by J. A. Jance
“Hands where I can see them,” he ordered through the open window. Except by the time Jose actually saw the driver’s hands, one of them was holding a drawn weapon—a handgun.
Jose closed his fingers around the grip of his own firearm, but before it cleared his holster, a point-blank gunshot caught him full in the gut inches below his vest and sent him sprawling backward onto the soft shoulder, where he tumbled head over heels down a steep brush-covered hillside. At the bottom, his body crashed into a man-size boulder before coming to rest facedown in the rocky dirt.
For a moment or two he lost consciousness.
When his brain came back online, Jose was dimly aware of noises coming from far above him. Warning signals beeped in the night, indicating that car doors had been opened while keys were in the ignition. Doors thumped open and closed while noisy footsteps scurried between at least two vehicles. Those noises were soon followed by the sound of something being smashed, something metal or maybe glass being beaten to pieces.
What the hell is she doing? he wondered. Wrecking my car?
He tried to sort out whether she was alone or if someone else had driven up to help her. Or maybe an accomplice of some kind had been hiding in the backseat. If there was someone with her, neither of them spoke, but Jose didn’t need to hear any words to understand the gravity of his situation. It was no accident that the woman had pulled off on the deserted road. He’d been deliberately lured into a trap. But why? Were they after his patrol car or something in it? Did someone want him dead?
Far above, a car door slammed shut. The night went totally quiet as the insistent beeping of the ignition alarm was silenced. Footsteps rustled through dried weeds and grass on the shoulder above him, then the blinding light from a flashlight cut through the night. Jose knew that whoever was up there was looking down at him, getting ready to finish the job.
Injured and helpless, Jose could do nothing except lie there waiting for the kill shot he knew was coming, It was only in that final extremity that Jose Reyes remembered Miss Swift, the drama teacher in his senior year at Nogales High School. She had been new to town, a first-year teacher who was also surprisingly good-looking. Jose, along with half the guys in his senior class, had a crush on her.
Wanting to make a good impression on the townsfolk, Miss Swift had decided to bring some culture to town by staging a production of Hamlet. Jose had been chosen to play the part of the doomed Ophelia’s brother, Laertes. At the very end of the drama, after a fierce sword fight between Laertes and Hamlet, the stage was littered with the supposedly dead bodies of several characters, including Queen Gertrude, the king of Denmark, Hamlet, and Laertes.
During rehearsals, Miss Swift had gotten down on the floor with the actors and coached them on how to slow their breathing and maintain the pose in which they had fallen. All those years later, lying at the foot of the steep bank, that was what Jose did. He stifled the urge to groan in agony. He forced his breathing to slow. He lay still. This time it wasn’t make-believe. This time Jose’s very life depended on it.
Above, the rustling footsteps came as far as the edge of the ravine and then stopped. The beam from the flashlight circled around and around until it landed on him, catching him and pinning him in an eerie orange glow. When the beam stopped moving, time stopped, too. Jose had no idea how long the killer stood there, peering down into the darkness with the flashlight raking back and forth across his fallen body.
“All right, then,” a raspy voice said aloud. “That’s that.”
Jose couldn’t tell if the speaker was talking to herself or someone else. If so, they seemed satisfied by what they saw. The flashlight clicked off. Darkness returned. Another car door slammed. An engine turned over. Headlights came on. Jose waited until the sounds of the retreating vehicle—a single one, it seemed—faded into the night. Only when the insect-humming silence of the desert night reasserted itself did Jose allow himself to take a full breath. And only then, with one danger gone, did he realize the full gravity of his situation.
Jose understood that his life’s blood was gradually seeping into the thirsty sandy bottom of the wash that had cushioned his fall. Even if people came searching for him, they weren’t likely to spot him lying here in the dark. Jose could tell that with fear-fueled adrenaline no longer pumping into his system, he was in danger of drifting into shock. He fought it, tried to focus. Far away in the distance, he could hear the busy chatter of the police band radio coming from his own vehicle.
