Deadly Stakes

by J. A. Jance

  “Nobody’s having a ‘difficulty’ of any kind,” B. declared forcefully. “If Ali’s there, it has to be for some good reason. I’m on my way now. Give me the address so I can program it into my GPS.”

  “While you’re in a moving vehicle?” Stuart replied with a disapproving click of his tongue. “Perish the thought.”

  “It says I’m fifty-seven minutes out,” B. said a moment later. “I’ll see if I can shave some off that.”

  “I can hear the radar detector coming online as we speak.”

  27

  At three minutes past five, almost three hours after Stuart sent the warning message to Ali, B. Simpson pulled into the parking lot at the Franciscan Renewal Center. He was on the phone with Stuart seconds later.

  “I found the car,” B. said hurriedly. “It’s parked in a far corner of the lot, well away from the other cars here. It’s unlocked, with the key in the ignition.”

  “I’m surprised somebody didn’t steal it,” Stuart observed. “What about her purse?”

  “No sign of it, but her phone is here. The screen is a mess—looks like it’s been run over by a Mack truck. The miracle is, the phone stayed on. That’s why you were able to find it.”

  “What about the iPad?” Stuart asked. He waited, listening to the rustling of B.’s cursory search of the car.

  “Not here,” B. said at last. “What next?”

  Stuart turned to the computer he had dedicated to accessing Ali’s iCloud account and stared at the screen for Find My Device. “There’s no sign of her iPad anywhere, boss,” he said. “It looks like the damned thing’s off.”

  “Have you tried calling the Ralston house?”

  “I have. Several times. No answer.”

  “That’s my next stop,” B. said. “Give me the address.”

  Stuart wasn’t one to sit on his hands in the meantime. He went to Ali’s mail app and began to scroll through the individual messages and notes synced from her iPad, which was like following a trail of virtual bread crumbs recounting Ali’s travels over the past two days. He found names, numbers, and addresses for Sylvia Sanders, Molly Handraker, Valerie Stone, and Gemma Ralston. Among them he found Molly’s listing along with a series of phone numbers.

  Stuart paused long enough to try all of them, including another attempt at Doris Ralston’s landline. No one answered any of them. Going through the saved notes, Stu found a listing for Manning, Jack and Gloria. The notation for them said only Palm Springs. There was no accompanying address or phone number.

  Still waiting for B. to call back, Stuart scratched his head. Then he realized that, in processing messages from Gemma’s e-mail account, he might have passed over Molly Handraker’s e-mail address. Within seconds, he was working on accessing her account when a shaken B. Simpson called him back ten minutes later.

  “Bad news,” he said, his voice breaking. “There’s been a fire.”

  “What kind of fire? Where?”

  “At the Ralston house. They’ve put up a police perimeter, and I’m on the wrong side of it. People are telling me the house is a complete loss.”

  “What house?” Stu asked, not quite believing what he was hearing.

  “Doris Ralston’s house!” B. said, his voice thick with despair. “What if Ali’s dead, Stu? What if I’ve lost her?”

  “That can’t be,” Stuart said. “How did it start?”

  “I have no idea. Firefighters are still actively involved in fighting it. According to the one guy I did talk to, the roof collapsed. That’s only hearsay, because I can’t get close enough to see for myself.”

  “I’m sure she’s okay,” Stuart said hurriedly. “Just because the house burned down doesn’t mean she was inside.”

  That last bit of reassurance was as much for his own benefit as it was for B.’s. Stuart couldn’t handle the idea that Ali Reynolds might have been in mortal danger while he had done nothing but focus on his growing annoyance about her not returning his message.

  “Thanks for saying that,” B. replied, taking a ragged breath, “but it doesn’t look good, does it? If Ali was okay, she would have been in touch with one of us by now.” He paused and then added, “What the hell am I going to tell her parents?” There was uncharacteristic panic in B.’s voice.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Stuart advised, trying to sound calm. “When did the fire start?”

