Cruel Intent

“Who helped you?” he snarled.

He was mere inches away. She could feel his hot breath on her face.

“No one,” she managed. “I didn’t need any help.”

“That’s a lie,” he said, shaking her as though she were a rag doll. “You just said ‘we.’ Who’s we?”

With that, he let loose of her shirt and gave her another powerful shove, one that sent her careening across the room. She landed backward onto the couch, hitting the back of it hard enough that her head snapped whiplash fashion. The room spun around her again. When it stopped spi

“Who helped you?” he repeated. “It sure as hell wasn’t that useless little Brit.”

For the first time since the confrontation had begun, Ali put it together. This guy was here, in her house. He had driven here in Leland’s truck and let himself in with Leland’s keys. For all she knew, Leland Brooks was lying dead in the basement.

“What did you do to him?” she managed. “Where is he?”

“Indisposed at the moment, I’m afraid,” the man replied. “He refused to tell me what I wanted to know. Maybe he didn’t say because he didn’t know. But you do know, and you’re going to tell me!”

“Where is he?” Ali demanded. “Is Leland hurt?”

It was all she could do to force the words out past her already badly swollen lips. She wondered in passing if her jaw was broken, but the pain was so intense that it was almost as though she were observing someone else’s battered and bloody body and hearing someone else’s labored voice.

Staring down at her, he said nothing. The fact that he wouldn’t answer her questions was answer enough. In a moment of appalling clarity, Ali knew that whatever horrors had already been visited on poor Leland Brooks would also be coming to B. Simpson as soon as this monster knew who B. was. And when that happened, Ali knew it would be her fault for dragging Leland Brooks and B. Simpson into this nightmare along with her.

“Tell me what I want to know!” her tormenter ordered. “Tell me now or else.”

“Or else what?” she spat back at him. “Go to hell!”

He reached for her then. She thought for a moment he was going to hit her again, but just then a bell sounded, and it was enough to make him hesitate. The ringing seemed to be coming from the far distance, like the bell signaling the end of a round in a boxing match. It took a moment for her to realize that the sound was coming from her cell phone. It was ringing from the spot inside her bra where she sometimes stowed it. The same place Edie Larson carried hers.

“Don’t answer that,” her attacker ordered in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t even think about touching it.”

It wasn’t until he was headed back up I-17 that Dave Holman realized he’d never bothered to turn his phone back on when he’d left the Morrisons’ house after the interview with Je

Dave now suspected that Bryan Forester had at least one accomplice in the plot to murder his wife. Dave was also thinking that one of those accomplices could have been Matthew Morrison. Sure, Bobby Salazar had sworn that Morrison hadn’t been behind the wheel of the car turned back in on Monday, but if Matthew wasn’t involved in the Forester homicide, why had he killed himself? Je

This wasn’t just idle speculation. Dave sensed there was some kind of co

Neither Ali nor the intruder said a word while the phone continued to ring. It was maddening for Ali to know there was someone on the other end of the line. If she answered, there might be enough time for a desperate scream for help. But she knew better. By the time she flipped the phone open, she would be dead. If help came at all, it would come too late.

After ringing five times, the phone subsided into silence. The man was still standing over her, holding the gun.

“Who helped you?” he demanded again. “And where the hell are your real computers?”

Ali didn’t answer. A trickle of coppery-tasting blood ran across her tonsils. As she fought off her gag reflex, her phone jangled again. This time she knew it was a

“Get up,” he ordered.

Ali didn’t move. She couldn’t. After a moment he grabbed her sweatshirt again. Holding it so tightly against her throat that she could barely breathe, he jerked her to her feet and propelled her across the room and into her bedroom. As she stumbled into the room, she caught a glimpse of poor Sam dodging for cover under the bed. That was also when Ali caught sight of Leland Brooks. Duct tape pi

She struggled and twisted, trying to escape her attacker’s ironfisted grasp. “What have you done to him?” she demanded. “Is he dead?”

“Not yet, but he will be soon if you don’t give me what I want.”

She knew from the way the man said it that he wasn’t making idle threats. She knew instinctively that he was a killer who would kill again. He would murder Ali and Leland Brooks in cold blood without a moment’s hesitation.

“What do you want?” Her lips were almost swollen shut. She could barely speak.

“I already told you,” he said. “You didn’t just destroy my files, you stole them. How else would you know they were encrypted? I want them back, all of them.”

Ali said nothing.

“Even more than my files,” he added, “I want the bastard who did this.”

And there it was: the automatic and arrogant assumption that whoever had managed to do this to him-to outwit him-had to be a man. In his distorted view of the universe, only another male would be smart enough to catch him.

By then he had muscled Ali through her bedroom and into the bathroom beyond it. Still holding her sweatshirt bunched at the front of her neck, he reached down long enough to put the gun down on the side of the tub. The bathroom floor was slick with water. The room reeked of vomit, and the bathtub was full almost to overflowing with vomit-spattered water.

Ali knew then what was coming. “That’s what you did to Leland Brooks?” she gasped. “You forced him underwater?”

The man nodded grimly. Letting go of her shirt, he twisted her around so her back was to him. “Believe me, if he’d known anything, by the time it was over, he would have told me. The same way you will.”