Trial By Fire

CHAPTER 15

Leaving the Caye

Hearing Serenity’s sobbing, Ali couldn’t help wondering if Serenity’s tears didn’t have more to do with her fractured relationship with her mother than it did with Mimi’s impending death.

James’s family, still relatively united, had taken possession of the middle of the room, including the table with the unfinished jigsaw puzzle. Mark sat apart from the rest of them, keeping to himself in the far corner, with Ali’s laptop open on his lap.

Before Sarah and Roy ’s earlier arrival on the scene, the television set in the room had been on, but at such a low volume that no one had paid attention to whatever was showing. That had changed with Roy ’s arrival. He had turned the volume up to high. He sat in front of the set, still fully engrossed in his baseball game-or was it a new baseball game? Ali couldn’t tell.

What was obvious, however, was that Roy was using the game to absent himself from the battle between Sarah and her recently arrived younger sister, Carol. The two of them were going at it hot and heavy over what could have been done or should have been done to keep their older sister from falling asleep with a cigarette in her hand, thus setting herself on fire.

As Ali walked past the argument to reach Mark Levy, she caught a whiff of a distinctive odor, which made her suspect that Carol had already taken a nip or two of her daily allotment of demon rum.

Mark closed the computer at her approach. “I hope you don’t mind me using it,” he said, handing it over. “I was checking my e-mail.”

“No,” Ali said. “That’s fine. Did Sister Anselm come back?”

“Nope. At least she didn’t come through here.”

“And Hal?” Ali asked.

Mark shook his head. “He hasn’t been out since you left, but you might want to check your e-mail. It sounded like several new messages came in while I was online.”

Dropping into the chair next to Mark’s, Ali clicked on her mail program. Her in-box showed ten new e-mails. Three of them made her hair stand on end. [email protected] /* */ Sister Anselm writing from a Sisters of Providence Web site.

While Ali had been waiting for and expecting a text message, Sister Anselm had sent her an e-mail instead.

When Ali pushed Read, she expected a regular e-mail to appear on the screen-something complete with words and text. Instead a map popped up on her screen, a map of Scottsdale, at least one with the far northeastern edge of Scottsdale showing on the screen. There was a red dot on the Beeline Highway northeast of Scottsdale. In the upper left-hand corner was a speedometer with a reading of 63 miles per hour. In the upper right-hand corner was a compass showing a northeast heading.

For a moment Ali couldn’t make out what was happening. What did it mean? She checked the next message. The same map appeared. In that one the pin was still on Highway 87, but a little to the north of the location in the previous message.

Suddenly Ali understood. Sister Anselm was employing one of the more exotic applications on her iPhone-she was using her navigation system to broadcast where she was. In a moving vehicle, heading north by northeast.

Weeks earlier Ali had heard Chris and B. Simpson discussing this latest add-on in iPhone technology, but she hadn’t paid much attention. Now she was on full alert. Sister Anselm needed help, and she was sending out a wireless SOS, most likely to the most recently used address in her phone-Ali’s. Maybe she couldn’t risk attempting to leave a voice message right then for fear of being overheard, and perhaps ordinary texting was too cumbersome for some reason, but this worked. The most recent e-mail had come in a mere five minutes earlier.

Ali had been on the Beeline Highway on occasion. Once you were on it, there weren’t all that many places to turn off. You either went north to Payson or south on the Apache Trail past Roosevelt Dam.

Ali glanced around the room. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. If Mimi’s children were involved in this latest plot somehow, they were doing an excellent job of giving themselves cover. If they were ever asked about it, they would be able to answer quite honestly that at the time Sister Anselm was being driven north by person or persons unknown, they had been sitting in a hospital waiting room, minding their own business, and expecting any moment that their dying mother would be pronounced dead. That would count as a foolproof alibi.

Mark leaned over the arm of his chair and peered at the map. “Hey, that’s one of those new G-spot things, isn’t it?” he said. “Cool.”

Ali put her finger to her lips. “I’m going down to the lobby,” she said aloud.

As soon as the elevator door closed behind her, Ali hit the speed dial that went directly to Sheriff Maxwell’s cell phone.

“Hey, I’m in a meeting now,” he said when he picked up. “Can I get back to you?”

“No! You can’t,” she declared. “I need to speak to you now.”

“What’s going on?” he asked. “You make it sound like a matter of life and death.”

“It is,” she said. “I think someone has kidnapped Sister Anselm.”

“Kidnapped the nun?” Maxwell demanded. “Who would do that? Why?”

“The people responsible for the attack on Mimi Cooper,” Ali responded. “I suspect they believe Mimi confided in her and revealed their identities.”

“Damn!” Maxwell muttered, which was much the same thing Ali had said a few minutes earlier. “You know this for sure? If so, where did it happen? If she was kidnapped in Phoenix, you’ll need to contact Phoenix PD and get their people on the case.”

“I don’t know who has her,” Ali said urgently, “but I know approximately where she is.” Ali glanced at her watch. “At least I know where she was about ten minutes ago.”

“Wait a minute,” Maxwell said. “Hold on. Hey, guys,” he said. “I’ll need you to step outside so I can take this call.” Moments later a door slammed shut on Maxwell’s end. By the time the sheriff was back on the line with her, Ali had made her way to an unoccupied love seat in the lobby.

“Let me get this straight,” Maxwell said. “You’re telling me that you believe Sister Anselm has been kidnapped. You don’t know that for sure, but you still think you know where she is.”

“I do know where she is,” Ali insisted. “She’s in a vehicle headed north on the Beeline Highway.”

“And you know this because…”

“Because she just sent me an e-mail through her navigation system,” Ali said. “If you’ll go back to your computer, I can forward it to you and you’ll see for yourself. We need to move fast, Sheriff Maxwell. If she’s not there of her own free will, and if whoever grabbed her finds her iPhone and figures out she’s been sending out messages, it’ll all be over.”

Ali opened her computer and logged on to her AirCard. In her new mail list, she found another message from Sister Anselm.

“Okay,” Ali said. “She just sent me another one. It looks like the vehicle is north of Jake’s Corner and still heading toward Payson. I’m forwarding it to you. You should have it in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” he said. “This is nuts, but I’ll go back into my office and wait for it.”

She heard the swishing sound of an outgoing message leaving her computer. Then she waited, fuming, for the forward to make its way into his mailbox. It took only a few seconds, but with Ali’s heightened sense of urgency, the wait seemed interminable.