Web of Evil

CHAPTER 14

So what's Jake Maxwell's deal?" Dave asked as they waited in the parking lot. "When you're doing a homicide investigation, you always go after the first person who lies. So how come Jake told us he had no idea how to get hold of Tracy when he obviously did?"

"And why didn't he just call him?" Ali asked.

"That's easy," Dave replied. "I'm guessing he's worried about leaving a phone record trail."

"He lied about Roseanne, too," Ali said.

"That's his wife?" Dave asked.

Ali nodded. "She may be shopping in New York, but I doubt it. Several important pieces of artworkvaluable piecesare missing from Jake's walls and shelves. That tells me something's up between him and Roseanne that has nothing to do with next year's wardrobe and a whole lot to do with his pal Amber."

Learning that Roseanne Maxwell had most likely joined the ranks of Hollywood's cast-off and obsolete wives should have elicited more sympathy from Ali, but she couldn't summon it. The condescending comments Roseanne had e-mailed to Ali months earlier still rankled too much.

"Can you reach Roseanne?" Dave asked.

"Maybe," Ali replied. "I used to have her phone numbers and her e-mail address in my database, and they may still be in my computer back at the hotel. The problem is, that was months ago. If everything else has changed, her numbers may have changed as well."

"When you have a chance, try getting in touch with her," Dave said. "She may be able to help us."

The door to Tracy's RV opened. Jake emerged and slammed the door shut behind him. He stood for a few seconds as if undecided about something, then hurried back to his Jag. He peeled out of the parking place so fast that the car wobbled dangerously and almost careened into one of the parked RVs before he got the vehicle back under control.

"How much do you think he had to drink?" Dave asked.

"I don't know," Ali returned. "I doubt the scotch we saw him drink was the first he'd had this evening."

"I doubt that, too," Dave agreed. "And he's obviously of the opinion that speed limits are posted for advisory purposes only. Let's make his life a little more interesting, shall we?"

With that Dave picked up his phone. "Yes," he said when someone answered. "I'm at the Wal-Mart here on Fallbrook Avenue. A guy just took off out of the parking lot in a silver Jaguar XJ," Dave said. "He's heading back toward Highway 101 and driving like a maniac. Almost smashed into a parked RV on his way out of the lot. The way he's driving, he may be drunk."

After repeating the Jag's plate information and leaving his cell phone number, Dave closed his phone with a grin. "Let's hear it for the California Highway Patrol," he said. "Considering the mood Jake's in at the moment, any interaction with cops should prove interesting to all concerned. In the meantime, let's go have a chat with Tracy McLaughlin."

"What about?" Ali asked.

"Let's start with your mother," Dave suggested. "Again, the one thing we need to establish is if he's lying to us or telling the truth. That means we ask him questions where we already know the answers."

"Like whether or not he spoke to my mother?"

"For starters," Dave said. "And you take the lead. Tracy's an ex-con, which means he probably thinks of himself as a cool macho dude. He's likely to underestimate you and say more than he should. Try to be conversational with him and get him to talk."

"You mean sort of like what I did for years when I was conducting television interviews?" Ali asked.

Dave looked chagrined. "I suppose so," he returned. "Something like that. Sorry."

They approached the RV with Dave staying in the background. As Ali mounted the steps and knocked, she noticed a hint of cigarette smoke lingering in the outside air. It reminded her of the smoke she had smelled in the hotel hallway the night before.

"Who is it?" an invisible voice demanded.

"Ali Reynolds," she replied. "I'm Paul Grayson's wife amp;his widow actually," she corrected. "We met yesterday morning before the Sumo Sudoku shoot. I was having coffee with April Gaddis out on the terrace at the house on Robert Lane."

After a few minutes, the door opened, allowing more secondhand smoke to spill outside. Tracy McLaughlin's hulking figure stood backlit in the doorway. He held the burning stub of a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.

"That's right," Tracy said. "I remember you now. What do you want?"

"I'm looking for my mother," Ali said at once.

"Your mother," he repeated belligerently. "Who the hell's your mother?"

It had not been Jake Maxwell's first scotch, and this was not Tracy McLaughlin's first beer.

"Let me give you a hint," Ali said. "Her name's Edie Larson. She's in her early sixties. Gray hair. Wears glasses and a hearing aid. She's gone missing."

"Name doesn't ring a bell," Tracy muttered. "There are lots of women like that. I'm afraid I don't know your mother from a hole in the ground."

