Deadly Stakes

“When will I get it back?”

“It’s evidence in a homicide, ma’am,” Detective Cutter said. “It could take months or years for it to be released, if ever. I’d suggest that you do what you said you were planning to do earlier-go to the store and get yourself a new one.”

Lynn stood in the doorway and watched Detective Cutter walk back to his unmarked car. As soon as he drove away, she returned to the house and sank down into the same chair in the living room where she’d been sitting during the interview. It was a little late for her to come to that conclusion, but she understood that was what it had been-a homicide interview, only without the two-way mirrors and the video camera that they were always showing on those true-crime cop shows.

She couldn’t believe what had happened. How was it possible that her cell phone was considered evidence in a murder investigation? Moments later, she pulled herself together. Reaching for the landline, she dialed Chip’s cell. She found herself holding her breath while the phone rang. When he answered and she heard the sound of his reassuring voice, she burst into tears.

“Lynn, what’s the matter? Is something wrong? Are you all right?”

“You’re not going to believe it,” she said. “A cop just left here.”

“A cop? Why? What’s going on?”

“It’s my phone,” she blubbered. “Someone’s been murdered up by Sedona, and they found my phone at the scene of the crime. I’m pretty sure the detective came here thinking I was the victim-the woman who’s dead. Now he may think I had something to do with it.”

“Did he come right out and say you were a suspect?”

“No, but he asked me where I was last night. I told him I was at your place, so he’ll probably be calling you to verify that. What I can’t figure out is how my phone got all the way up to Camp Verde.”

“I can’t, either,” Chip said. “Camp Verde’s got to be close to eighty miles from here. When’s the last time you remember using it?”

“I called you last night to tell you I was coming over, remember?”

“Just a sec,” Chip said. “Let me check.” A moment later, he came back on the line. “Yes, I see in my call log that you called me on your cell around a quarter to ten. What time was the woman killed?”

“I don’t know. Sometime overnight, I guess,” Lynn said. “The detective didn’t tell me that much, just that my phone was found at the scene. The only thing I can think is that I must have lost it when I stopped at the gas station on my way home this morning. Do you think I need an attorney?”

“Can you afford an attorney?”

It was an unnecessary question, because Chip already knew the answer.

“Not really.”

“Well, then,” he said reassuringly, “since we both know you weren’t involved in anything, we’ll just have to let things play out.” Lynn heard a buzz in the background, followed by a woman’s voice. “Gotta go,” he said. “Tina tells me there’s a detective Larry Cutter out in the waiting room.”

Lynn sat with the phone in her hand for several long moments after Chip hung up. She couldn’t help but be grateful for the reassurance she had heard in his voice. After the whole ego-shattering mess with Richard Lowensdale, Lynn hadn’t expected to fall in love again. For one thing, she hadn’t expected to find a man she could trust, but she had, and Chip Ralston was it.

Lynn had come on the scene at a time when her father was so far gone that he had been beyond help. Her mother was the one who needed care and support, and Chip-Dr. Ralston to all of them then-had been sympathetic and supportive and incredibly understanding. Lynn had been more than a little attracted to him from the beginning, but she had never expected anything to come of it. After her father died, she was impressed when Dr. Ralston showed up for the memorial service. When he had called her a month or so later, asking how her mother was doing, she had thought it was just that-his being solicitous of her mother. It was only when he came courting that she was gratified to learn he had something else in mind.

Lynn was astonished to discover that what she’d thought was a one-sided attraction was reciprocated. Now this kind, caring, well-educated, and dependable man was part of her life-her scatterbrained life.

With that thought in mind, Lynn put down the landline phone and went looking for her purse. It was time to go to Verizon and get a new phone.

7

By the time the ten o’clock news came on that night, A.J. was glued to the television set in his bedroom. Somehow he had made it through his two-hour shift at work and through dinner without blowing apart. His mother had made carne asada burritos. That was his favorite meal and usually he gobbled down several. That night he barely managed to eat one.

“Since when did you stop liking carne asada?” his mother asked.

“I’m just not hungry,” he said.

“I made the amount I always make,” she said. “So we’ll have the same thing for dinner again tomorrow night.”

A.J. helped with the dishes and then went into his room, ostensibly to do homework, but the words on the pages made no sense. What he kept seeing in his mind’s eye were those vivid green eyes staring blankly up at the sun.

Who was she? A.J. wondered. Who killed her and why?

He wasn’t at all surprised when news about the Camp Verde homicide was the lead story on the broadcast.

“The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department is investigating an apparent homicide near I-17, south of Camp Verde,” the news host reported with a white-toothed smile that A.J. found completely inappropriate. “Our reporter Christy Lawler has been on the scene. What can you tell us, Christy?”

Another smiling face appeared on the screen. “Around noon today, officers responding to a 911 summons arrived at a location just off General Crook Trail, where they discovered the body of an unidentified woman. The death, which has been labeled a homicide, occurred inside Yavapai County, and the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department is investigating. Mike Sawyer, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, told me earlier that officers are following up on clues found at the scene in hopes of identifying the victim.”

A young man with a serious expression appeared in front of a bank of microphones. “Homicide investigators are actively seeking the identity of the person or persons who sent a text message to 911 operators, letting them know the location of a seriously injured person. By the time help arrived, the person who sent the message was no longer at the scene. That Good Samaritan, also unidentified at this time, is not considered a suspect in the case, but he or she is regarded as a person of interest. We are urging that person or anyone who knows who that person might be to do the right thing and contact the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department.”

The broadcast quickly moved on to another story, that of a multicar pileup on I-10 just outside Casa Grande. A.J., staring at the screen, heard nothing about that story or the ones that followed it. The words “person of interest” kept running through his brain. That meant the cops were actually looking for him. He had sent the text for the best of all possible reasons-in hopes of getting help for the poor woman-and now he was part of it. He was involved.

They wanted to talk to him, but what good would “doing the right thing” do? A.J. had no idea who the woman was. He hadn’t seen the killer. He had seen no other vehicles in the area, and he knew nothing that would help in the investigation. If he came forward, first the cops would learn that he had ditched school to be somewhere he shouldn’t have been. Then they’d want to know why he was at that particular location at that particular time. Answering the question would mean letting the world and his mother know about his father’s letter, as well as the buried-treasure story, which was sounding more stupid by the minute.

A.J. could imagine cops standing around and staring down at the shovel-at A.J.’s mother’s shovel. It was easy enough to figure out what they’d think-that the person who had attacked the woman had come to the scene of the crime prepared to bury her. Once they examined the shovel, whose fingerprints would be on it? A.J.’s, of course,