J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 2: Trial by Fire, Fatal Error, Left for Dead

by Jance, J. A.

  “To get rid of me, maybe?” Sally returned. “I can’t let that happen. If I get laid off or fired, we lose our health benefits. Carston works as a bartender. Our health insurance is through my job, not his. He doesn’t have any, and with our daughter . . .”

  She stopped talking abruptly and seemed to be trying to get herself under control.

  “What about your daughter?” Ali asked.

  “Our youngest daughter,” Sally answered finally. “Bridget. She’s only thirteen, but she was born with a heart defect. She had a dozen different surgeries before her first birthday. We’re on the waiting list for a heart transplant, but if I change insurance carriers, it probably won’t be covered because they’ll call it a preexisting condition. So you can see that I can’t lose this job. Do you understand?”

  Ali did understand, but it seemed unlikely she could do anything about it.

  “Look,” she said, “I’m on my way out of town right now, and things are really hectic at the moment. I still don’t see why—”

  “It’s all about the union,” Sally interrupted. “The old one and the new one. That’s why they’re getting rid of me.”

  “I’ve heard a little about this,” Ali admitted, “but it sounds like something you should be taking up with your shop steward so he or she can go to bat for you. What about Devon Ryan? Isn’t he in the same boat?”

  Sally laughed outright at that. “Are you kidding?” she asked.

  “Why would I be kidding?”

  “He’s a guy,” Sally replied. “He’s also a sworn officer. All they have him up for is the conduct charge. If they really gave a damn, they’d be bringing up the names of all the other women he’s screwed around with over the years, but they won’t. He won’t lose his job or his benefits. They probably won’t let him back in Media Relations, but regardless of which union is elected, he’ll be part of it—one of the movers and shakers. I’m staff. I’m expendable, so I’m the one they’re throwing to the wolves.”

  Ali glanced at her watch. Sheriff Maxwell had wanted her in Phoenix sooner rather than later.

  “Sally,” she said, “I’m really sympathetic about your situation, but I’m in a rush right now. I really don’t see that I can do anything to help.”

  “I just need to know that someone there knows the real story, that someone is on my side.”

  “What about Holly Mesina?” Ali asked. “I thought she was your friend.”

  “So did I,” Sally said bleakly.

  She sounded so lost and alone that Ali’s heart went out to her, but she couldn’t delay any longer.

  “I’m sorry, Sally,” Ali said. “I really have to go now.” The line went dead. Sally Harrison had already gone.

  Ali had planned to drive back home to pack before heading for Phoenix. Now that her departure had been delayed, that no longer seemed feasible.

  Connecting to her Bluetooth, she called home, where Leland Brooks answered. “I’m just now leaving Prescott,” she said. “I need to go down to Phoenix for a couple of days.”

  “Would you like me to pack up a few things and meet you at Cordes Junction?” he asked. “That way you wouldn’t have to come all the way back here.”

  That was something Ali had learned to appreciate about Leland Brooks—he always seemed to know exactly what was needed without ever having to be asked.

  “Where will you be working?” Leland wanted to know. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’m going to Saint Gregory’s Hospital,” Ali answered. “Maybe one day, maybe two.”

  “That’s at Sixteenth and Camelback, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Ali answered.

  “Very well then,” Leland said. “I’ll meet you in Cordes Junction as quickly as I can. At the Burger King.”

  Ali smiled at that. Her former associates in L.A. would have been appalled. “Great,” she said. “See you there, and thank you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Her eyes blinked open, fighting the light. A woman’s face, partially concealed by a white surgical mask, swam across her line of vision, hazy and out of focus. She fought to make her eyes work, searching for details that might help clarify the situation.

  The eyes peering at her from behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses brimmed with kindness and compassion. The woman attached to the eyes wore green surgical scrubs with a matching green cap perched on the top of her head. Over that she wore a gauzy-looking material that rustled like paper when she moved. Barely visible beneath it was a simple gold cross that hung on a chain around her neck.