"That's funny," Ali said. "I could have sworn I saw a hotel security surveillance tape where you were talking with her earlier this afternoonarguing with her, in fact. She seemed to be quite upset about something. The digital readout on the video shows that the confrontation happenedshortly before she disappeared."

Dave emerged from the shadows.

"Who are you?" Tracy demanded when Dave came into view.

"A friend of Edie's," Dave replied. "And we have reason to believe Edie had pegged you as possibly being the father of April Gaddis's baby."

"Well, she's wrong about that," Tracy McLaughlin declared. "Besides, it wasn't any of her business to begin with. I tried to tell that crazy old woman that she had it all wrong and to get off my case, but she wouldn't listen."

"So you're claiming you're not the father of April's baby after all?" Ali asked.

"I'm saying you're talking to the wrong person. You should be asking April about this, not me."

"But you're saying the baby might not be Paul's?"

"I didn't say that."

"What are you saying?"

"It's complicated."

"It's not complicated at all," Ali said firmly. "Either the baby is Paul's or she's not. And if she isn't, she won't be eligible to receive monies from his estate."

"So what does any of this have to do with me?"

"What it has to do with is fraud," Ali replied. "And with whether or not you're a co-conspirator."

"I don't know anything," Tracy insisted. "I haven't done anything."

"What about this afternoon?" Ali asked.

"What about it?"

"What happened after you saw my mother?"

"I left the hotel."

"Where did you go?"

"A couple of places," he said.

Dave moved closer. "Ms. Reynolds isn't a police officer," he said. "But I am. At this point you're not being charged with anything, Mr. McLaughlin, so it might be smart for you to cooperate. If you have an alibi for this afternoona verifiable alibiyou might want to give it to us before things get any more complicated."

"What do you want from me?"

"We want you to tell us about what you did this afternoon. All of it."

"Do I need an attorney?" Tracy asked.

"Not right now," Dave said. "That's what I told you a minute ago. At the moment, finding Ali's mother is our highest priority. Compared to that, everything else takes a backseat."

Tracy had tossed one cigarette butt aside. Now he paused long enough to light another smoke. "I knew April was going to be doing that Court TV interview," he said at last. "I wanted to see how it worked out. You see, that same woman has been in touch with me"

"Sheila Rosenburg?" Ali asked.

Tracy nodded. "She's been talking to all of April's friends. And that's what April and I arefriends."

What kind of friends? Ali wondered, although she thought she knew.

"Anyway," Tracy continued, "I wanted to see what the interview would be likeif the reporter would be on April's case and accusing her of something or otherbefore I agreed to do one myself. So I came into the lobby and was watching everything that was going on when that womanyour mothershowed up and started giving me a hard time and causing a scene. I left before anyone had a chance to call security."

"Why was that?" Ali asked.

"It just seemed like a good idea to get the hell out of there before there was any trouble. Besides, I didn't want to disrupt what April was doing."

"You still haven't told us where you went," Dave said. "We need names and addresses. We also need the names of any people who might have seen you there."

Tracy's reluctance to discuss the matter was obvious in the sullen way he sucked on his cigarette and said nothing.

"We've been told that you had a bad enough gambling habit that you had to sell your Sumo Sudoku idea to the highest bidder," Dave said. "Men can change, but they seldom do. So what's the story here, Tracy? Are you back in the game again? Did you spend the afternoon at a casino someplace? Or was it somewhere less obviouslike an illegal card room, maybe? And how deep are they into you again? In some circles, gambling on credit can be a very dangerous undertaking."

The look of surprise that flashed over Tracy's face made it clear Dave had nailed him. "Where's the card room?" Dave asked.

"Upstairs over a strip club on Santa Monica called the Pink Swan," Tracy answered. "I was there all afternoon. I got there about two, and then came directly here."

Ali remembered the name from newspaper accounts about Paul's death. She also remembered Helga's account of the health club called The Body Shop. She wondered if the Pink Swan was a step up or a step down.

"The Pink Swan," she mused. "Isn't that where Paul's bachelor party was held?"

Tracy nodded. "I believe so."

"You weren't at the bachelor party?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I wasn't invited," Tracy answered. "I mean, Paul and I had a business relationship but we weren't really buddies or anything."

"Especially since it sounds to me as if you used to screw around with his bride-to-be," Ali put in.

Tracy looked at her, but he didn't bother denying it.

"This Pink Swan place," Dave persisted. "Would they have you on this afternoon's surveillance tapes? Would we be able to see what time you arrived there and when you left?"

