Left for Dead (38 page)

Ali pulled in behind the Buick, effectively blocking it. If Olga planned to leave in the Ranger Rover, there wasn’t much Ali could do, but if she planned to drive the Buick out of there, she would have to go through Ali’s Cayenne to do it.

Ali rang the bell. When nothing happened, she rang the bell again. Eventually, despite the fact that there was no sound from inside, the light in the peephole went out.

“What do you want?” a woman’s voice asked.

“I’m Teresa and Jose’s friend, Ali Reynolds. I’ve come to pick up the girls.”

“Whatever would make you think they’re with me?”

“Come on, Mrs. Sanchez,” Ali said. “Julie, the girl who was looking after Lucy and Carinda, told us you had taken them for ice cream. We have the security tape that shows you leaving the hospital with the two girls in your car.”

Olga Sanchez gave an audible sigh. “Oh well, then,” she said. “I suppose you should come inside.”

When the door opened, the first thing Ali saw was the weapon, a .38, aimed directly at her midsection. What she missed more than anything in that moment was her Kevlar vest. She had her Glock; her Taser was in her pocket. Olga would have no way of knowing Ali was armed, but at that point, carrying the weapons did Ali no good at all. She knew she’d be dead before she had a chance to use either one.

“Come in and shut the door,” Olga ordered.

Ali did as she was told. She stepped into a room that looked as though it hadn’t changed in decades. With the blinds closed, the only light in the room came from what were most likely genuine Tiffany lamps on the tables at either end of an immense old-fashioned leather couch. A blanket that Ali took to be an antique Navajo rug—reminding her of B.’s—was draped casually over the matching leather chair.

On the surface, the room seemed comfortable and comforting, completely at odds with the disturbed woman standing there holding a weapon. There was no sign of the girls anywhere—none.

After surveying the room, Ali turned back to Olga. That was when she noticed the collection of luggage sitting next to the door. There were three suitcases altogether, two large ones and a smaller roll-aboard, all of them on wheels. That could mean only one thing—Olga was definitely on her way out of town. But was she planning on leaving with the girls or without them?

At that point, Ali’s police academy training kicked in. When faced with an armed assailant, try to initiate a conversation and defuse the situation.

“Please, Mrs. Sanchez,” Ali said. “You don’t want to do this. Right now we can still fix it. If it goes on longer, or if the police have to be involved, it will be a far more serious situation. You could be charged
with custodial interference or even kidnapping. I’m sure you don’t want that.”

“You have no idea of what I want,” Olga said. “And this is none of your business. You shouldn’t have come.”

“Where are the girls?”

“They’re not here,” Olga said. “By the time you find them, it’ll be too late.”

Ali’s heart gave a lurch. “What do you mean too late?”

“I gave them a little something in their ice cream,” Olga said. “They’re sleeping.”

Ali was aghast. “You poisoned them?” she demanded.

“Not poison. Just a little something to help them sleep. I didn’t want to frighten them.”

“You gave them a sedative?” Ali asked. “What if you gave them too much? What if they die?”

“Then Teresa and I would be even, wouldn’t we?” Olga said. “I lost my child. It’s only fair that Teresa should lose hers. If I could have taken her new baby, too, I would have.”

Ali’s heartbeat ramped up. If the girls had been given an overdose of some medication, they might already be dead. She had to do something, and she had to do it fast, but for right now she needed to stay calm and keep the conversation going.

“You hate Teresa that much?” Ali asked.

Olga shrugged. “Danny’s dead. Jose is alive. What’s fair about that?”

That was when it all shifted into focus. Wasn’t that what Jose had told Ali when she asked him about the shooting—that the woman who had shot him had been driving a Buick? But she remembered clearly that he had said she wasn’t anyone he recognized.

“Have you even met Jose Reyes?” Ali asked.

Olga smiled. “I don’t have to meet the man to know all about him or to hate his guts. He stepped into Danny’s place and took over. He claimed to be everything Danny wasn’t—a real goody-goody, but his squeaky-clean reputation should be crap about now. He may be alive, but I’ll bet he won’t be a cop much longer.”

