Hand of Evil

“Your father and I are friends,” Ali said. “Good friends. Ever since high school.”

“Dad made fun of Mom for living in a trailer, but now he’s hanging out with someone who does, too, and who works in a cafe. I can hardly wait to tell Richey and Cassie that Dad is dating a waitress.”

“Helping my parents out on occasion doesn’t necessarily make me a waitress-but what would it matter if I was?” Ali asked. “There’s nothing wrong with being a waitress. On the other hand, behaving like a spoiled three- year-old and insulting people isn’t a good way of showing you don’t need a babysitter,” Ali said.

“But I don’t need a babysitter,” Crystal insisted. “And you can’t keep me here against my will. Isn’t that like false imprisonment or something?”

“Maybe you’d prefer real imprisonment,” Ali replied. “If you run away while your father has left you in my care, I’ll have an Amber Alert posted on you so fast that you’ll never make it to the freeway. When the cops catch up with you, you’ll be in trouble and so will whoever’s giving you a ride. By the way, did you happen to tell your father what you used for bus tokens to get here?”

Crystal turned away and didn’t answer. Meantime, Edie showed up with Ali’s breakfast.

“How are you doing?” Edie asked Crystal. “Do you want anything more?”

“Maybe another sweet roll,” Crystal said.

“So what are we going to do then?” Crystal wanted to know once Edie left their table. “Sit around in this stupid place all day?”

“Get you some decent clothes maybe?” Ali asked. “Your father’s don’t exactly suit you.”

“Where from?” Crystal asked sarcastically. “Wal-Mart?”

Obviously Wal-Mart didn’t measure up, but Ali pretended cluelessness. “Sure,” she said. “If Wal-Mart’s okay with you, it’s fine with me.”

Ali had almost finished her chicken-fried steak and Crystal had mowed through her second sweet roll when the front door crashed open and a distraught Sandy Mitchell staggered inside. Dodging around the counter, Sandy pushed her way into the kitchen and fell into Bob Larson’s arms.

“They think they found Kip,” she sobbed. “He’s in Phoenix at St. Francis Hospital. He may not make it.”

Leading Sandy by the arm, Bob brought her back out of the kitchen and eased her onto one of the stools at the counter. Everyone else in the restaurant fell silent, listening.

“Where?” he asked. “Where did they find him?”

“Up by Flagstaff somewhere,” Sandy said. “They said it looked like someone had beaten him with a baseball bat and left him for dead along I-17. They airlifted him to Phoenix to the trauma center at St. Francis. They’ve brought in a surgeon from the Hyde Neurological Institute. They’ve already done one round of brain surgery. They may have to do another one today.”

Ali remembered being at Sunset Point to retrieve her father’s crippled Bronco and hearing the low-flying helicopter pass overhead. But that had been the night before last. How could it have taken this long to connect the dots between the Sedona missing persons report and a severely beaten trauma victim?

“Can you drive down there with me?” Sandy continued. “I’m not sure I can do this by myself. I’m so upset right now that I almost wrecked the car twice just getting here.”

Bob glanced around the crowded restaurant. It was already full and more customers were clustered near the door waiting to be seated. With Bob out front, Edie had ducked back into the kitchen.

“I can’t go right now,” Bob said. “Later on today, yes, but not right now.”

“I’ll take her,” Ali offered. “Crystal and I can give her a ride down to Phoenix, and you can bring her back home this evening.”

“Is that all right with you, Sandy?” Bob asked.

Sandy nodded. “If Ali doesn’t mind.”

“Crystal and I were planning on doing some shopping today, and the shopping is definitely better in Phoenix,” Ali said. “We’ll be happy to give you a ride.”

Crystal rolled her eyes.

“All right,” Bob said. “It’s settled then. You go with Ali. I’ll come down this afternoon as soon as the restaurant closes.”

With that, he returned to the kitchen and resumed possession of his spatula. Once Edie returned to the counter, she went straight to Sandy.

“Have you had anything to eat today?” she asked.

“No,” Sandy said, shaking her head. “Not yet.”

“Have something then,” Edie urged. “You need to keep up your strength, and you know what hospital cafeterias are like. They’re expensive and the food stinks.”

Sandy left the restaurant a little while later with a fully stocked care package of food. Ali took Crystal and stopped by her own place long enough to make sure Sam had food and water and to straighten up.

If Ali was going out in public in Phoenix, she was determined to look reasonably decent. In the privacy of her bedroom, she applied her makeup. Then she changed out of her casual around-Sedona sweats in favor of a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a bright magenta long-sleeved T-shirt, both of which looked terrific on her newly Mr. Bowflexed figure, thank you very much.

With Ali’s recent history in mind, she no longer left home without taking her Glock. To finish off her outfit she slipped on her small-of-back holster and topped that with a hip-length denim jacket. At the last moment, thinking her computer might come in handy for keeping Crystal entertained, Ali dragged that along out to the car. Then they drove to Sandy’s place in Oak Creek RV Haven, a low-rent trailer park that had almost washed away in the previous summer’s severe flooding.

While they waited for Sandy to emerge from a camper trailer that made Kip’s LazyDaze seem spacious by comparison, Ali called Chris’s cell phone. She knew he was in class and couldn’t answer, but she left him a message so he’d know what was going on. Then she turned to Crystal. “How about if you ride in back?”

“Do I have to?”

Ali had to bite back a sarcastic reply. Crystal’s a child, Ali reminded herself. A very troubled child.

“You don’t have to ride in back, but I’d appreciate it if you would,” Ali said. “I know you think your life sucks at the moment, and I’m not saying it doesn’t. But so does Sandy Mitchell’s. The man she loves is in the hospital and may be dying. She’s really upset right now and may need to talk.”

“All right,” Crystal agreed grudgingly. She got out of the front seat and into the back one, slamming both doors as she went.

“Seat belt,” Ali said.

With an exaggerated sigh, Crystal complied. Once she was belted in, she pulled an iPod from the pocket of her father’s oversize sweats, plugged in her earphones, and went away. Ali couldn’t help being struck by the fact that Crystal had run away from home with no clothes but with plenty of electronic gear-both a cell phone and an iPod.

A few minutes later, Sandy emerged from her trailer carrying a small suitcase. “I decided to bring some extra clothes along in case I end up having to stay over.”

And that, Ali decided, was the difference between a child of the twenty-first century and a grown-up from the twentieth.

“Good thinking,” she said. “You’ll probably need them.”

Intent on making their next-of-kin notification, Detectives Larry Marsh and Hank Mendoza stepped up onto the flagstone porch and rang the bell.

The bell was answered by a man wearing a white jacket who was anything but friendly. “Yes,” he said. “May I help you?”

“We’re looking for Ms. Ashcroft,” Larry said. “Ms. Arabella Ashcroft.”

“And who might I say is calling?”

Larry produced his ID wallet and passed it inside. “I’m Detective Larry Marsh and this is my partner, Hank Mendoza. We’re with the Phoenix Police Department. Homicide.”

Larry heard a woman’s voice calling out from somewhere deep inside the house. “Was that the doorbell, Mr. Brooks? Is someone here?”

“One moment, please,” the man said. “Let me check and see if now would be a convenient time for Madam