Ali recognized the cold journalese of the article. It was impartial. It gave the facts. It said both too much and too little. It did nothing to capture the wonderful resilient character Reenie Bernard had been. It did everything to dismiss her—turning her into a statistic by implying that she had died primarily because she had failed to fasten her seat belt—as if a plunge off Schnebly Hill Road were in any way survivable.

 

Offended, Ali hurried back into the restaurant. She almost ran into Chris who was on his way out, grinning and dangling a set of car keys in one hand.

 

“What gives?” she asked.

 

“Since you’re on your way to Flagstaff, Gramps is lending me his SUV so I can run a few errands,” Chris said. “I’ll see you later tonight, after we finish skiing.”

 

Ali was surprised. Her father had purchased the Bronco new in 1972. He had babied it along for more than thirty years and over 300,000 miles, and he hardly ever relinquished the keys to anyone else. “You must be pretty special,” she said. “Whatever you do don’t wreck it.”

 

Ali went inside and back to her spot next to Dave Holman. By then he had finished his breakfast and was in the process of pulling several dollar bills from his wallet. She dropped the newspaper in front of him.

 

“I don’t care what the newspaper says,” Ali told him, “I still don’t think she committed suicide.”

 

Dave shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just because something’s in the paper doesn’t make it true or false. You of all people should know that.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

 

“Look,” he said. “You’re a journalist. I’m a police officer. That means most likely we’ll never be pals. Let’s just leave it at that.”

 

“Sounds good to me,” she told him.

 

Leaving both his money and the bill on the counter, Dave got up and walked away. Edie Larson came back over to where her daughter was sitting. “More coffee?” she asked.

 

“No, thank you,” Ali said. “Are your customers always that obnoxious?”

 

“Which customers?”

 

“That one,” Ali said, pointing at Dave, who was getting into his vehicle outside.

 

“Dave? He’s a little surly on occasion,” Edie said. “His life hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses lately. Don’t take it personally. What about you? Are you all right? You look awfully pale.”

 

Ali had no desire to discuss the contents of her phone conversation with Paul. And she didn’t want to mention being chewed up and spit out by Dave Holman, either. Instead, Ali shoved the newspaper with its visible headline across the counter to her mother. Edie glanced at it and nodded.

 

“Oh, that,” she said. “I read it this morning while I was waiting for the rolls to rise.”

 

Ali stood up. “I’m going to head on up to Flag,” she said. “I want to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

 

“You do that,” Edie said. “And be sure to let Howie and the kids know that we’re thinking about them.”

 

Back outside, Ali slipped off her coat. The sun was warming the chilly air, and the Cayenne’s heated seats—a laughable accessory in southern California— would keep her more than toasty. Standing there, next to the car, she looked at the mountains on the far side of Sedona. First came the layers of red rock formations standing out against the more distant green. But higher up, much closer to the rim, the landscape was still shaded white with snow. And there, snaking down the side of the mountain, as thin as a gossamer thread from a spider web, was the line that Ali knew to be Schnebly Hill Road. The place where Reenie had died.

 

Shivering, but not from cold, Ali climbed into the Cayenne and turned on the engine—and the heated seat. The she took her MP3 player out of her pocket and scrolled through the playlist.

 

She searched through the index until she found “Tell Me on a Sunday,” one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s less well-known shows, but one Ali had seen on the trip to London with her mother and Aunt Evie.

 

It had been a one-woman show—ninety solid minutes of music masterfully sung by a former BBC television news presenter turned actress—the irony of that similarity wasn’t lost on Ali now. Nor was the similarity in content. The play had consisted of a litany of songs, telling the story of one heartbreaking romantic breakup after another.

 

“And here’s another one,” Ali said aloud as she turned on the music and headed for Flagstaff. There was one song in particular that hit her hard when one of the character’s supposed friends shows up eager to spill the beans about her partner’s latest indiscretion, to which she responds, “I knew before.”

 

But I didn’t, Ali thought. She had assumed that she and Paul had both been working hard on their careers, building something together. With that erroneous assumption now laid to rest, Ali wondered how much else in her life was little more than a mirage—smoke and mirrors and special effects. Unfortunately, she and the lady singing the songs about dashed hopes and dreams had all too much in common.

 

To an outsider it might well seem as though she had made up her mind to call a divorce attorney too hastily in the overwrought and emotionally charged atmosphere of having just heard about April and Charmaine. In actual fact, Ali had been thinking about just such an eventuality for a very long time, and well before her trip to London, which was one of the reasons the musical had affected her so much when she first heard it on stage. And now that it was time for Ali, too, to take action, she was surprised to find herself clearheaded, calm, and focused. She would deal with Paul and with the station’s firing her all in good time, but for the moment she would do what she had said she would do—she would be there for Reenie’s family for as long as needed.

 

The route to Flagstaff up through Oak Creek Canyon was only twenty-nine miles long, but with road crews out in force sanding the icy spots, it took Ali over an hour to arrive at Reenie and Howard Bernard’s unremarkable ranch-style house on Kachina Trail. It was a newer house, with one of those towering front-entry facades that had little to do with the rest of the house and everything to do with needing to use a ladder whenever it was necessary to change the bulb in the porch light.

 

The last time Ali had been to Reenie’s house had been Christmas two years ago. Back then the entire yard had been covered with a layer of new fallen snow and the whole place had been festooned with strings of red and green chili-shaped Christmas lights. There had been lights and decorations everywhere, including a beautifully decked-out ten-foot-tall tree in the middle of the living room window.

 

Ali parked behind a bright red Lexus with Arizona plates. There was snow in the yard this time as well, but it was several days old and turning gray. Near the corner of the front porch an armless, featureless snowman had dwindled away to sad, shapeless lumps. His forlorn appearance seemed a harbinger of what Ali could expect once she entered the house.

 

She was making her way up the icy sidewalk when a snowball flew past her ear and smacked harmlessly into the trunk of a nearby tree. Following the snowball’s trajectory, she went around to the side of the house where she found nine-year-old Matt, bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves, forming another snowball in red, cold-roughened hands.

 

“Truce,” she called when she saw him. “It’s not fair to hit someone who’s unarmed.”

 

Matt dropped the snow in his hands and came toward her. In the past, he would have thrown himself enthusiastically into Ali’s arms. This time he approached her cautiously as if unsure of his welcome. He stopped several feet short of where Ali stood and observed her with a silent but penetrating look. “Did you hear about our Mom?” he asked.

 

Ali nodded. “Yes.” she said. “Yes, I did. Your Aunt Bree called me. That’s why I’m here.”

 

“What did she tell you?” he asked. Seeing the hurt in Matt’s eyes was almost more than Ali could stand. He was only nine—far too young to be carrying around this kind of heartbreak.

 

“She told me your mother died in a car wreck,” Ali said. “That the car she was driving went off Schnebly Hill Road in the middle of a snowstorm.”

 

“Dad said it was an accident,” Matt said after a pause. “But I read the newspaper. It said she probably killed herself. Do you think that’s true? Dad said she was sick—that she was starting to get sick—but she wouldn’t leave us like that, would she? I mean, if she killed herself, does that mean she didn’t love us anymore?”

 

Those were questions Ali could answer with absolute honesty. “I don’t think your mother would leave you on purpose, either,” Ali said. “She wasn’t like that. And of course she loved you, Matt. She loved you very much.”

 

“But if it isn’t true, how can the newspaper say it, then?” Matt asked.

 

By being irresponsible, Ali thought. “We have to let the investigators do their job,” she said. “So should the newspapers.”

 

“But what if Julie finds out?” Matt asked. “What if someone tells her?”

 

“I won’t,” Ali declared. “You don’t have to worry about me. I would never tell Julie anything of the kind.

 

Matt heaved a sigh of relief. He came to her then, leaning his small frame against her and letting Ali comfort him. He was cold, and his hands and feet were soaking wet. “You’re freezing,” she said. “We need to get you inside.”

 

“No,” Matt said. “Aunt Bree’s in there, braiding Julie’s hair. She’s not very good at it, and Julie keeps crying and crying. That’s how come I came outside— to get away. I didn’t want to listen anymore.”

 

“That’s understandable,” Ali said. “Let’s sit in the car, then. It’s warmer in there than it is out here.”

