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.

54.

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."

The nurse came back then, too. She was smiling and talking on a telephone. "It worked like a charm, Bishop Gillespie. We got him!"

The nurse seemed to think this was funny. Angel Moreno did not, because he knew he was a dead man. If the cops didn't kill him, Humberto Laos sure as hell would.

55.

9:00 P.M., Monday, April 12

Tucson, Arizona

When the ambulance got to Olga's house on Longfellow, it practically took an act of Congress to get the EMTs to agree to take Lucy and Carinda to Physicians Medical instead of Diamond Children's Hospital. The point was, with the rest of the family at PMC, it made no sense to send the girls anywhere else.

Crime scene investigators had found an empty prescription bottle for Ambien in the trash in Olga's kitchen, so the medical personnel had a fairly good idea what the girls had been given. When the ambulances pulled out, Carinda's was in the lead. Ali had picked up enough information from the EMTs to understand that for some reason, the younger child was considered to be in more critical condition.

Ali managed to hold it together until both ambulances pulled away. Then she dropped into the passenger seat of the Cayenne, covered her face with her hands, and wept. That was where she was when the Tucson PD Homicide detective Adrian Howard came looking for her. They were partway through the interview when Ali's phone rang.

Both calls that had come in during the confrontation with Olga had been from Teresa. Ali answered this one fearing that one or the other of the girls hadn't made it, but when she checked caller ID, it wasn't Teresa's number.

"Ms. Reynolds?" a male voice asked. "This is Sheriff Renteria calling. I came back to Patty Patton's home in Patagonia. She gave me your number and asked me to let you know that we've had a disturbing evening out here. Oscar Sanchez has been murdered, and we have a BOLO out on his wife. Patty wanted me to call and warn you in case Olga turns up there."

"Thanks for the warning, but it's a little late," Ali told him. "And you can rescind that BOLO. Olga Sanchez committed suicide at her home in Tucson about an hour ago. She kidnapped her own granddaughters and was holding me at gunpoint. When the cops showed up outside, she put a bullet through her head. I'm in the process of giving a statement. Before she died, she took responsibility for shooting Jose Reyes and for murdering Phil Tewksbury."

"She confessed to shooting Jose?" Renteria asked.

"Yes. I have no idea why she murdered Phil Tewksbury," Ali said.

"I think I do," Renteria said. "She was setting him up to take the blame for the Reyes shooting."

"According to her," Ali continued, "the only thing that went wrong with the execution of her plan was that Jose didn't die, but that wasn't quite true. Somehow or other, Oscar must have found out about Olga's relationship with Phil Tewksbury. She thought Oscar was the one who told us about the relationship when it was really Christine."

"So Oscar either found out or figured it out on his own," Renteria said.

"I don't know which," Ali said. "I don't think Olga knew, either."

"Whichever it was, it sent her completely around the bend," Renteria said.

"There's something else," Ali added. "She didn't come right out and say as much, but I'm pretty sure she's responsible for the vandalism at Jose and Teresa's house. I wouldn't be surprised if the crime lab doesn't find trace evidence from that on the soles of her shoes. Boots, rather. She was wearing cowboy boots, not shoes."

The sheriff sighed. "I can see now why Oscar is dead. He was a good man and a proud one. He wouldn't have taken that kind of thing lying down. Having a wife messing around behind his back? He would have had to do something. If I'd been him, I would have filed for divorce. I'm assuming Olga had no intention of sticking around to face the music."

"That's right. She had a pilot all lined up to fly her out of town tonight," Ali said. "She had three packed suitcases. Two of them were filled with clothing. The third one was filled with cash, so she was going somewhere-Mexico is what she told me-and she wasn't coming back. Two detectives from Tucson PD are out at Ryan Field right now, looking for the pilot. He's supposedly one of Olga's son's pals."

"Figures," Renteria said. "Danny didn't run in the best circles. But did I understand you to say that Olga kidnapped Teresa's daughters, her own granddaughters?"

"And gave them an overdose of Ambien with their ice cream. They're both in the hospital. I haven't heard anything new on their condition. And the homicide detective is still waiting to finish the interview. I'd better get back to him."

"If you don't mind," Renteria said, "you might want to put him on the line. Sounds like we'll need to get together with him and Lieutenant Lattimore first thing tomorrow morning and see if we can pull all these pieces together."

Detective Howard was on the phone with Renteria for several long minutes. When he relinquished it, he said to Ali, "I think you had a couple of calls that came in while I was using your phone."

When the interview ended and Ali was leaving to go back to the hospital, she was finally able to check her phone. The actual number of missed calls turned out to be two-one from Sister Anselm and one from Stuart Ramey. She called Sister Anselm first.

"I thought you'd want to know that Lucy and Carinda are both in the ICU," Sister Anselm said. "Teresa told me that they're both still in critical condition. If you hadn't found them when you did, it's likely neither one of them would have made it."

"Thank God," Ali said.

"Yes." Sister Anselm chuckled. "With a capital G. But how are you?"

"A little shaky," Ali admitted. "Watching someone blow her brains out right in front of you comes as a bit of a shock to the system. If I had used the Taser, I might have saved her life."