  “A neighbor reported seeing smoke and called in the alarm sometime shortly after three. By the time the first engines arrived, the place was fully engulfed. What do we do now, Stu? I’m at a loss. If Ali is dead and this turns out to be arson, whoever set it is guilty of murder.”

  “When will they know if it’s arson or not?” Stuart asked.

  “It’ll be a while,” B. said. “The fire’s still too hot and the structure too unstable to send investigators inside, and until they do, we won’t know about possible victims. In the meantime, I’m going to call Dave Holman. He may be able to pull some strings to get me inside the perimeter.”

  “You do that,” Stuart said. “I’ll see what I can do on this end.”

  “Wait,” B. said. “Something else just occurred to me. When I went to check on the Cayenne, I’m sure I saw security cameras in the parking lot at the Renewal Center. Just because they have cameras doesn’t mean they were running at the time, but why don’t you see if you can access them. Somebody went to the trouble of dropping Ali’s car off there. I’d like to know who did it and when.”

  “I’m on it,” Stuart said.

  Because it was the thing most likely to give them a concrete lead, he did that first. Stuart was an old hand at getting inside other people’s secure surveillance systems, and this one was no exception. In fact, the system was so ridiculously simple to hack in to that it occurred to Stuart that someone from High Noon should probably talk to them about upgrading. Once he had access to the videos, he used the timing of the fire as a marker and looked at recordings that were time-stamped between two-thirty and three P.M. He soon found what he expected to find.

  At 2:46:35 he spotted a vehicle that looked like Ali’s Cayenne nosing into the parking lot. It drove past innumerable empty spots before pulling into one that was as distant as possible from the camera’s stationary location. The Cayenne was followed by a large black Mercedes, an S550 sedan, with a solo male driver. While Stuart watched, a woman who was clearly not Ali got out of the Cayenne, walked over to the second vehicle, and climbed into the passenger seat. Moments later, the Mercedes exited the parking lot and sped westbound on Lincoln.

  Stuart tried enhancing the image enough to read the vehicle license, but it didn’t work. He sat there, staring blindly at the computer screen and wondering what to do next. He couldn’t dodge the gut feeling that told him Barry Handraker was an important part of whatever was going on. If so, where was the point of contact? The wife? Yes, but did that mean Molly Handraker was an active participant, or was she a victim? Remembering that Molly had worked for battered-women’s shelters prior to leaving Minnesota, Stuart suspected he knew the answer. Once the fire department made it into the burned-out house, they would find the charred remains of three victims—Molly; her mother, Doris Ralston; and Ali Reynolds, while Barry Handraker would once again disappear into the ethers.

  “Not if I can help it,” Stuart muttered under his breath.

  That was when he decided to come at the problem from a different angle. He went straight back to Ali’s notes and looked up Molly’s phone numbers. What he did next was entirely illegal and completely necessary. Within a matter of moments, he was examining not only Molly Handraker’s phone records but her mother’s. Once the numbers were laid out in front of him, what struck him as odd was the sheer volume of phone calls from Doris Ralston’s landline to an unlisted number in Las Vegas. A little more sleuthing disclosed that the landline was located in a unit in Turnberry Towers and bills for that number were being sent to Doris Ralston’s Phoenix address.

  Stuart was puzzling over what to do wi
th that information when a sudden movement on the iCloud-dedicated computer caught his eye. He watched as a map gradually filled in the blanks on the Find My Device screen. As soon as it finished, he verified the location and then grabbed his phone to call B.

  “Guess what,” he announced breathlessly. “Ali’s iPad just phoned home. It’s at the Love’s Travel Stop, a truck stop just east of Kingman.”

  “Kingman,” B. echoed. He sounded enormously relieved but puzzled. “What would Ali be doing there?”

  “I thought maybe you could tell me.”

  “No idea,” B. replied, “but I’ve got Dave Holman on the other line. I’m still at the fire. He was trying to get them to let me past the perimeter, but it’s not working. Let me call you back.”

  “Wait,” Stuart said. “If Dave’s on the line, where is he?”

  “At the Sheriff’s Department in Prescott. Why?”

