The A List

by Jance, J. A.

  “You’re kidding! Edward Gilchrist’s mother came to Alex’s funeral? What the hell is she doing here?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  As Shay came to a stop beside Ali and Crystal, there was enough of a break in the traffic for the limo to pull out into the street. Ali had opened the Acura’s door but had not yet gotten inside when she heard the distant revving of a car engine. There was no sign of a speeding vehicle, but from the sound she could tell that it was coming from somewhere off to her right, from somewhere just out of sight behind the building.

  The limo was turning into the left-hand traffic lane when, with a squeal of burning rubber, a hulking black Suburban shot into view. It slammed into the passenger side of the Lincoln with so much force that for a moment the two vehicles seemed welded together. With a screech of rending sheet metal, they spun as one, then bounced up onto the far sidewalk, where they finally split apart. The Suburban came to rest against a fire hydrant, breaking it off and sending a geyser of water into the air, while the limo lurched farther into the opposing parking lot before finally coming to a stop with its nose plastered against the base of a light standard.

  For a moment everyone looking on was too shocked to move. As water from the hydrant blew skyward, a black-clad figure wearing a motorcycle helmet emerged from the wreckage of the Suburban. He slithered backward out through the driver’s-side window opening. Reaching up and grabbing the roof of the vehicle, he pulled himself the rest of the way out before dropping easily to the ground. He walked away from the mess without so much as a backward glance. As he stepped off the sidewalk, a southbound motorbike pulled up beside him. He hopped onto the back of it, and off they went, speeding away, instantly disappearing from view behind the intervening building.

  “That was no accident,” Crystal declared, grabbing her phone and dialing 911. “That was a hit plain and simple. It’ll be a miracle if anyone inside that limo survives.”

  As Ali and Crystal sprinted toward the wreckage, Shay rolled down her window. “I’ll see if I can catch up with that bike.”

  “Don’t,” Crystal said. “Let them go.” But Shay went anyway, speeding out of the parking lot and onto Noble.

  As Ali and Crystal raced past the spewing hydrant, Crystal was still speaking into her phone. “Yes, I see movement. The driver might be alive. Hang on. I’ll let you know.”

  As they reached the wreckage, Crystal went straight to the front door. Ali, dreading what was coming, approached the back. Much to her surprise, there was movement there as well. A thin edging of shattered safety glass lined the space where the window should have been. Peering inside, Ali caught sight of a bald and bloodied Hannah Gilchrist, wedged against the crumpled door on the driver’s side of the vehicle and struggling to emerge from under a blanket of deployed air bags.

  “Help me,” she pleaded. “Someone please help.”

  The left side of her head was covered with blood from a jagged cut that ran from the top of her skull to the top of her ear.

  “I’m right here,” Ali said. Reaching into her purse, she dragged out the fistful of tissues she’d brought along to the funeral. “Hold still,” she added, reaching in through the window. “I need to apply pressure to that cut.”

  “The cut’s not the problem,” Hannah groaned. “It’s my hip. I think it’s broken. I was having trouble fastening my seat belt. I got thrown all the way across the car and slammed into the door.”

  Ali knew that it was a miracle the woman hadn’t been ejected through the missing window. “We’ve called 911,” she said as reassuringly as she could manage. “Help should be here soon.”

  Reaching inside, she used a thick layer of tissues in the palm of her hand in an attempt to stanch the flow of blood. Ali knew from first-responder training that head wounds tend to bleed profusely, and that was the case here. Not only was it bleeding, the cut was so long that it took the whole length of Ali’s hand to apply pressure. Even then blood soon oozed through the layer of tissue, running down her arm, soaking into the sleeve of her blazer, and pooling at the elbow.

  “It hurts,” Hannah managed through gritted teeth. “It hurts worse than anything.”

  Hannah Gilchrist had to be a tough old bat. With all the blood loss, Ali was astonished that the woman could still speak in a normal tone of voice when most people would have been screaming in agony. “I’m sure it does,” Ali said.

  “I saw her,” Hannah added. “Just before we got hit, I saw her.”

