Trial By Fire

CHAPTER 4

Ali made it back to Prescott by two, in time to jot off a press release about the incident along the Hassayampa. It turned out that the alleged cactus rustlers had warrants and were working for a landscaping company in Phoenix that was helping finish up a cut-rate remodel on a once thriving hotel in downtown Scottsdale. Now under new ownership, some of the hotel’s former reputation remained, but Ali suspected that the contractor’s use of illegal saguaros wasn’t the only corner that had been cut in the makeover process.

Remind me never to stay there, she told herself, and don’t encourage anyone else to stay there, either.

In the break room the two baking sheets were empty-empty of rolls but still dirty. Even though there was a kitchen sink only a few steps away, no one had bothered to rinse out the mess. Ali cleaned the trays herself using dish detergent she found under the sink and drying them with a handful of paper towels. Then, for good measure, she wiped down the tables and countertops.

Her DNA dictated that she leave the kitchen spotless. That’s what her father did for her mother every day before he finished his afternoon shift at the Sugarloaf.

Ali was rearranging the chairs around the tables when Sheriff Maxwell himself showed up in the break room doorway and leaned against the frame. At five foot ten, Ali had always thought herself tall. Gordon Maxwell made her feel downright petite.

“You really believe in pitching in, don’t you,” Maxwell observed affably. “When Dave Holman first mentioned you as a candidate for this job, I was afraid you’d turn out to be stuck-up. You’re not.”

You might consider mentioning that to some of my coworkers, Ali thought.

“That was a great piece you sent out about the incident down along the Hassayampa. Did any of the media outlets bite on it?”

“Not so far,” Ali told him, “but it’s early days. They probably have this evening’s broadcasts racked up and ready to go. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I don’t suppose following up on cactus rustlers was what you thought you’d be doing when you signed on.”

“No, I didn’t,” Ali agreed, “but I loved meeting Richard Mitchell and his blue heeler wonder dog, Trixie.”

Sheriff Maxwell grinned. “Ol’ Rich is one of a kind, all right,” he said. “They don’t make ’em like that anymore. Those guys would have been well advised to pick on someone a little less self-sufficient. They’re lucky he called us. Twenty years ago Rich would have handled it on his own, and the devil take the hindmost.”

“As in shoot first and call for help later?” Ali asked.

“You got it.” Then, nodding in the direction of the baking trays, he added, “Were those you mother’s sweet rolls?”

“Yes,” Ali said.

“Tell her thanks from me. I helped myself to one before they all disappeared. Pure heaven.”

“I’ll let Mom know you liked them,” Ali said.

Ali had headed home to Sedona a little past three-thirty. Once there, she changed into jeans and headed to the library for another session of hitting the books. When it was time for dinner, she ventured into the kitchen. In the fridge she discovered the artfully arranged plate of Caprese salad Leland had left her. The sliced tomatoes were plump and fresh, the mozzarella smooth and creamy, and the fresh basil delightfully tart, especially once they were doused with a generous helping of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Ali wasn’t sure where in Sedona Leland Brooks managed to find such wonderful produce, but he did so day after day and week after week. For that Ali was incredibly grateful.

She had settled back in for what she had anticipated to be a long, quiet evening of reading. When her phone rang at nine, she thought it might be Chris or Athena, but caller ID said Restricted. That meant it was more likely to be an aluminum siding salesman.

“Ms. Reynolds?”

“Yes.”

“This is Frances Lawless with Yavapai County Dispatch.”

Ali felt her heartbeat quicken.

“There’s a serious house fire burning just south of Camp Verde. Fire crews and deputies have been dispatched to the scene, but Sheriff Maxwell said you should be summoned as well.”

“Yes, of course,” Ali said. She was already kicking off her slippers and shedding her jeans. On her first media relations on-camera appearance, she couldn’t risk showing up looking Friday casual.

“Do you need directions?” Frances was asking.

“Just give me the address,” Ali said. “The GPS should be able to find it.”

“Probably not,” Frances replied. “Verde View Estates is a new development. The fire hydrants aren’t hooked up yet. They’re having to truck water to the fires in Camp Verde ’s old pumpers.”

