by Jance, J. A.
“I already told you,” he said. “You didn’t just destroy my files, you stole them. How else would you know they were encrypted? I want them back, all of them.”
Ali said nothing.
“Even more than my files,” he added, “I want the bastard who did this.”
And there it was: the automatic and arrogant assumption that whoever had managed to do this to him—to outwit him—had to be a man. In his distorted view of the universe, only another male would be smart enough to catch him.
By then he had muscled Ali through her bedroom and into the bathroom beyond it. Still holding her sweatshirt bunched at the front of her neck, he reached down long enough to put the gun down on the side of the tub. The bathroom floor was slick with water. The room reeked of vomit, and the bathtub was full almost to overflowing with vomit-spattered water.
Ali knew then what was coming. “That’s what you did to Leland Brooks?” she gasped. “You forced him underwater?”
The man nodded grimly. Letting go of her shirt, he twisted her around so her back was to him. “Believe me, if he’d known anything, by the time it was over, he would have told me. The same way you will.”
“No,” she said, trying to desperately to pull away from him. “You can’t do this. Please.”
“Of course I can do this,” he returned calmly. “I can do anything I want. Surely you’ve heard of waterboarding. Everyone has these days. If it’s good enough for Islamic terrorists, it’s good enough for you, and it’s pretty much foolproof. When we’re done, it’ll work the same way for me that it does for the CIA. In order to keep from drowning, you’ll tell me everything I want to know.”
“You’ll never get away with it,” Ali said. “They’ll find you. They’ll put you away.”
“No, they won’t, my dear. I’ll be long gone before anyone ever finds you or your friend out there. Long gone.”
Staring down at the bathtub full of water, Ali Reynolds knew one thing that her captor couldn’t possibly know: She was petrified of water; terrified of drowning. As a teenager, she had nearly drowned on an outing to Oak Creek’s Slide Rock. She had knocked herself out on a rock and gone under. She had been unconscious when one of her friends pulled her from the water and pumped the water out of her chest. She had awakened coughing and choking.
All her adult life, she had avoided swimming pools and hot tubs, and wading in the ocean was totally off limits. She simply couldn’t bear the idea of being at the mercy of those unpredictable waves. She had enrolled Chris in swimming classes early because she had wanted him to be water-safe. She had wanted him to be able to save himself rather than looking to her for help. Only in the last few years, in the safety of this very room, had she forced herself to overcome that fear by facing it—by trying the occasional bubble bath.
But now the tub had turned into Ali’s worst horror. Staring down at it, she knew what would happen. Once he forced her head underwater long enough for the water to gush into her lungs, she would tell him whatever he wanted to know when she came back up. She would do anything to keep it from happening again—to keep him from doing to her what he had already done to Leland Brooks.
Who could already be dead, she reminded herself. Who told this monster nothing because he had nothing to tell.
She knew that Leland Brooks’s fate should have been enough to make her capitulate right then. Maybe that was what her captor had in mind—that simple dread would make her weaker. To her astonishment, it had exactly the opposite effect. A pulse of absolute abhorrence shot through her, filling her body with a physical strength she didn’t know she had.
Ali fought him then, fought him tooth and nail, biting and scratching in a desperate attempt to maim him, to knee him in the groin or gouge out his eyes. He outweighed her, though. He was taller and far stronger. She knew going in that no matter how hard she fought, eventually, she would lose. That was inevitable.
Yes, Ali thought as he forced her down on her knees beside the tub and pressed her face toward the water. Dreading what was coming, she took one last desperate gasp of air, filling her lungs as he grabbed the back of her neck and plunged her head underwater.
Dave Holman’s phone rang again as he approached the exit at Cordes Junction. “Is this Detective Holman?”
“Yes. Who is this, and how did you get my number?”
“My name is Simpson—B. Simpson. I run an Internet security firm called High Noon. Ali Reynolds is one of my clients, and I have access to her files. I found your numbers listed in her contact list. Have you heard from her?”
“From Ali? Not in the last little while,” Dave replied. “I missed a couple of calls from her earlier this morning, but when I tried calling back, she didn’t answer. Why? What’s up? Is something wrong?”
B. paused before he answered. “I know the two of you have a lot of history,” he said tentatively. “And this would probably be better coming from her, but…”
“What would be better coming from her?” Dave asked impatiently. “What are you talking about?”
“I have a name for you,” B. said. “A name for the case you’re working on. The man’s name is Winter—Dr. Peter Winter. I just Googled him. He’s an ER physician at Phoenix General.”
“Which case would that be?” Dave asked.
“Morgan Forester’s murder,” B. answered.
“And how exactly is this Dr. Winter supposed to be related?”
