Snakes and Ladders Read online

  “That’s right.” Philip held her gaze. “And I think the same is true for you.”

  “You mean I don’t need to have any more sessions?”

  “Truth be told, I think you probably didn’t need any sessions. Much as I’d like to think otherwise, I don’t think our sessions were what enabled you to keep yourself calm after being bitten by the rattlesnake—that was the yoga. And you didn’t need sessions with me to keep from squeezing the man on the trail when he made you angry. The reason you didn’t squeeze him is because you’re a good person and you realized—or at least thought at the time, completely reasonably—that he was someone who was trying to help you. Don’t get me wrong—I think our sessions were useful, but in a different way. I think they gave you someone to talk to who wasn’t all wound up right along with you in the problems you were trying to solve. And who gave you some ideas for other ways you could think about your ability.”

  “Like a ladder and not a snake,” said Lizzy.

  “That’s right.”

  Lizzy looked down at her hands, running the edge of the hospital blanket back and forth through her fingers. “So, you think I’m … fixed?”

  He smiled. “‘Fixed’ is not the word I’d use, because it implies you were broken before. But I think you have everything you need within yourself to solve your problems.”

  “Even when people are coming after me with poisonous snakes?” she asked, a bit angrily.

  He sat back. “That’s a different kind of problem, and anyone with that kind of problem can use all the help they can get. I’m thinking more of the problem you first came to see me about—the issue of self-control. I think only you will be able to decide how much self-control factors into your situation and, maybe more importantly, what you want to do with that control.”

  They sat in silence for half a minute. Finally Lizzy said, “In The Wizard of Oz, isn’t there something about a person’s own backyard?”

  “‘If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again,’” quoted Philip, “‘I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.’”

  “Maybe that’s a message that Uncle Owen and I need to be getting back to Pennsylvania,” she said, some excitement creeping into her voice.

  “Maybe. But I wouldn’t go overboard looking for too many secret messages in a Judy Garland movie.”

  She smiled. “Are you still in touch with Oscar?”

  “He died.”

  Her smile faded.

  “He ran afoul of one of the gangs at Williams,” said Philip. “They wanted him to help them smuggle some drugs in, and he refused. They caught him in the cafeteria. Stabbed him in the stomach.”

  “It sounds like—” she began, then clamped her lips closed.

  “Like your father,” he said.

  She nodded.

  He leaned forward again. “I know what it’s like to lose a father, Lizzy. I lost my biological father to drink, and I lost my true father—Oscar—to a bunch of bullies who thought that a hit of coke was worth an old man’s life.”

  “Is the guy who killed Oscar still in jail?”

  “Yes. Tobe Hanrick. He’ll be there all his life.”

  “Still, he’s alive. And George Millard, if that’s who killed my dad, is still out there. It’s not fair.”

  “Dorothy had her allies to help her learn the things she needed to learn to understand the meaning of the Ruby Slippers, and I hope I helped you with that. They also helped her take care of the Wicked Witch, and I think I can help with that, too. We haven’t seen the last of each other, Lizzy Ballard.”

  34

  Millard had planned to retrieve the pail, lid, and rope after the ambulance left with Ballard, but McNally had seemed suspicious and Millard had decided not to hang around when the EMTs arrived.

  He had returned to the Needle a few hours later, but when he got there, there were a couple of earnest-looking student types examining the ground near the Eye and tapping on iPads.

  “Hello, sir,” one of them said. “A hiker was bitten by a rattlesnake here just a short time ago, so please be careful. Watch where you step, and don’t reach your hand into anyplace a rattler might be resting—under rocks or in the brush, for example.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” said Millard.

  He thought he could hang around until they left, but they sat down on a rock and began a spirited debate about the evolutionary history of venom and he had returned to his car. He didn’t fancy going back to the trail again after dark—too great a chance of a plan-wrecking slip or fall. He would collect the pail and rope in the morning. And with Ballard laid up and McNally no doubt thrown off-kilter, he would seize the opportunity to take care of McNally, leaving Ballard with one less ally when she got out of the hospital.