The overworked dispatcher must have realized that Jose's radio had gone silent, but how long would it take for her to understand that the situation was serious enough to send people looking for him? And would they arrive in time?
Jose tried to move his right hand, hoping to find his weapon, but that small gesture was accompanied by an astonishing stab of pain. His right arm was broken at the wrist; useless. With agonizing slowness, Jose reached his left hand across his bloody belly. How could there be so much blood but not much pain? Nothing like the pain in his arm.
It occurred to him dimly that not feeling any pain might not be a good thing, but he pushed that thought aside. Jose managed to extract his personal cell phone from his pants pocket. He punched the green button twice, trying to call Teresa. She usually turned the phone to vibrate or silent once the girls went to sleep, so he didn’t expect to reach her directly. All he wanted was the chance to say goodbye and to tell her one last time that he loved her. Gritting his teeth, he held the phone to his ear. Nothing. When he checked the readout on the glowing screen, he saw there was no signal.
Groaning in despair, he let the phone fall away. The last thing Jose Reyes thought as he lost consciousness was the final line of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
6
8:00 P.M., Friday, April 9
Sedona, Arizona
It was dark and cold when Ali pulled into B.’s driveway. As she walked up to ring the bell, the large, rustic front doors looked curiously forbidding. The first time Ali entered the house, it had been little more than a well-carpeted computer lab, with tables and wiring everywhere and banks of computers lining every wall. Soon after, the computers had been banished to the company HQ.
Once the electronics were gone, B. had hired one of Sedona’s premier interior designers to transform the place. In the living room, angular side tables and sleek black leather van der Rohe sofas and chairs slung on chrome tubing set a masculine tone. What might have been a cold space was warmed by a two-sided gas fireplace and lots of Navajo rugs, in colorful contrast to the high-gloss birch flooring. Bright red acrylic cubes alternated with leather ones that functioned both as drink tables and, if needed, additional seating.
The stark lines of the furniture were further softened by subdued lighting that, when dimmed, glowed like candlelight. At night, a few brightly colored cushions and several blown-glass pieces provided a cozy and colorful shimmer to the room. During the day, the panoramic two-story windows came alive with unimpeded views of Sedona’s red cliffs.
Ali liked the house, which she thought could be featured as a photo shoot for Architectural Digest. Although his house and hers were both aesthetically pleasing, hers was long on chintz and natural-grained wood. Based on furnishing style preferences alone, cohabitation in the near future looked unlikely, and maintaining their separate homes seemed like a good idea.
After greeting Ali with a breezy kiss, B. led her into his kitchen, where a red-and-white-checked tablecloth covered his round glass table, lending warmth to what was essentially an oversize stainless-steel catering kitchen. The table was set for two, complete with proper Bordeaux wineglasses. Ali handed over her bottle of wine—a 2004 Amarone bottled by Guiseppe Campagnola from grapes grown in the Caterina Zardini vineyards.
B. examined the bottle and laughed. “This should certainly do justice to Pago’s pizza.”
While he opened and poured the wine, Ali loaded plates with slices of pizza and mounds of Caesar salad.
“Sorted through the nominees for the scholarship,” she answered. “Once again I ended up with two winners.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” B. said with a grin. “What are their names?”
“Autumn and Olivia,” Ali answered.
He raised his glass in a toast. “So here’s to Autumn and Olivia, your two new Askins scholars.”
“Thanks,” Ali said, touching her glass to his. “Let’s hope they do well. And what about you? When do you have to leave?”
He glanced at his watch. “I fly to D.C. tomorrow at four. I’m the Sunday-morning breakfast speaker at an international congress of security geeks. After the conference, I have meetings scheduled for most of the rest of the week. Should be back late Friday. If your dance card’s not too full, maybe we can spend the weekend together.”
