Hand of Evil

by J. A. Jance

  “This and that,” Ali said with a laugh. “Trying to stay out of trouble.”

  “Don’t,” Deb Springer advised. “Nobody ever accomplished anything worthwhile by staying out of trouble. You need to decide what it is you want to do and then set about doing it.”

  Good advice, Ali thought. Remind me to pass it along to Detective Marsh the next time I speak to him. If ever.

  The doorbell rang. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Springer,” Ali said. “Someone’s at the door.”

  “You go answer it,” Deb said. “But feel free to call me back anytime. It’s fun dredging up all this ancient history. And give me your number. If anything more comes to mind on those appalling Ashcroft boys, I’ll call you back.”

  For the second time that day Ali’s robe day was interrupted by the arrival of unexpected visitors. Looking out through the peephole, she saw a young man standing there—an older teenager. Only when he turned his face in her direction did Ali see the family resemblance. The boy looked so much like Dave Holman it was downright spooky. Ali had never met Rich Holman, but this had to be Dave’s son.

  Ali opened the inside door. “Richey?” she asked uncertainly through the screen.

  He nodded and raised his hand in a halfhearted greeting. “Oh,” he said. “You’re home.” He sounded disappointed to see her.

  If you didn’t want me to be home, Ali thought, why are you ringing my bell? “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Rich shuffled his feet uneasily. “It’s my mom,” he murmured. “She’s the one who wants to see you. She’s out in the car. We stopped off down at the Sugarloaf and got directions. Is it okay if she comes in?”

  Suddenly Ali understood why Edie Larson had been trying to call so urgently—she must have been hoping to give her daughter a heads-up that Roxanne and Richey were on their way.

  “Sure,” Ali said. “Just wait here in the living room. I’ll go get dressed.”

  Spooked by the company, Sam beat Ali to the bedroom, but only just. Hurriedly Ali slipped out of the robe, put on a pair of sweats, and smoothed her hair into a slipshod ponytail. Examining herself critically in the mirror, she paused long enough to powder her nose and apply some lipstick.

  When Ali returned to the living room, the woman she assumed to be Roxanne Whitman was seated on the couch. Rich was standing in front of the entryway credenza, running an admiring finger over the satiny-smooth wood finish.

  “I’m taking a woodworking course,” Richey said to Ali. “This is really a nice piece.”

  “Thank you,” Ali said. “A friend refinished it for me.” A friend who’s gone now, she thought.

  Richey went to the couch, where he took a seat next to his mother. Although Ali knew of Roxanne Holman Whitman, she had never met the woman in person. Roxie might have been pretty in a garish sort of way, but she was wearing too much makeup, all of it inexpertly applied.

  “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” Roxie said nervously as her hands fidgeted in her lap. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “It’s fine,” Ali said. “Can I get you something?”

  Roxie shook her head. “No, nothing for me. We can’t stay long. Dave would kill me if he knew I was horning into his personal life this way. And he’d really be upset if he knew I’d dragged Richey into it as well, but with everything that’s happened the last few days, I just couldn’t drive myself down here to bring Crystal home and leave town without talking to you first. I wanted to say thank you—thank you for everything you’ve done the last few days, and thank you for saving Crystal’s life last night.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ali said. “I was happy to help out. But as far as horning in on Dave’s personal life? I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Of course you do,” Roxanne said, beaming. “Dave seems to think I’m a bit dim, but I understand some things well enough. You never would have done what you did for Crystal—saving her from that killer the way you did—if you and Dave weren’t involved.”

  “Mom!” Richey objected, horrified.

  “Well, it’s true,” Roxie declared. She was getting into her groove now. Sounding more confident, she was totally undaunted by her son’s squirming embarrassment.

  “Since Crystal wants to stay here so much, I thought I should see for myself who the competition is,” Roxie continued. “Dave’s already met Gary, you see. Gary’s my new husband. Fortunately he’s crazy about my kids. It seems only fair, then, that I should meet whoever Dave is lining up to be my kids’ wicked stepmother. That’s a joke. I can see you already care about Crystal a lot, just like my Gary does.”