“Earlier this week I discovered that a worm had taken up residence in Ali’s computer. I was able to neutralize it before it could do any irreparable damage, and we assumed it was just a case of attempted identity theft. A little while ago, Ali brought me a pair of thumb drives Bryan Forester had given her for safekeeping. They contained copies of files from his computer and from Morgan’s as well. The same worm had been planted in the thumb-drive files. If they had been opened on a computer with access to the Internet, those files would have been destroyed, the same way the files were destroyed on the two computers you picked up on your search warrant. Once again, I’ve neutralized the worm before it was able to do any damage.”
“Wait,” Dave said. “You’re saying the same worm that was on the Foresters’ computers was also on Ali’s? How can you be sure?”
“How does an epidemiologist know one strain of flu from another?” B. returned. “By analyzing the makeup of the virus that causes each individual case. This is the same thing. All three worms come from the same basic source—in other words, from the same programmer. Had the worm actually been unleashed, the end result would have been slightly different. For instance, the Trojan in Ali’s system was set to simply crash the computer. The worm on the Foresters’ computers was set to overwrite files. But it’s still the same guy.”
Dave’s heartbeat quickened. The guy was a doctor? That might explain the single unexplained needle mark the ME had found at the back of Morgan Forester’s neck, in a spot where it couldn’t possibly have been self-administered. And now there was another crashed computer? Anxious not to give anything away, the next time he spoke, Dave was careful to keep his voice and his questions firmly neutral. “What does this Winter character have to do with any of this?”
“That’s the thing,” B. said. “I gave Ali a choice. I told her we could pursue legal recourse, or we could go after the guy on our own.”
“Don’t tell me,” Dave said. “I already know where Ali Reynolds came down on that one.”
“Yes,” B. agreed, “you do. So we sent the guy a worm of our own and picked up all the files from his PC in the process.”
“In other words, you used an illegal wiretap. Evidence from that wouldn’t be admissible in a court of law.”
“Maybe not,” B. agreed. “But it’s good enough for an anonymous tip. Most of Winter’s files are encrypted. I’m working on breaking the code. So far I haven’t had much luck, but I did come across one unencrypted file—one he somehow missed: his initial licensing agreement with Microsoft from back when he first purchased the computer. That’s where I got his
name. He’s apparently connected to an Internet dating site called Singleatheart. Ali’s computer was infected after she registered at that site. I believe Singleatheart may also have some connection to the Forester murder.”
Listening intently to every word, Dave fought to avoid betraying his eagerness. Maybe the files Ali had offered him were the Foresters’ real files after all. If someone besides Bryan had tried to destroy them, maybe Dave had missed something. It was possible that this Winter guy was in on everything with Bryan Forester. It was also possible Dave was wrong.
As the Cordes Junction exit came up, Dave switched on his turn signal. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see about looking into this all this, Mr.—” He paused. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Simpson. B. Simpson.”
Once he was off the exit ramp, Dave pulled over. “And how do I get back to you?”
B. gave him a phone number. After ending the call, Dave wasted no time putting in another one—to Phoenix General Hospital. His first call, to the ER, came up empty. Dr. Winter was not due in today, and the person who took the call said he was expected to be away for an indefinite period. Dave’s next call was to the hospital’s administration office. It took a while before he managed to work his way up the chain of command and found someone who seemed to know what was going on.
“Yes, Dr. Winter is on staff here,” a woman named Louise Granger told him. “But he’s currently on leave. His mother was taken ill overnight and was transported to an ICU. Dr. Winter flew out to be with her first thing this morning.”
“Did he say where?” Dave asked.
“I don’t remember the exact location. He may not have even mentioned it to me, but I believe it was somewhere in upstate New York. Buffalo, maybe.”
Dave ended the call and then looked at his watch. He wanted to go back to Phoenix and start following up on this lead, but he had told the people at the office to wait for him—that he wanted to be on the scene when it came time to execute the search warrant. Since it wasn’t possible to be in two places at once, he picked up the phone and punched in the number for Detective Sean O’Brien of the Scottsdale PD.
“Hey,” O’Brien said once Dave had identified himself. “Have I got some hot news for you. Mr. Morrison’s got nothing to do with that homicide case of yours.”
“What makes you say that?” Dave asked.
“After you left, I went back to Jenny Morrison. I convinced her that with Mr. Morrison’s computer broken, and in order to ascertain that her husband hadn’t committed suicide, we needed access to his e-mail accounts, which she was happy to give me. It turns out that the day before he died, Mr. Morrison went through his mail account and deleted a large number of messages. Unfortunately for him, the deleted messages were still stored on his ISP. He wasn’t in Sedona on Monday morning. He was actually down in a new development called Red Rock, where he was hoping to meet up with a sweet little real estate babe he met over the Internet. He was all hot to trot and hoping to get lucky, but she stood him up.”
“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 agains
t 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.