The A List

by Jance, J. A.

  31

  Los Angeles, California, May 2017

  After a hectic month of being on tour, Alexandra Munsey was thrilled to finally be heading home to the quiet simplicity of her mountain retreat. For weeks she’d been in and out of bookstores, airports, airplanes, hotels, and car-service limos. She’d stayed up late and gotten up early. She’d eaten fancy food in equally fancy restaurants at oddball times and had found that none of it really agreed with her—the food, the surroundings, the timing.

  At home she seldom wore makeup, sticking to sunscreen and lip gloss most of the time and letting her hair air-dry once she got out of the shower. On the road she’d had to use a blow dryer, a hairbrush, and gallons of hair spray day in and day out in order to keep her hair under control. And the daily applications and reapplications of a full array of makeup had been a pain as well.

  But was it worth it? Evidently. The Changeling had hit the list. Her editor was happy. Her publisher was happy. Her agent was happy. As for Alex? What she was happy about was going home.

  On the tour she’d traveled from the West Coast to the East Coast with stop-offs and appearances here and there along the way, coming and going. Her last two appearances had been in Salt Lake City. Spending two nights in the same hotel had been almost like a vacation. With two daytime Salt Lake events, she’d been able to have dinner with Evan and his family, where they’d celebrated Rory’s sixth birthday a couple of days early, and she’d given him the collection of colorful books she’d gathered for him from bookstores en route. In the course of dinner, she’d learned that he had a scheduled T-ball game the next day. Wanting to see Rory play, Alex had rebooked her afternoon flight to LAX to later in the evening, and she had flown home to L.A. having seen her grandson hit his first-ever home run. It had made for a wonderful but tiring day and by the time she met up with the car-service driver in baggage claim for the drive home to Lake Arrowhead, she was beyond weary.

  “How long is this going to take?” she asked.

  “A little over two hours,” he said, “but you never know. That could change.”

  With the driving left to someone else, Alex spent some time on her phone. The marketing department was totally sold on the importance of maintaining a social-media presence. They had created a Web site for her and a Facebook page where they posted her daily schedule along with photos of previous signings and events. They had also established a Twitter account for her, which she used dutifully if reluctantly:

  On my way home. I can hardly wait to sleep in my own bed. By staying late in Salt Lake, I got to see my grandson’s first T-ball homer.

  After sending the tweet, she sent Evan a text, letting him know she was on the ground and headed home. After that she replied to a couple of e-mails that had come in over the course of the afternoon and evening. By ten o’clock, with the Escalade bogged down in a traffic jam that would turn that projected two-hour trip into a three-hour trip, Alex ran out of energy. It wasn’t that late, but with her body on no known time zone, she gave herself permission to put the phone away, lean back in the seat, close her eyes, and sleep.

  32

  Folsom, California, May 2017

  Hannah Gilchrist had spent most of the night binge-watching multiple episodes of I (Almost) Got Away with It on Investigation Discovery, but she had been asleep in her chair for some time when her ringing phone awakened her at eleven thirty. If you live in a retirement community, late-night phone calls hardly ever come with good news. Donna, the jigsaw-puzzle lady, had been going downhill for weeks now, and Hannah expected that one of the neighbors was calling to say that Donna was gone. She did not expect to receive a late-night call from Gloria Reece.

  “Where the hell is she?” Gloria Reece growled into Hannah’s ear. “According to the schedule you gave me, she was supposed to be home by four o’clock this afternoon. My people are in place and waiting, but they’re wary about hanging around in the area for fear of being spotted. I don’t blame them in the least.”

  Hannah felt more than a little put out by Gloria’s tone and attitude. She seemed to be getting more and more uppity lately, as though she had somehow forgotten who was paying the piper here, as though she were the one in charge. Once Hannah had handed off the Munsey project to Gloria, her job had been to keep Gloria apprised of Alex’s travel plans, but other than that she had no idea about when the hit would be scheduled. Scheduling was up to Gloria and she didn’t like answering to anybody.

  With a sigh Hannah used the remote to put the program on pause and then rose to go sit at her computer, parked as it usually was on the writing desk in her office.

  “Since this was one of her travel days, maybe you should have waited a day or two,” Hannah suggested mildly.

  “And maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself.”

  Hannah was bristling by the time she settled in front of the computer and checked the Twitter feed. “Okay,” she said, “there’s a tweet from ten fifteen that says she stayed to see her grandson’s T-ball game and caught a later flight. It also says she’s in the car and on her way home. There’s no way to tell where she was when she sent it or how close she was to Lake Arrowhead.”

  “She isn’t there yet,” Gloria said. “She’s supposedly coming from LAX?”

  That word “supposedly” rankled. It was as though Gloria were holding Hannah personally responsible for Alex Munsey’s last-minute change in schedule.

  “If you have to call it off for tonight and take care of it some other time, that’s entirely up to you,” Hannah replied. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have better things to do than to sit here jawing about things I can’t fix. Please let me know how it turns out.”