As far as Ali was concerned, those words explained everything, including the vandalism at Teresa and Jose’s house, where the least amount of damage had been done to the room shared by Lucy and
Carinda. Now the very lives of those two little girls hung by a thread, and Ali Reynolds was it. Everyone had been only too ready to assume that Christine Tewksbury was the crazy one, but standing in that dimly lit living room, Ali came face-to-face with the idea that Olga Sanchez was beyond deranged.

Ali’s cell phone chirped in her pocket. Though she hoped the caller was Teresa, she made no attempt to answer. Teresa had known where she was going. Maybe, if there was no answer, she would figure out there was a problem and summon help.

“You’re taking a trip?” Ali asked, changing the subject.

Olga nodded. “One of Danny’s friends keep a plane at Ryan Field. I’m supposed to meet him there in a little over an hour. He’s going to fly me over the border into Mexico. Maybe you’d like to give me a ride there.”

“To the airport?”

Olga nodded again.

Ali feared that an hour would be too long. Would the girls survive if they didn’t receive medical attention? Her cell phone buzzed, letting her know someone had left a message. Again she ignored it.

“You’ve been planning this for a long time, haven’t you?” Ali said.

Olga nodded again. “Yes. It’s taken almost a year to put it together, and the only thing that went wrong is that Jose didn’t die.”

Ali had noticed the hint of perfume wafting out of the house when Olga first opened the door. Another set of dots clicked together. The perfume Christine had mentioned in the Tewksbury house that morning.

“Jose didn’t die, but Phil did,” Ali said.

Olga’s eyes glittered in the lamplight. “Phil who?” she asked.

The eyes had given it away. “You know,” Ali said. “Your good pal Phil Tewksbury—aka Popeye—the guy who had his head smashed in with a baseball bat early this morning. Patty Patton found some of the letters you wrote to him. He had them stashed in his desk at work.”

“How did she find out about it? Did Oscar tell her? Did Phil?”

“Christine Tewksbury is the one who told us about you, Ollie,” Ali said. “But if your husband knows, too, it’s pretty much all over for you, isn’t it?”

This time Olga changed the subject abruptly. “We need to go,” she said. She stepped over to the window and lifted the blind outside. “It’s
dark enough that the neighbors won’t notice. We’ll take your car. You can carry the luggage. We’ll have to make two trips.”

“Three, I think,” Ali corrected. “I don’t think I can handle more than one of those at a time.”

All through this conversation, Olga had kept the .38 trained on Ali. By now, Ali guessed, Olga’s wrist and grip were probably tiring. Once they were in the Cayenne, Ali thought she might risk a slow-speed crash into a fire hydrant. The explosive deployment of the airbags would most likely be enough to knock the weapon out of Olga’s hand. But would Ali be unaffected enough to take advantage of it? She had to be. Since Olga had just confessed to two murders, she wasn’t going to let Ali walk away once they reached Ryan Field, wherever that was. No, Ali would have to do something about it before they reached what could otherwise be her final destination.

Ali’s phone rang again. “I should answer that,” she said.

“No,” Olga said. “Leave it alone. Better yet, shut it off. I’m tired of the damned thing ringing every two minutes.”

Ali reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and made a show of turning it off. When she returned the phone to her jacket pocket, she thumbed open the trigger guard on her Taser. Her best bet would be to take Olga down with that before they ever got in the car. To that end, she decided to feign complete compliance.

“Which bag goes first?” Ali asked.

“That one,” Olga said, pointing to the larger one nearest the door. “Open the door and lead the way. If you try to pull anything, I promise I will shoot you.”

Ali knew that wasn’t an idle threat. The moment she opened the door, however, she heard the wail of approaching sirens. Olga heard them, too. There were several nearby major cross streets. It was possible the sirens were headed somewhere else. Ali hoped they weren’t.

“Back inside,” Olga barked. “Now. You sit on the couch.”

Ali let go of the suitcase, walked over to the couch, and sat. Olga edged to the window again and peered out through the slats of the closed blind. Even with the blinds closed, Ali could see the pulsing blue flashes from at least one arriving patrol car.

“Crap,” Olga said. “They’re already here.”

With Olga’s attention focused on what was happening outside, Ali
had managed to ease her Taser out of her pocket, but she left it lying in her lap, out of sight under her hand.