  “Saw who?” Ali asked.

  “Gloria, she was sitting right there watching, like she was waiting for it to happen—like she was expecting it to happen.”

  Gloria would have to be Gloria Reece, Ali realized, but had she really been there or had Hannah suffered a concussion and was simply hallucinating? Or maybe she was lapsing into shock, but as long as Hannah was talking, Ali wanted to keep her that way.

  “Gloria who?” Ali asked, playing along.

  “The three of them did this on purpose,” Hannah declared.

  “Who did this on purpose?” Ali asked. “Are you saying you know the two guys, the one in the Suburban and the one on the motorbike?”

  “What motorbike? I never saw any motorbike.”

  “But you said three people were involved,” Ali said. “Who do you mean?”

  “My son,” Hannah answered, beginning to sob for the first time, as if that admission hurt worse than the agonizing pain in her hip. “It’s Eddie, Gloria, and Gloria’s uncle, Luis Ochoa. I disobeyed Eddie’s direct order, and they all three turned on me.”

  If true, this was a stunning revelation. Ali had heard it, but was she the only one? Crystal, tending to the injured driver, was totally preoccupied with him. Ali’s only hope was that her earbud connection was still working.

  “Are you getting any of this, Shay?” Ali asked.

  “Every word,” came the response. “I couldn’t spot the bike, so I’ll try circling back to see if I can locate Gloria. Ask Hannah what Gloria was wearing.”

  Ali repeated Shay’s question to Hannah.

  “Something blue,” Hannah answered. “A blue top of some kind.”

  “Okay,” Shay said. “I’m on it.”

  From the street Ali heard the racket of multiple emergency vehicles arriving on the scene. Moments later an EMT came up behind her. “Okay, lady,” he said to Ali. “Thanks for the assist, but you need to move away from the vehicle now.” As Ali stepped aside, the EMT spotted the blood on her hand and arm and quickly focused his attention on her. “Are you hurt, too?” he demanded.

  “No,” Ali answered, dropping the wad of blood-soaked tissues. “It’s Hannah’s blood, not mine. She’s got a cut on her head and maybe a broken hip.”

  “That’s her name, Hannah?”

  Ali nodded.

  He turned toward the car. “Hello, Hannah,” he said calmly. “Let’s see what we can do to get you out of there.”

  As the adrenaline drained from her body, Ali staggered over to a nearby parked car and leaned against the fender for support, but what she was feeling inside was an immense rush of relief. All the suspects’ names were out in the open now, and in a way that led back to Hannah Gilchrist herself rather than to Frigg. In that regard High Noon Enterprises had just dodged a bullet.

  She looked down at her hands. Both of them were covered with blood. She tried rubbing them off on her already wrecked blazer, but it was no use. The blood was drying now and mostly caked as well, so it didn’t wipe off. Just then her cell phone buzzed in her jacket pocket.

  Ali had turned the phone on silent during the service and had never gotten around to turning the ringer back on. The whole time she’d been talking to Hannah, it had been buzzing like crazy with incoming messages and calls. This time she was finally able to answer.

  “Are you okay?” Stuart demanded the moment she came on the line.

  “Yes, I’m okay,” Ali said. “Why?”

  “Because I saw the whole thing.”

 
; “What whole thing?”

  “The car accident,” he answered. “We saw someone we assume was Hannah Gilchrist come out of the lobby and get into a limo. You came outside, too, but as soon as the wreck occurred, you ran across the street and disappeared from view. We were afraid something bad had happened to you, too. What the hell is going on?”

  “Wait,” Ali said. “You saw the car crash? How’s that possible?”

  “Frigg tapped into the surveillance systems for both the funeral home and the coffee shop across the street.”

  “She didn’t,” Ali said.

  “Yes, she did.”

  Suddenly Ali was overcome with an uncontrollable urge to giggle.

  “Why are you laughing?” Stu asked, sounding offended. “This isn’t funny. I was scared to death.”

