Her iPhone was the last item he handed to her. “It took a while to find the phone,” he said. “It had fallen out into the snow. It got wet, but I hope it’s all right.”

  Ali tapped the button to switch it on. To her immense relief, the device lit right up. She wanted to call B. and let him know what had happened and that she was all right, but if he was dealing with some kind of major Internet crisis, he didn’t need to hear that she’d been involved in a minor motor vehicle accident. The question of calling him was suddenly rendered moot by the arrival of emergency vehicles with pulsing red lights. A uniformed patrol officer opened the Volvo’s door and then stood there, shining the beam of a flashlight in her eyes. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she answered. “Just a little shaken up is all. Shaken up but lucky.”

  “Mind telling me what happened here, miss?”

  “I was driving along when an approaching vehicle veered into my lane,” she explained. “When I tried to get out of his way, I overcorrected and crashed.”

  “You were in that one, then?” he asked, nodding toward the wrecked Land Rover.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s a rental. I picked it up in London when I flew in from the States.” Putting the phone away, Ali fumbled with the rental agreement as she spoke, but the cop seemed less than interested in it.

  “This wrong-way driver—what kind of vehicle was he in?”

  “I don’t know. It happened too fast, and it was snowing like crazy. All I saw was a pair of headlights coming straight at me.”

  “How exactly did you come to be sitting in this one?” he asked, tapping the roof of the Volvo.

  “The driver must have been right behind me when it happened. He saw the whole thing, but he didn’t see what kind of car almost hit me. He was the one who helped me out of the Land Rover, and he let me sit here while he went back to get my stuff for me.”

  “Any idea where this Good Samaritan is at the moment?” the cop asked. He peered around at the snowy landscape before finally accepting Ali’s proffered paperwork.

  “He was right here a minute ago,” she answered. “The last thing he did was hand me my phone. He must be here somewhere.”

  “You have no idea who he is?”

  “No, none at all. I never saw him before. He was right behind me when it happened, and he stopped to help.”

  “Strange,” the cop said.

  “What do you mean ‘strange’?” Ali asked. “Isn’t that what most people would do—stop to help?”

  “Most people,” the cop said. “But not most car thieves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This Volvo was reported stolen from a car park in Oxford earlier this afternoon.”

  An EMT appeared behind the officer. “Sorry it took so long,” she said. “The roads are a nightmare tonight.”

  The officer ceded his place beside the car, and the medic took over. In a matter of minutes the medic pronounced Ali fit. What followed were three hours of dealing with official matters, including filling out and signing countless forms, then contacting the rental company to get the right towing company to collect the wreckage. She still hadn’t managed to place a call to B. Instead, when she called the hotel to let Leland know that she’d been delayed, he took it upon himself to notify B. The tow truck driver was dropping her off at the hotel when B., none too happy, called her. “You should have called me first,” he grumbled.

  She laughed at that, which made her chest hurt. There were evidently more bruises than just the one on her collarbone.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re in Zurich dealing with the world’s Internet problems. What could you do about me being run off the road?”

  “I could at least worry,” B. said. “Tell me what happened.”

  She sat downstairs in the hotel lobby long enough to tell him.

  “So the Volvo was stolen from Oxford where you were earlier, but they never found the Good Samaritan car thief?” B. asked when she’d finished.

  “Never. He seemingly disappeared into thin air.”

  “The cop is right,” B. said. “An ordinary car thief wouldn’t have stopped to help anyone.”

  “Are you saying I was deliberately targeted?”

  “Maybe,” B. replied.

  “But why? By whom?”

  “My guess is this has something to do with the Lance Tucker situation, unless your messing around in the cold case there in Bournemouth has raised someone’s hackles.”

  “That’s not possible,” Ali said. “I’m looking into a murder that happened sixty-odd years ago. The two most likely suspects, Leland’s brothers, are both dead.”

