08 Deadly Stakes by J A Jance

Author:J A Jance [Jance, J A]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

Ali’s phone had buzzed twice while she was inside the house. Now she sat in the Cayenne and checked her phone. One call was a message from Stuart Ramey, giving her the exact address of Chip Ralston’s Paradise Valley home, which she immediately fed into her GPS. The other call was from B., which Ali returned while the GPS was busy planning her route.

“I’m here,” B. said. “Checked in to the hotel. How are you doing?”

“Busy trying to prove a negative,” Ali said.

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Not very well. So far I haven’t found any obvious connections between Gemma Ralston and the other dead guy, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

Ali was about to put the Cayenne in gear when a sudden movement caught her eye. A.J. appeared in the front yard, emerging from the far side of the house. He paused furtively at the corner, as if checking the front door, then moved purposefully toward the second car, now parked in the carport. Once again he was carrying the book bag slung over his shoulder. He quickly popped open the trunk and placed something inside. Then, removing the book bag, he closed the trunk and returned the way he had come, still moving with apparent caution. Whatever it was he had placed in the trunk, it was something A.J. hadn’t wanted his mother to know about.

“Hey,” B. said. “What happened? Are you still there?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I wonder what that was all about.”

“What was what all about?”

“Something odd,” she said. “I was watching a teenager hiding something in a car that he doesn’t want his mother to find.”

“There’s nothing odd about that at all,” B. said with a laugh. “If it had been me, I would have been hiding my private hoard of Penthouse magazines. I always kept them in the car rather than under the bed. So what’s next on your agenda?”

“Next scheduled stop is Chip Ralston’s mother’s place to talk to his mother and sister. I’m also hoping I’ll be able to chat up a couple of their neighbors.”

“Don’t rush on my account,” B. said. “I’ll be here when you get here.”

Ignoring the GPS’s insistent directions that she retrace her path north on the 51, Ali made her way over to Twenty-fourth and up to Lincoln. Eventually, she found her way to Upper Glen Road, where she was disappointed to find that the Ralstons’ place wasn’t inside a gated community. One of those might have given her some security tapes to review or some rent-a-cops to question about vehicles coming and going on the night in question. When she finally located the right address, it was after dark. It was also clear there wouldn’t be any neighbors to chat up. The Ralstons’ house was at the far end of the road, with a yard that backed up to a looming wall of rocky desert cliffs.

The house seemed noticeably smaller than some of the sprawling mansions Ali had passed along the way, and its small fifties-era

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