  “But it is funny,” Ali insisted. “Whoever thought I’d end up being stuck with an AI for a guardian angel?”

  52

  Sherman Oaks, California, June 2017

  Gloria stayed at the table throughout the service, waiting for the main event. When the Lincoln pulled up under the awning, she picked up her phone and dialed first the guy on the motorbike and warned him to be on the lookout. Then she dialed the guy in the Suburban and kept him on the line, holding off for just the right moment. She watched as Hannah came hobbling out to the car and as the driver handed her inside.

  “Get ready,” she said.

  The driver walked back around the vehicle and got in himself. He drove up to the exit and sat signaling to turn left. “On your mark,” Gloria said into the phone.

  As the limo moved toward the northbound lanes of Noble Avenue, Gloria issued her final order. “Go!” she whispered urgently into the phone. “Go, go, go!”

  The limo was almost finished with its turn when Gloria caught sight of Hannah staring directly at her through the back passenger window. Time seemed to slip into slow motion as their eyes locked. In that moment and even before the crash happened, Gloria felt a sudden sense of impending doom. Not only had she been seen, she’d been recognized.

  Gloria remained where she was long enough for the speeding motorbike to appear and disappear. Then, while other people from the coffee shop rushed to see what had happened, Gloria abandoned the table she’d occupied for the better part of three hours. Her heart might have been pounding in her chest, but she forced herself to walk sedately away from the action. She had left the Range Rover parked around the corner on Dickens. Once inside, she took a few deep, calming breaths before grasping the steering wheel with hands that were still surprisingly shaky. Hannah had seen her, and if the old battle-ax wasn’t dead, this was going to turn into a complete disaster.

  Once Gloria felt capable of driving, she headed eastbound on Dickens, circled around to Ventura, and then pulled in to the theater parking lot from the opposite direction. She arrived in time to see a collection of emergency vehicles—at least two ambulances and a flock of police cruisers—converging on the scene. She parked in a remote spot, far enough away that her Range Rover wouldn’t be caught up in any of the subsequent investigation.

  Even while the crash was happening, Gloria had worried that the timing was slightly off. She had wanted the Suburban to make a direct T-bone hit on the other vehicle. Instead it had plowed into the limo at an angle that made the impact more of a glancing blow. Would that be hard enough to do the job? She certainly hoped so. The last thing Gloria wanted to do was go back home to Folsom and have to tell Uncle Luis that she had failed.

  People flocked out of the theater entrances while others rushed across the street from the funeral home, all of them intent on seeing what was going on. Gloria waited long enough for a crowd to form before she got out of her car. As she neared the growing mob, a single ambulance threaded its way through the throng of onlookers before speeding out of the parking lot with its siren blaring, clearly heading for the nearest hospital.

  Craning her neck, Gloria tried to see what was taking place, but she was too far away to catch any of the action. The man standing next to her was a full head taller than she was. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Car accident,” he answered. “Hit-and-run. They got the driver out. Looks like they’re using the Jaws of Life to rescue a passenger trapped in the backseat.”

  That wasn’t the news Gloria Reece wanted to hear, not at all! She didn’t want Hannah Gilchrist trapped—she wanted the woman dead. She’d been hoping for the arrival of a medical examiner’s van rather than a pair of ambulances, but if Hannah was still alive, Gloria had to figure out where they were taking her, and she had to do it fast. If Hannah managed to live long enough to spill the beans, Gloria’s whole existence was in jeopardy. If the cops didn’t come after her, one of Uncle Luis’s henchmen sure as hell would.

  Without another word Gloria slipped away from the crowd and climbed back into the Range Rover. Long minutes later, when the second ambulance departed the scene, first turning right onto Noble, right on Ventura, and finally left onto Van Nuys, Gloria Reece managed to tuck in behind them, far enough away so she wouldn’t be spotted but close enough to keep the flashing lights in view. That speeding ambulance was headed for the nearest ER, and so was she.