Ali knew better than to ask for more detail. Most of what B. did these days was classified. Though he had a grueling travel schedule and work consumed most of his waking hours, he also clearly enjoyed what he did. He certainly didn’t do it for the money.
Truth was, Ali envied his passion for his work. She remembered having that fire in her belly before it got extinguished, or rather, diminished, by a series of betrayals, both professional and personal. She knew now that she felt best when she was helping people.
“My week looks a lot less complicated than yours,” she said. “With any luck, by the time you get back, the weather will have broken and we’ll be ready to plant the garden.”
“Speaking of that,” B. said, “I hope you’re not overworking poor Leland.”
“Of course not,” Ali said. “He’s limited to supervisory work only.”
“Good. How old is he, anyway?” B. asked. “Since he served in Korea, must be getting up there. Isn’t it about time for you to let him retire?”
“When I mention that to him, he says he retires every night,” Ali replied. “Besides, Leland and I have an understanding: He can work for me as long as he wants to.”
“I see,” B. said, helping himself to another slice of pizza. “Kind of like our understanding—that I’m welcome to hang around as long as I want to?”
Ali realized the conversation had gone from lighthearted to serious in the blink of an eye. “You’re too young to have grandkids,” she pointed out, “and I’m too old to have kids.”
“I never said I wanted to have kids,” B. replied evenly. “As far as I can see, skipping kids and going straight to grandkids seems pretty efficient.”
“You might change your mind.”
“I might,” he conceded, “but I doubt it. I work too much to have kids. In the meantime, you and I apparently have an understanding. I can live with that.”
Dropping the subject, he poured them more wine. When it was gone, they loaded the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen. Then they made their way upstairs to the combination study/bed/media room that B. referred to as his man-cave.
The furniture may not have been to Ali’s liking, but what went on in the bed was more than fine with her. Under the soft duvet, their differences in style and age were beside the point.
Yes, in that massive four-poster bed, Ali Reynolds and B. Simpson were most definitely on the same page.
7
12:30 A.M., Saturday, April 10
Patagonia, Arizona
At a bit past midnight, summoned from a restless sleep, Teresa Reyes heard the doorbell and staggered out of bed with the sense of dread that all cops’ wives live with day in and day out. She knew that whoever was out there ringing the bell in the middle of the night was bringing bad news. She flung on her robe and raced to the front door in hopes of keeping the noisy bell from ringing again and waking the girls.
When she turned on the porch light and opened the door, there stood Sheriff Renteria, his face distraught, shaking his head. Seeing him, she immediately assumed the worst—Jose was dead. She grabbed the door frame and used it to hold herself upright.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” the sheriff said, mumbling the words as he fought for control. “There’s been an unfortunate incident.”
“Oh, no,” Teresa groaned. She stumbled backward into the room, reeling under the weight of the terrible news. She might have fallen all the way to the floor if Renteria hadn’t reached out and steadied her. “Please,” she begged. “Don’t tell me Jose is dead. He can’t be.”
“Shhh,” Renteria said, pulling her to him. “He’s not dead, but he’s been shot and wounded. It’s serious, Teresa. I won’t lie to you and say he’s going to be fine, because the EMTs told me it’s bad. He’s being transported to the trauma center at Physicians Medical Center in Tucson.”
When those last few hopeful words penetrated Teresa Reyes’s consciousness, she fought her way out of the numbing fog of despair and clung to them with grim desperation. “You mean he’s really not dead?” she asked.
“He’s still alive,” Renteria allowed. “At least he was when they airlifted him out.”
Teresa knew that airlifting was expensive, that it was used in only the most desperate cases, but the welcome news filled her heart with a thin thread of hope. “Why not University Medical Center?” she asked. UMC was the premier trauma center in Tucson.
“The EMTs told me that for this kind of injury, Physicians is the best bet,” the sheriff said. Then he pointed toward a patrol car easing its way down the driveway toward the mobile home.
“Do you know Deputy Carson?” Renteria asked. “Jimmy.”