  Ali was dumbfounded. “Excuse me, Mrs. Whitman,” she objected. “You’re mistaken. I’m not being ‘lined up,’ as you say, to be anybody’s stepmother!”

  Roxanne was undeterred. “Call me Roxie,” she said with a smile. “Everybody does. Since we’re practically going to be relatives, we should probably be on a first-name basis. And I can certainly see why Crystal liked it here so much. Your place is beautiful, by the way. It doesn’t even look like a mobile home, but then ours is only a single-wide, a fourteen-by-seventy.”

  Roxanne’s comment about Ali’s house echoed what Arabella Ashcroft had said earlier, only from the opposite end of the spectrum. While Roxie cast an admiring glance around the room, Richey sat next to her looking as though he hoped a hole would somehow open in the floor and swallow him.

  “Mom,” he pleaded. “Can’t we just go?”

  “No,” Roxie said. “Since Ali’s such an important part of your father’s life, it’s high time the two of us met.”

  “Look,” Ali said forcefully. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Dave and I are good friends—we’ve always been friends. He asked me to look after Crystal because it was an emergency situation with work, and he didn’t have anyone else to ask. I was glad to do it, by the way, but believe me, Dave and I are not involved. And the fact that Crystal’s life got saved last night has as much to do with a guy named Bernie Bernstein as it does with me. I can assure you that Bernie isn’t romantically involved with Dave Holman, either.”

  For the first time, Roxanne seemed uncertain. “But I know he was over there in California with you a few months ago when there was all that trouble,” she objected. “And from what Crystal said…”

  That was true, Ali and Dave had been in California together—when Dave had come to help her. But they hadn’t been staying in the same hotel room. They hadn’t even been in the same hotel.

  “What exactly did Crystal say?” Ali asked.

  Roxie shrugged. “Just that you were an incredibly wonderful person, smart, and brave, too.”

  At first Ali felt flattered by Crystal’s unlikely praise. Then she remembered. Crystal Holman is a chronic liar.

  “She also said that you and Dave are going to get married soon and move in together here,” Roxie continued. “She says the way your mobile is situated on this hill, it has a big basement carved out downstairs. She says there’ll be plenty of room for all three kids to come live with you if they want to. That way they could even go back to their old schools.”

  Having spent several days dealing with the spin-meister Ali had come to know as Crystal Holman, Ali suddenly saw this for what it was—Crystal claiming that what she wanted to be true was true, or simply working one parent against the other in typical child-of-divorce fashion. For a moment Ali felt sorry for Roxanne Whitman—and for her daughter as well.

  “Only none of it is going to happen,” Ali said. “I’m not sure why Crystal is so dead-set against living in Las Vegas. Maybe you should ask her, but I can assure you her being determined to stay here in Sedona has nothing to do with me.”

  It was Roxanne’s turn to be thunderstruck. “You mean you and Dave aren’t…?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean—we definitely aren’t!”

  “See there?” Richey said. “I tried to tell you that you shouldn’t listen to her. Crystal’s always telling stories like that. You can’t believe a word she says.
”

  For the first time Ali wondered how much Rich knew about his sister’s secret life.

  “Did she ever mention someone named Coach Curt to you?” Ali asked him.

  Rich scowled. “Sure,” he replied. “She said he was like this world-famous soccer coach or something and that he was going to turn her into a soccer star and help her win a scholarship to college. Right. I’ll bet she made him up just like she makes up everything else. He probably doesn’t even exist.”

  World famous or not, Coach Curt had existed once. Ali was shocked to realize that so far no one—including Dave—had evidently mentioned any of that inconvenient part of the story to Crystal’s mother. No doubt the Coach Curt saga would come out eventually—if and when Crystal was called to testify in court against Jason Gustavson. Ali could imagine that at some point a sleazy defense attorney would find it necessary to ask Crystal exactly what activities she and Coach Curt had been engaged in at the time they witnessed the fatal attack on Kip Hogan.