Fires, Ali thought. As in more than one. “Directions then, please,” she said aloud.

“Take the General Crook exit,” Frances said. “Cross under the freeway, then turn north on the frontage road.”

“Got it,” Ali said. “General Crook exit, north on the frontage road.”

Her Kevlar vest was now an essential piece of daily attire. She needed to be safe, but she also needed clothing that made her look businesslike. Finding blouses and blazers that worked with the vest was a challenge.

As Ali dressed, she noticed her hands were shaking. She wasn’t sure if that was from fear or stage fright or a combination of the two, but it made buttoning the last button on her blouse particularly challenging. She grabbed a navy blue pantsuit out of her closet, remembering Aunt Evie’s advice as she did so.

“You have to dress the part,” her always fashionably dressed aunt Evelyn had often told her niece. “You only have one chance to make a good first impression.”

Expecting uneven footing, Ali opted for penny loafers instead of heels. Then she spent a few seconds in her bathroom retouching her makeup. On her way out of the bedroom she paused for a quick examination of her reflection in front of a full-length mirror.

Maybe not ready for prime time in L.A., she told herself critically, but good enough for late-night Yavapai County.

Out in the garage, she stuck the blue emergency bubble light on top of the Cayenne and headed out. Even with the flashing light encouraging other drivers to get out of the way, it seemed to take forever to get through the construction zone and out to I-17.

Driving south, Ali caught sight of the fire from several miles away across the Verde Valley. At first glance it appeared as little more than a pinprick of light, but as she came closer, that one pinprick became two separate ones. Both blazes roared skyward, and surrounding them on all sides were the flashing lights from clots of emergency vehicles. Clouds of smoke, dotted with flaming embers, billowed skyward as well. It was dark, but as Ali approached, she noticed that the once black smoke was now a lighter smudge against a much darker sky. She knew enough about fires to understand that if the color of the smoke was changing from black to gray or even white, the fire crews must be making some headway in their fight against the two separate blazes.

As Frances Lawless had directed, Ali took the General Crook Trail exit and drove under the freeway. Signaling for the left turn onto the frontage road, she caught sight of an ambulance speeding toward her with red lights flashing and siren blaring.

Someone’s hurt, she thought. Is it a firefighter, or is it someone else?

Pulling over onto the shoulder, Ali stayed out of the way until the lumbering emergency vehicle roared around the corner and under the freeway. Once there, the ambulance turned south toward Phoenix, with its big urban hospitals and specialized medical practices. That probably meant bad news for the person inside, someone who was right that minute strapped on a stretcher and being rushed headlong through some kind of medical maelstrom.

Ali was about to move back into the roadway but she again had to wait for oncoming traffic as an arriving fire truck came roaring up behind her with its lights flashing. As it sped past, she noticed the City of Sedona decal on the passenger door.

Ali wasn’t surprised to see a Sedona-based fire crew so far outside the city limits. If the now four-alarm fire managed to spread from the burning structures to surrounding grass and brush, it would pose far more of a hazard to life and property, especially to the town of Camp Verde, itself a little to the north. That was no doubt why crews from other fire districts had been called in to supplement the locals.

With the GPS firmly telling her that the frontage road she was driving didn’t exist and that she was Off Road, Ali drove to the scene. At the first police barricade, Ali flashed the credentials she had been issued by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. The officer examined her ID. Then, after directing her to an appropriate place to park, he stepped aside and let her through. Ali was relieved to see there were no reporters or cameras milling around so far. She had beaten them to the scene by arriving while emergency equipment was still en route. They would be coming soon, however, and Ali needed to be ready.

Turning off the Cayenne ’s engine, Ali opened the door and stepped out into a world of noisy, smoke-filled chaos. Shouted orders flew back and forth over the roar of the flames. Pulsing strobelike flashes from emergency lights punctuated the darkness, while bright beams directed at the fires helped the firefighters who were battling the two separate blazes to see what they were doing.

Ali removed the blue emergency beacon from the top of the car, switched it off, and then stood for a moment, taking in the scene. Both houses appeared to be completely engulfed. In fact, just as she shut her car door, the burning roof of one of the houses collapsed in a loud whoosh, sending another cloud of embers skyward like a dangerous volley of Fourth of July fireworks. Firefighters hurried after the glowing trail of embers, trying to find and extinguish them before they set fire to something else.