 

Nodding, Matt walked toward the Cayenne. Once inside, Ali had no idea what to say next. The last she had known, Howie Bernard had been soft-pedaling his wife’s disappearance in an effort to protect his children. That ruse wasn’t going to work much longer.

 

“If it wasn’t an accident, and if she didn’t kill herself, maybe it was something worse,” Matt said softly.

 

“What do you mean worse?” Ali asked.

 

“The cops came by a little while ago and took Dad away. What if they arrest him?”

 

“Did they put handcuffs on him?” Ali asked.

 

“No, but they put him in the back of a cop car and everything. What if they think . . .”

 

Ali had uncovered another source for Matt’s pain.

 

“Don’t give that another thought,” Ali said. “I talked to one of the deputies down in Sedona. He said that officers up here would be talking to your father today, but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Just routine questions. That’s what they do when someone dies. They ask questions. They try to find out who last saw the person who’s dead. They want to find out what was going on, whether or not anyone had had a disagreement.”

 

“A disagreement?” Matt asked.

 

“You know,” Ali said. “A quarrel. An argument.”

 

Matt turned his face away from Ali, but not before she caught sight of a single tear coursing down his cheek.

 

“Had there been an argument?” Ali asked.

 

Without answering, Matt shook his head and then angrily swiped the tear away with the back of his hand. Before Ali could ask anything more, there was a sharp rap on the passenger window next to Matt’s head. When Ali looked past him, all that was visible through the steamy glass was a distorted masklike face. As soon as Ali rolled down the window, Bree Cowan’s face came into view, her features distorted by a fit of anger—or worry.

 

“Matthew Edward Bernard, where in the world have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve been calling and calling. I want you inside right this minute!”

 

Obligingly Matthew climbed out of the Porsche. “And you came outside without even so much as putting on a jacket?” Bree continued. “Don’t you think I have enough to deal with right now without your catching cold on top of everything else? Grandpa and Grandma will be here any minute. Now go inside and get into something clean and dry.”

 

Only after he trudged off toward the house did Bree turn to Ali. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” she said. “These kids are driving me nuts. Julie’s been crying her eyes out ever since her father left, and Matt . . . Well, I guess he’s just being Matt.”

 

Ali had never cared for Reenie’s baby sister. She had always seemed brusque and opinionated, and Ali liked her even less that minute.

 

“He’s upset,” Ali said. “And who could blame him?”

 

“Of course he’s upset,” Bree returned, following Matt and leading the way into the house.

 

Everything about the house was so like Reenie, that Ali had difficulty staying focused on what Bree was saying.

 

“So am I,” she continued. “We’re all upset. Losing Reenie like this is a terrible shock, but I still need him to do what I’ve asked him to do. I want the kids ready to go to Cottonwood when the folks get here. I’m already late for my meeting. Howie called a little while ago and asked me to come over. The cops needed to take him in for questioning, and with the kids out of school because of what’s happened . . .”

 

“I could look after them for you,” Ali offered.

 

“Really?” Bree returned. “The folks will be here soon. Howie asked if they’d look after the kids for a couple of days, but if you’d watch them until my parents get here, it would be a huge favor.”

 

“That’s what I’m here for,” Ali said. “To help. You do whatever you need to do.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes, I’m sure. Go.”

 

Bree glanced down the hall toward the spot where Matt had disappeared. Then she came across the room and gave Ali a quick hug.

 

“You’re really a lifesaver,” she told Ali. With that, she gathered up a coat and purse that had been flung over a chair just inside the door and hurried outside.

 

Moments later, a red-eyed and tearful Julie emerged from the hallway. “Hi, Ali,” she said matter-of-factly. “Did you know Mommy’s dead?”

 

Ali hurried over to the child and scooped her up. “I know, sweetie,” she said. “I heard. That’s why I’m here.”

 

“And the cops took Daddy away a little while ago. Did you know that?”

 

Ali nodded. “Matt told me that, too. They probably just need to ask him a few questions. I’m sure he’ll be back in a little while.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Julie said, shaking her head hard enough that the barrettes on the ends of her braids clattered together. “I think they arrested him, and they’re going to put him in jail. That’s why Aunt Bree is making us go to Grandma’s house.”

 

“Aunt Bree has an important meeting,” Ali said. “And someone needs to look after you. Now, are you all packed and ready to go?”

 

“I don’t want to go there,” Julie whined. “I want to be here. With Daddy.”

 

“With everything that’s happened, your daddy has far too many things to take care of right now without having to look after you,” Ali said. “Besides, I’m sure your grandparents are thrilled to have you.”

 

“But how long do we have to stay?” Julie asked.

 

“Just for a couple of days.”

 

“Are you sure? What if Daddy goes to jail? What if they don’t let him come back home?” Julie asked. “Will we have to stay in Cottonwood forever? And what about Sam?”

 

“Sam?” Ali repeated. “Who’s Sam?”

 

Matt came into the living room and dropped a bulging backpack onto the couch. “Our cat,” he said. “Samantha. We can’t leave her here.”

 

“Why not?” Ali asked. “Isn’t there someone who could come by and look after her? A neighbor? A friend? Your Aunt Bree lives here in town. Maybe she . . .”

 

“Sam doesn’t like Aunt Bree,” Julie interrupted. “She and Uncle John have dogs. Poodles. Sam definitely doesn’t like dogs. That’s why she’s hiding.”

 

Clearly Ali’s arguments were going nowhere. She and the kids spent the next half hour searching the whole interior of the house. Ali had concluded that the cat must have escaped unobserved through an open door when Matt found her, curled up and sleeping on a stack of folded bath towels in the far reaches of the linen closet.

 

All through the search, Ali had envisioned finding some cute and helpless little kitten-like puffball. When Matt dragged Sam from her hidey-hole, she turned out to be a fifteen-pound heavyweight tabby cat with a raggedy torn ear and one missing eye. She may have been ugly as sin, but she purred mightily once Julie hefted her onto the couch and let her curl up in her lap.

 

Mindful of the fact that Sam didn’t like strangers, and not wanting to provoke another disappearing act, Ali stayed on the far side of the room. “Does she mind riding in cars?” Ali asked.

 

“She hates it,” Julie said.

 

Great! Ali thought.

 

“But we have a cat carrier,” Matt offered. “Mom uses it when she takes Sam to the . . .” Looking stricken, he stopped suddenly when he realized what he’d said and knew that his mother wouldn’t be taking Sam anywhere ever again. “It’s out in the garage,” he finished lamely. “I’ll go get it.”

 

Straightening his shoulders, he headed for the kitchen and the door that led to the attached garage. Watching him fight back tears and struggle to maintain his dignity as he walked away, Ali felt her heart constrict.

 

I’m in way, way over my head! she told herself. What on earth am I doing here?

 

When Reenie’s parents showed up, Ali was shocked by their appearance. Ed and Diane had to be about the same age as Ali’s own parents, but they seemed far older and, when it came to Ed, far frailer as well. Remembering what Bree had said about Ed having had heart bypass surgery, Ali wasn’t too surprised when Diane directed her gray-faced husband to have a seat in the living room while she oversaw getting Matt and Julie and their possessions loaded into the car.

 

“Your children aren’t supposed to die first,” Ed Holzer said, repeating a sentiment Ali had heard from her first in-laws. Ed wasn’t looking at Ali when he spoke. He seemed to be addressing the universe in general.

 

“No,” Ali agreed. “They’re not.”

 

“You were her friend, Ali,” he said quietly. “Do you think Reenie killed herself?”

 

The question caught Ali by surprise.” No,” she answered. “I don’t think she did.”

 

“Why?” he asked.

 

“Because I don’t think she’d drive herself off a cliff without telling her kids good-bye,” Ali answered.

 

“Neither do I,” he said. “Everybody else says I’m way off base here—Bree, Diane, Howie, the cops— but I don’t think she’d just give up that way without a fight. And I don’t think she did.”

 

Ali waited for Ed to say more, but he didn’t.

 

“How long did the doctors say she had?”

 

Ed shrugged. “All she ever told me was two to five years after diagnosis.”

 

“And her diagnosis was when?”

 

“She just got a final confirmation last week,” Ed said. “Evidently her back started bothering her late last fall, but I had just had my heart bypass then, and she never mentioned it to anybody. She just toughed it out. She didn’t want to do anything that would upset the holidays. She finally went to the doctor sometime in January.”