  The woman—was she a nurse? it was hard to tell—spoke then, her words soothing and quiet, while the patient strained to listen and make sense of any of this.

  “There was a fire,” the nurse was saying. “A terrible fire.”

  Yes, she thought. The fire. I remember that—all of it.

  She had witnessed the fire from every angle, from inside the fire and from above it. She knew that what she had first thought to be a bed was really a stack of Sheetrock. The house had been unfinished, all studs and wires and pipes. That much she knew. The rest was a mystery.

  Whose house was it? she wondered. What was I doing there? How did I get there? Why wasn’t I wearing any clothes?

  Speaking softly, the woman continued her explanation. “A firefighter found you inside a burning house and carried you out. You were transported to a hospital here in Phoenix—Saint Gregory’s. Until we’re able to locate relatives, I’ve been asked to serve as your patient advocate.”

  Phoenix, she thought. That sounds familiar. But where is it, and what am I doing there? Or here, if there is here? And what’s a patient advocate? I thought she was a nurse. Why not a nurse?

  “You have second- and third-degree burns over fifty percent of your body,” the woman said. “You’re being treated in the burn unit at Saint Gregory’s.”

  Never heard of it. Saint what?

  “The kinds of injuries you have sustained are very serious and very painful. We’re keeping you heavily sedated due to the pain.”

  She thinks I don’t know about the pain? Is she nuts?

  “You’re on a ventilator because you also suffered inhalation injuries. You’re being given fluids as well as being treated with a morphine drip. Most patients are able to adjust their own pain-management requirements by pressing the pump and upping the dosage as needed, but the injuries to your arms and hands make managing your own pain impossible. That’s one of the reasons I’m here—to help with your palliative care. My name is Sister Anselm.”

  Pal what? she wondered. What’s that? And Anselm. Isn’t that a man’s name?

  “I’m a Sister of Providence,” Sister Anselm said patiently. “I’ll be monitoring your vital signs twenty-four hours a day. If I see warning signs that the pain is getting to be too severe, I’ll be able to increase the dosage. Do you understand?”

  Yes, I understand. Of course I understand. There’s a button that I can’t push. I need to push it now. Because the pain is coming back. It’s coming.

  “We need to find a way to communicate,” Sister Anselm continued. “Do you need pain medication now? If so, blink once for yes.”

  Yes! Yes! Yes!

  She was trying to blink with every fiber of her being. Trying. Trying. Trying. But nothing happened. Nothing.

  Sister Anselm gazed at her face for a very long time. Eons. Ages, while the pain rose up and engulfed her. Finally the nun sighed and said, as if to someone else in the room, “Nothing. It’s too soon, I guess, and maybe that’s just as well.”

  Even so, the nun must have pushed the button on the pump, because shortly after that the welcome cotton cocoon began to descend around her. The room retreated.

  In those few moments between waking and sleeping, between the arrival of oblivion and the return of the flaming nightmare, she had time for one last realization.

  Sister Anselm may not be a nurse, she thought, but she’s my guardian angel.

  On the drive to Cordes Junction from Presco
tt, Ali thought long and hard about her situation. When Sheriff Maxwell had shown up on her doorstep a few weeks earlier, it had seemed to her that the man had practically begged her to take the job he was offering, that he had really needed her to come and handle his department’s media relations concerns. The Camp Verde fires constituted a major media relations event.

  So why’s he sending me to the sidelines? she wondered. What’s going on with that?

  She met up with Leland Brooks at the Burger King in Cordes Junction. He was waiting for her inside, seated in a booth. He had ordered two Whoppers and two coffees, one each for both of them. Raised in the Sugarloaf Cafe and out of loyalty to her parents, Ali had a hard time setting foot in fast-food joints. When the need arose, however, Leland Brooks had no such compunction.

  “You skipped breakfast,” he explained, pushing one of the Whoppers in her direction. “That’s not good for you.”

  Ali had never had an uncle, but if one had existed she imagined he would be a lot like Leland Brooks—bossy, understanding, solicitous, exasperating, and terrific, all at the same time. Her parents, her father especially, had questioned her keeping Leland Brooks on the payroll.