Even without the roof, one wall of the collapsed building was still standing. Peering through the eye-watering smoke, Ali was able to make out one chilling detail. Scrawled in yard-tall spray-painted letters on the plywood walls were three letters-ELF.

The Earth Liberation Front, Ali thought. America ’s own special brand of homegrown terrorists.

Dave Holman came up behind her just then. “Hey, Ali,” he said. “Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“Nothing like a trial by fire for your first time out,” he added.

“An ambulance was leaving just as I got here,” she said. “Was someone hurt?”

Dave nodded. “Since the houses were under construction, no one expected them to be occupied, but then one of the Camp Verde firefighters heard her screaming. He went in and brought her out.”

“Her,” Ali confirmed. “A woman? Who is she? What was she doing there?”

“I have no idea.”

“What’s her condition, and where are they taking her?” Ali asked. When reporters arrived on the scene, those were some of the details they would want to know. Ali would need to have answers at the ready.

“She’s evidently badly hurt,” Dave answered, “but I have no idea where they’re taking her.”

“Do you know the name of the firefighter who rescued her?”

“Nope,” Dave said. “Sorry. For that you’ll need to check with the Camp Verde Fire Department.”

Someone summoned Dave and he was gone, disappearing into the smoke-filled night.

Squaring her shoulders, Ali followed Dave’s lead and set off to gather as much information as possible. She knew that in an hour or so, when she found herself standing in front of an assembled group of reporters for the very first time, they’d be looking to her for all available information-for answers to those pesky who, what, where, and why questions that were the news media’s real bread and butter.

One bit at a time Ali gathered the necessary information. The first 9-1-1 call had come in at eight twenty-nine. Arriving on the scene, the Camp Verde Volunteer Fire Department had assessed the situation and had radioed to request additional help, some of which had arrived at almost the same time Ali did.

Following the chain of command upward, she finally located Captain Carlos Figueroa of the Camp Verde Fire Department, who was directing the action from a vehicle parked across the street. He wasn’t thrilled when Ali introduced herself, but he grudgingly agreed to answer her questions.

“Lieutenant Caleb Moore is the guy who dragged her out of there,” Figueroa said. “He never should have gone in-too dangerous-but he did. I’ll have some serious words with him about that once we get him back from the hospital.”

“He’s hurt then, too?” Ali asked.

Figueroa nodded. “Not too bad, I hope, but he swallowed enough smoke that we need to have him checked out.”

“What about the woman?” Ali asked.

Captain Figueroa shrugged. “Who knows?” he returned. “Maybe she’ll make it; maybe she won’t.”

Just then a firefighter raced up to the car, dragged along by an immense German shepherd. “We got a hit, Captain,” he said. “Out here on the street, between the two houses.”

“What kind of hit?” Ali asked.

“You didn’t hear that,” Figueroa said. “But the dog is Sparks, our accelerant-sniffing dog. The guy with him is his handler. Sparks doesn’t need to wait for the fire to cool down to investigate if the perp was dumb enough to leave tracks for him outside on the street.”

“So it is arson, then?” Ali asked.

“Most likely,” Figueroa said, “but don’t quote me on that. It’s not for public consumption at this time.”

Ali’s cell phone rang at ten forty-five. “I understand there’s a whole slew of reporters waiting just inside the entrance to Verde View Estates,” Frances Lawless from Dispatch told her. “Any idea when you’ll be there to brief them?”

“Give me a couple of minutes,” Ali said.

She went back to the Cayenne, grabbed her computer, and spent the next ten minutes typing up a brief summary of everything she had learned. She’d be able to cover more ground if she started with a prepared statement before opening up for questions. Finally she closed her computer and headed back down the hill.

Don’t be nervous, she told herself on the way. They’re doing their jobs. All you have to do is yours.

When she reached the first van-cam, she stuck the Cayenne in park, turned it off, and then went to face the milling group of reporters, who immediately clustered around her, shouting questions at her and vying for her attention. She felt a momentary glitch in her gut. Once she had been one of the yellers. Now she was their target.

