J.A. Jance - Hand of Evil

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2007 by J.A. Jance

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jance, Judith A.
Hand of evil : a novel of suspense / by J.A. Jance.
p. cm.
A Touchstone Book.
1. Reynolds, Ali (Fictitious character)Fiction. 2. ArizonaFiction.
3. Suspense fiction. I. Title.
PS3560.A44H36 2007
813'.54dc22 2007016986

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5460-8
ISBN-10: 1-4165-5460-2

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W hen the car door slammed shut on his hand, the universe came to a stop and nothing else mattered. Nothing. He dropped to his knees, howling in agony while a nearby coyote, startled by the sound, responded with a howl of its own. Rigid with pain, at first he couldnt even reach for the door handle. By the time he did, it was too late. The door lock inside the vehicle had already clicked home.

Please, he begged. For Gods sake, open the door.

But the answer to that was noan unequivocal no. The engine turned over and the car began to move.

You cant do this, he screamed. You cant!

By then the pavement was moving beneath him, slowly at first, then faster and faster. He held out his other hand, trying to brace himself or somehow pull himself back to his feet. For a moment that almost worked and he was close to upright, but then the speed of the car outdistanced his scrambling feet and he fell again, facedown this time, with the full weight of his body pulling on the exploding pain in his fingers.

As the speed of the vehicle increased, so did his agonized screams. The parking lots layer of loose gravel scraped and tore at him, shredding his blue-and-white jogging suit; shredding his skin. By the time the hurtling car bounced over the first speed bump, he was no longer screaming. Plowing face-first into the second one momentarily knocked him unconscious.

He came to when the car door opened. Once his trapped hand was released from the door frame, he fell to the ground. He couldnt actually see the car or even the ground for that matter. He seemed to have been struck blind. Nor could he differentiate the pain in his crippled hand from the agony in the rest of his tortured body, but his ears still worked. He heard the car door slam shut again and felt the spray of gravel from the tires as it drove away into the night, leaving him in absolute darkness.

He lay there for a long time, knowing he was barely alive and feeling his lifes blood seeping out through layers of damaged skin. He tried crawling, but he couldnt make that work.

Help, he called weakly. Somebody, please help me.

In the wilds of Phoenixs South Mountain Preserve, only a single prowling coyote heard the dying mans final whispered plea for help. The coyote was on the trail of his dinneran elusive bunnyand he paid no attention.

No one else did, either.

Sybil Harriman strode through the early morning chill and reveled in the sunlight and the clear crisp air. Across the valley, she could see the layer of smog settling in over the rest of the city, but here it was cold and clearcold enough to see her breath and make her nose run and her eyes water, but not cold enough to scare her away from walking the full course of the parks Alta Trail and back to the parking lot along the Bajada.

She had been warned that Alta was too difficult for someone her age, and that she certainly shouldnt walk it alone. So she did so, at least twice a week. Because she could. And as she walked along, huffing and puffing a little, truth be known, she was also drinking in the view and the cactus and the birdsbirds so different from the ones shed grown up with back in Chicagoand she was also thinking about how wrong shed been and wishing things had been different.

Herman had wanted to move here the moment he retired from working for Merck. She was the one who had fought it, saying they should stay where they were in order to be closer to the kids and grandkids, although a lot of good that had done. Finally, when Herms arthritis had gotten so bad that he could barely walk, she had relented. Now she was sorry they hadnt come sooner, while Herman would have been able to reap some of the benefits of desert living.

His arthritis had improved so much once they were in Arizona it was unbelievable, but then the rest of it had happened. The dry climate could do nothing at all to stave off the ravages and gradual decline that was Alzheimers. As for the kids? Once Herm died, it had been plain enough that what they wanted more than anything was to get their greedy little hands on their fathers money. Well, thanks to the trust Herm had wisely insisted on setting up, they werent getting any of that, not until Sybil was damned good and ready. And that was another reason she walked every single day. She was determined to live as long and as well as she could.

Let em wait, she told herself fiercely as she marched along. They can wait until hell freezes over.

When she returned to Chicago for Herms funeral, her friends there hardly recognized her. They thought she had dropped the excess weight she had carried all those years in a fit of sudden grief. In actual fact, the process had been much less abrupt than thatand much more permanent. She had started by walking four miles each day on the flat but circular streets in their Awatukee neighborhood. Later she had forced herself up and down the steeper grades and gradually more and more difficult trails throughout South Mountain Preserve.

Sybil was one of the early birds this crisp January morning. She had seen not a soul on her morning walkat least no other humansin the course of her almost three solitary hours. There had been plenty of bunnies, however, and scads of other early birdsdoves, quail, skittish roadrunners, breakfasting cactus wrens, finches, colorful hummingbirds, hawks, and even an ebony-feathered, red-eyed phainopepla. Now, as she approached the spot where the trail crossed San Juan Road, it was close to midmorning and the sun was high.