"That's the whole point of a place like the Pink Swan," Tracy said. "There are no surveillance tapes."

A piece of the puzzle fell into place. If the Pink Swan was a surveillance-free zone, Ali realized, that might explain why no one had any record of Paul's exit from there. And who had been in charge of choosing the venue for the bachelor party? Presumably Jake Maxwell.

A pair of matching RVs nosed into the aisle and parked side by side directly across from Tracy McLaughlin's. Once the newly arrived vehicles were in place, several people exited. Laughing and talking, they set off across the parking lot toward the store entrance.

Tracy glanced at his watch. "Look," he said impatiently, "I'm tired. I had a big match today, and I have another one early tomorrow morning. Could we do this some other time?"

"My mother's missing now," Ali insisted. "What did Jake Maxwell want when he came here a little while ago?"

"It was just a scheduling glitch," he said. "One of the other guys canceled a match. Jake was hoping I could step in for him."

"So when Jake has a problem, he comes to you with it?" Dave asked.

Tracy nodded.

"Why didn't he call? You do have a cell, don't you?"

Tracy shrugged. "Maybe he wanted to get out of the house for a while."

"And maybe he didn't want there to be a record of his calling you," Dave suggested.

"Look," Tracy said, "I'm here, minding my own business, not bothering anyone"

"Is that what you were doing when you spent last night in April's room?" Ali asked. "Minding your own business?"

Clearly her pointed question surprised Tracy McLaughlin. He didn't deny that, either.

"I already told you we were friends," he said. "That's what she needed last nighta friend." He tossed his dying cigarette out into the parking lot. Ali scurried down the stairs. She retrieved the smoldering butt, ground it out, and put it in her pocket.

"What are you doing?" Tracy demanded.

"You said you weren't the baby's father," she said. "It may take a few weeks to get a real answer, but your DNA should prove it one way or the other."

"I didn't give you permission to take that," Tracy began. He started down the stairs after her, but Dave stepped up and blocked his way.

"I'm not a police officer," she said. "You tossed your trash out into a public parking lot. If I want to clean up your litter, that's my call, not yours. And if I'm willing to pay for a paternity test, that's my call, too."

Ali stepped around to the back of the Honda and studied the temporary plate. "While we're at it," she added, "tell us about this vehicle. I see you just bought iton Friday. But I was under the impression you were having a tough time financially. So where'd the money come from for a new car?"

"That's none of your business," Tracy said. "I want you to leave now, before I have to call the cops."

"I already told you," Dave said. "I am a cop."

"More cops then," Tracy said.

"By all means, call away," Ali said. "With everything that's gone on the past few days, I think they'll be interested in hearing what we all have to say."

Without another word, Tracy McLaughlin returned to his RV, slamming the door shut behind him.

"The DNA thing certainly got a reaction," Dave observed. "Now what? Back to the hotel?"

"Sure," Ali said, but once she was behind the wheel, she steered away from the entrance to the parking lot and tucked the Cayenne in among the vehicles parked near the front of the store.

"What now?" Dave asked.

"Let's just watch for a while and see if he stays put," Ali answered. "It worked once with Jake Maxwell. Maybe it'll work again with Tracy."

And it did. Less than twenty minutes later, a dark-colored Ford Windstar minivan pulled into the lot. It stopped next to Tracy's RV. The Cayenne was parked too far away for Ali and Dave to be able to make out exactly what was happening.

"Stay here," Dave said. "I'll try to get closer."

While he was out of the car, Ali's cell phone rang. "Any sign of your mother?" Bob Larson asked. Ali heard the edge of panic in her father's voice.

"Not so far," Ali returned.

"Damn," Bob muttered. "I've got a really bad feeling about this."

Ali did, too, but she didn't want to say so. "We'll find her," Ali told her father with far more confidence than she felt. We've got to!

As the call ended Dave ducked into the passenger seat and then leaned back, breathing a sigh of apparent relief. "Thank God they didn't see me," he said, "but now we know how they do it."

"Do what?"

"How Sumo Sudoku can support all those very expensive RVs."

"What are you talking about?" Ali asked.

"The sudoku thing is probably nothing but an elaborate cover. I'm guessing they're really using the RVs as part of a drug distribution network, transporting drugs up and down the West Coast with their cargoholds full of something besides those round granite rocks. I'm guessing they're moving heroin or else coke. They just unloaded a bunch of stuff from Tracy's RV and stuck it in the minivan. My guess is that Jake Maxwell came racing over here tonight to let Tracy know that we had been nosing around and that they needed to make arrangements to get rid of the goods sooner rather than later."