  “What does a single woman like you need with a butler?” Bob had grumbled. “It seems like you’d have better things to do with your money.”

  The truth was, thanks to Paul Grayson’s death, Ali had plenty of money. Keeping Leland Brooks on the payroll had been a conscious decision on her part. His loyalty to her in the face of very real danger had made a big impression.

  She had told him at the time, while he was still under a doctor’s care, that as long as he wanted to work, he had a place with her. Her parents’ opinions notwithstanding, Ali expected to keep her end of that bargain. She suspected that not working would have killed the man. Besides, Ali enjoyed Leland’s unassuming company and his efficient way of managing things—her included. And on a day like today, it was his presence at the house—looking after the place and taking care of Sam—that made it possible for her to leave home on a moment’s notice for an unspecified period of time.

  “I booked you into the Ritz,” he was saying now. “Suite three oh one. That’s the room where Arabella liked to stay on those rare occasions when she went to Phoenix.”

  Having pled guilty by reason of insanity to three separate homicides and one attempted homicide, Arabella Ashcroft was now permanently confined to a state-run facility for the criminally insane. Ali felt a momentary flash of sympathy for the woman.

  Her room now probably isn’t nearly up to Ritz standards, Ali thought.

  “The hotel is located at Twenty-fourth and Camelback,” Leland continued. “The concierge tells me that’s quite close to the hospital.”

  “Somehow I don’t think my per diem is going to cover a suite at the Ritz,” Ali said with a laugh.

  “You’ll simply have to pay the difference,” Leland returned, brooking no argument. “Being in the suite will give you a decent place to sleep and some room to work as well. You need both, you know.”

  “All right,” Ali conceded. “A suite it is.”

  Once lunch was over, they went outside, where Leland transferred two pieces of luggage—a suitcase and a makeup case—from his Mazda 4x4 into Ali’s Cayenne.

  “This one is primarily clothing,” he explained. “The other one is toiletries. I didn’t want anything to spill and wreck your clothes.”

  “You do think of everything,” she said.

  He nodded seriously. “I try, madam,” he said. “I certainly do try.”

  Ali arrived in Phoenix a little past one. Thinking it was probably too early to check in at the Ritz, she drove straight to the hospital rather than stopping at the hotel first. When she opened the car door in the parking garage, the oppressive early-summer heat was like a physical assault. Sedona was a good twenty degrees cooler than this, and she wasn’t acclimated.

  She hurried into the hospital. In the elevator lobby, she caught sight of the milling group of reporters that seemed to have taken over one end of the hospital lobby. They were easy to spot, but she didn’t make any effort to engage them right then. Instead, following Sheriff Maxwell’s directions, she made her way to the hospital administration section on the third floor.

  “Mr. Whitman is very busy this afternoon,” a receptionist told her. “May I say what this is about?”

  Ali handed over one of the cards the sheriff had printed up with her Yavapai County information. “It’s about the victim from last night’s fire in Camp Verde,” she said. “I believe Mr. Whitman is expecting me.”

  Indeed he was. Moments later, the receptionist stood up and motioned for Ali to follow. She was led into a spacious office that would have done most any Hollywood mogul proud. An immense window on the far side of the room framed Camelback Mountain.

  Jake Whitman, complete with a power suit and tie that rivaled Agent Donnelley’s, rose from his desk and stepped forward with his hand outstretched in greeting. He seemed genuinely happy to see her.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Sheriff Maxwell told me he was sending someone, but I didn’t expect it would be someone quite so … well … attractive.” He paused, giving her an appraising look and frowning slightly.

  Ali understood the unspoken implication. Since Whitman found her attractive, he assumed she was a wimp and/or stupid. As a five-foot-ten natural blond with curves in all the right places, Ali Reynolds had endured a lifetime’s worth of blond jokes.

  Fortunately, Whitman let it go at that and led Ali to a chair. Once she was seated, he sat down next to her. The gesture was a clear indication that the man wanted her help, and that the two of them were on the same side.

