Cruel Intent

After leaving the examination room, Ali returned to the chair next to Leland Brooks’s hospital bed, where she remained for the next several hours. She couldn’t help being sorry about keeping that solitary vigil. He was a wonderful human being, she had worked with him for months, but she didn’t know him that well. She had known nothing about his snoring, for instance, or the breakup of his romance, but she was the only person he had trusted to make life-and-death decisions about his medical care. How could that be?

Somewhere along the way, she fell asleep. When she awakened, it was dark outside, and someone had turned on a night-light on the far side of Leland’s bed. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see he was awake, too, and staring at her intently.

“I’m sorry,” Leland murmured. “So very sorry.”

“Sorry?” Ali repeated, straightening up and rubbing her eyes. “What do you have to be sorry about?”

“I let you down,” he said. “He was there in the driveway waiting for me, and I simply didn’t see it coming. He had brute force and surprise working in his favor. I never had a chance. I’m so sorry if he hurt you.”

It was entirely predictable that Leland’s first thought would be for someone else rather than for himself.

“He didn’t hurt me,” she said reassuringly. “Not really.”

“There’s a cut on your face-with stitches,” Leland objected.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“Who was he?” Leland asked. “Do you know his name?”

“Winter-Dr. Peter Winter.”

“And did he get away?”

“No,” Ali said. “We got lucky. He’s in custody.”

“He was a big man,” Leland said. “Who caught him and how?”

“My mother has a Taser,” Ali said simply. “We used that.”

“I see,” Leland said with a nod, as though the idea of Edie Larson having a Taser were the most natural thing in the world. “What about Mr. Simpson?” he added. “Winter didn’t find him, did he? I hope he’s all right.”

That stopped Ali for a moment. Winter had claimed Leland had said nothing because he’d had nothing to tell. Evidently, that wasn’t the case. “Are you saying you knew about my involvement with Mr. Simpson?”

“Of course I knew about it,” Leland answered. “I’m your butler. I didn’t know the details, but I knew it had something to do with computers. So when this man, this Winter person, kept raving about someone who had wrecked his computer files, I assumed it had to be Mr. Simpson.”

“But you didn’t give him Mr. Simpson’s name,” Ali said.

“No,” Leland replied. “Of course not. That’s not something I would do.”

“Thank you,” Ali said quietly. She meant it.

She wanted to say more, but just then a nurse stuck her head into the room. “We don’t have a kitchen here,” she said. “If you’d like something to eat, I can order in.”

They settled on Subway sandwiches. Once the nurse was gone, Ali turned to what had been bothering her while she’d been sitting awake and watching Leland sleep.

“I called your friend,” she said. “Your friend from Prescott. I’m sorry if that was the wrong thing to do, but I thought he’d want to know what had happened.”

“I assume he didn’t,” Leland said sadly.

“That’s correct,” Ali agreed. “He didn’t.”

“We broke up,” Leland said. “His children don’t approve of me, you see. I guess that means they don’t approve of him, either, but he’s their father. He doesn’t want to lose them. They gave him a choice of them or me. He chose them, and who can blame him?”

It struck Ali that this was almost the same thing Bryan Forester had said about not wanting to lose his girls. Although the situations were very different, they were also surprisingly similar-a father choosing to live a lie rather than risk losing his kids.

“I’m sorry,” Ali said.

“I am, too,” Leland admitted. “I thought that once Patrick’s wife was gone he’d find the courage to live his own life and be who he really is, but it turns out he can’t. I suppose I should have mentioned it to you.”

“No,” Ali said. “There was no need to tell me. Your personal affairs are none of my business.”

“Not telling you was rather cowardly on my part,” Leland Brooks said thoughtfully. “I just didn’t want to get into it.”

Ali reached over and took one of his hands in hers. “No, Mr. Brooks,” she said quietly. “That’s not it at all. I don’t think you could ever be a coward. That’s not who you are.”

A while later, once Leland had drifted back to sleep, Ali ventured out of the room long enough to use the restroom. Studying her face in the mirror, she was shocked by what she saw. The stitches were the least of it. An ugly bruise stretched from the corner of her left eye and down across her jawline. It ended halfway down her neck.

Not a pretty face, Ali thought ruefully. If Jacky Jackson sees me now, it’ll all be over between us.

A nurse came through the doors at the end of the hallway. Before the doors swung shut again, Ali heard the sound of familiar voices and caught a glimpse of her mother’s steel-gray page-boy. Hurrying into the lobby, she found it packed with people she knew-both her parents and Athena and Chris were there, along with several concerned neighbors from Andante Drive. All of them were worried about her.

“Oh my,” Edie Larson said tearfully, rushing over to her daughter. “Look at you. If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes, or should I say, a sight of sore eyes! They said you were in with Mr. Brooks and that he couldn’t have any more visitors, but I was so afraid that animal had hurt you.”

Bob Larson stepped between Edie and Ali and engulfed his daughter in a crushing bear hug. “You and your mom are quite the tag team,” he said. “But what about Mr. Brooks? Is he going to be all right?”

“He’s a little worse for wear,” Ali said. “But he’s sleeping now. The doctor says he’ll be fine.”

“Too bad he didn’t have a Taser,” Edie said. “Maybe you should give him one for Christmas.”

That broke the tension in the room, and everyone laughed. For the next few minutes, Ali told her collection of well-wishers as much of the story as she and Leland had managed to put together. Peter Winter had expected Ali to show up in response to his tile-delivery ruse rather than Leland Brooks. Once again, as she had with Chris and Athena, Ali recounted for everyone what Peter Winter had done to her and to Leland Brooks, shoving them under the water in hopes of their telling him who had taken his files.

“Those files were the tip of the iceberg,” Edie said. “Dave thinks Winter is the one who killed Morgan Forester.”

“He did,” Ali confirmed. “He told me so himself.”

“That means Bryan is off the hook, then?” Bob Larson asked.

“I hope so,” Ali said.

An hour or so later, a nurse shooed everyone out of the lobby, and Ali returned to her spot next to Leland’s bed. She had dozed off briefly when someone touched her shoulder. She awakened to find Dave Holman standing next to her chair and beckoning for her to follow him.

“I know you’re tired,” he said once they reached the lobby. “And this probably isn’t the best time to do this, but we need to take your statement as soon as possible.”

“We?” Ali asked.

“This is Detective Marjorie Hill from the city of Sedona,” Dave said, as a woman who had been seated near the windows rose to greet them. “She’s here because the attacks on you and Mr. Brooks occurred inside the city limits. I’m here because of Morgan Forester.”

“So you believe me, then?” Ali asked, glad of the confirmation.

Dave nodded grimly. “We found Morgan’s missing wedding and engagement rings on a key ring in Peter Winter’s pocket. But there’s a problem with that.”

“What kind of problem?” Ali asked.

“There are four other sets of rings there, which leads me to think there are at least four other victims. We just don’t know who they are. One them may have been his wife, Rita.”