  He weighed his options. Antifreeze in a carton of orange juice? He wasn’t sure if the juice would disguise the taste, and he didn’t fancy having to explain to Mortensen another target who was merely very sick but not dead. A sliced brake line on McNally’s SUV? Not enough curvy, cliff-hugging roads between the hospital and their house to increase the odds of a fatal accident, and too much chance of attention-attracting collateral damage. The best option might be a straightforward scenario of an interrupted home burglary—clear the few valuables out of the house, then shoot McNally when he came through the door. Yes, that seemed like the most reliable plan.

  Now the tracking app showed both McNally and Castillo’s vehicles at the hospital, and Ballard would no doubt be spending at least one night there. Millard headed to the house off Coffee Pot Drive to set the trap for McNally.

  Even though he had swapped out his rental car for a new one earlier in the day to reduce the chances of Ballard and McNally realizing they were being followed, he parked a block away from their house. As he walked back to the house, he glanced in any uncurtained windows he passed. He had always enjoyed the experience of watching people going about their normal routine, unaware of his passing presence.

  The lock on McNally and Ballard’s house was laughably easy to pick, and he relocked the door behind him. He checked the tracking app: neither car had moved from the hospital parking lot. While he waited for McNally’s arrival, he conducted a search of the house, but it was strikingly unproductive. He did find a wad of cash—several hundred dollars—rolled in a sock in McNally’s dresser drawer. Other than a laptop on the kitchen table, the cash was about the only thing of value that a burglar would be able to take with him. He tucked it into his pocket.

  Not only were their belongings not of any resalable value, but they also didn’t give up any secrets. It would have been too much to ask to find a pair of train tickets or a paper map with a route marked on it. But it didn’t matter—pretty soon McNally wouldn’t have to worry about hitting the road.

  Millard checked the tracking app again and saw that McNally’s SUV was on the move. He was gratified to see that Castillo’s truck remained in the hospital parking lot. In a few minutes, he heard the approach of a vehicle. Millard watched the tracking app as the vehicle circled the block, then headlights swept the front of the house and the driver killed the engine. Hidden in the dark interior of the house, he glanced out the front window to see McNally hoist himself out of his SUV, talking on his phone. He unholstered his gun, fitted with a silencer, and stepped into a broom closet just off the kitchen. He couldn’t shoot McNally while he was on the phone, and if he was still talking on the phone when he came in, Millard might learn something valuable before McNally died. He would still have Ballard to deal with, but he was looking forward to reporting to Mortensen that one of their problems had been taken care of.

  35

  Lizzy’s phone buzzed. “Hi, Uncle Owen,” she answered. “I’m putting you on speaker.”

  “Hi, Pumpkin—I just got to the house and everything looks okay.”

  “Is Philip’s landlord there yet?”

  “I don’t see him, and a bald black man in this neig
hborhood would be hard to miss.”

  “Hold tight until he gets there,” said Philip.

  “I drove around the block and didn’t see anything suspicious.”

  “I’m thinking that if it is George Millard,” said Philip, “he probably wouldn’t let you see him.”

  “I’m not totally clueless,” said Owen. There was a pause, then he continued. “It looks fine. I’m going to go in and start packing. I’ll stay on the phone with you and raise the alarm if anything happens.”

  “Owen,” said Philip, “I didn’t mean that you wouldn’t see him, I meant it’s likely no one would see him if Millard is the professional it sounds like he is.”

  “I’m going up the steps,” said Owen.

  “Uncle Owen, wait until Eddie gets there!”

  “I’m opening the front door—still no sign of anything amiss,” Owen narrated.

  “Jesus, Owen, can’t you just wait outside for a couple of minutes?” said Philip.