  “Doris Ralston’s son, Chip, is still in the lockup there, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is. Dave told me that once he’s off the phone, he’s going over to the jail to let Chip know about the fire.”

  “While he’s there, have him ask Chip if he knows who would be staying in his mother’s condo in Vegas.”

  “Anything else?” B. asked.

  Still accessing the information from Ali’s iPad, Stu switched over to her notes file and scrolled through the most recent items, focusing on the last one—the note containing the information on Jack and Gloria Manning. The time stamp on that note, which Ali had written bare minutes before the arrival of Stu’s message about Barry Handraker, meant that the information had to be something she had gleaned from her interview with Molly Handraker.

  “Ask Dave to mention the names Jack and Gloria Manning to Chip Ralston. See if he has any idea why those names might have come up this morning when Ali was questioning Molly.”

  “Will do,” B. answered. “What’s happening to the iPad?”

  “Nothing,” Stu answered. “It’s in the same spot. But here’s one more possible assignment for Dave. I can do it if I have to, but it’ll be easier and faster if Dave makes the call for us. Have him check with the DMV to see what vehicles are licensed to Doris Ralston’s address on Upper Glen Road. I’m betting one of them will turn out to be that same S550 that followed Ali’s Cayenne into the Renewal Center’s parking lot. Tell him I need the VIN.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” B. said. He sounded more like himself, energized and determined. “Thank you, Stu. At least I have a tiny thread of hope that Ali is alive.”

  “Just because the iPad’s there doesn’t mean she is,” Stu cautioned.

  “It doesn’t mean that she isn’t, either. But thinking she’s still alive and in a vehicle in Kingman is better than thinking she’s up the street in the charred remains of that house. If she’s in Kingman, I’m going there, too.”

  “That’s got to be close to two hundred miles from where you are right now,” Stu objected.

  “Yes, it is, and that’s why, while I’m on the phone with Dave, I need you to call a charter company for me,” B. said urgently. “Heli-Pros is a helicopter charter outfit based at the FBO at Scottsdale Airport. I’ve worked with them before. Tell them I’m going to need one of their aircraft fueled and ready to go in forty-five minutes to an hour. Wherever that signal is going, that’s where I’m going.”

  Once B. hung up, Stuart did as he was asked and soon discovered that as far as Heli-Pros was concerned, B. Simpson’s name was nothing short of a magic wand. With assurances that a pilot and fully fueled helicopter would be awaiting B.’s arrival at the airport, Stuart focused again on the Find My Device screen. Unfortunately, Ali’s iPad was no longer visible.

  Staring at a stationary picture on the screen was useless. Instead, Stuart returned to his favorite pastime—data mining. He had already succeeded in getting Molly Handraker’s telephone billing information. What Stuart needed now was a lot more complicated. He was fully engaged in the project when B. called him back.

  “Anything more from Find My Device?” he asked.

  “Not so far. I’ve looked on the cell tower maps, though, and on the far side of Kingman, coverage is spotty. So don’t worry. If they’re going that way, it may just be that the iPad has moved out of range.”

  “On Ali’s list of devices, there’s a phone called Extra. Where’s that one?”

  “Probably at home in Sedona,” B. said. “It’s not even turned on.”

  “Any chance you could stop by Sedona on your way to Kingman and pick it up?”

  “I suppose,” B. agreed reluctantly. “Are you sure we need another phone? Can’t we use mine?”

  “No,” Stuart insisted. “We need that phone. Tell Leland Brooks to bring it to the airport, and no matter what, don’t turn it on. By the way, are you packing?”

  “You mean as in carrying a weapon? Not me. Ali’s the one with a CWP.”

  “You’d best be prepared,” Stuart warned. “See if Leland Brooks can pick up a sidearm or at least some kind of weapon for you to have on hand. Barry Handraker is evil. If you end up in some kind of confrontation with the guy, it’s better to be prepared.”

