“What real estate agent?” Dave asked.
“A woman named Susan,” O’Brien answered. “From an Internet dating site.”
“Was it a place called Singleatheart, by any chance?” Dave asked.
“As a matter of fact, it was,” O’Brien replied. “How did you figure that out?”
“Luck,” Dave said. “Combined with an anonymous tip. But now I’ve got someone else I need you to track down. An ER doc from Phoenix General. His name’s Peter Winter, and he supposedly flew out of Sky Harbor this morning on his way to visit his ailing mother in upstate New York.”
“That’s all you know about him?”
“So far. Except that I’ve been told he’s also involved in Singleatheart, and I need you to find him.”
“What do you want me to do with him once I find him?”
“Just let me know where he is. I’ll take it from there.”
“Anything else?” said Sean O’Brien.
“If you can locate a photo of Dr. Winter, I need you to take a copy of it over to the Hertz facility at Sky Harbor. Show it to a guy who works the vehicle check-in line-a guy by the name of Bobby Salazar-and ask him if it looks familiar. Let me know what he says.”
“Will do,” Sean said. “Glad to help out.”
Ending the call, Dave steered his vehicle back onto the freeway, heading north. He knew he had just learned something important. One way or the other, Peter Winter was involved, and without Ali and B.’s efforts, that connection wouldn’t have come to light-at least not this soon.
Wanting to say thank you, he tried calling Ali one more time. Once again, she didn’t answer.
Why leave word for me to call if you’re not going to pick up? Dave wondered.
He hung up without leaving a message.
CHAPTER 15
Ali was falling-falling through space and time. The ground was coming up at her fast. It was reddish, rocky dirt punctuated by a few scrubby bushes, a lot like the ground around Sedona. As she fell to earth, she realized she was supposed to pull the cord on her parachute, but she couldn’t find the cord, and she didn’t have a parachute. Someone had told her that she should pack it, that she should keep it with her at all times, but she didn’t have it now, and when she hit the ground, she was going to die.
Suddenly, she came out of the water. He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her out of the tub. He flung her gasping and wheezing and choking onto the bathroom floor. The water and other things as well gushed out of her-out of her nose and her mouth-as she choked and heaved. Her whole body shook with terrible spasms as she tried desperately to clear her lungs and find a way to breathe again. To find a way to live.
How many times had he shoved her under? She didn’t know and couldn’t remember. The only thing that mattered now was would he do it again? And when? And where was he? He seemed to have left her alone on the bathroom floor. Why? Not that being left alone offered any particular advantage. Ali was helpless. She couldn’t move. The racking spasms of choking and coughing left her weak and dizzy and almost paralyzed. She knew she couldn’t stand up. She couldn’t even crawl. All she could do was pray-for wisdom, for strength, for grace.
Then her tormentor was back. She saw his bootie-clad feet next to her face and heard his voice speaking to her from very far away. “Had enough?” he asked.
Ali tried to answer, but another set of body-racking coughs rocked her. She tried to say “Enough,” but she couldn’t speak. All she could do was nod.
He dragged her up off the floor and pulled her sopping-wet body into the bedroom. Grasping her under her shoulders and knees, he lifted her and then dropped her on the bed. The movement dislodged more water from her lungs and set off another spasm of choking. Turning her head to cough, she noticed Leland’s body wasn’t exactly where it had been. He was still and unmoving again. Either Leland had moved himself or he had been moved.
Maybe Leland’s alive, Ali thought. Why else would he be duct-taped? Maybe I’m not alone in this after all.
“So tell me,” her tormentor urged. “I’m waiting.”
She looked up at him. He was no longer training his gun on her. Instead, he was using a towel to dry it. Evidently, in the course of their epic struggle, she had managed to knock the weapon-a.357, from the looks of it-into the tub. Ali knew that didn’t count in her favor. Just because the gun had gotten wet didn’t mean it wouldn’t work. If he aimed it in her direction and pulled the trigger, it would fire, and she would be dead.
“Well?” he pressed. “Who was it?”
And that was when the answer came to her. It was an answer to her prayer, and it came to her out of the blue. He’s waiting for me to tell him something. But I don’t have to tell him the truth.
The truth would mean divulging B. Simpson’s name and address, but Ali already knew that B., by his own admission, wasn’t armed. He was tall and imposing and could probably defend himself under most circumstances, but not against a determined killer armed with a.357.
If she told the man that the cops had helped her, it would be over. He’d kill her and be done with it. What Ali really needed was a bargaining chip, something she could use to divert him long enough to get help. And where would she find that? She needed an ally who was armed to the teeth and who would be utterly fearless when it came to fighting back.
With a start, Ali realized she knew just such a person.
“My mother,” she whispered aloud.
“Your what?”
“My mother,” she repeated.
“You’re saying your mother did this? No way!” he blurted. “I read all about your parents in some of those articles on you. Don’t they run some stupid restaurant or something?”
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.