Cruel Intent

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Reynolds,” the woman said. “I see the order right here, but there must be some kind of mistake. We don’t make deliveries in Sedona on Fridays. And your tile is in transit, but it isn’t due at our warehouse here in Phoenix until late next week at the earliest.”

“But I was told it would be here today.”

“Perhaps it’s an order from another company,” the woman said cheerfully. “It’s possible that the contractor ordered from more than one supplier. You should probably check with him.”

I would, if I could find him. Ali thought grimly. If he really is out of jail.

She was still fuming when she pulled into the driveway at Skyview, where she was relieved to see Leland Brooks’s pickup parked right outside the house. That meant he was back here. Maybe he was vacuuming or doing some other noisy chore that made hearing the ringing of his telephone impossible. If nothing else, he might be able to unravel the puzzle of that missing load of limestone tile.

“Hi,” she called, coming inside. “Leland? Anybody home?”

There was no answer as she closed the front door and turned to deposit her keys and purse on the burled-wood entryway table. When she looked up from doing that, she was astonished to find herself faced with a complete stranger. A dark-haired man with a grim expression was seated directly across from her on the leather couch. In one hand, he held a gun-an enormous handgun-that was trained on her. Both that hand and the other one, the one resting casually on his knee, were covered by latex surgical gloves. That was definitely a bad sign-a very bad sign. The man was dressed all in green, like one of the doctors on Scrubs, and he wore a pair of surgical booties on his feet.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What the hell are you doing in my house? Who let you in? And where’s Leland Brooks?”

The man’s face twisted into a sardonic grin. “So many questions,” he said, “and from someone who no doubt thought she already had all the answers. First let me see that Glock of yours. I understand you never leave home without it. Take it out from wherever it is you carry it. Take it out very carefully and put it right there on the floor in front of you. Then move back to the door and sit there. No heroics, Ms. Reynolds. One false move, and I promise you, I will pull the trigger.”

He spoke so calmly, so deliberately, that Ali had no doubt he meant every word. With her heart slamming wildly inside her chest, she did as she’d been told: She carefully removed the Glock from its small-of-back holster and put it on the floor. Then, as directed, she moved back to the door and slid down to the floor in front of it.

How can this be happening to me? she wondered. Why didn’t I see it coming?

There had been no warning. None. One moment things had seemed completely normal. She had been performing the perfectly ordinary tasks of stepping into her house and closing the door behind her. The next moment her life was on the line: There was a stranger in her house, and she was staring down the barrel of a deadly weapon.

“You still haven’t told me who you are,” she said. With her whole body quaking, she struggled to steady her voice. She needed to put up a good front and to sound less threatened than she felt.

“Why don’t you tell me who I am?” the man returned.

Just then Ali heard a car pulling up in the driveway. A car door slammed shut. Hearing it, she was terrified that school had let out early for some unknown reason and her son, Chris, was about to walk into a trap. But then a second door slammed as well. She heard the sound of approaching voices, of two men talking. Her captor heard them, too.

“Whoever it is, get rid of them,” he whispered urgently. “Now! And no tricks, either.”

When the doorbell clanged right above Ali’s head, the sound was so loud it took her breath away. She knew that she needed to call for help. Someone was right there, on the far side of the door, but if she did call out and sound an alarm, what would happen? She would be dead, and so might the unsuspecting people outside. For a long time, she didn’t move and didn’t speak.

“I said get rid of them,” the man hissed.

The bell rang again. “Ali,” Jacky Jackson said. “Your car’s parked right outside. We know you’re in there. Why aren’t you answering the door?”

“What do you want?” Ali croaked, her voice cracking with a combination of fear and raw emotion. She tried to pull herself together. I can’t let him know how scared I am, she told herself. I can’t.

“It’s Jacky,” the agent said, as if she couldn’t recognize his voice. “I’ve brought someone along who wants to meet you. You need to meet him, Ali. It’s important. He wants to talk to you about that offer we discussed yesterday. We’ve been looking for you all morning long, traipsing all over hell and gone.”

The only thing that was important right then was survival. Ali knew that in a fair fight, Jacky Jackson would be no help at all-in fact, he’d be less than no help. But his unexpected and unwelcome presence right outside her door at this exact moment did serve one useful purpose. It made Ali mad as hell, and that helped clear her head and made her focus.

“Go away,” she ordered. “Leave me out of it. I already told you, I’m not interested.”

“But you don’t understand,” Jacky wheedled. “This is one of the major players in this deal. He flew in last night for the express purpose of seeing you. He wants to be sure you understand what’s at stake here-what kind of an offer you may be turning down.”

And what I’m keeping you from walking into, Ali thought.

“You could be here with the pope himself, for all I care,” Ali returned. “I’m not interested. My answer was no yesterday, and it’s still no today. What part of N-O don’t you understand, Jacky? Go away and leave me alone.”

“If you let us walk away from here, you’re going to live to regret it,” he said.

Yes, that may be true, Ali thought, but only if I’m alive long enough to care.

She waited until the car doors slammed again and the engine turned over. Tires crunched in the gravel of the driveway. By sending Jacky and his friend away, Ali knew that she had saved his weaselly little life and that of his friend as well. Now she needed to save her own.

“Who are you?” she said to the man. “What do you want?”

“You tell me,” he replied. Obviously, he was enjoying this dangerous game of twenty questions.

On the trail of a possible identity thief, Ali and B.’s amateur sleuthing had led them to Singleatheart. This man had evidently doubled back on the same trail and had come looking for them in return-looking for Ali. Devoid of her Glock, all she could do was bluff.

“You’re from Singleatheart,” she said.

He smiled again-a chilling grimace that filled Ali’s soul with dread. “I’m just not from Singleatheart,” he told her deliberately. “I am Singleatheart. Who helped you find me? Who helped you destroy my files?”

“Does it matter?” she said. “And what makes you think I had help?”

“I know you had help,” he returned. “You may be a lot of things, Ms. Reynolds, but you’re no computer genius. I saw what equipment you have lying around here. There’s a Mac down in the basement-one your son evidently uses-but that’s it. Less than basic.”

“And I suppose you consider yourself some kind of self-styled computer genius?” Ali replied. “Maybe you are, but once we break your encryption code, we’ll have all your secrets.”

She knew it was dangerous to taunt him, just as it was dangerous to taunt a coiled rattlesnake, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to do something to unsettle him. Words were the only weapons at hand.

“So you didn’t only destroy my files,” he snarled at her. “You stole them.”

Without warning, he sprang from the couch and crossed the room, brandishing the gun like a club. Before she could raise her hands to defend herself, the blow fell. The weapon slammed into the flesh of her cheek with a tooth-jarring intensity that sent her sprawling, bouncing off the door and sliding across the tiled entryway. As stars exploded in her vision, she came to rest against the legs of the burled-wood table. The room spun and swam around her. Blood spilled from the cut on her cheek and slopped into her eye, blurring her vision that much more. She tasted blood in her mouth as well, and the pain was more than she could imagine. But by then he had grabbed the crewneck of her sweatshirt and was hauling her to her feet.