“Oh, it’s there all right,” Dave said. “I have a call in to the branch manager. He won’t be back until tomorrow. Since you seem to know a good deal about all this, I thought maybe I should sit down with you and take an official statement…”
So he wasn’t asking for a date-not exactly. “Sure,” Ali said. “What time?”
“I could pick you up between six and six-thirty,” he offered. “We could go down to the substation and maybe stop off somewhere for a burger afterward.”
“That would be great.”
Because there was no elevator at First Lutheran, Bob Larson had to wait upstairs in his wheelchair while his wife made a brief appearance at the reception.
“Great job,” Edie said, as Dave Holman melted back into the crowd. “Reenie would have loved it. Especially the part about the cards. She always sent those lion and lamb ones at Christmas. I think I still have a couple of them. They were too cute to throw away.”
“I wish I’d saved more of mine,” Ali said. “So how’d it go with the consultant?”
“All right, I guess,” Edie said, but she didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“What happened?”
“Dad got along with the guy like gangbusters,” Edie said. “I didn’t like him much.”
“Why not?”
“He wants your grandmother’s recipes,” Edie answered. “All of them. I thought we were just talking about selling the building, but the recipes? Your grandmother’s sweet rolls?”
To Ali’s amazement, her mother, who prided herself on not being the least bit sentimental and who ordinarily never cried at funerals, seemed dangerously close to tears.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
Edie shook her head. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. It was my idea to sell the place, but now that it looks like it might happen, I don’t know. The Sugarloaf’s been my whole life. I don’t know what I’ll do without it.”
Ali gave her mother a hug. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll figure it out.”
Ali had planned on making a polite appearance at the reception and then taking off. That proved impossible. People she hadn’t seen since high school-classmates, retired teachers, local business people-all wanted to stop and chat: It was such a shame about Reenie. Was Ali still doing the news in LA? Where was she living now? How long was she going to be in town? Did Ali’s folks still own the Sugarloaf? How was it possible for her to stand up in front of all those people and speak off the cuff like that? It was all mundane chitchat, but some of the questions were more easily answered than others, and all of the conversations proved to be as dif-ficult to escape as Br’er Rabbit’s brier patch.
When Ali finally exited the church and headed back to the Cayenne, Andrea Rogers trailed after her. “I’m sure Harriet Ellsworth is devastated that she missed this,” Andrea babbled. “But you’re a much better speaker. By the way, I saw you talking to that Dave Holman guy. He’s a detective with the Yavapai sheriff’s department, isn’t he? What did he want?”
“To go over some phone numbers with me,” Ali said. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s progress.”
It was dusk by the time she finally drove up Andante and into the driveway on Skyview. The sun was sinking below the far horizon as she parked in the driveway. Tired after a long day and drained by the afternoon’s storm of emotions, she barely paid attention as she unlocked the door and let herself into the house.
She was reaching for the light switch when something powerful slammed into her out of the dark. There was an explosion of pain inside her head, and she crumpled to the floor. She was out for a few seconds. When she came to, the spinning room was sprinkled with blinking stars. The overhead light was on by then, although she didn’t remember actually hitting the switch.
Groaning, she pulled herself up onto her hands and knees. That’s when she saw the boots-steeltoed work boots covered with an indelible layer of gray dust. She watched as one of the boots hauled back and took aim for a kick. The blow caught her in the midsection and sent her flying across the room. She landed against the end of the kitchen cupboard. She lay there like a rag doll, clutching her stomach, moaning, and gasping for breath.
“Where is she?” a menacing voice demanded close to her ear.
Ali could feel beery breath on her cheek and smell the man’s sweat, but she didn’t look at his face. Instead, she watched his feet, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t kick her again; knowing he would. Without asking, she knew who he was-Ben Witherspoon-come looking for Ali and for his wife.
“I don’t know where she is,” Ali croaked. “I have no idea.”
He kicked her again, harder this time. She heard the blow and felt it both. Her whole being roared in pain. She thought she screamed, but she wasn’t sure. Part of her, oddly separated from her body, was suddenly asking a string of disjointed questions that were only remotely connected to what was happening. They seemed to come from somewhere nearby but not necessarily from inside her head. It was as though some outside observer was standing by, commenting on the play-by-play action: Is anything broken? How much more can she take? How long before he kills her? Is the phone still working? How did he get inside the house? Who let him in?
The pain found her again, dissolving the outside commentator as it roared back through her body. She rolled away from him, choking and coughing.
A rib, she thought. He broke my rib.
Ben Witherspoon was talking to her now, his voice low and threatening. Desperately she fought to gather her wits. She needed to know what he was saying. And planning.
“You’re the bitch who sent her away, so she must have told you where she was going. Tell me!” he ordered. “I’m her husband, goddamnit. I have a right to know.”
He kicked at her again. This time Ali managed to scramble far enough out of range that the bruising blow landed on her butt. It hurt, but it missed hitting anything vital.
Where’s Samantha? she wondered now. What the hell has he done to the cat?
“I don’t know where Corine is,” she gasped. “She didn’t tell me.”
Witherspoon reached down and grabbed her by the arm, twisting it painfully behind her as he picked her up and flung her toward the couch. “That’s your computer, isn’t it? Open it and turn it on,” he commanded. “I want to see how you do this crap!”
Ali’s head was still spinning, but being upright helped. While she waited for the computer to boot up, she stole a look at the intruder. He was in his mid-thirties, wiry but strong. His hair was dirty blond and in serious need of washing. He had the bronzed leathery skin of some one who has spent too many hours working in the sun. With a sense of shock, she realized she had seen Ben Witherspoon before. He had come into the Sugarloaf for breakfast that morning just when Susan had been taking over for Ali. He had sat at one end of the counter. Ali and Dave had sat at the other.
What was it Dave had said just then? Hadn’t he called Ali by her name? No wonder Ben Witherspoon knew who she was. Or maybe he had seen the Christmas photo Chris had posted on the blog.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“It’s none of your business,” he said. “I’m the one asking the questions.”
But Ali thought she knew the answer. He must have followed her up the hill when she left work.
Why wasn’t I paying more attention?
She looked around the room. Her purse still lay by the door where it had fallen when he had knocked her to the floor. And since her Glock was in her purse…What was it Nancy Drake, Ali’s self-defense instructor, had said to her about the uselessness of women carrying weapons in their purses.
Armed but not dangerous, she thought.
That was exactly where she was. Her Glock was there, all right, but totally inaccessible.
“The log-on’s finished,” she said when the interminable hour-glass finally disappeared from the screen. “What now?”
“You and I are going to do a post,” he said. “Cutlooseblog’s last post. We’re going to do it together. I’ll dictate the words. You write them down.”
Ali’s hands shook uncontrollably as she tried to work the keyboard. Her trembling fingers missed keystroke after keystroke as she attempted to type what he dictated. The implication behind his words was clear. This wasn’t a suicide note because Ali Reynolds wouldn’t die by her own hand. But she was going to die. Of that she was certain.