"Are you telling me Jake Maxwell and Paul got involved in some kind of drug-smuggling group?" Ali asked.

"That's how it looks."

By then the load transfer was finished and the van was pulling away from Tracy's RV. "They're leaving," Ali said. "Shouldn't we follow them?"

As Ali reached for the key, Dave caught her hand in midair and kept her from turning the key in the ignition.

"Absolutely not!" he declared. "There were three of them at least. Four counting McLaughlin. That means we'd be outmannedno offenseand probably outgunned, too. This is way more than you and I can handle on our own."

"We call the cops then?"

"No," Dave said.

Ali was exasperated. "You mean we're just going to let them get away?"

"For right now," Dave answered. "If we've stumbled onto a big-time drug-smuggling program, you've got to understandthese people aren't to be trifled with. You try bluffing guys like that or crossing them, and they'll blow you away without a second thought. From the looks of it, this could be a very big operation, which means we're going to have to go higher up the food chain than the local LAPD cop shop."

"What do you mean?"

"Once I get back to the hotel, I'll call in the Marines."

"The Marines?" Ali repeated.

"One Marine in particularEzekiel Washington, if I can find him. Easy' for short," Dave added. "When he's not deployed with the reserves, he works for the DEA here in L.A. Once they get wind of this, they're going to want to take down the whole thingnot just Tracy McLaughlin and the guys loading the van."

They were on the 101 by then. For a while Ali drove in thoughtful silence. What Dave had said about drug dealers killing people without compunction had hit her hard. "Do you think my mother's somehow mixed up with this drug business?" she asked finally.

"She may have blundered into it the same way we did," Dave replied somberly.

Ali felt her stomach clutch. "We'll be lucky to see her alive, won't we?"

As the hours had worn on, Ali had managed to keep her worst fear at bay. Now, having spoken it aloud, she felt like she was drowning in self-reproach. Whatever befell Edie Larson would be all Ali's fault. If she hadn't let herself be bamboozled into marrying Paul Grayson in the first place, none of this would have happened. It was bad enough to learn that he'd been unfaithful to her. That much she had somehow suspected, and having it verified hadn't been all that much of a shock. But for him to have been involved in the drug trade, too? That was way beyond anything she had ever thought Paul capable of, but then she guessed she hadn't known him nearly as well as she thought she had.

But blaming herself and agonizing about her mother accomplished nothing. She forced herself to turn back to the McLaughlin interview.

"What about the Pink Swan?" she asked.

"If it's a topless place with illegal gambling and they don't do surveillance tapes, that means they appeal to a clientele with plenty to hide."

"It's also the place where Jake hosted Paul's bachelor party."

"I'll turn Easy on to that, too. But from the sound of it, the Pink Swan is probably already on the DEA's radar."

"And then there's Roseanne," Ali added thoughtfully. "I wonder about her."

"Maxwell's wife?"

Ali nodded. "If I didn't know what was going on, I wonder if Roseanne did."

"Too bad we don't know where to find her."

"Maybe somebody does," Ali said determinedly. She passed Dave her phone. "Punch the green button. That'll give you my list of made calls. Look for Helga Myerhoff."

"Your divorce lawyer?" Dave asked. "How come?"

"She specializes in high-profile divorce cases. If Roseanne and Jake are splitting the sheets, you can figure there's a lawyer involvedor a whole bevy of them. Helga's more likely than anyone else to know which ones."

Dave found the number, pressed it, and then handed the phone to Ali.

"I didn't know they were getting a divorce," Helga said, once Ali had said her piece. "But I can't say I'd be surprised."

"Because Jake's involved with another woman?" Ali asked.

"Because they're broke," Helga returned. "Relatively speaking, of course."

Jake Maxwell hadn't looked broke earlier that evening. Anything but.

"Even in somewhat straitened circumstances, however," Helga continued, "everyone I know would have been panting after Roseanne Maxwell and hoping to land her as a client."

"How can Jake Maxwell be broke?" Ali asked.

"Lost his job, bad investments, gambling?" Helga said. "Take your pick. There are lots of ways to go broke in this town."

"You're saying Jake lost his job?" Ali asked.

"You didn't know that? It happened several months ago nowsome kind of corporate job consolidation move. Paul and Jake ended up going head-to-head for the same job. Paul got the jobJake Maxwell got a golden handshake. That's why I was a little surprised when he showed up at court on Friday to be in Paul's corner, but then sometimes people turn out to be better than you think they are."