  “Are you still on the good side of that lady detective in Bournemouth?” B. asked.

  “As far as I know,” Ali said. “And I hit it off with Marjorie’s childhood friend, Kate Benchley, in a big way. Why?”

  “Get back to her and see what she can tell you about this stolen Volvo: where it was stolen and when.”

  “All right,” Ali said. “I’ll get in touch with her first thing in the morning.”

  She looked up in time to see Leland Brooks step out of the elevator. He was wearing a coat, scarf, and gloves and looked ready to brave the weather.

  “There you are,” he said. “I was about to hire a taxi and come looking for you.”

  “Is that Leland?” B. asked.

  “Yes, and he looks like he’s ready to do battle for me again.”

  “Great,” B. said. “Have him take you into the bar and buy you a hot toddy. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ali said, laughing again and enjoying the fact that her phone conversation with B., which dealt with serious issues, had begun and ended with laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Leland wanted to know.

  She ended the call and then stood up to hug Leland. “The men in my life,” she said. “They’re all busy looking after me. B. thinks you should take me into the bar and order me a stiff drink.”

  “I’ll be happy to do so,” Leland said with a dignified bow, “but it might be helpful, madam, if you’d consider living in a fashion that doesn’t require quite so much looking after.”

  Once inside the wood-paneled bar, they settled on a corner table. Leland ordered a Guinness while Ali had a Scotch on the rocks. She had yet to learn to drink her Scotch neat and doubted she ever would.

  She had to repeat the story for Leland’s benefit. He listened to every word with concern lining his face.

  “Luckily, I signed on for all the insurance options. That means Hertz is arranging for another car from the local branch to be delivered to the hotel in the morning. Unfortunately, they don’t have a Land Rover available. Not that having four-wheel drive did me any good when that guy ran me off the road.”

  “You’re sure it was a guy?” Leland asked.

  Ali shrugged. “Sorry,” she said. “I just assumed it was a guy. Probably someone who’d had one too many and was trying to get home from the pub. B. is under the impression that it may turn out to be some kind of deliberate attack, but since he spends all his time battling conspiracies of one kind or another, he may be jumping to conclusions.”

  Leland observed with a frown, “But the guy who tried to run you off the road was coming from the other direction.”

  “And the one who helped me was driving a stolen vehicle. He had left the scene without a trace by the time the cops got there.”

  “It was snowing,” Leland said. “Wouldn’t he have left footprints if nothing else?”

  “There were first responders there along with the tow truck driver. I’m sure there were plenty of footprints, so maybe they couldn’t sort out his. Or else he called someone to pick him up, and in all the confusion, no one noticed. I told B. that I’ll check with Inspector Elkins tomorrow and see if she can tell us anything about the stolen Volvo.”

  Nodding, as if that settled the subject, Leland leaned back in his chair. “What did you learn about the DNA testing?” he asked. It was typical of Leland that he would wait to address his own concerns until after he had ascertained that Ali was all right.

  “Kate Benchley handed our samples over to her best technician,” Ali said. “They’re so degraded that there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to develop a profile.”

  “How long before we hear?”

  “I wasn’t given a timetable, but Donna, the technician, said she’d get right on it.”

  An elderly gentleman, leaning on a cane, appeared in the doorway of the bar. For a moment, he stood peering around the room. Ali noticed that once his eyes settled on their corner table, he squared his shoulders and came purposefully in their direction. Before Ali had a chance to connect the dots in her head, or give Leland a word of warning, the man was standing beside them.

  “Good evening,” he said to Leland. “I believe the applicable American phrase is ‘long time no see.’ ” He turned to Ali. “How do you do. My name is Thomas Blackfield. Lee and I were friends once a long time ago. Do you mind if I join you?”

  Struggling to master her surprise, Ali did her best to be gracious. “Please do,” she said.

  With a combination of consternation and astonishment on his face, Leland rose to his feet. Thomas held out his hand. Leland hesitated before he returned the gesture and the two men shook.

