Cruel Intent

her mouth was close to being swollen shut, but seeing the blood-her own blood-shocked her.

I could die today, she thought. It could all be over.

Meantime, her captor pointed the gun at Leland Brooks, who lay motionless on the floor. “Drag him into the other room,” he ordered Ali. “We’ll load him into the back of his truck and take him with us when we leave.”

To go where? Ali wondered. Where are you taking us?

She didn’t ask that question aloud, though. She knew better. Wherever he planned to take them, it wasn’t going to be good.

When she bent down to lift Leland, she was relieved to find him soaking wet but warm to the touch. He was breathing and probably heavily sedated, but at least he wasn’t dead. He was deadweight, however. Grunting with effort, she managed to drag him out of the bedroom, through the living room, and over to the front door. He moaned softly as she wrestled him out the door and onto the front steps.

She hoped briefly that one of her neighbors might see what was going on and summon help. Ali’s Andante Drive house sat at the top of the hill with an unobstructed view of the surrounding countryside, but that also meant the house next door shielded her place from all the others farther down the street. As for her next-door neighbor? She was a single mother who was most likely at work, and her kids were at school. Looking at that deserted street, Ali had never felt more isolated or more alone.

At the edge of the porch, she stopped, panting with effort. “He’s too heavy,” she gasped. “I can’t do this alone.”

With a sigh of disgust, the man shoved the.357 into the top of his pants. Bending over, he effortlessly lifted Leland off the porch and flung him over his shoulder. Ali thought briefly about making a grab for the gun while both of the man’s hands were occupied. She thought about it, but she didn’t even try. She was too spent to make it work.

“Open it,” he ordered.

Months earlier, Leland Brooks had installed an aluminum camper shell on the back of his truck. The tailgate on the camper shell flipped up while the tailgate on the truck flipped down. Ali wrenched both of them open and then stood back while her captor tossed Leland’s helpless body onto the floor of the pickup as casually as if he were a bag of potatoes.

“So much for him,” the man said, closing the tailgates. “We can finish this later. Time to go. You drive.”

But Ali didn’t move right away. The water was finally clearing from her lungs, and the crippling fog was lifting from her brain as well. She stared up at him. He was still wearing his latex gloves. Why? Because he didn’t want to leave any prints behind. He claimed this was all about his stolen files-that he wanted his files back. But there had to be more to it, had to be more at stake. In a moment of insight, Ali understood what it was-the only thing that made sense.

“You murdered Morgan Forester, didn’t you?”

He gave a mirthless chuckle and shrugged. “Brainy as you are, you’re just now figuring that out? Morgan thought she was smarter than I am, but she wasn’t. Neither are you, and neither is your mother.”

“And now you’re going to kill us, too?”

He nodded. “More than likely,” he said. “Get in.”

“But why?” Ali objected. “Why are you going to kill us?”

“Because I have to,” he said reasonably. “Because you have no idea who you’re messing with or what you’ve done. Now let’s go. I don’t have all day.”

When Ali climbed into the pickup, she found Leland’s car key already in the ignition. She turned it, and the engine roared to life. A lightweight windbreaker had been lying on the seat. As they started down Andante Drive through Skyview, her captor put on the jacket and then slipped the.357 into his pocket.

“You still haven’t told me why you killed Morgan,” Ali insisted. “What did she do wrong?”

“I killed her because she asked too many questions, and so do you. Now shut up and drive.”

When they reached the highway, there were still a few cars in the parking lot at the Sugarloaf Cafe. Ali knew her father and Jan would be fully occupied with shutting down for the day. While they were driving down the hill, Ali had half hoped her mother’s Oldsmobile Alero wouldn’t be parked there. Maybe Edie would have gone off to run an errand, to pick up some groceries for dinner or to have her hair done. Then whatever happened-whatever this maniac had in mind-would happen to Ali alone. Her mother wouldn’t be involved.

But Edie’s Alero was there, parked right next to her husband’s venerable Bronco. Ali expected that her mother was safely ensconced in her cozy living room, where she could indulge in her one guilty pleasure-watching TiVoed episodes of the previous day’s Dr. Phil and Judge Judy. That was what she often did in the afternoons before her husband walked in from the restaurant and switched over to nonstop cable news.

The man was right behind Ali with his hand in his pocket as she walked up to her parents’ front door. She could hear the television set blaring from inside. As soon as Ali tapped on the door frame, her mother muted the volume.

“Just a minute,” she said. “I’m coming. I’m coming. I can’t do everything at once.” A moment later, Edie, with a phone in one hand, opened the front door and caught sight of Ali. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she demanded. “I’ve been trying to reach you, and so has B. I was waiting for your father to finish cleaning up so we could both come check-” She stopped abruptly. “Ali, you’re bleeding!” she exclaimed. “And your hair’s all wet. What happened? Are you all right?”

Only then did Edie catch sight of the man standing behind Ali. “Who’s this?” she asked.

“It’s the man whose files we stole this morning.” Ali spoke quickly, hoping to stave off any comments that would give the game away. “He’s dangerous, and he’s got a gun. He wants his files back, Mom. I told him they’re on your computer.”

Edie peered up at the man. “Oh, yes,” she said, dropping the phone into the sagging pocket of the worn cotton sweater that was her preferred around-the-house attire. “The files. That means you would be Peter Winter, then, correct? Dr. Peter Winter, I believe.”

Edie’s question may have astonished her daughter, but it floored the man behind her. He took an involuntary step backward.

His name is Winter? Ali wondered. How on earth did Mom know that?

By then he had recovered enough to press the barrel of the gun into the small of Ali’s back. “Move,” he ordered. “Get inside. Both of you. Now.”

Still mystified by her mother’s reaction, Ali stumbled over the threshold and into the comfortable, crowded clutter that was Bob and Edie Larson’s tiny living room. There was the recliner her mother occupied only when Bob wasn’t home, as well as a sagging cloth-covered couch with a colorful crocheted afghan covering the spot on the back where aging material had given way.

Both couch and chair were situated within easy viewing distance of an old-fashioned console TV, one that was far too big for the room. The television inside the shiny cherry cabinetry had been dead for years, but the piece of furniture served as a handy base for a newer, slimmer model as well as a collection of cable boxes, receivers, and recorders, everything from an old-fashioned VHS model up through the spanking-new DVR Chris had given his grandfather for his birthday.

Glancing at the TV screen in passing, Ali expected to see a frozen image of Judge Judy preparing to pass judgment on some hapless pair of feuding dimbulbs. Instead, she saw a Taser, one that was improbably decked out in a leopard pattern. Ali knew then that, rather than watching a television program, Edie had been reviewing her training DVD. As for Edie’s metallic pink Taser? That one lay on the hassock that served as her parents’ joint footstool, hidden in plain sight among a scattered collection of remote controls. It was tantalizingly close but out of Edie’s reach and certainly out of Ali’s.

Edie had backed away from the door in order to let them in, but Ali noticed that her eyes remained locked on the man-a man whose name she somehow seemed to know. How was that possible?

“The computer’s in the office,” Edie said to him. “Do you want to go get it, or should I?”

Calling the room that had once been Ali’s bedroom an “office” was vastly overstating the case. Every bit as cluttered as the living room, the second bedroom was actually a catchall storage room. It contained the entire collection of holiday decorations for every conceivable occasion that went up inside the Sugarloaf Cafe with absolute predictability. It was also a resting place for Bob and Edie Larson’s various short-lived hobbies.