“All right,” she said, fixing a steady smile on her face and shouting back in order to be heard over the din. “Good evening, everyone. Could I have your attention, please? I am Alison Reynolds, public information consultant for the Yavapai County Sherrif’s Department. Hold on. I’ll give you what information I can.”

She opened her computer and said, “A call came in to the 9-1-1 emergency operators in Prescott at eight twenty-nine p.m. reporting a house fire at Verde View Estates. Firefighters from the Camp Verde Volunteer Fire Department responded with two trucks. When they realized that they were dealing with two separate house fires rather than just one, they requested further assistance. Two additional fire trucks and crews were dispatched to the scene from the City of Sedona. Because Verde View Estates is located on unincorporated land, several officers from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department were dispatched to the scene as well and will be part of the ongoing investigation. It appears that both structures are a total loss.

“The houses were under construction and were thought to be vacant. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true. Soon after the first Camp Verde fire crew arrived, a firefighter, Lieutenant Caleb Moore, a six-year veteran of the Camp Verde Volunteer Fire Department, entered one of the burning buildings, where he located and rescued one person. The victim, an unidentified female, is in the process of being transported to a Phoenix-area hospital. Lieutenant Moore was also injured, but it’s my understanding that his injuries are not considered life-threatening.

“The fires are currently considered to be contained if not controlled, but crews expect to remain on the scene through the night, extinguishing hot spots and making sure smoldering embers from the affected houses don’t spread to any other structures or to the surrounding grass and brush. Now, are there any questions?”

Ali paused and tried to look around. Blinded by the lights from the cameras, she found it impossible to tell how many people were there. From the noise they made it could have been a dozen or more.

“Is this arson?”

“That would be pure speculation at this time.” Ali answered carefully, remembering Captain Figueroa’s cautioning words. “No determination on that can occur until after the fire cools down and a full investigation can be mounted.”

She herself had seen the blaring, bright red ELF tag that had been sprayed on one wall. It seemed clear enough that if the Earth Liberation Front was claiming responsibility for this incident, the cause of the fires would most likely turn out to be arson. Still, her on-the-scene comments had to be circumspect. Captain Figueroa had told her that, and so had Sheriff Maxwell.

“When it comes to ongoing investigations, don’t give away anything you don’t have to,” Maxwell had told her. “What the media people want to know and what we can tell them are two different things.”

“You said an unidentified victim left here by ambulance,” a male reporter observed. “Is that person suspected of starting the fire?”

Ali had clearly said that it was too soon to suspect arson, but some of the reporters, and this one in particular, were already presupposing arson to be the cause. They would no doubt couch their stories in that same fashion. For now, Ali needed to steer them away from arson.

“As I said earlier,” she told them, “we have no word as to the identity of the victim or what relationship she might have to either the fire or Verde View Estates. She could have been a member of a work crew. She might also be someone who is in the process of purchasing one of the homes.”

“What about someone who’s homeless?” another reporter asked. “Is it possible a bum broke in after the workmen left, looking for a place to stay?”

“Anything is possible,” Ali said.

“What’s the median price tag on homes here?” another voice asked. “I heard some of the firefighters talking about ELF. Don’t they usually target more upscale places?”

Ali wished she knew which of the firefighters were blabbing to reporters. As for the reporters? She also wished she could see the faces of her questioners. She needed to have some idea of who they were and where they came from. Once she had a personal connection with some of them, this would be easier, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight.

It’s like dealing with recalcitrant two-year-olds, Ali told herself. You have to say the same thing over and over. Was I this dim when I was a reporter? Was I this rude?

“As I said before,” she told them firmly, “it’s too early in the investigation to declare this incident to be arson. It will be some time before we can determine the cause of the fire.”

“What about the victim? Was it a man or woman?”

“A woman.”

“How old is she?”

“No word on that at this time.”

“Do you know where the victim was taken?”

“She was taken by ambulance to a private airstrip east of Camp Verde. Once there, she was transferred to a medevac helicopter and flown to a Phoenix-area hospital.”

“To the burn unit at Saint Gregory’s?”