 

“So this was early, then?” Ali asked.

 

Ed nodded. “Way early,” he replied.

 

“Has anyone talked to her doctor?” Ali asked. “The one she saw before she disappeared?”

 

Ed shrugged. “I’m sure Howie has,” he said. “And probably the cops have. Why?”

 

“I’d like to know what exactly he told her,” Ali replied. “Maybe her ALS was progressing faster than anyone knew.”

 

“Maybe,” Ed agreed. “But still . . .”

 

He seemed ready to say something more, but thought better of it.

 

“Still what?” Ali asked.

 

“Nothing,” he replied. “It doesn’t matter.”

 

About then the loading process came to a screeching halt. Matt stomped back into the living room, shouting over his shoulder in his grandmother’s direction, “I didn’t want to go in the first place. If Sam can’t go with us, I’m not going either!”

 

Diane followed Matt into the house, trying to reason with him. “Look, Matt,” she said. “You know very well that your grandfather’s allergic to cats. Under the circumstances, I’m sure your father is capable of taking care of Samantha.”

 

“No, he isn’t,” Matt insisted. “He doesn’t even like her. The only way Mom convinced him to let us keep her was if we promised to take care of her so Dad wouldn’t have to.”

 

“This is different,” Diane said. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”

 

“Besides,” Matt added stubbornly. “Why do we have to go with you anyway? Why can’t we just stay here with Dad?”

 

“Because your father wants you with us,” Diane returned. Her voice was firm, but she also sounded tired and exasperated.

 

“I’ll take care of Sam,” Ali offered. The words were out of her mouth before she even considered what she was saying.

 

Gratitude flooded Matt’s young face. “Would you?” he asked. “Really.”

 

“Sure,” Ali said. “No problem.”

 

Chapter 7

 

Once Ed and Diane Holzer finished loading the kids and took off for Cottonwood, Ali stuck Samantha and her cat carrier into the back of the Cayenne. The moment the carrier hit the floorboard, Sam started screeching bloody murder. Ali wanted to wait around long enough to talk to Howie, but with everyone gone, there was no way to hang around the house. Feeling at loose ends and with no real purpose in mind, Ali drove to Reenie’s old office.

 

The Flagstaff branch of the YWCA was located in part of a strip mall on South Milton Road just south of Northern Arizona University. NAU, hungry for useable real estate, had gobbled up the YW’s previous location, and Reenie had masterminded the move to a more modern space that included a day-care center, an exercise room, and a complex of conference and counseling rooms as well as administrative  offices.  There were children and teachers visible inside the building, but the brightly colored playground equipment, sitting in a fenced side yard and covered with dingy snow, looked abandoned and forgotten.

 

Seeing all Reenie had accomplished put a lump in Ali’s throat. Reenie was responsible for all of this. When the creaky old building had been sold, conventional wisdom had said that the YWCA in Flagstaff should probably fold its tent and disappear as well, but Reenie Bernard was too much of a fighter to simply close up shop. Instead, she had masterminded a major capital fund-raising campaign that had, in a few short years, made this new building and all its programs possible.

 

But is it solid enough to continue without her? Ali wondered. There was no way to tell that right then.

 

Walking inside, Ali found Andrea Rogers, Reenie’s receptionist, staring blankly at her computer screen. “I thought I’d come by and check on you,” Ali said. “How’re you doing?”

 

Ali had met Andrea on previous occasions. She was a frumpy, never-married woman in her late fifties who had worked for the Flagstaff branch of the YWCA all her adult life. She had been Reenie’s right-hand helper for years.

 

Andrea reached for a nearly empty Kleenix box sitting next to her keyboard. “It’s all so awful that I still can’t believe it,” she said tearfully. “I have to come in and keep the doors open. I’m so sick at heart that I’d rather be home in bed. But I can’t. The day care has to stay open and so do we, but I can’t imagine how we’ll get through this.” She paused and took a deep breath. “How are Reenie’s kids?”

 

“Not too good,” Ali said. “Reenie’s parents took them to Cottonwood for a few days.”

 

“And Howie?” Andrea asked. “How’s he?”

 

“I haven’t seen him yet, but I think he’s okay,” Ali told her.

 

“Have they found a note?”

 

“Not that I know of.”

 

“They’ll find one,” Andrea said confidently. “They’re bound to. She wouldn’t do such a thing without saying something to the people she was leaving behind.”

 

“So had she talked to you about her . . . situation?” Ali asked.

 

Andrea nodded. “Of course,” she said. “As soon as she got the diagnosis she told me about it. She said we needed to make a plan, and to start looking for someone to take over as executive director.”

 

“Had she found anyone?” Ali asked.

 

“In a week?” Andrea returned. “Are you kidding? Of course she hadn’t found anyone. Where would we find someone willing to work as hard as she did? I’m not sure we’ll even be able to keep going, although I know she’d want us to.” Andrea blew noisily into a tissue, tossed that one and reached for another.

 

“All I can think of,” she continued, “is that her doctor down in Scottsdale must have given her some really bad news. But why didn’t she say something to me when she called. I couldn’t have done anything to help—nobody could—but at least I could have been there for her, could have listened to her and talked to her. She wouldn’t have been so alone, and maybe . . .”

 

It struck Ali that Andrea’s comment about Reenie taking her own life without a word of warning to anyone was the workplace equivalent of Matt’s plaintive “Didn’t she love us anymore?” That was Ali’s complaint as well, and it took a moment for her to process the rest of what Andrea had said.

 

“You talked to her after her doctor’s appointment?” Ali asked.

 

“Yes,” Andrea replied. “She told me she was stopping by the bank and then she was on her way back here.”

 

“To the office?”

 

“That’s what she said, but she wasn’t here when I left. I assumed she’d changed her mind and gone home instead.”

 

“Which bank?” Ali asked.

 

“She didn’t say. That’s what the cops wanted to know, too—which bank? I told them I didn’t know. I think they use Bank of America, but I have no idea which branch. Detective Farris said he’d be able to find out. He said she probably needed to cash a check or something, but if she was going to drive herself off a cliff, why would she need money?”

 

Good question, Ali thought. “So you have spoken to the cops about all this?” she asked.

 

“Over the weekend,” Andrea said. “The first time was on Saturday afternoon. They came to my house. Then they came here again on Monday, after they found the body. They wanted to know if Reenie was upset about anything. Talk about a stupid question. With that kind of diagnosis, who wouldn’t be upset? Still, she acted more relieved than anything.”

 

“Relieved?”

 

“She’d been feeling sick for months—just not herself—and no one could tell her what was wrong. But once what was wrong had a name—even though it was awful—at least she knew what she was up against and nobody could call her a hypochondriac.”

 

“Somebody called her that?” Ali asked.

 

Andrea nodded. “Her sister. Sometime around Christmas. So once Reenie knew it was ALS, she was gung-ho to fight it. At least that’s what she told me. That she was going to research it, find out everything she could, and see if there were any programs she might qualify for—you know, experimental things that might help.”

 

“She said that?” Ali asked. “That she was going to try to be accepted into one of the ongoing protocols?”

 

“That was just a few days ago,” Andrea added. “What would have made her change her mind?”

 

Ali shrugged. “I can’t imagine,” she said.

 

Walking past Andrea’s desk, Ali took a step toward the doorway of what had been and still was Reenie’s private office. The office space itself was modern enough, but the furniture was old-fashioned wooden stuff that had come from the other building. Given a choice between purchasing new playground equipment for the day-care center or new furniture for Reenie’s office, there had been no contest. Playground equipment had won hands down.

 

Lots of people decorated their offices with framed degrees and plaques—walls of honor. None of Reenie’s degrees were on display. Instead, most of the walls were papered over with a colorful collection of greeting cards in all shapes and sizes. Scattered among the cards were pieces of childish handmade art.

 

“She did love cards,” Ali observed.

 

“Isn’t that the truth,” Andrea agreed with a sigh. “She went through more cards than anybody I ever knew. She sent cards for big occasions, little occasions, and no occasions at all. With her gone, that Hallmark store out at the mall will probably end up going out of business.”

 

Ali thought of the greeting card Reenie had sent her—the one that had arrived after Reenie’s death and was still in Ali’s purse.