Or worse, Ali thought.

"Getting back to Roseanne," Helga finished. "I do have some connections. If she's holed up somewhere, someone I know will know where to find her."

"Thanks."

"Victor wanted you to call. Have you talked to him yet?"

"No."

"If you're driving all over hell and gone, you should probably let him know from you exactly what you're up to."

Ali knew what Victor would saystay put; don't talk to anyone; let the cops look for her mother.

"I'll call him," Ali agreed. Eventually.

Once off the phone, she recounted to Dave everything that had been said. "Makes sense," he said. "If Jake was needing to make some quick cash, someone may have made him an offer he couldn't refuse."

"But Paul wasn't broke," Ali returned. "Why would he be mixed up in it?"

Dave shook his head. "I have no idea."

By then they were pulling into the hotel entrance. "Do you want me to come up?" Dave asked.

"No," she said. "Dad and Chris will be here soon. I'm going to take a shower and put my feet up for a few minutes. I may even try closing my eyes."

"Good idea," Dave said. He hopped out of the Cayenne and headed for his own car.

Ali handed her car keys over to the parking valet and headed straight into the lobby. If there were reporters waiting there, she'd tough her way through them.

Opening the door to her room Ali hoped, through some miracle, Edie would be there waiting for her, but of course she wasn't. The room was emptydark and empty. Ali slipped off her shoes, sank onto the couch, and, as promised, rested her feet on the coffee table. She had spent the last hours busily doing somethingplaying detective and trying to find her mother. Now, in the quiet stillness, the awful reality began to sink in. Perhaps Edie really was lost to herlost to all of them. Perhaps there would be no more of Edie's steaming, soft-centered homemade sweet rolls at Sedona's Sugar Loaf Cafe. Perhaps Ali would never again sit over a hot cup of coffee, listening to and often disregarding her mother's good advice. Perhaps she would never again witness one of her parents' never-ending rounds of good-natured teasing.

It was that realizationthat losing her mother would be harder on Bob Larson than on anyone elsewhich finally goaded Ali to action. She picked up her computer and logged on.

CUTLOOSEBLOG.COM

Sunday, September 18, 2005

My mother is missing. Edie Darlene Larson, age 61, of Sedona, Arizona, disappeared from a hotel lobby in L.A. early this afternoon. She was last seen driving away from the Westwood Hotel on Wilshire in her white 2003 Oldsmobile Alero. Edie is five foot seven, has medium-length gray hair, fair skin, and weighs approximately 140 pounds. She also wears two hearing aids. (She'll kill me for printing that.) Anyone with information about Edie should contact LAPD's Missing Persons Unitand me!

Posted 10:23 P.M., September 18, 2005 by Babe

There was far more she wanted to say, would have said, but this was a case where less was more. She deliberately made no mention of Edie's encounter with Tracy McLaughlin. If, as Dave suspected, this whole thing was tied to a drug-smuggling ring, it was better to leave that out. Ali stripped off her clothes and was about to step into the shower when her cell phone rang. Grabbing it off the counter, she was amazed to see her mother's name in the caller ID readout.

Sick with relief, Ali shouted into the phone, "Mom! Is that you? Are you all right? Where are you?"

Except there was no answer. Ali could hear a rustling sound and distant voices, but no one was talking directly to her. Maybe it was just a bad connection. Frustrated, Ali punched the volume button on the side of her phone. "Mom. Can you hear me?" she called again.

There was more rustling and then she heard her mother's voice. "What in the world do you think you're doing?"

"I'm trying to talk to you," Ali answered. "Where are you? What's going on?"

Someone elseanother womanwas speaking in the background. Alice could hear the voice but not clear enough to make out any of the individual words.

"You need to let me go," Edie said clearly and firmly. "This is stupid. It makes no sense."

That's when Ali realized she was listening in on what people at the Sugar Loaf called Edie's infamous "bra calls." Because that's where Edie Larson always carried her phonein her bra. At work her apron pockets usually overflowed with order pads and pencils. When she had added a cell phone into the mix, it hadn't worked, so she had opted for stowing her phone in the only other available spottucked inside her bra. Because Edie didn't always remember to activate her key guard, she occasionally made accidental calls, burning up minutes and inadvertently revealing all kinds of mundane details of life in a restaurant to several different hapless recipients.