  “All right. When I meet up with the pilot, I’ll check with him, too. I know from flying with them in the past that some of their guys are ex–Special Forces. In the meantime, here’s the rest of the information you wanted. Chip Ralston’s mother does own an S550. Here’s the VIN.” As B. read off the number, Stuart jotted it down. “She also owns a seafrost-green 2006 Jaguar XJ8 L. According to Chip, Jack and Gloria Manning were once good friends with the Ralstons. Gloria died two years ago, and Chip thinks Jack may have remarried. He has no idea why someone would have mentioned them to Ali. He also has no idea who might be living in his mother’s condo in Turnberry Towers. As far as he knew, the unit was unoccupied. His father bought it as an estate tax dodge and didn’t live long enough to use it.”

  Stuart jotted a note, giving himself yet another security surveillance system to target.

  “Dave put in a call to the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office,” B. went on, “but they weren’t the least bit helpful. All we have for sure is an iPad that’s somewhere it shouldn’t be, and the department’s official position is that they don’t have the personnel to go chasing after someone’s stolen electronic equipment, especially since the iPad disappeared from one jurisdiction, Dave is from a second, and the iPad is in a third. Dave tried to get them to put out a BOLO on the S550. They nixed that, too. Until we get something solid on the fire—until somebody from Phoenix PD says for sure it’s arson or fatality arson—nobody’s lifting a finger. So Dave’s going to stay on that problem. Right now they’re talking warrants. Dave’s our best bet for getting a statewide APB out on that S550.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Who knows?” B. growled. “Could as well be forever. Whoever’s running the show there right now doesn’t want to risk the possibility of one of those high-speed chases. We all know how dangerous those can be.”

  Stu heard the sarcasm in B.’s voice. “Those sound a lot like weasel words to me,” he observed.

  “Of course they’re weasel words,” B. agreed. “But just because Phoenix PD is standing around with their politically correct thumbs up their butts doesn’t mean you and I have to.”

  Stu got the unspoken message loud and clear. B. was telling him that it was time for him to unleash his considerable hacking skills, knowing full well that most of what he found would never hold up in a court of law.

  “In other words, when it comes to saving Ali’s bacon, we’re it,” Stu said.

  “For the time being,” B. said. “At least until Dave jars loose that APB. My hope is that once he does, we’ll be able to point responding officers in the right direction.”

  “With any kind of luck, we’ll be able to do far more than point. We’ll be able to give them an exact location. That’s where the phone comes in.”

  “We’ll have the phone with us. How’s that going to h
elp us?”

  “I’ll be using someone else’s phone to find them. Once we locate Ali, that phone will need to be turned on and on her person. I don’t care where you put it. It can be in her bra or her panties, for all I care. But she’s got to have it with her so we can claim that’s how we found her.”

  “Which gives us plausible deniability,” B. concluded.

  “Exactly,” Stuart said, suppressing a grin. “That’s the name of the game.”

  “Mr. Ramey,” B. said, “you are a gem, and I’m on my way to collect that phone.”

  28

  Ali awakened in the dark. She was cold and lying on her side in a moving vehicle. She could feel rough carpeting under her cheek and against her nose. She was crammed into a space that was far too small for her five-ten frame. One arm was locked under her body; her legs were drawn up into a fetal position. When she tried to straighten them, she couldn’t. There was no room to stretch out or even move from her side to a more comfortable position. Something behind her—luggage or boxes or both—made it impossible for her to move so much as an inch, even though her whole body was screaming for relief.

  Ali had no idea how she had come to be there. She tried to remember where she had been and what she had been doing. She could assemble only a few broken pieces of memory. It played in an endless loop like an old newsreel, jagged and jerky. She made one futile effort to yell for help, but that came to nothing. The roar of passing freeway traffic, mostly trucks, drowned out everything. Knowing no one could have heard her, she didn’t bother expending the energy to shout again.

  She shut her eyes to close out the artificial darkness, hoping that would help focus her mind and take her back to what had happened before she landed in this trunk. Someone in a trunk. Those words lodged in her brain; it seemed as though they were important and should mean something to her. Had this happened to her before, or had it happened to someone else? No matter how she tried, soon everything but the crammed trunk and the feel of scratchy carpet on her face was shrouded in a wad of thick, cottony mental fog.