunter? Or did some of my former pals and business associates send you looking for me?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ali told him. “None.”

  “Okay,” he said to Molly, straightening up. “That settles it. We need to get out of here now. With your mother on the loose, we can’t afford to hang around any longer.”

  “What are we going to do, leave her here?” Molly gestured to Ali.

  “No, she’s going with us,” he said. “One way or another, she’s going to tell me who she’s working for. Then we’ll get rid of her. Bring me the DB.”

  “What’s DB?” Ali asked as Molly hurried out of the room.

  “You ever heard of devil’s breath?”

  Ali shook her head. “Never.”

  “You will.”

  Ali’s mind was reeling. When Barry Handraker said “get rid of,” she knew exactly what he meant—that she was dead meat. When she had come here alone with her few unanswered questions, it hadn’t occurred to her that she was walking into any kind of serious danger. As she’d rung the doorbell and stepped into the entryway, she hadn’t even begun to formulate the idea that Molly might have been involved in Gemma’s murder. Obviously, she was, and Ali had blundered into a potentially deadly situation.

  Where could she look for backup? Stuart Ramey, her virtual partner, was the only person on earth who had any idea where she was. Unfortunately, he was completely out of reach. Her phone was lying probably broken on the far side of the room. Her Taser and iPad lay in a jumble on the coffee table, inches away but totally out of reach. Her Glock, however, was in the holster at the small of her back. There was a chance she might be able to get it out. No one here knew she had a second weapon. The problem with that, of course, was that she was right-handed, and that was the hand still trapped in Barry Handraker’s murderous grip.

  Molly returned from the kitchen. In one hand, she carried a saucer with a tablespoon of white powder on it. In her other hand, she held a single straw.

  “She’s not your mother. You don’t need that much,” Barry said when Molly set the saucer on the table. “About half should do it. Otherwise, she’ll be out all night.”

  There was an empty ashtray on an end table. Molly dumped half the powder into that and then turned back to Ali.

  “Be careful not to breathe it in when you do this,” Barry warned Molly. “I’ll stay with her until she goes under. You get the luggage loaded. We need a diversion that will give us a chance to get out of Dodge, and I’ve got just the ticket.”

  Ali stared as the white powder–laden saucer came nearer. With a shock, she realized that whatever they were about to give her was the same thing Molly must have been routinely administering to Doris Ralston.

  “Please let me go,” Ali said, struggling. “Please.”

  “Shut the hell up,” Barry snarled, twisting Ali’s arm even more painfully behind her.

  Whatever poison was coming, Ali understood they expected her to inhale it, so she did the only thing she could think of to do. Waiting until Molly was two steps away, Ali took a deep breath, quietly pulling air deep into her chest and holding it as long as she could. That was when Barry let go of her wrist long enough to punch her in the gut, pounding the air out of her lungs. She was bent over gasping for breath when Molly leaned down and blew the powder out of the saucer and into the air.

  Coughing and choking, Ali was conscious of a bitter taste in her mouth as whatever was in the air crossed her tongue. She attempted to get to her feet, but by then Barry had her wrist imprisoned again, and he forced her back into the chair.

  She was still coughing as the blackness settled over her. After that, she knew nothing.

  26

  Stuart Ramey was no prima donna. One of the reasons he liked working for B. Simpson was that his services were always acknowledged and appreciated. Up to now, the same thing had been true whenever he worked with Ali. In the past, when he contacted her with some piece of needed information, she got back to him promptly.

  This time it didn’t happen. He had regarded the warning message about Barry Handraker as nothing short of critical. He didn’t know whether Molly’s husband was in town or involved, but Stuart couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility that he might be. Stuart had texted his warning to Ali at ten past two and had expected her to reply in a matter of minutes.

  To keep himself occupied while he waited, he turned to his computer and busied himself studying all things Handraker.

  The original information on Barry Handraker’s criminal past, including the mug shots Stuart shot over to Ali in the message, had come through reliable but not entirely legal channels. Had Stuart Ramey been a police officer, having that information wouldn’t have been a problem. Since he wasn’t, it was. So rather than chasing more information that had the potential of landing him in hot water, he shopped the Net looking for whatever was readily accessible. Newspapers in the Minneapolis area proved especially helpful.

  Barry Handraker, a pharmacist with ten years of experience in the field, had been fired from his job a year earlier when it had come to light that he was systematically skimming from the store’s inventory of over-the-counter medications and using them in the manufacture of drugs that were far more lucrative out on the street. Even though money shouldn’t have been a huge problem, he nonetheless stopped paying his mortgage. As a result, the bank had foreclosed, but when the house came back as a bank-held property, it was essentially worthless, since it had been used as a meth lab.

  Handraker’s venture into the illicit drug field had included manufacturing and distribution, and he had gained a reputation for being smart and ruthless. Tipped off by persons unknown, he had disappeared two months earlier, days before the DEA could carry out a planned raid to shut down his operation. Some of the petty criminals Handraker used as hired help had been caught in the raid, but the big cheese himself was long gone when the cops moved in. After his disappearance, he had been declared the prime suspect in two drug-related homicides and featured more than once on Minnesota’s Most Wanted. There were numerous warrants out for Barry Handraker’s arrest, and he was said to be armed and dangerous.

  Stuart found it interesting that Molly Handraker’s name was mostly missing from those newspaper accounts. The one time she was mentioned, she was referred to as “Handraker’s estranged wife, now living in Arizona.” The other references to her showed up in relation to her work with various battered-women’s shelters in the area. She was never mentioned as being a suspect in her husband’s crimes. The people writing the newspaper accounts seemed to assume that Molly Handraker was a good guy and Barry was a bad one.

  Pulling away from his screen and keyboard, Stuart rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. It was now three-fifteen. Over an hour had passed since he sent the warning to Ali. She had told him
that she would be doing an interview. In B. Simpson’s world, meetings with outsiders were sacrosanct and not to be interrupted. Stuart’s dealings with Ali were an extension of that, and as a consequence, her meetings were accorded the same courtesy. Still, Ali had said she had a “few more questions” for Molly Handraker. How long could that take? Stuart didn’t want to push panic buttons, but if Ali was in some kind of trouble, he didn’t want to be sitting around doing nothing, either.

  Finally, at three-forty, an hour and a half after the original message, Stuart determined that he had waited long enough. Sacrosanct interview or not, he sent Ali another message. “I’m worrying here. Where are you? Call me. Or text. I need to hear from you.” Just to be sure, he dialed Ali’s cell phone. The call went to voice mail. He tried to keep the steam out of his voice as he left a voice message to the same effect.

  When the clock on his computer showed four-ten, two full hours into Ali’s uncharacteristic silence, Stuart ran up the flag to B. Simpson. Stuart may have been doing a freebie for Ali Reynolds, but B. was the one who signed his check. If Ali was in trouble, B. needed to know about it.

  “Hey, Stu,” B. said easily when he heard Stuart’s voice. “What gives?”

  “We may have a problem,” Stuart said.

  “What kind of problem?”

  “I sent Ali an important message two hours ago, more than that now. I wanted to warn her that the husband of the woman she was interviewing was a player—a possibly dangerous drug dealer from Minnesota who may be involved in whatever’s going on. I expected her to get back to me right away. So far she hasn’t, and I’m worried. Has she been in touch with you?”

  “The last I heard from her was this morning before I left the hotel,” B. said, “but I agree. Her not getting back to you is worrisome. That’s not the Ali Reynolds I know. Maybe she’s been in a traffic accident of some kind. Maybe she’s had some kind of medical emergency. Have you called the cops?”

  “I was afraid that if I did that and it turned out that there’s nothing wrong—”