Since the burn unit at Saint Gregory’s Hospital on Camelback treated burn victims from all over the region, that was a reasonable guess, but it wasn’t something Ali could confirm.

“That I don’t know,” she told them.

“Wasn’t the last ELF fire in the area up near Prescott a couple of years ago?”

Ali recognized the voice. It was the same male reporter who had posed the earlier ELF question, but this one stumped her.

“I personally have no knowledge about any other incident, so you’ve got me there,” she answered. “As I said earlier, there has not yet been a determination as to the cause of this fire. Attributing it to any one individual or group of individuals at this time would be premature.”

Behind her, the engine of one of the fire trucks rumbled down the road. As it went past, she saw that it was one of the crews from Sedona. If the crew was returning to base, that probably meant that the fire situation here was considered fairly well under control.

Once again Ali addressed the reporters. “As you can see, some of the crews here are being released. When we have word on the progress of the investigation, I’m sure Sheriff Maxwell will let you know, or you can contact me. My contact information is on the Web site for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department, listed under Media Relations. When any additional media briefings are scheduled, I’ll send out announcements to the contact list I have. I’ll also post that information on the Web site. If I don’t have your contact information and you want to be on the list, please let me know before you leave. Now, is there anything else?”

“Hey, Ali,” someone called. “This is a new gig for you. How does it feel to be on the wrong side of the cameras?”

She knew the assembled reporters were taking her measure, just as fellow employees in the department were doing. To do her media relations job effectively, Ali had to walk a fine line between serious and not so serious. She couldn’t afford to be seen as a lightweight, but if she tried too hard, everyone would know it, and so would she.

“First off,” Ali said, “cameras don’t have wrong sides. People on both sides of them-the ones pointing them and the ones being photographed-have work to do. When people turn on their radios and television sets or pick up a newspaper in the morning, they’re going to want to know what went on here tonight. It’s our job to tell them.

“Yes, this is a new gig, as you call it. I can tell you right now that in a news studio, the lighting is a lot better. Makeup and wardrobe are better, too. I always got to choose which side of the news desk to sit on, and guess what? I always chose to have my good side face the camera. Out here you’re going to have to take me lumps and all. Anything else?”

“Are you glad to be back home in Arizona?”

“Yes,” Ali said. “I am glad to be back in Arizona, but this isn’t about me. Sheriff Maxwell has asked me to help out in media relations on a temporary basis, and that’s what I’m doing. So if there are no other questions about tonight’s incident-”

“How long is temporary?”

“I would imagine that depends on how well I do.”

“To say nothing about how long it takes for Internal Affairs to finish looking through the situation with Deputy Devon Ryan. Isn’t he still on paid administrative leave?”

“Look,” Ali said firmly. “I’m here tonight to discuss this specific incident. How about if we stick to that? Now, are there more questions about the fire?”

Eventually the lights went off and the cameras disappeared. Several people stopped long enough to give Ali their contact information before disappearing into their separate vehicles, where they’d be able to write and file their stories using wireless uploads.

As Ali turned back to the scene of the fire, Sheriff Maxwell appeared out of the darkness. She had no idea when he had arrived or how long he had been standing there listening.

“Good job,” he said.

“You were watching?” Ali asked. “Why didn’t you come talk to them?”

“Because I wanted to see how you’d handle yourself,” he replied. “You did fine.”

“About that ELF stuff,” she continued. “I didn’t know anything about that previous fire. The one up near Prescott.”

Maxwell nodded. “Right,” he said. “That happened several years ago. They burned down a Street of Dreams project. Four nearly completed houses, each of them worth more than a million bucks. They were supposedly being built with all kinds of green technology inside. Why ELF went after them is more than I can understand. I mean, green is green, right?”

“What about these houses?” Ali asked.

“With the current housing crisis, they’re not worth nearly that much. Probably three fifty to four hundred thou. Maybe ELF has decided to go downscale rather than up.”

“What about the wall?” Ali asked. “The one with the ELF tagline.”

“That’s still standing,” he said. “Once the sun comes up tomorrow morning, anybody with a pair of binoculars will know this was arson. We know it, too, thanks to Camp Verde ’s accelerant-sniffing dog.”