  For right now, though, Roxanne Whitman was blissfully ignorant about her daughter’s unsavory behavior, and Ali Reynolds sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to tell her. Instead, she changed the subject.

  “When are you heading back?” Ali asked.

  “Crystal’s doing laundry,” Roxanne said. “She didn’t bring much with her when she took off like that. As soon as her jeans are dry, we’ll get going. I usually have to work on Friday. I traded with someone so we could come here today.”

  “The earlier you head north the better,” Ali said, meaning every word and wanting them out of town sooner rather than later. “I understand driving from here to Vegas on a Friday afternoon can be a real bear.”

  Ali’s phone was ringing again as Roxanne and Richey took their leaves. Ali didn’t answer the phone until after she closed the door behind them.

  “Ali,” Edie said. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling and calling.”

  “I’ve been right here,” Ali began. “I was on the phone. Thanks for trying to warn me.”

  “So Roxanne Whitman already stopped by?”

  “You’d better believe it,” Ali said. “She came to give me the once-over. She thinks Dave and I are going together—that we’re practically engaged.”

  “Well?” Edie returned. “Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you dating Dave Holman?”

  “No,” Ali answered, exasperated. “Absolutely not.”

  “Too bad,” Edie said. “Sorry to hear it. He’s one of my favorite people. Now, what are you doing tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Your father called a few minutes ago. He and Sandy Mitchell are just now leaving Phoenix to come back to Sedona. Considering everything that’s happened the past few days, Sandy probably shouldn’t be left on her own tonight. Her brother, Phil, will be here, but he’s not worth the powder it would take to blow him up. So I told Dad I’d make dinner for them. Dave should be back from Prescott by then. What with the three of them, the two of us, you, Chris, and Athena, it’ll be a tight fit in our little dining room, but the more the merrier. You’ll come, too, right?”

  “Dave is coming?” Ali asked.

  “Yes. I just talked to him. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No. Of course not,” Ali said. “But who’s Athena?”

  Edie took a deep breath. “You don’t know about Athena? Chris hasn’t told you about her?”

  “Who’s Athena?” Ali repeated.

  “Oops,” Edie said cheerfully. “Me and my big mouth. Well, you didn’t hear it from me. You’d best ask Chris. So there’ll be eight of us for dinner, and we’ll eat around six. I’d better get cracking.”

  “Mother!” Ali objected. She was still holding the telephone receiver, but Edie Larson was long gone.

  Astonished, Ali put down the phone. Chris had a girlfriend, one Ali knew nothing about? And this mystery girlfriend, this Athena, was coming to dinner at Bob and Edie’s house that very night? How dare Chris not tell her? Ali glanced at her watch. It was an hour at least before Chris would be home from school. She fully intended to corner him on this, but it wasn’t something that could or should be done over the phone.

  Frustrated and needing something to take the edge off, Ali did the only thing that made sense—she grabbed Aunt Evie’s old Oreck out of the entryway closet and vacuumed like mad. Vacuumed and fumed.

  Later though, once she’d run out of steam, Ali picked up her computer. Arabella had threatened to write a family saga, and from what Deb Springer had said, there were probably enough skeletons in the Ashcroft family closet to fill several volumes. Working alone and with one eye on the clock, Ali set about creating her own Ashcroft history.

  She came up with mountains of material, whitewashed in the journalese of the time, but Ali was able to see through it to the uglier ramifications—the corporate takeovers that littered the business pages contrasted with the glowing charitable outreach that was chronicled in the society sections. Ali found a splashy article detailing William Senior’s marriage to Anna Lee Askins. In among the descriptions of the designer bridal dress and the sumptuous reception, Ali unearthed enough code words about the various attendees to make it clear that this was a hastily arranged affair. And the timing of the wedding, juxtaposed with Arabella’s birth date seven short months later, seemed to validate Deb’s claim that Anna Lee had been pregnant at the time she made her vows. That meant that the blue blood running in Arabella’s veins came from Anna Lee’s side of the family rather than William Ashcroft’s.