  Owen continued his color commentary. “I’m going into my bedroom now and getting out the luggage. I’m going to put my phone on speaker and put it in my shirt pocket so I don’t have to try to hold it and pack at the same time. Now I’m taking the clothes out of the dresser … I’m putting the clothes in the suitcase.”

  Lizzy was staring at the phone as if hoping to catch a glimpse of Owen in its screen. Philip stood, glowering, his arms crossed.

  “Wait a minute,” said Owen.

  “What’s happening?” asked Lizzy, her voice rising with anxiety.

  “I had some money in a sock in my drawer, and it’s gone.”

  “Owen, just leave the house and wait outside until Eddie gets there,” said Philip.

  There was no response.

  “Owen?” said Philip.

  “I thought I heard something,” Owen’s lowered voice came over the phone.

  “Uncle Owen, leave now!”

  “Be quiet for a minute.” Then they heard his whisper close to the phone. “There’s someone in the living room.”

  Lizzy switched her wide-eyed stare to Philip. He opened his mouth—no doubt to repeat his advice to Owen to leave the house—but then they both jumped at a yell from the phone.

  “Jesus Christ!” they heard, followed by the clatter of the phone hitting the floor.

  “You Owen?” they heard a deep voice. “I’m Eddie.”

  From the darkness of the broom closet, Millard listened to McNally and the new arrival, Eddie, chat as McNally finished packing. Where were Ballard and McNally picking up all these helpers?

  After Eddie identified himself as Castillo’s landlord, he asked McNally about a tripped burglar alarm, which was news to Millard. Once Eddie had ascertained that there was not only no tripped burglar alarm, but no security system at all, and had vowed to find out what the hell Castillo was talking about, he regaled McNally with stories from his former life as a Phoenix cop.

  Millard had picked the broom closet as his hiding place since it appeared not to have anything personal of McNally or Ballard’s in it, and so might remain unvisited by the house’s occupants—he wanted to pick his own timing for when he confronted McNally. There was a dicey moment when McNally voiced the need for some plastic grocery bags to pack the food into—Millard knew that a container filled with such bags was hanging from a nail near his elbow—but McNally located a supply in the cabinet under the sink.

  Millard listened, stewing, as McNally and Eddie ferried bags and suitcases to the SUV, then listened to the sounds of McNally locking up.

  After another minute, he eased open the door of the broom closet and stepped out. He pulled out his phone and watched as the tracker traced a path back toward the hospital. He could hardly take out McNally there, but it was clear that they were vacating the house, which suggested that they would be leaving Sedona. When they did, he would be right behind them.

  36

  Early the next morning, Millard backed his car into a handicapped space from which he could see the hospital entrance. When Ballard and McNally left the hospital—today or tomorrow, he guessed—he would follow them, assisted by the tracker, and pick the best location to remove them from the picture. Unless Castillo was going to close up shop for a little getaway with his new buddies, they wouldn’t have him looking after them once they left Sedona.

  Millard had been waiting a little less than two hours when McNally appeared at the door—his bulk made him easy to pick out—pushing Ballard in a wheelchair. Two women flanked Ballard, one in a nurse’s uniform, one in a doctor’s coat. McNally and the doctor chatted for a few moments, then she shook his hand and Ballard’s and disappeared back into the hospital. McNally trundled off toward the parking lot, leaving Ballard with the nurse. Millard started the car.

  A few minutes later, McNally pulled up in front of the entrance, and Ballard climbed into the SUV. McNally pulled away as the nurse pushed the wheelchair back into the building.

  Millard put the car in gear and took his foot off the brake. The car didn’t roll the way he expected it to, so he tapped the gas. There was an immediate thump, a god-awful bang from the right rear, and the car ground to a stop.

  He hammered the steering wheel. “Dammit!”

  As McNally’s SUV disappeared around the corner, Millard threw the car into park, got out, and circled to the back of the car.