“I saw Sparks,” Ali told him, but the sheriff’s comment left Ali second-guessing her actions. “Should I have announced it was arson tonight?”

“Hell, no. You did exactly what I wanted you to do. I’ll make the arson announcement myself first thing tomorrow. Let’s say nine a.m. on the courthouse steps in Prescott. If you could send out a notice about that between now and then, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m still not sure why we didn’t make the announcement tonight.”

“That’s easy,” Sheriff Maxwell said with a sardonic smile. “You can’t hand over every little detail all at once. Got to dribble it out a little at a time and give those yahoos reason to come back. That also gives them a reason to write two stories instead of just one. That’s good for them and good for us. How else am I going to keep my name out there in public?”

He started to walk away, then paused. “By the way,” he added, “the guy who asked about the ELF thing is named Kelly Green.”

“What kind of a name is Kelly Green?” Ali asked. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“His real name was the joke. His given name was Oswald. He changed it to Kelly a few years ago.”

“I guess I would have changed it, too,” Ali said.

“Mr. Green likes to think of himself as the Arizona Reporter’s star investigative reporter. He’s also a royal pain in the butt, but he was one of Devon ’s favorites, so watch your back around him.”

“Favorites?” Ali asked.

“As in feeding him scoops before information went to any of the other media outlets.”

“Got it,” Ali said.

Gordon Maxwell walked away then. Watching him go, Ali understood a whole lot more about Sheriff Maxwell than she had before. He was a politician and a canny operator. Yes, the man was caught in a war between rival union factions at work, but he was also an elected official who, in order to win reelection, needed to show the workings of his department in the best possible light. Sheriff Maxwell was using Ali Reynolds as part of his own charm offensive in the same way Edie Larson used her sweet rolls.

Dave Holman drove up behind her, stopped, and came over to where Ali was standing. “How’d you do?” he asked.

“All right, I guess,” she said. “Sheriff Maxwell seemed pleased.”

“You aren’t?”

After a short-lived romance, Ali and Dave had fallen back into their longtime friendship. It was nonetheless disconcerting for Ali to realize that Dave sometimes knew her better than she would have liked.

“One of the reporters nailed me with a gotcha question about an ELF-related fire up near Prescott a few years ago. He acted like I should have known all about it.”

“I remember that one,” Dave said. “It happened right after I came back from deployment-a fire that turned a Street of Dreams into a Street of Nightmares. The houses-expensive one-of-a-kind homes-were close to completion when they were burned to the ground. What the insurance settlement paid wasn’t enough to make the developer whole, and he ended up going bust. The poor guy walked away, and the project was abandoned.”

“What happened then?” Ali asked.

“They brought in an army of bulldozers and front-end loaders and carted away the debris. As far as I know, the property sits empty to this day. The trees were cut down to make way for construction. Now the trees aren’t there and neither are the houses. I believe ELF did claim responsibility for the fire, but no one was ever charged or arrested, to say nothing of tried and convicted.”

“In other words,” Ali said, “what ELF got for their trouble is one poor guy who’s been driven out of business and a beautiful piece of real estate that’s permanently wrecked.”

“That’s right,” Dave agreed. “It also means the terrorists won that round.”

“So far,” Ali said. “Maybe this time we’ll catch them.”

“We?” Dave repeated with a smile. “That sounds like you’re taking this investigation personally. I’m not so sure that’s just a consultant talking.”

Ali laughed. “I’m not so sure, either. Now, tell me about the victim. Do we know anything?”

Dave’s smile disappeared. “Before they hauled her away in the ambulance, I talked to Caleb Moore, the guy who brought the burn victim out. He’s really broken up about it. He says she’s badly hurt and isn’t likely to make it.”

“He has no idea who she is?”

“None, but I doubt she was the one setting the fire,” Dave said. “For one thing, she was stark naked and trapped on a stack of drywall piled in the middle of a sea of flames. I’ve come up against arsonists from time to time, but never one who went around setting fires buck naked.”

“A vagrant then?” Ali asked.

“Could be, but not likely,” Dave answered. “Even though it’s May, it can still get plenty cold overnight. These houses were under construction. That means there was no heat inside, and it makes no sense that she’d be there without any clothes on.”