  “I have a pack of ravening wolves camped out in the lobby downstairs,” he said. “I hope you’re up to handling them.”

  “I’m tougher than I look,” she assured him. “And since I used to be a member in good standing of that same pack, I should be able to manage.”

  “You used to be a reporter?” Whitman asked.

  Ali nodded. “In L.A.”

  “Isn’t doing this job a lot like changing sides?”

  Here was someone else who had arrived at the conclusion that cops and members of the media had to be at loggerheads.

  “We’re all here to serve the public,” she reminded him. “If the reporters downstairs are in some way disrupting the workings of your hospital—”

  “You’re right,” Whitman said. “Their presence is a disruption. When people are here seeking treatment, they have an expectation of privacy, which we take very seriously. We’ve told those folks in plain English that no information concerning that patient will be forthcoming, but they’re hanging around anyway. I suppose they’re hoping to pick up some snippet from a visiting relative.”

  “What visiting relative?” Ali asked.

  “Exactly,” Whitman answered. “Since we have no idea who the patient is, there are no relatives, and she’s in no condition to supply the names of any. But I’m happy to say that those people are now your problem. I want you to get rid of the reporters—all of them.”

  It’s your hospital, Ali thought. Why don’t you do it yourself, or have your people do it?

  After a moment’s reflection she knew the answer to that. The group in the lobby might well include local media people that the hospital couldn’t afford to offend. It would be far better for Jake Whitman’s next hospital fund-raising effort if someone else was the bad guy here.

  Especially if the bad guy happens to be from someplace out of town, she thought.

  “Most of the time I’m expected to dispense information rather than quash it,” she said, “but I’ll be glad to take care of this for you.”

  “Thank you,” Whitman said with a smile. “If you manage to get rid of the reporters in the lobby, you might want to hang out in the burn-unit waiting room on the eighth floor just in case. I wouldn’t put it past some of them to try sneaking up there as well.” Standing up, he glanced at his watch. “N
ow, if you don’t mind, I have a meeting to go to.”

  Ali took the hint. She collected her briefcase and headed for the lobby, where she found that a security guard had isolated the group of reporters by herding them into a small seating area just outside the latte stand. She walked over to them and raised her hand to get their attention.

  “Good afternoon,” she said. “My name is Alison Reynolds. I’m the media relations officer with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. We have no additional information to give you at this time. The hospital administration is asking that you vacate the premises. If you’ll leave me your contact information, I’ll be sure you receive all pertinent information once it becomes available.”

  “I saw the Angel of Death come in a little while ago,” one of the female reporters said. “Is she here because of the burn victim?”

  “Excuse me?” Ali asked. “The what?”

  “Sister Anselm,” the woman replied. “She’s a nun, a Sister of Providence. She’s often called in to minister to dying patients, especially unidentified ones. If that’s why she’s here, it’s probably bad news.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ali said. “I know nothing at all about that, and I would advise against any speculation in that regard.”

  That response was followed by a chorus of questions.

  “What can you tell us?”

  “Do you know who she is?”

  “What was she doing in the house?”

  “Is she suspected of being the arsonist?”

  Ali held up her hand once more, silencing the questions. “I can tell you that the burn victim from the Camp Verde fires was transported here last night and is being treated here. I have no information about her identity. You’ll need to contact Sheriff Maxwell’s office up in Prescott for details about the ongoing investigation.”

  “Talk about passing the buck,” one of the men groused. “I already tried that. The sheriff’s department told me to contact the local ATF office. They in turn told me to piss up a rope. ‘No comment at this time.’ ”

  His words were greeted with a spate of knowing and derisive laughter from his fellow reporters. While Ali waited for the group to quiet down, she finally had an inkling of what was really going on. Sheriff Maxwell had brokered a media relations truce with Agent Donnelley, which meant that media folks from the ATF would be in charge of dispensing any and all information concerning the investigation. By sending Ali to Phoenix, they had seen to it that she was safely out of the way, not so much demoted as remoted.