  A short length of two-by-four was stuck to the tire. Millard looked quickly around the parking lot and, seeing nothing suspicious, bent to examine the board more closely. The heads of four nails were visible in the wood.

  It was clear what had happened—someone had driven four long nails through the wood, then propped the wood, nails up, in front of the tire. And whoever it was must have done it while Millard was sitting in the car. He stood and looked around again, his hand drifting toward the gun in its holster under his arm, but the only movement in the parking lot was a couple, the man’s arms around the woman’s shoulders, her hand holding a tissue to her nose, and an old codger sorting through keys at the door of a PT Cruiser.

  It looked like one of Ballard and McNally’s little helpers had paid him a visit while he waited in the car. And he had a pretty good idea who it was.

  He pulled the phone from his pocket and pulled up the tracking app. McNally’s SUV was tracking west, toward Jerome. The dot representing Castillo’s truck hadn’t moved since he had driven back to the casita from the hospital late the previous evening, although Millard had little faith that Castillo, as well as his truck, was there.

  He took a deep breath. With the tracker on McNally’s SUV, the flat tire was just an inconvenience. He’d catch up with them soon enough.

  He banged open the trunk, continuing to scan the parking lot, and pulled out the spare tire.

  37

  Owen and Lizzy were only a few miles from the hospital when her phone rang.

  “Hey,” she answered. “I’m putting you on speaker so Uncle Owen can hear.”

  “He tried to follow you,” said Philip.

  Owen glanced nervously in the rear view mirror. “Do we need to take … uh … evasive action?”

  “Nope,” said Philip. “He’s not going to be following anyone for a while.”

  “What happened?” asked Lizzy.

  “Flat tire,” Philip said, and laughed. “Real flat.”

  “I take it we have you to thank for that,” said Owen.

  “Yup.”

  “How did you know he was there?” asked Owen.

  “Not having a tracking device of my own, I did it the old-fashioned way—I borrowed a friend’s van and staked out the parking lot. He showed up early this morning.”

  “How early did you get there?” asked Lizzy.

  “Earlier than he did.”

  “That can’t have been fun.”

  “My friend’s van is pretty plush.”

  “Did you get a look at him?” asked Lizzy.

  “I’m looking at him now. He matches your description of the man you encountered on the trail.”


  “You’re still at the hospital?” squawked Lizzy. “Is that safe?”

  “Can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be,” said Philip. “No reason for him to think I’m in this fancy van. And at the moment he seems pretty focused on getting the tire changed.”

  “Thanks for thinking of doing that,” said Owen. “Wish I had thought of it myself,” he added, chagrined.

  “No problem. You have the tracker?”

  Lizzy popped open the glove compartment and pulled out the disc-shaped device. “Yup. Good thing you thought to look for it.”

  “When I found the one on my truck last night, I figured he would for sure have put one on your SUV as well. It’ll take a little while for him to change the tire—I’ll give you a call when he leaves. Just stop at a rest area or a McDonald’s and pop the tracker onto someone else’s car.”

  “Won’t that put them in danger?” asked Lizzy.

  “Can’t imagine it would. He seems like enough of a professional not to knock someone off just because he gets annoyed when he realizes we were on to him.”

  “What about the tracker you found on your truck?”

  “I left it there. He might suspect that I had something to do with the flat tire, but he’d know for sure if I took the tracker off my truck. I’ll leave it there unless I need to go somewhere I don’t want George Millard following me to. Maybe if I need to give him the slip, I’ll stick it on Eddie’s truck.” He laughed again. “Wouldn’t that be a surprise for George.”

  Owen glanced at Lizzy, then back at the road. “Does this change our plans?” he asked of no one in particular.

  “I’d recommend you go on to Phoenix,” said Philip. “You can stay there for a couple of days so Lizzy can rest up, then I think you might as well head back to Pennsylvania. If they’ve tracked you down out here, I don’t see that being there is any more dangerous than being here, and there might be benefits to you being able to keep a closer eye on them yourself.”