  53

  Sherman Oaks, California, June 2017

  During the encounter with Hannah, Ali had been sustained by a burst of adrenaline. Once it dissipated, she felt woozy. She was leaning against the fender of a nearby parked car as the first ambulance left the scene. That’s about the time Rory Davis showed up.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his face full of concern.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t look fine. You’ve got blood all over you.”

  “One of the people was hurt,” Ali explained. “I was doing first aid.”

  “Someone said a person leaving the funeral was involved in the crash,” Rory continued. “Do you have any idea who it was?”

  Ali nodded. “Hannah Gilchrist.”

  “Hannah Gilchrist?” he echoed. “Are you kidding me? She was at the funeral? I never saw her. What the hell was she doing there? Where was she?”

  “In the back row. I noticed her sitting there crying when I was up front speaking, but at the time I had no idea who she was.”

  “And she was crying?”

  Ali nodded again. “Like she’d lost her best friend. Later, when she came through the receiving line, she claimed she came to the funeral because she was one of Alex’s devoted fans, but then when I saw her talking to Rory . . .”

  Evan turned up then and joined the knot of people who’d gathered around Ali. “Who was talking to Rory?” he demanded.

  “Hannah Gilchrist.”

  Evan’s eyes widened in alarm. “She was at the funeral?”

  “And at the reception,” Ali replied.

  “How did she even know we were holding the service?”

  “There were announcements in the paper,” Rory said. “She probably saw something either there or online.”

  “But why would she come here?” Evan asked. “What made her think she’d be welcome? She had no business showing up, and if I’d known she had, I would have asked her to leave. But she was talking to Rory? What did she say to him?”

  “I don’t know exactly what was said,” Ali replied. “When I saw someone I knew to be a complete stranger talking to him, it worried me. It just didn’t look right. I was on my way to find out what was going on when she got up and walked away. By the time I reached Rory, I could tell he wasn’t the least bit bothered by what had happened. I asked him about her, and he said she told him her name was Hannah. I put two and two together and realized it had to be Hannah Gilchrist. I tried to catch up with her to find out what the hell was going on, but I got outside just in time to see the crash.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “The driver of her limo was turning left into northbound traffic on Noble when a speeding Suburban came charging up out of nowhere and rammed into it from behind.”


  “An accident, then?” Evan asked.

  Crystal Manning, walking up to the group, answered Evan’s question before Ali had a chance.

  “Not an accident,” she declared. “This was not a hit-and-run. It was actually a hit—attempted murder. The guy driving that Suburban just tried to kill Hannah Gilchrist.”

  Ali caught Crystal’s eye. “That’s what Hannah thinks, too.”

  “She told you that?”

  Ali nodded. “While I was trying to stop the blood from her head wound.”

  “Did she have any idea who might be responsible?”

  Ali nodded again.

  “Then you’d better come with me,” Crystal said. “We need to have a chat with the investigating officers.” As they walked away from the others, she added, “Did Hannah happen to name names?”

  “She did,” Ali answered. “She said three people were involved—Edward Gilchrist, Gloria Reece, and Luis Ochoa. She said that because she’d disobeyed one of her son’s direct orders, he and the others had turned on her.”

  “Orders about what?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ali hedged. “She didn’t go into that, but I believe it may have something to do with Hannah’s son trying to wreak vengeance on people who were involved in his homicide trial.”

  Crystal stopped short in midstride. “Wait, are you saying these same people might be involved in Alex Munsey’s death?”

  “It’s possible,” Ali answered. “And if they want Hannah dead, too, who’s to say they won’t try again?”

  With a shake of her head, Crystal plucked her phone out of her pocket and dialed a number. “I’ve got a badly injured individual—a female—in an ambulance headed from Sherman Oaks to Van Nuys Central Trauma,” she said into the phone. “Her name is Hannah Gilchrist. We believe her to be the victim of an attempted vehicular homicide. I’m worried that the people responsible may want to finish the job. Let the EMTs know that she needs to be admitted to the hospital under an assumed name. Properly identified law-enforcement officers may be allowed to see her, but she’s to have no other visitors. Is that clear? Good. Give the hospital my name and let them know I’m on my way.”