  With that, Hannah hung up the phone. She returned to the TV set long enough to shut it off, then went to bed. Tossing and turning, she didn’t sleep, and not because someone was somewhere out there in the night stalking Alex Munsey. Being a part of Eddie’s quest for vengeance had given Hannah a chance to be close to her son—to be there for him. But did that closeness have to come at the cost of being reprimanded by her manicurist? Maybe that was a steeper price than Hannah Gilchrist was prepared to pay.

  33

  Lake Arrowhead, California, May 2017

  It was almost eleven thirty when Alex’s driver awakened her. “We’re here,” he announced, pulling up to the walkway that led to her front door.

  Alex had left the inside lights on a timer so it would look as though someone were home. She stepped out of the SUV and breathed in the cool nighttime mountain air. It was late May. The weather at LAX had been hot and muggy. Hurrying ahead, she unlocked the front door while the driver followed behind, bringing the luggage. When she stepped inside, the house had that slightly musty, airless smell of having been shut up and abandoned for some time, but nothing was out of place. It was her home sweet home.

  “Where do you want these?” the driver asked. He had somehow managed to haul everything into the house at once—the two large suitcases along with her carry-on.

  “Just drop the bags by the front door is fine,” she told him. “I’ll drag them into the bedroom later.”

  Alex reached for her purse and wallet. No doubt the driver’s tip was included in her publisher’s billing, but it had been a long, late drive, and he’d helped with the luggage. A little something extra was definitely in order.

  “Am I your last job for the night?” she asked, handing him her tip.

  He nodded.

  “How far do you have to go to get home?”

  “Just to Whittier is all,” he said. “It’s not that bad, and it’s late enough now that traffic should be better.”

  “Right,” she said. “Famous last words.”

  He grinned back at her. “Isn’t that the truth!”

  She walked out onto the porch and watched him drive off, then stood there for a time, savoring the clear night air and the scent of the forest. When the nighttime chill caught up with her, she went inside, shivering slightly, closing and locking the doo
r behind her. She looked at the pile of luggage, but she wasn’t ready to tackle it just yet. There would be plenty of time to unpack in the morning. For right now, if she ever had to wear most of that clothing again, it would be too soon.

  She went into the bedroom, undressed, and slipped into her favorite flannel nightie. After that two-hour nap in the car, she knew there was no point in trying to go to bed just yet. She was tired, yes, but she wasn’t at all sleepy. Back in the kitchen, she glanced at her phone and discovered that it was almost out of juice. She put it on the charger, poured herself a glass of chardonnay from the boxed wine in her fridge, then settled into her rocker and clicked on the TV. Having traveled all over the country, she was eager to find out what was happening on the local news, but by the time she was ready to watch, the news was long over. She went channel-surfing, settling at last on an episode of Forensic Files.

  The show was almost finished, with the bad guy in custody, when sometime after midnight Alex caught sight of flashing lights piercing the dark sky outside. Checking through the living-room window, she saw that a cop car with a pulsing light bar was parked in front of her house. As a uniformed deputy exited the vehicle and walked toward the front door, Alex’s heart dropped. When cops were sent out at this time of night, it probably meant some kind of bad news. She hurried across the room, unlocked the dead bolt, and switched on the porch light. She wrenched open the door just as a female deputy stepped up onto the porch. She was young and pretty, with her dark hair pulled back into a bun. Alex could see the bulge of a holster on the belt at her waist. The badge on her shirt glittered in the light.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex demanded. “Has there been an accident? Is someone hurt?”

  “No, ma’am,” the deputy replied. “Several nearby residents have reported seeing an especially aggressive bobcat roaming the neighborhood. We’re coming around advising people that if they have pets or young children, they should keep them inside. It’s possible that the animal is rabid. Game and Fish has been notified, but they probably won’t be out here until sometime tomorrow.”

  Weak with relief, Alex covered her face with her hands and took a step backward into the house. When she dropped her hands, she was surprised to see that the deputy had followed her inside and was kicking the door shut behind her.

  “Wait,” Alex said, catching sight of the handgun in the deputy’s hand. “What’s going on? What do you think you’re doing?”

  Alex tried to back away, but by then it was too late—too late to run or even scream. Face-to-face with the weapon the deputy had pulled from her holster, Alex instinctively held her hands in front of her as if to ward off the attack. The nine-millimeter slug passed through the palm of her left hand, but that didn’t slow it down. It slammed into her heart, killing her instantly. She was dead before she hit the floor.

  The assassins Gloria Reece had contracted to do the job were pros. Once the front door closed, the light bar turned off and disappeared. The getaway driver listened for and heard the muffled gunshot, but there was no audible or visible reaction from the surrounding neighborhood. No dogs barked. No lights came on. Before exiting the house, the shooter picked up her shell casing, then she left the same way she had entered—through the front door, closing it firmly behind her. Since the shooter had worn gloves, she left behind no fingerprints or DNA. The fatal slug was embedded in her victim’s chest, and blood spatter would provide the only forensic evidence.

  Outside, a getaway driver waited beside the darkened car, holding open a black plastic trash bag. Quickly the shooter slipped off her outer garments—gloves, uniform, and shoes—lifted from the costume shop of a television soundstage. By morning all of it would be reduced to cinders in a burning barrel on a farm outside Bakersfield. If someone came looking for gunshot residue, there wouldn’t be any of that either.

