Cruel Intent

“You know about all that, then?” Haley asked. “About my mother? Grandma told you about what happened?”

“Yes,” Ali said with a nod. “She did. She also told me that you have Liam because you chose to have Liam. Having him and keeping him were the only possible decisions open to you, but you need to remember that was a choice, Haley, a conscious choice made by you and nobody else. I’d like you to feel empowered by that decision instead of feeling trapped by it. I don’t give a rat’s ass what the girls at Mingus Mountain think about you. What’s important is what you think about yourself.”

“But you still want me to go to college.”

“No one is telling you to do anything, but I am asking that you think about it-that you think about the kind of life you want to live with that little boy of yours. And when you make up your mind, let me know.”

Ali stood up and collected her purse. Haley didn’t move to accompany her; neither did Nelda. At the door, Ali turned back. “Regardless of what you decide, Haley, I want you to know that I think you’re a pretty remarkable human being. And so is your grandmother. Your bitchy classmates may not be impressed, but I am.”

Outside in the bright winter sunshine, Ali started her vehicle with the clear knowledge that if Haley changed her mind and accepted the scholarship offer, Ali had just committed to doing two scholarships as opposed to one.

And if that’s what happens, so be it, Ali thought. If I decide to do two, it’s entirely up to me.

Turning on her Bluetooth, Ali punched Leland Brooks’s number into her phone. When the call went directly to voice mail, she left him a message. “You must be busy. I’m on my way back from Cottonwood,” she said. “Just checking on that load of tile. Hope you got it signed for and unloaded. If you need anything, call me.”

She was still driving when her phone rang. This time, when she expected to hear Leland Brooks’s voice, the caller turned out to be B. Simpson. With the flip of a switch, Ali moved from Haley’s difficulties to her own.

“What are you doing up already?” she asked.

“Fortunately, I don’t need much sleep. What was keeping me awake was you.”

“Me?” Ali echoed. “How come?”

“I Googled you,” B. said. “And now I’ve got a question.”

Ali cringed. There were any number of things a Google search of Ali Reynolds might bring to light. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Who’s the big baseball nut in your family?”

Ali knew at once where that was going. Being teased about the “other” Allie Reynolds, a famed New York Yankees pitcher from the late forties and early fifties, was something that had plagued Ali for a very long time, from the moment she’d first married Dean. From even before she had married Dean.

“I’m a one-L one-I Ali,” she pointed out. “The other one happens to be a two-L and an IE Allie. Besides, Reynolds is a married name, not a maiden one, so even though my father does happen to be a baseball nut, his preferences had nothing to do with it.”

“I thought maybe it was your first husband-that he married you because he was a fan.”

“What else did you find out?” Ali asked.

“That you carry a gun,” B. said. “One of the articles I read, or maybe even a couple of them, mentioned something about that. Is that true?”

“Yes, it is,” Ali said. “I carry a Glock. I have a license to carry it, and I know how to use it, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. What if the guy who killed Morgan Forester is also our identity thief?”

That question was followed by a quiet intake of breath on B.’s part. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

Over the next few minutes, she brought him up to date with everything that had gone on over the course of the morning. In telling B. about the possible co

“If you’re right about this, the killer already knows way too much about you,” B. said when she’d finished. “And it probably is a good thing you’re armed and dangerous, but we have to bring Detective Holman in on all this.”

“We don’t have any real proof that the two bad guys are one and the same.”

“We don’t have any proof that they’re not,” B. insisted. “And if we even suspect that there’s a co

“All right,” Ali agreed. “I’ll call him as soon as I get off the phone with you. But what about those two thumb drives? I offered them to Dave, and he dissed them, assuming that Bryan had already gone through them and deleted whatever he didn’t want seen. But what are the chances that they’re also infected and something will overwrite all the files on the next computer someone uses to try accessing them? I was looking at Bryan’s files earlier, and there didn’t seem to be any problem, but…”

“Were you off-line at the time?”

“Yes.”

“I should probably take a look at both of those drives,” B. said. “If there’s a Trojan lurking in them, maybe I can disable it before it does any damage. Right now, though, I’m still working on that encryption problem. I think we’re getting close, and I don’t want to walk away from it. Could you maybe drop the thumb drives off here at the house?”

“Where is that?” Ali asked.

“The Village of Oak Creek,” he said. “Overlooking a golf course.”

“Which one?”

“The one by the Hilton.”

“Okay,” Ali said. “I’m on my way.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

“So where are you?”

“Just coming into Sedona from Cottonwood. Why?”

“Do me a favor,” he said. “I’m famished. I haven’t taken the time to go have breakfast, and there’s no food here-plenty of coffee but no food.”

“What do you want?” Ali asked.

“One of your dad’s meatloaf sandwiches.”

“Done,” Ali said. “Meatloaf it is.”

CHAPTER 13

On his way down from Sedona, Dave Holman had notified the Scottsdale police of his impending arrival and of the possible co

Led inside by one of the uniforms, Dave introduced himself to Scottsdale homicide detective Sean O’Brien and to Matthew Morrison’s widow.

“I still don’t understand why you won’t let me use my car,” a surprisingly poised and dry-eyed Je

An aggrieved widow rather than a grieving one, Dave thought. Someone who’s far more concerned about being able to drive her car than she is about finding out what happened to her husband.

“As I explained earlier,” Detective O’Brien said, “for right now, the entire garage is considered part of the crime scene until we have a chance to have our CSI team process it-”

“But there wasn’t any crime,” Je

“So what do you think happened?” Dave asked.

“Who the hell are you?” Je

“Detective Holman,” Dave said, handing over his ID. “Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. We’re working on a related case. Now, getting back to your husband-”

Je