 

“She couldn’t stand to throw any of them away,” Andrea continued. “When Detective Farris came by for the computer, I asked him if it was okay if I took the cards down, boxed them up, and saved them for her kids. He said not yet, that I should stay out of her office until they gave me the all clear. So that’s what I’m doing—leaving things as is.”

 

And that was how the office looked—as is. Files lay scattered here and there on the desk as though Reenie had just stepped out and expected to return to her work at any moment.

 

“Detective Farris took her computer?” Ali asked.

 

“He said he was looking for a note. He said if she wrote one it’s probably still out on the mountain somewhere and they haven’t found it yet. He thought she might have written it on her computer. I told him she wouldn’t have, that she’d have found a card—just the right one, too. I tried to tell Detective Farris that, but he looked at me like I was nuts, so I shut up.”

 

“She sent me a card that day,” Ali observed.

 

Andrea looked at Ali eagerly. “On Thursday? From Scottsdale?”

 

Ali nodded. “It was a cute card—a friendship card. She said she thought she was in for a bumpy ride. I don’t think she was talking about driving off a cliff.”

 

“That’s all she said?” Andrea asked. She sounded disappointed.

 

Ali nodded. “That’s all.”

 

“Maybe she was talking about Howie,” Andrea suggested softly.

 

“Howie?” Ali asked. “What about him?”

 

Chewing her lower lip again, Andrea stalled. “Nothing,” she said.

 

“Tell me,” Ali insisted.

 

“I think she and Howie were having marital difficulties,” Andrea answered reluctantly. “She came storming into the office a couple of weeks ago and said, ‘Remind me again why I got married?’ And I said, ‘Well, you probably wanted to have kids.’ She shook her head and said, ‘Kids aren’t the problem. Husbands are.’ And then she came in here and slammed the door. Reenie wasn’t like that, you know. She didn’t do temper tantrums. She spent most of the morning on the phone that day. I know she made an appointment to see Mike Hopkins.”

 

“Who’s he?” Ali asked.

 

“An attorney here in town. He specializes in divorces.”

 

“She was going to get a divorce?”

 

Andrea shrugged. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I do know she made an appointment to see him. Then when the diagnosis came in, she canceled it. I guess she figured that with everything else that was going on, there wasn’t much point in going to the trouble of getting a divorce—that she’d just put up with whatever was going on for a while longer.”

 

“Do you know what was going on?” Ali demanded.

 

“It’s just gossip. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

 

“Tell me,” Ali prodded.

 

“I heard Howie has a girlfriend,” Andrea said in a small voice. “I think she’s one of his students.”

 

Out in the car, Ali could barely contain her outrage. Reenie had found out she was dying and that her husband was having an affair all at the same time. That was more than a mere “bumpy road.” She drove by the house on Kachina Trail on her way out of town. She wanted to confront Howie. She wanted to ask him whether or not it was true. Fortunately, he wasn’t home. Still. And maybe that was a good thing, she reflected, as she headed on down the road toward Sedona. Reenie was dead. So what if Howie was having an affair? What business of it was Ali’s? Besides, how much of the anger she felt toward Howie should have been directed elsewhere— at Paul, for example, for being a two-timing clod? Or at herself, for being stupid?

 

She was so distressed on the way back to Sedona that listening to Samantha screeching from the backseat was a welcome diversion. Once back at the house, Ali stowed Samantha’s cat carrier in the corner of the living room and the litter box next to the washing machine in the laundry room. She filled the water dish and put that and the food dish on the kitchen floor. Leaving the door to the cat carrier open, Ali went to her computer.

 

For a long time, she sat with her fingers poised over the keyboard. There was a part of her that wanted to go off and lob incendiary bombs in Howie Bernard’s direction. But there was enough old-fashioned journalism still flowing in Ali’s veins that she couldn’t rant about something that was nothing really but unsubstantiated rumor, especially since it made no difference.

 

Finally, mastering her emotions, she forced herself to write something else.

 

cutlooseblog.com Tuesday, March 15, 2005

 

My friend is dead. Two young children have lost their mother forever. Their lives are in total disarray. The children are with their grandparents who don’t even live in the same town. They’ve been pulled away from school, from their friends, and from everything familiar to wait for a funeral that will happen eventually, but at some unspecified time and place. (Funeral arrangements can’t be made until the medical examiner releases the body, and he has yet to say when that will happen.) In the meantime, their cat is here with me.

 

I don’t like cats. Never have. The idea of what I’m going to have to do with the litter box that is even now lurking in my laundry room is more than I want to consider—and probably way more information than you want to have, either. But the truth is, there wasn’t any choice. Sam (short for Samantha) had nowhere else to go. With their father preoccupied, the children needed to know that someone would look after their beloved pet. Since the kids are with their grandparents and since their grandfather turns out to be highly allergic to cats, that job fell to me.

 

Sam is not a beautiful animal. She’s huge. She’s missing an eye and a big part of one ear. (I would have thought that male cats did more fighting than female ones do, but maybe that’s the reality behind what men like to refer to as “cat fights.”) Even though I left the carrier door open, she’s still inside it and glaring at me through that one good eye. I don’t think she likes me any more than I like her, and I’m afraid once she leaves the carrier, she’ll disappear somewhere here in the house and I’ll never be able to find her again.

 

The kids had warned me in advance that Sam hated riding in cars. Now I believe it. The drive back to Sedona from Reenie’s place in Flagstaff only takes half an hour, but it felt much longer with Sam in the car because she cried the whole way. Make that SCREAMED!! AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS! It made me wonder how fifteen or so pounds of cat could make that much of a racket. I was afraid people in other cars could hear her, too.

 

I keep reminding myself that I came here to help. For today, taking care of Sam is what needed doing for Reenie and for her family. So, uneasy though Sam and I may be with our current arrangement, the cat is here.

 

My life is in almost as much turmoil at the moment as Sam’s. I seem to be getting a divorce, not because I necessarily wanted one but because I have it on good authority that my husband has not one but two girlfriends. Two! Maybe he picked them up at Costco. Isn’t that where you always have to take two of everything, whether you need two or not?

 

That would be his case—he didn’t really need them. Considering he already had a wife, me, I should have thought he didn’t need any girlfriends at all. But it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. For him.

 

It’s not a good idea for me, however, so I’m telling myself it’s probably time for me to move on. One of the two girlfriends is evidently busy telling everyone who gets near her about her plans to marry the man who is currently my husband. That being the case, I’ve decided to take the hint, get a move on, and let her have him. I’m not interested in sharing him and I certainly don’t want him back. If she does marry him, she’ll know in advance that he’ll be as likely to cheat on her as he did on me.

 

But at least I can move on. For me moving on is possible. With any kind of luck, I’ll be able to pick myself up (again), dust myself off (again), and see where the road of life will take me. My friend Reenie can’t do that. I don’t know everything that was going on in her life. I know she was having health issues. There could have been other stresses at work in her life as well. If there were, she didn’t mention them to me.

 

The general consensus, however, is that, for whatever reason, the burden of living had become too much for her. The authorities continue to search for a suicide note. As much as I don’t want to believe that my friend took her own life, I’m more than half hoping such a note will be found. I’m hoping that whatever is written there will offer both answers and closure for the people who are grieving her loss. That it will put an end to the speculation and help us understand why Reenie might make the choices she did—why she might choose to be gone when the rest of us weren’t nearly ready to let her go.

 

But I’m not at all sure closure exists. Everybody talks about it, but maybe they’re all pretending. Maybe closure is no more a reality than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Still we all maintain that once the remains of a loved one are put to rest or once the criminal is sentenced in a court of law or a murderer is put to death that there’s “closure” for the grieving survivors. I’m worried that it’s a fabrication—an emotional crutch we all cling to in hopes that some day we’ll feel better than we do right now. And I suppose that, as far as Reenie Bernard is concerned, that’s the only hope we have.

 

As for me? I think it’s time I gave myself a swift kick in my self-pitying butt. Reenie Bernard has lost everything. So have her children. Compared to them, I’m a wimp.

 

Posted: 2:20 P.M. by AliR

 

For a while Ali read through the surprising number of comment e-mails that had come in since Chris had posted the notice about The Forum. She read through them, posting them as she went.