  The killers had entered the neighborhood late in the afternoon. Other than Alexandra Munsey, no one on Kuffel Canyon Road had noticed their presence, and there were no witnesses to their unhurried departure. They left the scene and drove back home without speeding or doing anything that might attract undue attention.

  “Good job,” she told her driver as he steered their long-retired Crown Victoria, a former cop car, away from the crime scene. “Uncle Luis would be proud.”

  34

  Folsom, California, May 2017

  It was the middle of the night, and the Professor was sound asleep when someone rattled the bars on his cell. An unexpected presence outside a cell at night often spelled trouble or danger. Fully awake and alert, Eddie stiffened slightly under his blanket, but other than that, he didn’t move.

  “Hey, wake up, dude,” someone said. “I’ve got news.”

  Recognizing the voice of the cell block’s usual nighttime guard, Eddie sat up on his cot.

  “What kind of news?” Eddie asked.

  “From your friend Luis. He says to tell you it’s a done deal.”

  “Thanks,” Eddie muttered. “Good to know.”

  Not wanting to show too much emotion, he lay back down. Then unable to quell his sense of triumph, he sat back up. The guard was someone he knew fairly well—a guy who could be counted upon to look away if the need arose and the price was right.

  “I’m gonna need a little quiet time here,” Eddie said.

  “The usual price?”

  “Maybe a little more than the usual,” Eddie told him.

  “Fair enough,” the guard said. “Have a ball.”

  These days Eddie kept his cubbyhole fully stocked with tattooing supplies just in case, up to and including the candle and matches. Minutes later, grinning to himself in the flickering candlelight, he pricked his skin with a needle and sent the first drop of india ink into the tattoo on his forearm. High on adrenaline, he barely felt a thing. He was a far more experienced tattoo artist now, and it took only forty-five minutes of working in near darkness for him to create an X that completely blotted out the first letter A on his arm, the one that stood for Alexandra Munsey. She was out of the way now, and that meant there was only one letter remaining—the A that designated Ali Reynolds.

  She was next on his list, and Eddie could hardly wait.

  35

  Folsom, California, May 2017

  When Gloria called Hannah the next morning to tell her that Alexandra Munsey had been handled, Hannah was so ecstatic that she almost forgave Gloria for her previous transgressions—almost but not quite.

  One more target had been removed from the list, and Hannah could hardly wait to give Eddie the news. That very afternoon she fired up her Lexus and drove straight to the prison. She was in her eighties now, and age was catching up with her. She’d had to have cataract surgery, and although her vision was much improved, when venturing out she seldom strayed far from her beaten path, the one that led directly from Arbor Crest to the prison. It wasn’t her regularly scheduled visiting day, but by now she was enough of a known quantity that the people at the visitation counter could be counted on to give her some slack.

  When the guard led Eddie into the visitation room, Hannah was shocked by how unwell he looked. There were dark circles under his eyes which meant he hadn’t slept well.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m okay,” he said, “just a little under the weather.”

  “Maybe you should see the doctor.”

  Even as she said the words, Hannah knew she could have saved her breath. As a former doctor, Eddie hated having to see the prison physician. That meant he’d have to be dreadfully ill before he’d stoop to making an appointment. On the health front, Hannah had some news of her own, but now wasn’t the time to share it.

  “Why are you here today?” he asked. “This isn’t your usual day.”

  “Chalk it up to mother’s intuition,” she said aloud. “I had a feeling something might be amiss.”

  With that she switched over to their customary sign language. “Alex is gone.”

  “I know,” he said, pointing to his al
ready updated tattoo. “Luis told me.”

  Hannah was instantly furious. It had happened again. With Gloria’s help, Luis had stolen Hannah’s thunder. Instead of treating her as a full partner in their joint endeavor, the others seemed to be shutting her out. Together they had demoted her to the point that she was little more than an afterthought to that operation. Realizing that, Hannah squared her shoulders and said the rest of what she’d come to say.

  “I’m going to the funeral,” she announced.

  “To the funeral,” Eddie echoed. “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

  “I have my reasons,” she snapped at him, although in reality she had only one. Hannah wanted her trophy, and she had decided overnight that a printed program from Alex Munsey’s funeral was exactly what was needed, a conclusion she didn’t bother sharing with her son.

  A horrified look appeared on Eddie’s face. “No!” he signed. “Absolutely not! That makes no sense. What if someone recognizes you?”

  “They won’t,” she assured him. “People don’t look at women my age. We’re invisible.”

  “You may think you’re invisible,” Eddie signed, “but you’re also incredibly stupid. Don’t do this.”

  In all the years he’d been locked up—all the years when she’d gladly done his bidding and carried out his vendetta—this was the first time Eddie had crossed that line. In that moment Hannah was transported back to those years when both her husband and her son had looked down their collective nose at her lack of formal education. Invisible or not, she had no intention of just sitting there and taking it.

  “I may be stupid,” she said, “but I’m not the one in prison.” That was what she signed. What she said aloud was a little different. “Eddie, I’m so sorry. Suddenly I’m feeling a bit ill myself. I’ll have to be going.”