There was a sharp rap on the door. “Police,” an officer said. “Open up.”

“They’ve got you, Olga,” Ali said. “Give it up. Just tell me where the girls are.”

For an answer, Olga Sanchez dropped the slat of blind and turned back to Ali. In one fluid motion, she raised the gun to her own head and fired. As Olga tumbled to the floor, the front door burst open. Weapon drawn, a uniformed patrol officer bounded into the room. He stopped just inside the doorway and took in the whole scene. He looked first at the fallen woman and then at Ali. “Are you Ali Reynolds?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Ali held up her Taser with two fingers. “I was going to Tase her, but I didn’t have a chance. And I’ve got a Glock 17 in a back holster. What about that?”

“I’ll need to take those for the time being,” the officer said. Once Ali complied, he walked over to Olga, reached down, and felt for a pulse. After a moment, he shook his head. “She’s gone. What about the little girls? We were told there should be a pair of little girls here as well.”

Ali stood up. “She wouldn’t tell me where they are. She evidently gave them some kind of sedative before I got here.”

“You haven’t seen them?”

“Not so far.”

“We’d better see if we can find them,” the officer said.

Ali started toward the room that had to be the kitchen with the cop on her heels.

On the kitchen counter, Ali found an almost empty container of pralines-and-cream ice cream. In the sink, there were two dessert dishes and two teaspoons, as well as an ice cream dipper.

“Don’t touch anything,” the cop cautioned.

“I’m not,” Ali said. “But if Olga brought the girls here for their ice cream, they must be here somewhere. They didn’t have that much of a head start on me.”

Room by room, Ali and the uniformed officer went through the entire house—kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, and utility room—without finding any sign of the girls. None. Ali had let herself out through the back door and was wondering where else to look when she saw the Buick that Olga had been prepared to leave parked in the driveway while she flew off to Mexico.

By then the cop had gone back inside to deal with the arrival of a slew of other officers. Ali tried the driver’s door. It was locked. She could have gone inside and searched for the key, but she didn’t. Instead, she ventured far enough into the xeriscaped yard to pick up a fist-size hunk of river rock, which she flung through the driver’s-side window.

A young uniformed cop who had been left out on the street to keep an eye on the scene came racing up to her. “Hey, lady,” he demanded. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Ali had already unlocked the door, pulled it open, and hit the trunk release. By the time the officer reached her, Ali was at the back of the vehicle, staring into the trunk. Both girls were there—unconscious and scarily still, but both of them were breathing.

“I need an ambulance!” Ali yelled. “Two of them. Now!”

The young cop skidded to a stop next to her, looked down into the trunk, and reached for his radio.

8:00
P.M
., Monday, April 12
Tucson, Arizona

Eventually, the crowd cleared out. It was a good thing, too. Angel had
been manhandling the polisher for hours, and his shoulders were killing him. As the last of the news crews began gathering up equipment, Angel did the same. He unplugged the polisher and rolled up the cord. Then he went outside and moved his van to an empty spot in the front row of the parking lot. Next he rolled his cart and polisher outside and loaded them into the van. When it was time to leave, he would need to leave in a hurry.

He returned to the corridor as the news crew was leaving and as the mother, finished with her interview ordeal, disappeared into her daughter’s room. She came out a minute or so later and headed for the lobby.

Angel was relieved to see her go. That meant there was only the girl and the elderly nurse left. He took a seat in the waiting room, sat down, and waited, all the while wondering how long it would take. Under five minutes later, the nurse emerged. She paused in the doorway, looked around, and then headed for the nurses’ station.

Angel knew he had moments to make this work. As soon as her back was turned, he darted into the room, easing the loaded syringe out of his pocket as he went. He was all the way inside the darkened room and reaching for the form on the bed when the charge from a Taser knocked him senseless.

Someone might have told him to drop it, but Angel couldn’t be sure. When he came back around, the Taser dart was stuck to his chest and his arms were secured by a pair of handcuffs.

“I don’t know who you are,” a woman’s voice said, “but you’re under arrest. What’s in the syringe?”

“What syringe?” Angel said. “I don’t have any syringe.”