 

Don’t be so selfish. Your friend didn’t abandon you. She spared her family and you from having to see her go through what was coming. I have ALS, too. It’s not that bad yet, but I know it will be. I don’t have the same kind of courage your friend had. I would never be brave enough to drive myself off the edge of a cliff. Instead, I’ve saved up some sleeping pills, enough, I hope, to do the job.

 

The trick will be knowing when to take them. Swallowing is already getting difficult. I’d like to live long enough to see my daughter graduate from high school next spring, but I know that if I wait too long, I won’t be able to take the pills on my own and I’ll lose the ability to have my own say in the matter.

 

Please give your friend credit for leaving on her own terms. It was her choice.

 

Anna

 

Ms. Reynolds,

 

Suicide is a mortal sin. It is wrong. No matter what! Your friend is going to hell. I’m sorry.

 

Midge Carson

 

The next comments referred to Ali’s absence from the newsroom:

 

Dear Ali Reynolds,

 

Please come home. The kid they have sitting in your spot at the news desk needs a high chair. And a haircut. She looks like she’s fresh out of high school and just stuck her finger in an electrical outlet. I’m writing to the station saying that they need to take you back. If not, I’ll watch my news somewhere else.

 

Bob Preston

 

Dear Ali,

 

If they were going to fire someone, why not that tedious windbag with the dreadful toupee? When you get hired on another station, please let me know where. I hope it’ll be one of the stations from around here so I can still see you from time to time. You are the best thing that ever happened to the Evening News.

 

Wanda Carmichael

 

Dear Ms. Reynolds,

 

Someone is selling an autographed picture of you on e-bay. Do you think it is real. Will it be more valuable now that you’re fired. How much do you think I should pay. Please answer back right away. The online auction is supposed to end tomorrow morning.

 

Also if you ever want to buy Beenie Babies I have a lot of those and some of them are very rare. I would give them to you at a good price now that you’re unemployed.

 

Sylvia

 

Ali was still puzzling over that one and wondering if she should laugh or cry when the phone rang. “You’re home,” Edie Larson announced. “How are things?”

 

It was a simple question with no easy answer. There was so much Ali needed to tell her mother— so much she had yet to tell her—that she had no idea where to start. Just as she had in the blog, Ali avoided the land mines by using Samantha for emotional cover.

 

“Matt and Julie are down in Cottonwood with Reenie’s folks. They asked me to look after their cat, so Samantha is here with me.”

 

“You don’t even like cats.”

 

“Exactly,” Ali agreed. “But somebody had to do it.”

 

“How are the kids holding up?”

 

“They’re dealing with it,” Ali replied. “Matt had read the paper. He’s aware the cops suspect Reenie committed suicide. Matt’s big worry is that Julie’s going to find out.”

 

“They’ll be better off if someone comes straight out and tells them,” Edie said. “Howie should do it, or else Reenie’s parents.”

 

“But is that what happened?” Ali objected. “Somehow I just can’t get my head around the idea that Reenie would kill herself. No matter what.”

 

“You and I haven’t walked in her shoes,” Edie said. “It’s easy to say she wouldn’t do this or wouldn’t do that, but until you’ve actually been there . . .”

 

“According to her secretary, Reenie was going to fight,” Ali returned.

 

Edie sighed. “She probably changed her mind.” “Look, Ali,” Edie added. “It hurts like hell to lose someone you’re close to. Your Aunt Evie may have been my sister, but she was also my best friend and my partner. When she was gone out of my life all of a sudden, I didn’t know how to cope. Something would happen and I’d want to tell her about it. Or I’d wonder what she’d think about it. And I still miss her every day. You just have to get through it, that’s all. And one way to do that is to take care of yourself. Did you have lunch today?”

 

That was vintage Edie Larson. Caring but utterly practical, and bent on providing food for the body as much as food for the soul.

 

“No,” Ali admitted.

 

“I didn’t think so. Chris and your father left for the Snow Bowl a little while ago. I know how much Chris loves pot roast. I’m cooking up one of those because I know it’ll hold until they get home, whenever that is. The only question now is, do you want to come down here for dinner or should I bring it up there?”

 

Ali glanced at the cat carrier. Sam obliged by staring balefully back with her one good eye. “Maybe you should bring it up here,” Ali said.

 

“I’ll be there about dinner time. We’ll break into your Aunt Evie’s wine cellar and offer a toast to her and to Reenie Bernard as well.”

 

“Sounds good,” Ali said.

 

But she didn’t mean it. At that very moment, the last thing she felt like doing was drinking a toast to anyone, not to Reenie and not to anyone else.

 

Chapter 8

 

They had barely hung up when the phone rang again. “Alison Reynolds?” asked a deep voice Ali didn’t recognize.

 

“Yes.” Ali answered warily. The land line phone number was still listed under Aunt Evie’s name, and Ali didn’t like the idea of some strange man having access to it.

 

“My name’s Helga Myerhoff, with Weldon, Davis, and Reed in LA. One of my associates, Marcella Johnson said you might be interested in speaking to me. Is this a convenient time?”

 

A smoker no doubt, Ali concluded once she realized the male-sounding voice actually belonged to a woman.

 

“Yes,” Ali said. “Talking now would be fine.”

 

“I’ve taken the liberty of doing a little checking on you,” Helga continued purposefully. “Which is to say, I know who you are, how long you’ve been married, that kind of thing. I don’t do run-of-the-mill divorces, you see, Ms. Reynolds. I prefer to handle ones that are worth my while so to speak. Let me ask you then, is there a pre-nup?”

 

“Yes,” Ali said.

 

“Figures,” Helga said. “Women who fall in love with high-powered men also fall for prenuptial agreements. It’s just the way things are.”

 

“So that’s bad?” Ali asked.

 

“That depends. You were married seven years ago, but county records show that the house you and your husband live in, the one on Robert Lane, was purchased only six years ago. Is that correct?”

 

“Yes. Paul always loved that house, but it didn’t come on the market until after we were married.”

 

“Excellent,” Helga said.

 

“But we bought it with his funds,” Ali objected. “I never could have afforded—”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Helga interrupted. “He purchased it after your marriage. It appears to be held as community property now. And you say your husband loves the house?”

 

“Adores it.”

 

“That’s nice to hear. It should give us a bit of a bargaining chip. Generally speaking, the more the other side likes something, the better it is. So what brought you to this pass, Mrs. Reynolds? In my experience people don’t go to the trouble of consulting with a divorce attorney unless they’ve already pretty much decided the marriage is broken.”

 

“It is broken,” Ali said, but she was thinking of Reenie breaking her scheduled appointment with the lawyer in Flagstaff. “And my name is Ali,” she added.

 

“Very well, Ali,” Helga corrected. “So tell me. What went wrong? Domestic violence, drugs, girlfriends, or boyfriends?”

 

“Girlfriends,” Ali said. “His, not mine. They’ve been around for a while, I suppose. For a long time I turned a blind eye to how ‘busy’ he was with work and put up with them, but now that one of his ‘projects’ is telling people she and my husband are going to get married . . .

 

“I understand you lost your job last week,” Helga asked.

 

“That’s true.”

 

“Isn’t that station an affiliate of the network that employs your husband?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And isn’t he some kind of network bigwig for them?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“Did he know they were going to let you go?” Helga asked.

 

“Probably,” Ali said. “I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have told him. According to them, it was all ratings. Paul lives and breathes ratings.”

 

“Did he happen to mention any of that to you in advance? I mean, did he give you any kind of a heads-up?”

 

“No,” Ali said. “He didn’t.”

 

Helga clicked her tongue. “There are some cases I like better than others,” she said. “From what you’re telling me, Mr. Paul Grayson sounds like a not so nice man who needs to be taken down a peg.”

 

Ali laughed in spite of herself. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose he is.”

 

“If that’s what you want,” Helga said, “it would be my pleasure to take him on. Do you happen to have a fax machine where you are? That way I can fax over some forms for you to fill out. Don’t worry about all the gory financial details. I’ll be able to get all that. I have a forensic accounting firm that I hire to track down financial dealings that unsuspecting spouses often know nothing about. My guys are expensive,” she added. “But they’re very, very good.”

 

“Can you just e-mail them to me?” Ali asked. “I have a printer but no fax.”

 

“Sure,” Helga said. “No problem. What’s the address.”

