Cruel Intent

He reached down and touched the computer. “It’s dead cold,” he said when Edie returned with the oversize monitor. “This thing probably hasn’t run in years.”

“Of course it’s cold,” Edie told him. “I’m not the kind to leave something plugged in and wasting electricity when I’m not using it.”

And that was when Ali understood what was going on. Somehow-through B., in all likelihood-Edie had learned that the man’s name was Winter, but the rest of it was all bluff. Edie was making a huge production of dragging this computer equipment from the other room. But Ali knew for sure this wasn’t her mother’s computer and never had been. It was probably an ancient model someone had donated to Bob, one that was so out of date even he couldn’t give it away. And Winter was probably right when he said that if Edie ever did plug it in, it wouldn’t boot up.

A telephone rang. Edie pulled it out of her pocket, answered, and then listened. “I’m really very busy right now,” she said finally. “And I’m certainly not in the market for aluminum siding.”

Sticking the phone back in her pocket, she handed her daughter a tangled power cord. “Here,” she said. “Plug this in. If it’ll reach that far, we’ll have to use the outlet over by the TV set. The one next to the table burned out. And you’ll probably need to unplug the lamp or the TV to make it work.”

Without a word of objection, Ali took the cord and turned toward the television set. Dropping to her knees next to the hassock, she crawled close enough to the wall to reach the outlet. First she unplugged the TV; she was relieved to know that the Taser with the leopard pattern would now have disappeared. She plugged in the cord, then turned back to the table, where Edie was in the process of reassembling the computer equipment.

Winter, engrossed in watching Edie’s every move, was no longer concentrating on Ali. It took only a moment for Ali to pluck the brightly colored C2 out of the cluster of remote controls. As soon as she pulled back on the switch-plate cover, the infared dot appeared silently in the middle of the man’s back. Ali didn’t shout out a warning to him. Instead, she simply pressed down on the switch. Winter immediately crumpled to the floor, screaming as he fell. The gun fell, too. It landed on the hardwood floor and went spi

Dropping the Taser, Ali raced to the door and flung it open. As soon as she did, she could hear an approaching siren somewhere in the background.

“I’ll go get them,” Edie said. “You take the gun. If he tries to get up, I’m sure you’ll know how to use it.”

Yes, Ali thought savagely. I sure as hell will!

CHAPTER 16

Arriving officers burst into the house while Peter Winter still lay twitching and helpless on the floor. Seeing Ali with the weapon in her hand, they immediately misread the situation.

“Drop the gun,” one of them shouted at her. “Get on the floor.”

After having her head held underwater, dropping to the floor was no problem. Ali was only too happy to comply.

“That’s my daughter,” Edie screeched from behind them. “Get him! The guy on the floor. He came in here with a gun. He was going to kill us.”

Just then Bob Larson appeared in the doorway behind his wife. Taking in the room, he paused when he saw the man on the floor. “Oh my God, Edie!” he exclaimed. “What have you done? Did you shoot him? Is he dead?”

But by then the thirty-second burst from the Taser had run its course, and Peter Winter lay whimpering on the floor in a puddle of his own making. Moments later, a pair of uniformed Sedona officers fitted him with a pair of Flex-Cuffs and then hauled him to his feet. The jolt of electricity seemed to have turned his legs to rubber.

While the one officer held him upright, the other turned to Edie. “What happened here?” he asked.

“He came to the door holding my daughter at gunpoint,” she said. “He thought we’d stolen some of his computer files.”

Dave Holman was the next man who darted through the front door and into the crowded room. “What’s going on?” he wanted to know. “What’s happened? Is anyone hurt?”

By then Bob was helping his daughter to her feet. “Leland Brooks may be,” Ali said. “He’s outside, unconscious, in the back of his truck.”

Nodding, Dave turned. “I’ll call the EMTs,” he said on his way out.

Meanwhile, two more Sedona officers edged their way into the room. “Whose Taser?” one of them asked.

“Mine,” Edie said. “My daughter fired it, but it belongs to me.”

Leaving the crowd inside to sort things out, Ali followed Dave. She found him on his hands and knees in the back of the camper shell. By the time she got there, he had pulled Leland to the end of the pickup and was loosening his restraints.

“Is he all right?” Ali asked.

Dave shook his head. “I can’t tell,” he said. “Looks like he’s out cold, but he’s got a pulse, and he’s breathing on his own.” He glanced up at Ali. “And what about you?” he asked. “That looks like a pretty bad cut.”

“It’s nothing,” Ali said. Compared to what it might have been, the injury to her face really was nothing.

A fire truck with a blaring siren arrived in a cloud of dust, followed by an ambulance. As a pair of EMTs raced forward, Ali motioned them toward the pickup. “He’s in there,” she said. She meant to be there with them, but suddenly, her legs were no longer cooperating.

Dave turned to Ali with a look of concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but not too convincingly. Taking her arm, Dave led her over to the back of the Sugarloaf and eased her down on the set of cement steps that led up to the back door.

“I should be there with Leland,” she objected.

“Sit,” Dave said.

When Ali looked down at her feet, she was surprised to see that she was barefoot. It was November and cold, but until she saw her feet, she hadn’t been aware of being without shoes.

“How did the cops get here?” Ali asked. “Who called them?”

“Your mother,” Dave replied. “She evidently placed a nine-one-one call and then hung up. When they tried calling back, she yelled at whoever was on the line and accused him of being an aluminum-siding salesman. Luckily, the operator was smart enough to realize something was amiss. He went ahead and dispatched units.”

“What about you?” Ali asked.

“B. Simpson had already told me that he’d plucked Peter Winter’s name out of the computer files he had lifted. When I tried to check on Winter myself, I was told he was off duty for the foreseeable future. That worried me. It worried me even more when Simpson told me he had been trying to reach you and couldn’t get through. I left my guys to execute the warrant at Manzanita Hills and was on my way to your other place when I heard the radio transmissions. I came here instead.”

“B. may not have been able to reach me, but he talked to my mother,” Ali said. “You should have seen her, Dave. She was amazing. I show up with my face dripping blood and with a guy who’s holding me at gunpoint, but she’s cool as a cucumber. ‘You must be Peter Winter,’ she says, as calm as can be. The next thing I know, she’s dragging some old discarded heap of a computer out of Dad’s trash pile and convincing the guy that was what she had used to hack in to his files. And he believed her. While he was busy watching her hook it up, I managed to grab the Taser and nail the guy.”

“Taser?” Dave asked. “What Taser? Where did you get one of those?”

“It’s Mom’s,” Ali answered. “She bought it at one of Frieda Rains’s parties.”

Dave shook his head and rubbed his forehead. “Remind me not to make your mother mad,” he said.