Teresa nodded. “I’ve seen him around town, but I don’t really know him.”
“I asked him to come stay with you until you can get things organized. Then he’ll drive you to the hospital. Under the circumstances, I don’t want you driving yourself.”
“You’re right,” Teresa agreed. “And thank you.”
Once the sheriff left her alone, Teresa stood in the entryway, frozen into a block of indecision. What should she do? Wake the girls? Bring them along to the hospital? Or should she leave them here, sound asleep, while she alone dealt with the crisis? She considered calling her mother, but Maria Delgado lived in Nogales. After her recent cataract surgery, she was no longer comfortable driving anywhere other than her immediate neighborhood, and she didn’t venture out at night at all. In addition to vision problems, Maria Delgado was frail. Not only did she have a debilitating heart condition, she also suffered from osteoporosis. Yes, she loved the girls dearly and could look after Lucy and Carinda as long as they were sound asleep, but she didn’t have the upper-body strength to wrestle Carinda in and out of her crib, and she didn’t have the energy to chase after the two lively preschoolers once they were awake.
There was only one option. In preparation for having the baby, Teresa had already packed a bag to take to the hospital. She grabbed a diaper bag and stuffed it with enough items to get Lucy and Carinda through the morning. Motioning Deputy Carson into the house, she handed him the bags and asked him to get Carinda’s car seat and Lucy’s booster out of the back of her minivan and put them in the back of his patrol car. With any luck, the girls would never remember that they’d been hauled out of their beds in the middle of the night. While Carson loaded the car, Teresa lugged the two sleeping girls out to the waiting vehicle and buckled them in. The deputy had started the engine. His car was warm. The girls stirred a little and were quiet.
The gate at the end of the driveway was closed. Jimmy started to get out to open it. “I will,” Teresa said. She held it open while Jimmy drove through. Had Teresa looked to the right just then, she might have seen a car parked at the far end of the cul-de-sac with its lights doused and its engine running. Teresa’s mind was elsewhere, however. Hurriedly, she closed the gate, fastened it, and climbed back into the patrol car. Then she sat quietly while Carson maneuvered the winding road that led back to the highway.
“What happened?” she asked when they turned onto the blacktop, where the deputy switched on his emergency
lights and hit the gas.
“Didn’t Sheriff Renteria tell you?”
“Some,” she said. “But I was so upset, I wasn’t really listening.”
“Jose was out on patrol by himself,” Carson said. “Down by the Kino Ridge golf course. He called Dispatch, saying he was doing a routine traffic stop. After that, his radio went silent. Dispatch sent someone looking for him at his last reported location. They found him shot and bleeding at the bottom of a ravine.”
“Do they have any idea who did it?” Teresa asked.
Carson shrugged. “We sent out a Blue Alert, but we have no leads. It’s early, though.”
Blue Alerts were for injured cops what Amber Alerts were for kids. They went out to other police jurisdictions when an officer had been assaulted and the perpetrator was at large.
“What about his dashboard camera?”
“Smashed and then taken. Along with the rest of the system,” Carson said.
“So there’s no film of what happened?”
“The memory stick was in the camera, and that’s gone,” Carson said.
“What about Jose?”
“The EMTs transported him by ambulance back to the parking lot at Kino Ridge. There, an air ambulance picked him up and took him to Tucson.”
Teresa spent the rest of the drive to the hospital in prayerful silence. Three years earlier she had made an eerily similar trip. That one had taken her from the rented home she had shared with her first husband, Danny, on Tucson’s far west side to the trauma unit at UMC. That night a uniformed cop from the Tucson PD had knocked on her door to tell her that Danny Sanchez had been shot in a drive-by in South Tucson.
On the way to the hospital that time, she remembered what her mother had tried to tell her about Danny when she first started dating him: that he was bad news. Even though Danny came from a decent family—his father, Oscar, raised quarter horses in the San Rafael Valley—the boy was trouble.