Cruel Intent

That he could so easily dismiss her parents and their life’s work made Ali that much more determined. She had paid a huge price to be able to lie to this man. Now her very life depended on making sure that lie was believable.

“It’s true,” she insisted between coughs. “All of it. Mom helped me grab your files. It’s her hobby. She does it for fun.”

The disbelief on his face was clear. He simply couldn’t get his mind around the fact that he might have been bested by a woman or, rather, by two women-Ali and her mother. That was absolutely unacceptable.

“For fun? No!” he exclaimed. “You can’t tell me that an old woman who makes her living cooking in some dinky restaurant is some kind of computer genius. That’s not possible. It makes no sense.”

“It’s true,” Ali said again.

“Where did she go to school, then?”

Ali knew that in order to convince him, she would need to come up with a whole series of telling details.

“Mother’s family was poor. When it was time for her to go off to college, there wasn’t any money, especially since she wanted to become an engineer. Back then engineering schools weren’t interested in enrolling women, so she taught herself.”

That bit was taken from B. Simpson’s nonstandard education. He didn’t have an engineering degree, either.

“But she was always curious about how things work,” Ali went on. “She was forever taking stuff apart and putting it back together and improving whatever it was in the process.”

That, of course, was more like Ali’s father. It was how Bob Larson had kept his beloved Bronco in working order all these years.

“She taught herself programming, too,” Ali said, warming to her story. “A couple of years ago, when a friend’s computer got taken down by a virus, Mother made it her business to become a self-taught expert in worms and viruses.”

That last whopper may have been a step too far.

“I suppose next you’re going to tell me she’s also an expert at encryption?” the man asked sarcastically. “Is that another of your remarkable mother’s spare-time specialties?”

“You’re right,” Ali said. “Mom doesn’t know anything about encryption, but she has a friend who does, an elderly friend who specialized in code-breaking during the Cold War. He and his new wife have a winter home in Yuma. Mother asked him to come help out. They’ll be driving up later on this afternoon.”

The man’s momentary expression of dismay was immediately replaced by something cold and calculating. Once again the gun was aimed squarely in Ali’s direction.

“Where are my files, then?” he asked. “Who has them right now, and who has access to them?”

“They’re on my mother’s computer,” she said. “At her house.”

“Where’s that?”

“Here in Sedona. Down by the highway.”

“And where’s your mother?”

Ali glanced at her watch. It wasn’t waterproof, so the glass was covered with a layer of steam from being dunked in the tub, but the watch was still ru

“She’s home now, too,” Ali said.

“Call her, then,” the man ordered. “Have her come here and bring her damn computer with her.”

Ali knew that wasn’t going to work. Asking Edie to bring over her computer with its nonexistent files would provoke an immediate storm of difficult and impossible-to-answer questions. Fortunately, when Ali reached for her phone, it wasn’t there. It had disappeared from under her bra strap during the struggle in the bathroom. It was probably sitting on the bottom of the tub.

“I can’t,” she said. “I lost my phone.”

The man checked his own watch and abruptly changed his mind. Turning away from Ali, he rummaged in her closet, found a jogging suit, and tossed it in her direction.

“Get out of those wet clothes and put these on,” he ordered. “We won’t have your mother come here. We’ll go see her instead.”

Dave had put himself out on a real limb by letting Ali know in advance that the search was coming. Having run that risk, Dave was a

“Cut the padlock on the Mini-Mobile,” he ordered. “If you can jimmy the lock on the front door, do it. Otherwise, knock it down.”

The uniformed officer had just swung open the door on the metal storage unit when Bryan Forester’s Dodge Ram pulled into the driveway. He jumped out of the cab and came ru

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

So Ali did tell him, Dave thought grimly. Too bad for him, he got the news too late. “Back off, Bryan,” he ordered. “My officers have a warrant to search this site.”

“There are valuable tools and equipment in there,” Bryan objected. “I don’t want people messing with them.”

“I said back off,” Dave repeated. “We’re doing a search. We’re not going to bother your equipment. I don’t see any of your guys working today. What brings you here?”

“The tile company in Phoenix called me about some kind of delivery mix-up. Supposedly, someone was on his way here to drop off a load of tile that isn’t mine. I came by to check it out.”

Dave glanced around the driveway and saw nothing. Likely story, he thought. “What tile?” he asked. “I don’t see any tile.”

“I don’t see any, either,” Bryan said. “Like I said, it was a mix-up of some kind-probably someone else’s order. I just didn’t want it to be delivered here by mistake and then have to make arrangements to ship it back.”

“This is going to take some time,” Dave said. “If you want to hang around, how about if you and I go have a seat over at the picnic table and give these officers a chance to do their jobs.”

Nodding, Bryan headed for the table, shaking a cigarette out of a pack as he went. “You let me out this morning,” he said once he was seated and had lit up. “So how come you’re searching my stuff this afternoon? What changed?”

Nothing, except the prosecutor lost his balls, Dave thought. He said, “Letting you out was someone else’s call, not mine.”

“So you still think I did it?” Bryan asked. For a moment the two men glared at each other in charged silence. “Go to hell, then,” Bryan added when Dave didn’t respond. “I shouldn’t be talking to you, not without my lawyer.” He stood up as if to go.

“Sit,” Dave said.

Bryan sat.

“Who’s Peter Winter?”

“Peter who?”

“Winter. Dr. Peter Winter.”

Bryan shrugged. “I have no idea. Never heard of the man.”

“We believe he had some co

“So?” Bryan asked, blowing a cloud of smoke skyward. “What does that have to do with me? Morgan was involved in all that garbage, not me.”

“Maybe you both were,” Dave suggested.

“Like I said before, go to hell,” Bryan told him. “Everyone in town knows your ex screwed around on you while you were off in Iraq. You didn’t kill her.”

“How kind of you to mention that,” Dave returned. “But it turns out my ex isn’t dead. Yours is.”

“Yes, Morgan was screwing around on me, but that doesn’t mean I killed her.”

“If you knew what was going on, why didn’t you divorce her?” Dave asked.

“Why do you think? The first time it happened, it broke my heart. But I got over it. After a while I just didn’t care anymore. I hung in because of the kids, because I didn’t want to lose my girls.”