 

Ali gave it to her. After ringing off, she sat for a long time, watching Samantha watch her. “Well, Sam,” she said at last, “it looks as though both our lives have changed. Before I was just talking about getting a divorce. Now I’m really doing it.”

 

Turning back to the computer, Ali looked for Helga’s e-mailed forms. Scanning her in-box she was surprised to find that several new e-mails had arrived in response to her last posting a short time earlier:

 

Dear Ms. Reynolds,

 

What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you like cats? Are you one of those people who only likes dogs? I was bitten by a dog once when I was little. I have NEVER been bitten by a cat.

 

Janelle

 

My mother had ALS. She told my father that she didn’t want to live that way. She asked him to fix it for her and he did. The judge sent him to prison for twenty years. He has never seen his grandchildren. I lost both of my parents. It is so unfair.

 

Phyllis

 

Dear Ali,

 

My husband had plenty of time for his girlfriend and his big screen TV and no time at all for me. When I left, I gathered up every clicker in the house and dropped them into his other baby, his 250 gallon aquarium. The clickers were still glowing like pretty little lavender goldfish when I left, but I bet they didn’t glow for long.

 

Tami

 

Wish I had thought of that, Ali told herself silently with a rueful smile.

 

Dear Ali,

 

Maybe everybody is calling it a suicide, but I bet the husband did it—that he killed her and only made it LOOK like suicide. I know. I have a sixth sense about these things. Please be very careful when you are around him. He could be a danger to you and the children.

 

Maxine

 

PS When the husband goes to jail for murder, will you take care of the kids and the cat? Somebody has to do it, and the grandparents are most likely too old.

 

That one sent a chill down Ali’s body. From the beginning, Ali had objected to the idea that Reenie had committed suicide. And an accident seemed unlikely. Who in their right mind would attempt to drive Schnebly Hill Road in the middle of a snowstorm? Ali had never consciously allowed herself to consider the logical alternative—homicide, but now she did. There was some part of her—some dark place she hadn’t ever encountered before—that knew Maxine was right—that Reenie Bernard had been murdered. But how? And was Howie responsible?

 

Possibly. Maybe he and his girlfriend weren’t interested in waiting around long enough for ALS to run its inevitable course. Or maybe there were insurance policies to take into consideration. Certainly there would be far more money left over for Reenie’s beneficiaries if her death came suddenly rather than as a result of a long debilitating illness complete with staggering hospital bills. And speaking of insurance, how much was there? And did it all go to Howie? Who else? And if Maxine was right, and Howie went to prison for murder, who would take care of the kids?

 

Ali reached into her pocket, pulled out a business card Bree Cowan had pressed into Ali’s hand earlier that morning, and called.

 

“Thank you so much for taking care of Sam,” Bree said as soon as Ali reached her on her cell. “From what my mother says, she and Dad wouldn’t have been able to pry Matt out of the house if you hadn’t come to the rescue.”

 

“Sam’s no trouble,” Ali said. And that was true. The cat had yet to set paw outside the open door of her cage.

 

“What can I do for you?” Bree asked.

 

Ali wasn’t sure where to start. “I was just wondering if you knew anything about Reenie’s insurance situation?”

 

“Life insurance?” Bree asked. “I know she has some, if that’s what you mean. Dad saw to it that we had life insurance, and our husbands, too. I heard Jack and Howie joking one time that as soon as they got home from the honeymoon, Dad set them up with his insurance guy.”

 

“Do you know how much insurance is in force?” Ali asked.

 

Bree paused. “Not exactly, but I’m guessing it’ll be fairly substantial amounts. I’m sure Howie and the kids will be well provided for, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”

 

“What about guardianship?” Ali asked.

 

“There’s no question about that, of course,” Bree replied. “None at all. Matt and Julie go to their father.”

 

“And if something were to happen to Howie? Then what?”

 

“Then Matt and Julie come to Jack and me,” Bree said. “But let’s hope to God that never happens. I always suspected I wasn’t motherhood material, but this morning was proof positive. I almost lost it with Matt outside in the snow and Julie bawling her eyes out while I was trying to braid her hair. I know my limitations. It was awful.”

 

“You were fine,” Ali assured her. “There was a lot going on. The kids were upset.”

 

“Thanks for saying that.”

 

“What do you hear from Howie?” Ali asked.

 

“Nothing,” Bree said. “Why do you ask?”

 

“I went by this afternoon before I came back to Sedona, and he still wasn’t home. I was wondering how the interview went.”

 

“If I hear from him, should I have him call you?” Bree asked.

 

“No,” Ali said. “Don’t bother.” She started to hang up, then changed her mind. “One more thing,” she added. “What bank did Reenie use?”

 

“Bank?” Bree returned.

 

“Yes. I was talking to Andrea at the YW, and she mentioned that Reenie was planning on stopping by the bank on her way home from seeing the doctor. I was wondering if you happened to know which one she might have used.”

 

“Why?” Bree asked.

 

“I don’t know,” Ali said. “Maybe I’m way off base here. I just wanted to talk to someone who may have talked to Reenie after she saw the doctor. Just to know how she was, is all. Does that sound crazy?”

 

“No,” Bree said. “Not crazy. It sounds like someone who cares about what happened. I’m pretty sure they use Bank of America. That’s where we all ended up once the mergers finished. I have no idea which branch she would have used. There must be dozens of B of A branches between the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale and Flag. She could have stopped at any one of them. It won’t be any trouble for Howie to find out which one, though. All he’ll have to do is contact the toll-free number and ask about recent activity on his account.”

 

“Thanks, Bree,” Ali said. “I’ll ask him the next time I see him.”

 

If I don’t punch his lights out first.

 

By the time Ali got off the phone, Helga’s e-mail had arrived. Ali downloaded the forms, printed them, and began filling them out, but she couldn’t concentrate. Her mind kept being drawn back to the responses that had come in earlier.

 

She had written one thing and, within minutes, other people had replied, adding their own frame of reference or perspective to what Ali had written before. They wrote personal things. Private things. They wrote about feelings they might not have mentioned to their own family members. How come? What caused that?

 

Obviously what had happened in Reenie’s family was a tragedy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as unique as Ali would have hoped. The same was true of Ali’s own marital misfortunes. And the anonymity of the Internet, the very thing that made Ali free to say what she wanted, was also what gave her readers permission to send back their own private thoughts and comments.

 

It was, Ali thought, a bit like driving past a car wreck and being incredibly grateful that it had happened to someone else and not to you. Even though you tried to keep your eyes averted and give the unfortunate victims some privacy, you couldn’t help but peek and you couldn’t help but be grateful that it wasn’t your car wreck—it was somebody else’s. And maybe that gratitude was part of the reason people felt compelled to write.

 

At the station there had always been a delayed response between what was said and what the viewers said back. This was far more immediate. It was also far more personal. Putting her fingers to the keyboard, Ali wrote an additional post of her own. She had to.

 

I spent lots of years in the news business, most of it in television news and sitting at an anchor desk one place or another. When it’s time to film a new set of station promos, news anchors usually resort to saying something trite about having “conversations” with their viewers. This is actually a lie. The word “conversation” implies dialogue—as in talking back and forth. What anchors do is deliver “monologues” to their viewers. By their very nature, monologues are far less inclusive than “conversations.”

 

What I’m having right now on cutlooseblog.com is an actual conversation. I put up a post at 2:20 P.M. Within minutes there were several responses from people who weighed in with their own opinions.

 

The one from Phyllis is heartbreaking. Her family lost both of their parents in a situation not too different from Reenie’s. As a result, Phyllis’s entire family was destroyed. Her e-mail makes me wonder. Shouldn’t people who are ill and dying have some say in what’s going to happen to them and how their last days on earth are to be lived? Shouldn’t there be some allowance made for self-determination when it comes to last wishes?

 

Tami and her drowning clickers made me laugh. It’s something I wish I had thought to do. I could have. My husband had clickers everywhere.

 

And then there’s Maxine. Even though everyone else seems to be convinced Reenie committed suicide, Maxine is concerned that she was murdered. She’s also worried that I, too, may be in danger. Thank you for worrying about me, Maxine, and rest assured that I’ll be keeping a sharp eye out.