Ali knew at once, however, that this call was no accident. Whoever was with Edie had no idea she was in possession of a cell phone. They also had no idea she had figured out a way to signal for help. And instead of dialing 911, Edie had simply punched "send."

There was a murmured answer in response to her mother's comment, but nothing Ali could make out.

"Why are you doing this?" Edie demanded, sounding more agitated. "Where are we? In a basement somewhere?"

So her mother had been blindfolded or maybe even unconscious. She had no idea where she was, and she was being held there against her will.

Ali strained to hear the other woman's response, but it was totally inaudible.

Then Ali heard her mother's voice again. "Untie me," she said. "Let me go. I'm sure we can sort all this out."

There was a momentary pause followed by a burst of outrage. "We're not going to sort it out. We're not sorting anything. Stop telling me what to do, damn it! Just stop it!"

And now that she heard the voice clearly, Ali knew whose it wasApril's. The voice belonged to April Gaddis. How could that be?

"Please, April," Edie said aloud. "Be reasonable."

But April had evidently moved beyond reason. "Shut up!" she screamed. "Shut the hell up!"

April's shout was followed by the sounds of a brief struggle complete with lots more rustling and a sharp clatter. In her mind's eye, Ali imagined the phone falling out of Edie's bra and skittering across some hard surface. In her ears, the noise was deafening, but Edie's attacker didn't seem to notice. There were other sounds, toothe horrifying thumps of something heavy landing on human flesh. Knowing her mother was most likely bound and helpless, Ali cringed at each one. At last the struggle ended in a terrible groan and a spate of ragged breathing.

"There now," April said very clearly. "Maybe now you'll finally shut the hell up and stay where I put you."

Ali heard a door slam shut followed by an awful silence on the other end of the line. By some miracle the call was still connected.

"Mother?" Ali called. "Are you there? Can you hear me?"

But of course there was no reply. If Edie Larson was even still conscious, she couldn't hear her daughter's voice.

For a moment longer Ali stared at the phone in an agony of indecision. The phone in her hand was her only connection to her mother, but where was she? If Ali dialed 911 on her room phone, what would she say to them? "My mother's been attacked somewhere in L.A. I have no idea where." Or, was it possible there was an emergency operator somewhere who could trace the call between Ali's cell phone and wherever it was her mother was being held, injured, perhaps, or maybe even unconscious? But how long would that take? And even if Ali managed to maintain the connection for a while, could she keep it going long enough? What would happen when Edie's phone ran out of battery power and turned itself off?

Closing her eyes, Ali tried to decide what to do. Wherever April had taken Edie, it had to be a place to which April had ready access. And Edie had mentioned something about a basement. This was California, an area where basements weren't all that common, but Ali knew where there was at least one basementa huge onein the bottom of the house on Robert Lane.

More than half of the space had been and still was devoted to Paul's extensive wine collection, but there had been several other rooms as well, including a decommissioned redwood-lined sauna that Paul had considered turning into a safe room. Thinking about the way the heavy door had slammed shut behind April as she'd left, Ali had the sudden sense that she knew the answer. She wasn't confident enough in her idea that she was willing to place an emergency call based on it, but she did know for sure that there wasn't a moment to lose.

With the call still connected and on speaker, Ali dressed and strapped on her Glock. She paused only long enough to call for her car before grabbing for her purse.

Riding down in the elevator, Ali realized that taking on someone as seemingly deranged as April all by herself was nothing short of stupid. Once more she considered ending the one call and dialing 911. But again, what would she tell them? Let's see. How about: "My mother's been attacked by my dead husband's pregnant fiancee who may or may not be holding her prisoner somewhere in my house on Robert Lane"? Did that sound like a call emergency operators were likely to take seriously? And even if they did, if April had come unhinged, what would she do if a bunch of cop cars came screaming into the yard? With Edie possibly injured and alone in the house with April, that was a risk Ali wasn't prepared to take.

While she was riding down in the elevator, the call ended on its own. Either her mother's phone had run out of power, or Ali's had simply lost the signal. Frustrated, Ali tried calling Dave. He didn't answer, so she left a terse message.

"On my way to the house. I think April's there, but I'm not sure. I also think she's lost it. Wherever she is, I believe she's holding Mom prisoner. Call me as soon as you get this message. Please."

Scrambling into the Cayenne, Ali rammed it into gear. Heading for the house, she was reasonably confident that in a fair fighta one-on-one altercationshe would be able to take April.

And I have no intention of fighting fair, Ali told herself grimly. None whatsoever!