“Young or old?” Ali asked.

“Caleb said he couldn’t tell exactly, but an older woman-mid-sixties to seventies. It’s unlikely that a grandmotherly type like that would be going around setting fires.”

A radio transmission came through summoning Dave back to the scene of the fire. Shaking her head, Ali climbed into the Cayenne and headed home.

Once the remodeling process on her own home had been completed and there were no longer workers coming and going at all hours, Ali had installed an electronically operated gate as well as an intercom at the bottom of the driveway. The gate closed automatically at 6 p.m. She and Leland both had gate openers in their vehicles. Overnight, anyone else had to call and ask for permission to enter.

When Ali came up the driveway, she noted that the lights were off in Leland’s fifth-wheel trailer, parked on the far side of the house.

“I don’t see why you don’t move back inside now that the house is finished,” Ali had said to Leland Brooks. “You’re more than welcome to stay in your old room.”

Leland had lived in the house for years, looking after both the troubled Arabella Ashcroft and her mother. He had moved into a fifth-wheel during the long months of remodeling.

“I’m quite accustomed to having my own place now,” he had responded cheerfully. “It’s tidy and small, and it gives us both some privacy.”

In case either of us ever needs any, Ali had thought.

Her brief romance with Dave Holman had ended even if their friendship hadn’t, and Leland’s long-term relationship with Yavapai County Superior Court judge Patrick Macey had also run its course.

Ali had let Leland’s housing decision stand without any further discussion, and in truth she was enjoying having the house all to herself. She had loved having Chris around in the house on Andante Drive, but it was also nice to be completely on her own and in her own place. There had been no question that the Beverly Hills mansion where she had lived with her second husband, Paul Grayson, had been his before she arrived, while she lived there, and after she left. And in many ways, the house on Andante Drive still bore the stamp of Ali’s aunt Evie, who had bequeathed it to her niece.

This home was Ali’s. It was far smaller than Paul’s but larger than Aunt Evie’s. That went for everything from furniture to appliances to the radiant heat in the floors.

Ali parked in the garage and then let herself into the house through the kitchen door. She wasn’t completely on her own, however; Sam showed up immediately, wrapping her body around Ali’s leg and complaining vociferously, as only cats can, for having been abandoned. This was all a lie, since Ali knew without a doubt that Leland would have fed Sam much earlier in the evening.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Ali told the cat aloud. “I know good and well that you’ve already been fed, and I’m not falling for your phony claims to the contrary.”

Ali was tired, but she was also wound up from her long night’s work. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep right away, she stopped in the kitchen long enough to make herself a cup of hot cocoa. While there, she wrote a note for Leland.

“Have to be in Prescott between eight-thirty and nine,” she told him. “Don’t worry about breakfast.”

Once in her bedroom, she pulled off the clothing she had worn and wasn’t the least surprised that it smelled of smoke. A closer examination showed several places where falling embers had charred the material. The pantsuit had been expensive when she bought it and now it was ruined. She dropped it on the floor in front of her closet.

Maybe I should ask Sheriff Maxwell for a uniform allowance, she thought.

On that note she headed into her spacious marble-tiled bath for a luxurious shower. Afterward, dressed in a nightgown and robe, she took her cocoa and her computer into the small study next to her bedroom.

Time to do some homework, she told herself.

Opening her computer, she added the new names and addresses to her media contact list and then sent out an announcement about the press briefing scheduled for the courthouse steps the next morning. She intended to do some background studying on the Earth Liberation Front, but soon found herself nodding off over her computer keyboard.

Finally, without even finishing her cup of cocoa, Ali gave up. She closed her computer and crawled into bed. It took no time for her to fall asleep. Not surprisingly, while sleeping, she had one recurring nightmare after another. They weren’t all exactly alike, but they were similar.

In each one, Ali was trapped in a locked room-a room with no windows or doors. Sometimes the room was familiar, sometimes not; but in each dream, one thing was the same: someone-some unseen person-was coming after her, intent on doing her harm. In each instance she knew her attacker was armed and dangerous. She also knew there was no escape.