 

And finally there’s Janelle. She’s not worried about me or about the kids. Her concern is for the cat, Samantha, who’s still sitting here in her cage, regarding me with that one huge yellow eye of hers. But Janelle wouldn’t even know Samantha existed if it weren’t for the Internet and for the powerful way it connects people and brings them together.

 

I have no idea where Phyllis, Maxine, and Janelle live. They could be right here in Sedona or in some distant corner of the country. Or the world. I just want to say to all of them, and to anyone else reading this: Thank you for sending your responses and comments. They make me feel like I’m less alone. They make me understand that even people who never met Reenie are capable of caring about her.

 

Thank you.

 

Posted, 4:35 P.M. by AliR

 

After that, Ali took a long dip in Aunt Evie’s pride and joy, the soaking tub in the master bath. Lying there amid a mound of bubbles Ali realized that her Aunt Evie’s home, complete with all its upscale bells and whistles—wine cellar, soaking tub, and all—wasn’t what members of the media elite and Paul Grayson in particular had in mind when they talked derisively about mobile homes and trailer trash. They had no real concept of what the homes were like and very little connection to the ordinary people who lived in them.

 

She was back in the living room and slowly making her way through Helga’s multipage form when Edie Larson arrived at the front door, carrying a steaming Crockpot and bringing with her the mouth-watering aroma of cooking meat. After setting the dish on the kitchen counter and plugging it into a wall socket, Edie returned to the living room and bent down to study the open traveling crate Samantha had yet to abandon.

 

“She still won’t come out?” Edie asked.

 

“Nope,” Ali answered. “I took a long bath and left her alone for the better part of an hour, but she still hasn’t budged.”

 

“In that case,” Edie said. “It’s time to take the bull by the horns.”

 

She reached into the crate, grasped the startled cat by the nape of her neck and pulled her out. At first, Sam struggled and tried to escape, but Edie didn’t let go. She held the animal firmly against her chest and then eased herself down onto the sofa with the cat still in her arms. Within a matter of seconds, Sam settled down against her, purring loud enough that Ali could hear her all the way across the room.

 

“You always did have a way with animals,” Ali said.

 

“Being married to your father made that a necessity,” Edie said with a smile. “And Sam will be fine now. She just needed to know she was welcome here. Which is more than I can say about you. You don’t look fine at all. It’s hitting you pretty hard, isn’t it.”

 

Nodding, Ali looked at her mother. Edie’s naturally silver hair was pulled back in a French roll that was held in place by a collection of antique combs. She had worn her hair that way for as long as Ali could remember. So had Aunt Evie.

 

“I can’t believe Reenie’s gone,” Ali said.

 

“I wasn’t talking about Reenie,” Edie said. “What about Paul? Were you ever going to tell us about that?”

 

Edie had her there. Ali had done her best to avoid the issue of her broken marriage. Now she was stuck. “I just wasn’t ready to talk about it, but I guess Chris spilled the beans.”

 

“He didn’t have to,” Edie said.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean Evie and I had Paul Grayson figured out a long time ago—before we went to London even. It was clear to everyone early on that it wasn’t working—everyone but you, that is.”

 

“I wanted it to work,” Ali said.

 

“Of course you did,” Edie agreed. “And why not? You’re not the first mother who spent years making the best of a bad bargain in hopes of maintaining some kind of financial security for her kids. And, if you weren’t your father’s daughter, you would have been out of it years ago.”

 

“What does Daddy have to do with this?” Ali asked.

 

Edie smiled. “Have you ever heard the man say he was wrong? And you’re exactly like him, Ali. Spitting image. First you let Paul Grayson sweep you off your feet, and then, because you didn’t want to admit you’d made a mistake, you tried to make the best of it—for years, and a great cost to yourself, I might add.”

 

Edie eased Sam out of her lap. Once on the floor, the cat shook her paws—as though the carpet somehow didn’t measure up to her expectations—then she stalked off to the far corner of the room and curled up in a corner next to the drapes.

 

Ali gave a rueful laugh. “So is that what you’ve been doing down at the Sugarloaf ever since I left this morning—you and Dad and Jan and Chris and anyone else who happened to come in the door— discussing me and my marital difficulties?”

 

“No,” Edie returned. “We didn’t, but I’m here to discuss it now. I think it’s about time you and I had a heart-to-heart chat. It sounds like you could use one.”

 

Considering the circumstances, it turned out to be a very nice dinner. Ali cracked open a bottle of Aunt Evie’s Seven Deadly Zins to accompany Edie’s pot roast. And they talked. Or rather, Ali talked and her mother listened all the while passing tiny tidbits of roast to Sam who had positioned herself next to Edie’s feet under the table.

 

In the presence of her mother’s unconditional acceptance, Ali felt her own emotional wall crumbling. Tears she had somehow held in abeyance for days, came on with a vengeance as she spilled out the whole tawdry story. Between Monday and now she had shed plenty of tears for Reenie Bernard. The tears she shed that evening were for Alison Reynolds.

 

When eight o’clock rolled around, Edie stood up. “I’ve got a four a.m. wake-up call, so I’d best head home.”

 

After Edie left, Ali sat on the couch thinking. Her parents were absolutely grounded. They clearly loved one another and they also loved Ali. So how was it that, coming from such a stable background, Ali had managed to make such a mess of her own life? How could she possibly have mistaken Paul Grayson’s phony promises for the real thing, and how could she have convinced herself to settle for whatever crumbs he was offering? Maybe I only think I’m from Sedona, she told herself. Maybe I’m really from Stepford.

 

Ali was half asleep when a ringing telephone startled her awake. “Mom?” Chris asked.

 

She could tell from the quake in his voice that something was wrong. “What is it?”

 

“It’s Grandpa.”

 

“What’s happened? Is he hurt?”

 

“Yes, he’s hurt. Some hotshot snowboarder crashed into him from behind and sent him flying. The ski patrol just got him down off the slopes. They’re loading him into an ambulance right this minute to take him to Flagstaff.”

 

“How bad is it?” Ali asked.

 

“Pretty bad,” Chris said. “At least one broken leg, maybe two. And a broken arm as well. I just got off the phone with Grandma. She’s on her way.”

 

“So am I,” Ali said. “Where are they taking him?”

 

“Flagstaff Community.”

 

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

 

Chapter 9

 

All the way from Sedona back to Flag, Ali should have been worrying about her father. Instead, she thought about Howie Bernard. Had he murdered his wife? The idea of a mild-mannered history professor suddenly turned killer seemed unlikely. Still, Ali knew that extramarital affairs and the possibility of collecting sizeable sums of life insurance proceeds had turned more than one otherwise law-abiding citizen into a murderer. And in a town where university professors carried a fair amount of social clout, would the cops charged with solving the case give Howie Bernard any more than a cursory glance?

 

Somehow Ali doubted that would be the case. The detective who had collected the computer from Reenie’s office had taken the machine, but Ali had seen no evidence that they had dusted for prints. They were still focused entirely on the suicide angle. The fact that it might be something worse than that seemed not to have occurred to them. But it had to Ali, and the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to talk to Howie. Alone. And preferably unannounced. She wanted to catch him off guard and see if he might say something to her that would tip his hand.

 

Speeding all the way, Ali arrived at Flagstaff Community Hospital far sooner than she should have. Even so, Edie beat her there. By the time Ali walked into the waiting room, Bob Larson already had been rolled away to surgery. A subdued Chris sat quietly off to one side while Edie Larson fumed and paced.

 

“That man doesn’t have a lick of sense,” she raged. “If I’ve told your father once, I’ve told him a hundred times, he’s too old for snowboarding!”

 

“Snowboarding!” Ali exclaimed. “I thought they were going skiing.”

 

“That’s what he said they were going to do,” Edie replied. “But Bob’s a great one for telling me what he thinks I want to hear rather than what’s really going on. And if he got hit by a snowboarder, I’m guessing that’s what he was doing, too, snowboard-ing, the bird-brained dim-bulb.”

 

Ali looked at her son who shrugged his shoulders in silent confirmation of his grandmother’s worst suspicions. He and his grandfather had indeed been snowboarding.

 

“And of all the weeks for him to pull a stunt like this!” Edie railed on. “Why didn’t he just haul out a gun and shoot himself?”

 

“Calm down, Mom,” Ali said. “What’s so different about this week?”

