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!
CHAPTER 15
Ali should have been pulled over a dozen times between the hotel and the house. She drove at breakneck speeds, passing like a maniac, going through lights that were already turning red. She almost hoped she could provoke an observant traffic cop into following her. Maybe having cops there was a good idea after all, and that was one way to summon some police presence without having to explain her soap opera existence to some emergency operator. But it didn't happen. When Ali finally sped through the broken gate and pulled to a stop in the paved driveway, she was still on her own. Dave hadn't called her back, and she couldn't take the time to call him again.
It's now or never, she told herself.
Before Ali ever stepped out of the car, she considered drawing her Glock but decided against it. Her plan was to try talking first. The Glock would come into play only as a last resort.