  “Please sit,” Thomas said. “We’re too old to be jumping up and down like a pair of broken jack-in-the-boxes.”

  Once they had taken their seats, Thomas turned to Ali. “I presume you would be the lovely Ms. Reynolds whom Daisy Phipps told me about?”

  “I’m not sure what my cousin may have told you, but Ms. Reynolds is my employer,” Leland said shortly. There was nothing at all welcoming in his demeanor.

  The barmaid showed up. Thomas ordered a glass of chardonnay before he spoke again. “Daisy called and reported that you were in town,” he said. “I hoped you would call me, but since you didn’t, I decided to take the bull by the horns, as it were, and here I am. How long has it been?”

  “Almost sixty years,” Leland said. His voice was tight.

  “Did you ever marry?” Thomas asked. “Daisy implied that you had.”

  “My marital history is none of Daisy Phipps’s business,” Leland said, “and it’s none of yours, either, but no, I did not. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll go up to my room.”

  With that, Leland stood and left the room. Thomas watched him go, shaking his head. “I had hoped that after all this time, we’d be able to put the past behind us and be friends,” he said regretfully. “Lee wrote to me after he left town, you know, but I returned his letters unopened. I’m very sorry about that now. I tried writing back to him much later, but my letters came back unopened as well, and I couldn’t very well go to his family asking for information.”

  “He’s not exactly himself at the moment,” Ali said. “He’s had a few shocks to the system since we’ve been here.”

  “What kind of shocks?” Thomas asked.

  You for one, Ali thought. On the one hand she didn’t want to betray any of Leland’s confidences. On the other hand, Thomas, Maisie, and Daisy were the only people still standing who had been around at the time of Jonah Brooks’s death. Since Leland had charged Ali with getting to the bottom of it, this might be her only chance to ask questions.

  “Leland knew that his father had died,” Ali said, “but until this week, no one had ever specified that he was murdered.”

  “What did they tell him?”

  “That Jonah Brooks was dead, that Leland had been disowned, and that his mother wanted nothing to do with him ever again.”

  “I suppose Langston told him all that?” Thomas asked.

  Ali nodded, “And Leland took Langston at his word.”

  “He shouldn’t have,” Thomas said. “Langston was a liar. He was always a liar. I tried to tell Mr. Brooks as much at the time, and I thought he believed me. He said he did, but nothing came of it because he died before he could do anything about it.”

  “You thought he believed you about what?” Ali asked.

  “That Langston was slandering Leland. I told him there was no way Lee would have betrayed his country. As soon as I got out of hospital and was able to get around on my own, I made it a point to see Mr. Brooks at the print shop here in town to tell him so.”

  “You were in the hospital?” Ali asked. “Why?”

  “Because Langston came by my house and beat me up,” Thomas said. “He knocked out a couple of teeth and then kicked me while I was down. My knee hasn’t been quite right ever since. Put an end to my cricket days, Langston did.”

  “Did you report the attack to the police?”

  Thomas shook his head. “You know about Lee and me? The truth, I mean?”

  “I know that you were attracted to each other.”

  “That’s a diplomatic way of putting it, but that’s what it was. We were very young. I think it was the first real romance for either of us. These days they’d call what Langston did to me ‘gay bashing.’ They might even refer to it as a hate crime, but back then it was business as usual. If it had been reported to the police, chances are I’d have been laughed out of the police station. Or worse, one of the coppers might well have taken a swing at me, too.”

  “When was this?” Ali asked.

  “The beating? Right after Lee left town. Days after. It was a couple of weeks later when I was up and able to start teaching when I got wind of what Langston and that high-placed pal of his were saying about Lee behind his back. I heard rumors that Mr. Brooks was considering disowning Leland, if he hadn’t already done so.