  As far as information was concerned, there was plenty more where that came from, and Ali would have been glad to keep plowing through it, but her phone rang. Caller ID identified Dave Holman’s home number, but since Dave was still in Prescott at the county courthouse, it seemed unlikely that he was the person calling. Ali braced herself for another dose of Roxie Whitman.

  “Ali?” Crystal said.

  “Yes. Hi, Crystal. How are you?”

  “Tired. I slept all morning.”

  I wish I had, Ali thought.

  “My mom’s here and my brother. We’re getting ready to go,” Crystal said. “Getting ready to go back to Vegas.”

  “I know,” Ali said. “Richey and your mother came by earlier and told me you were heading back.”

  There was a pause. “They did? They came by your house?”

  Crystal sounded almost as surprised and offended as her brother had been.

  “Your mother was somehow under the impression that wedding bells were about to ring for your father and me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Crystal said. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

  “As I told you the other day, your father and I aren’t in that kind of a relationship. I told your mother as much. How are you?”

  “They all ganged up on me and they’re making me go back home,” Crystal said. “Even though I don’t want to. Even though I hate it.”

  “Why?” Ali asked. “Why do you hate it so much?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does matter, Crystal,” Ali told her. “Your parents both care about you, and I’m sure they want you to be happy. I don’t know what the laws are in Nevada. You may be old enough to have some say in your custodial arrangements. But if you’re fighting with all the adults in your life, if you’re not going to school, and if you’re running away every time you get a chance, people aren’t going to pay attention. Your parents won’t, and neither will a judge.”

  “You think a judge might listen to me, really?” Crystal asked. “That he’d let me come stay with my dad?”

  Or she, Ali thought. “A judge might,” she said, “but only if you meet them halfway.”

  “You mean only if I behave.”

  “Well, yes,” Ali said. “Arrangements like this don’t happen overnight, and you’d better behave. For your sake and everyone else’s.”

  “I’ll try,” Crystal said finally.

  “Has any
one told your mother what’s been going on?” Ali asked. “As in what’s really been going on?”

  There was dead silence on the other end of the phone.

  “You need to tell her,” Ali said.

  “It’s bad enough that my dad knows,” Crystal whispered. “Do I really have to tell my mother?”

  “Yes, you really do,” Ali insisted. “She loves you. She’ll want to protect you. She’ll want to protect you from yourself.”

  “I’ve gotta go,” Crystal said abruptly. “Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome…”

  But Crystal was already gone.

  “Good-bye,” Ali murmured into her empty receiver. “Travel safe.” Before she could put the phone down, though, it rang again.

  “Ali?” her new caller announced. “It’s Deb Springer again. Is this a bad time?”

  “No,” Ali told her. “It’s fine.”

  “I’ve been racking my brain ever since we got off the phone, and I finally came up with it. The Mosberg Institute.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The name of the place where they sent Arabella Ashcroft. And it wasn’t the Bay Area, it was located in Paso Robles. I believe it started out as a home for the criminally insane. By the time Arabella went there, it had become a bit more upscale, but it was still a dreadful place. I can’t imagine sending a child of mine into a world of electroshock therapy, ice baths, and God knows what else. I’m sure it wasn’t at all like those posh rehab places they have up and down Malibu these days. But about the Mosberg, I’m fuzzy on the details. I believe it’s closed now, but I seem to remember there was some kind of fire there, and I think several people died.”

  The very mention of ice baths and shock treatments caused Ali to shiver. If that had been Arabella Ashcroft’s reality at age nine, no wonder she would have objected to Billy Ashcroft threatening to have her locked up again.

  Ali thanked Deb for her help, ended her phone call, and was about to enter Mosberg Institute into her search engine, when she heard Chris’s Prius pull up outside. She closed her computer with a snap.