Trial By Fire

Making her way through the hospital lobby, Ali was relieved to see that it was empty of media folks. The reporters and cameras had evidently moved on to the next hot story. That would change, however, once Mimi Cooper did succumb to her injuries. Then the reporters would all come surging back.

Outside on the sidewalk the early afternoon heat was appalling. Earlier in the morning, the waiting room’s droning television set had carried a local weather report. Ali seemed to remember that a smiling weatherman had reported that afternoon temperatures in the Phoenix area were expected to cross the 110-degree mark. As she hiked along the sidewalk on Camelback returning to the Ritz, Ali suspected that had already happened, and she regretted her early-morning decision to leave her Caye

Sister Anselm can walk back and forth as much as she likes, Ali told herself. When I go back this time, I’m bringing the car.

By the time Ali reached the hotel entrance, rivers of sweat were dribbling into her eyes and her head felt like it was about to explode. The wig seemed to attract and hold the heat like fake grass. Ali was tempted to peel it off and leave it in her room, but she couldn’t do that, either. She’d be going back to the burn unit eventually, and she couldn’t afford to ditch her disguise prematurely.

Once inside the hotel, she realized that afternoon tea at the Ritz was well under way. Ali paused and looked around hopefully, thinking that perhaps Sister Anselm had simply stopped off for a bit of refreshment. There was no sign of her anywhere.

Turning on her heel, Ali approached the concierge’s desk. “I’m looking for Sister Anselm,” she a

Frowning, the concierge gave Ali an appraising look. “Who might I say is asking?”

The mat of red hair might be hot as blue blazes, but it worked-too well at times. This very same concierge had addressed her by name yesterday as her blond self. Today, as a redhead, she was a stranger and suspect.

“I’m Ali Reynolds,” she said quickly, fumbling her hotel key out of her pocket. “Room three oh one. Sister Anselm is a friend of mine.”

“Oh, yes, Ms. Reynolds,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you, but yes, now I remember. You and Sister Anselm joined us for tea yesterday afternoon. I’m afraid she’s not here at the moment.” He glanced at his watch. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday, when she left for the hospital. Have you tried calling her room?”

“She left the hospital a while ago and said she was coming back here.”

“On foot?” the concierge asked.

Ali nodded. The concierge smiled and added, “Of course, she always walks, summer or winter. She doesn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she walked past me while I was busy with someone else. I can try calling her room, if you like.”

“Please,” Ali said.

The concierge smiled. “It’s my pleasure.”

When he dialed the room number, however, there was no answer. Ali turned from him and went to check with the front desk. No one there had seen Sister Anselm, either.

The worry that had been niggling at the edge of Ali’s consciousness blossomed into full-blown fear. Something bad had happened to Sister Anselm on her mile-long walk from the hospital back to the hotel.

Ali turned back to the concierge. “I’ll need my car right away,” she said. “I don’t have the ticket with me.”

“It’s the blue Caye

“Yes.”

“I’ll have them bring it around immediately.”

Ali hurried back outside to where the parking attendants waited in the shade with a cooling mist blowing down from the ceiling of the porte cochere. She turned to the uniformed attendant who seemed to be in charge. “Did you see Sister Anselm come or go a little while ago?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I did. She was just coming in the back way when a car stopped beside her. The passenger window rolled down. She spoke to someone inside the vehicle. Then she climbed inside, and they drove away.”

“What kind of vehicle?” Ali asked.

“One of those new crossovers. A Honda, I think. Bright red.”

“Was there a man driving, or a woman?”

“I couldn’t tell. There may have been two people in the car when it stopped. Sister Anselm got in the front seat, but I think someone else was in the back.”

“Which way did they go?”

“They pulled a U-turn and then left the back way. Going west toward the hospital it’s easier to turn left on Twenty-fourth than it is to cross all six lanes of traffic on Camelback.”

The attendant had made it all sound so routine, as though having someone drop by to give Sister Anselm a ride was an everyday occurrence

But this isn’t every day, Ali thought grimly. Sister Anselm may have thought she was getting a ride back to the hospital, but she never made it.

When Ali’s Caye

A few blocks to the west, just beyond Saint Gregory’s, speeding traffic on Highway 51 ran north and south at sixty-plus miles per hour. If the Honda had made for that, it could be miles away from here by now, and there was no way of guessing which direction the vehicle had gone.

The light changed and Ali moved into traffic. As for who might have been at the wheel, it must have been someone known to Sister Anselm or she wouldn’t have gotten into the vehicle. Or would she? Had she been forced? And if so, by whom?

That wasn’t hard to figure out. Sister Anselm had spent the better part of two days with a dying woman. Hal Cooper himself had said that Mimi had moments of clarity when she emerged briefly from her morphine-induced sleep. The people who had done this were probably terrified that during one of those lucid moments Mimi might have passed the identity of her attackers along to Sister Anselm.

And there are most likely at least two of them, Ali reminded herself, because there were two people in the vehicle that dumped Mimi’s Infiniti in Gilbert.

As Ali waited impatiently for the left-hand turn signal to allow her onto Camelback, she realized there was a fallacy in her reasoning.

It doesn’t matter if Mimi told her or not, Ali realized. If they think Sister Anselm knows, they need to get rid of her before she has a chance to pass that information along to someone else.

“Damn!” Ali exclaimed aloud. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”