  “I was offended by that. I was still on crutches, and I didn’t have my own car, but I wanted Mr. Brooks to know the truth. My mother drove me to the print shop. I gave her the excuse that I was thinking about ordering some engraved stationery.” He paused and smiled grimly. “My mother was a sweet woman, you see,” he added. “She was also incredibly naive. She bought my story in its entirety, just like she believed my telling her that I broke my leg when I fell down the stairs.”

  “Did you tell Mr. Brooks about the beating?”

  Thomas pursed his lips. “No,” he said. “I didn’t, and I didn’t tell him about Lee and me, either. I said that Lee and I were friends and that he would never betray anyone, much less his country.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “He seemed to. It sounded like he had some idea that Langston was up to no good.”

  “At the time you saw him, did Jonah say anything to you about changing the will?”

  “No, not in so many words. What he did say was that he would get to the bottom of it and that he’d do the right thing. The next thing I heard, he was dead. If he intended to change his will, I have to assume he never got the chance.”

  “When Jonah was murdered, did you go to the police with any of this?”

  “No. They focused on the car-thief angle, and that’s where the investigation stayed. If there were any other suspects, that information was never made public.”

  “It might have if you had come forward.”

  Thomas nodded. “If I weren’t a coward, you mean.”

  “I never said that,” Ali objected.

  “You didn’t have to,” he replied with a tight-lipped smile. “I’ve said it to myself often enough. Had I come forward it would have complicated my own life. Leland was gone. We were clearly over. Mr. Brooks was dead. I couldn’t see any point in endangering my whole future by mucking about in all the mess, so I didn’t. I stayed away and left the police to sort things out as best they could. Besides, I’d already met Linda by then.”

  “Linda?” Ali asked.

  “My late wife,” Thomas explained. “Linda and I were first-year teachers together, and we hit it off right away. I thought that if Langston had left any rumors floating about concerning my sexual proclivities, having a good-looking girl on my arm might hush the gossip. That’s the real reason I sent Lee’s letters back unopened. The irony was, Linda was a mirror image of me, using me in the same way I was using her: to camouflage the fact that she was a lesbian.

  “On that score, the two of us were made for each other. We both loved kids and teaching and books and cooking and traveling. For a long time we were just an ordinary couple walking out. After a while people started asking about when we’d get around to marrying. Eventually it simply made sense to tie the knot. We were compatible in every way but in bed, and we each allowed the other to have freedom of action on that score with a safe haven to come home to afterward. We were married for over fifty years.”

  “I know,” Ali said quietly. “That was one of the shocks that hit Leland this week. I forget which one mentioned it, Maisie or Daisy. When he heard that you had been married for such a long time, I believe he assumed he was mistaken about what the two of you had together.”

  “Oh, no,” Thomas said. “That was entirely real, but given the times, it was also impossible.” He finished his wine, looked around for the barmaid, and reached for his wallet.

  “Don’t worry about the bill,” Ali said, waving him away. “I’m going to charge it to my room.”

  As she watched Thomas limp back out through the bar and into the lobby, what Ali Reynolds felt in that moment, more than anything, was a seething hatred toward a long-dead bully named Langston Brooks.

  LeAnne had thought the days at the hospital were endless before they brought Lance out of his drug-induced coma, but this day with him awake was by far the worst. Medication did only so much to relieve his pain. Changing the dressings on the burns was pure agony for Lance, and when he screamed about the pain in his legs, it broke his mother’s heart for two reasons: because he was in pain and because there was only one leg left.

  Nevertheless, she refused to leave her son’s side for anything other than the time it took to visit the restroom down the hall; visitors’ use of the facilities in patients’ rooms was frowned upon. Glued to her son’s bedside, LeAnne’s thoughts strayed back and forth between two unwelcome topics: She distinctly remembered reading a newspaper report about a phony nurse who had made her way through a hospital somewhere—Seattle maybe?—stealing pain meds from patients’ IV trees. Then there was the fact that Lowell Dunn was dead.