 

“With everything else that’s been going on, we haven’t had a chance to tell you, but your father and I are thinking of retiring. We’ve got a potential buyer who’s supposed to come look at the restaurant sometime this week. We’ll be able to hold out for a lot more money if we’re selling the place as a going concern. If Dad’s laid up and the buyer thinks your father’s on his last legs—or on no legs at all, from the sound of it—it’ll be a lot tougher to make the kind of deal we want to make.”

 

“In other words, you can’t shut the place down just because Dad’s in the hospital.”

 

“Of course I can’t shut the place down,” Edie snapped. “I can’t even afford to open up late. It needs to be business as usual. In fact, I should be home in bed right this minute so I can be up at four to start baking sweet rolls. When the restaurant’s actually open, I can cook every bit as well as Bob can, but where on God’s green earth does he expect me to find someone to fill in for me out front? I’ll never be able to find someone dependable on such short notice, and Jan’s too old to manage the whole place on her own. It’ll be a disaster.”

 

“I could do it,” Ali suggested. The words were out of her mouth without her necessarily thinking about them, just as they had been when she had offered to look after Samantha.

 

Edie stopped in mid rant. “You?” she asked in disbelief. “Come on, Ali. It must be twenty years since you last waited tables.”

 

“It’s probably a lot like riding a bicycle, isn’t it?” Ali returned. “Once you learn, you never forget how. Besides, as far as I can tell, you haven’t changed the menu. Looks like the same old same old to me.”

 

“But—” Edie began.

 

Ali cut off her mother’s objection. “Look, Mom, if I can look after Matt and Julie’s kitty, I can certainly help you out. At least until you find someone better.”

 

“I just thought . . .”

 

“You think I’m too good to wait tables?” Ali asked.

 

“Well, yes,” Edie admitted.

 

“I’m not. Your owning and running the Sugarloaf was good enough to keep a roof over our heads when I was growing up and when I was going to NAU. Helping you and Daddy out now that you’re in a pinch is the least I can do. Besides, the station’s still sending me a paycheck until the end of my contract. That’ll make me the highest-priced waitress the Sugarloaf has ever seen.”

 

“But shouldn’t you be out looking for another job?”

 

“You mean shouldn’t I be looking out for me instead of looking out for you?”

 

“Well, yes,” Edie agreed reluctantly. “I suppose that is what I mean.”

 

Ali went over to her mother and gathered her into her arms. “You and Dad raised me better than that, Mom. This is payback.”

 

When Edie emerged from her daughter’s embrace, her eyes were bright with tears. “All right, then,” she said. “You’re hired. But only for the short term and only until I can find someone else. Assuming I manage to open the restaurant tomorrow morning, you can start then.”

 

They settled in to wait for Bob to return from surgery. Being back in a hospital setting made Ali uncomfortable. It brought back too many bad memories of the days and weeks she’d spent with Dean, and her waiting skills were shaky at best. She tried to sit still, but couldn’t. She kept looking at her watch, twitching, and willing the surgery to be over so she could leave. Finally Edie lost patience.

 

“Look, Ali,” she said. “There’s no sense in both of us sitting here fidgeting. Go for a walk or for a ride or else bring Chris something to eat. Doing what you’re doing is driving me nuts.”

 

“I could do with some Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Chris said. “I saw one not too far from here.”

 

They drove through the cold, clear night to a steamy and almost deserted KFC. After the man behind the counter took their order for one bucket of Original, Ali changed her mind and ordered a second.

 

“Mom,” Chris objected. “I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry.”

 

“I want to stop by Reenie’s place to check on Howie,” she said. “There’ll most likely be a crowd of people there who’ll be as happy to see some KFC as you are.”

 

She dropped Chris back at the hospital and then headed for Kachina Trail. Once outside the Bernard place she was surprised to find that the expected gathering of friends and neighbors hadn’t materialized. There were no other vehicles parked anywhere nearby—not in front of the garage and not out on the street, either. The windows were uniformly dark. The only sign of occupancy was a single porch light burning on the front porch.

 

He’s probably not even home, Ali told herself. I should have stayed at the hospital.

 

Grabbing the fragrant bucket of chicken, Ali made her way gingerly up the icy sidewalk past the dwindling snowman. The afternoon sun had diminished him even more, and now the snowman was little more than a knee-high ghost in the reflected glow of the porch light.

 

Sure she was on a fool’s errand, Ali rang the bell. Seconds later, though, a light came on somewhere in the interior of the house, followed shortly thereafter by a lamp in the living room. The dead bolt clicked. When Howie opened the door to let Ali in, he was holding a cordless phone to his ear. He smiled in welcome and drew Ali inside before shutting the door behind her. He swayed slightly on his feet as he turned to go back into the house. His ungainly walk and the smell of liquor on his breath told Ali that he’d had at least one drink and probably several more than that.

 

“Your mother’s friend Ali is here,” he said into the phone. Then, after a pause, he added. “Just a minute. I’ll ask her. It’s Matt. He wants to know how Samantha is doing.” The words slurred slightly and ran together.

 

“Tell him she’s fine,” Ali said. “She’s out of her crate and making herself at home.”

 

Without waiting for directions, Ali took the bucket of chicken out to the kitchen and set it on the counter. She and Diane Holzer had cleaned up the breakfast dishes earlier that morning. It appeared that the kitchen had remained unchanged since then. That probably meant that no one else had stopped by to visit with Howie, which struck Ali as odd. People usually rallied round bereaved spouses—even unfaithful ones—no matter what.

 

When she returned to the living room and took a seat on the couch, Howie was finishing up his phone call. “You be good now,” he was saying. “Don’t give Grandma and Grandpa any trouble. And I’ll come get you soon. Tomorrow probably, or else the next day . . . Right . . . Love you, too. Good night, Matty. Talk to you tomorrow.”

 

He put down the phone. He turned unsteadily in Ali’s direction and gave her a boozy hug. “Thanks so much for coming,” he mumbled. “After what I’ve been through the past few days and hours, it’s good to see a friendly face.”

 

“What’s been going on?”

 

“The cops put me through hell today, that’s what!” he said. “I didn’t ask for an attorney at first because I didn’t think I needed one. I thought they were just going to ask me a few routine questions like when did Reenie leave, what time was she supposed to get back, that kind of thing. And they did ask those things at first. But later on they came after me like gangbusters. They kept after me for hours on end, even though I told them I had an alibi, even after I offered to take a lie detector test—which I took and passed by the way—and even after that. From the way they treated me, I thought I was on my way to jail for sure. I was afraid I wasn’t coming back.”

 

“But you did,” Ali interjected. “You’re here.”

 

“That’s right. I am here! About an hour or so ago, they found Reenie’s suicide note and suddenly everything changed to sweetness and light. Suddenly I’m no longer the scumbag husband/homicide suspect. Now it’s ‘yes, Mr. Bernard,’ and ‘no, Mr. Bernard,’ and ‘of course you’re free to go, Mr. Bernard,’ and all that happy crap.

 

“They found a note?” Ali asked.

 

Howie nodded. “In the car. Or in whatever’s left of the car. They didn’t find it until just a little while ago.”

 

Ali felt numb. “What did it say?” she asked.

 

Howie shrugged. “That she couldn’t face dragging it out. That this way would be better for all of us—that she wanted to spare us.”

 

He paused long enough to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, but Ali was having a hard time sorting out the conversation. Was Howie Bernard grieving for his dead wife or for himself. It was hard to tell. Maybe it was a little of both.

 

“So it really was suicide?” Ali asked.

 

“Of course it was suicide,” he replied. “What else could it have been?”

 

A bottle of Oban single malt scotch sat on the coffee table in front of them. Howie reached over, poured another generous shot or two into a tumbler-sized glass, and nodded. “At least now I can go ahead and plan the funeral. It’ll be Friday, by the way. Two o’clock. At Reenie’s old Lutheran church down in Cottonwood. She’ll be buried there, too, in the family plot.”

 

He stopped and looked at Ali a little fuzzily. “I’m forgetting my manners,” he said. “Can I get you something? A drink? Some of that chicken you brought?”

 

Ali shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said.

 

For several seconds, he stared morosely into his glass. “It’s good of you to drop by, Ali. I really appreciate it. As for the rest of my so-called friends, who needs ’em? Where the hell were they when the cops were busy accusing me of putting Reenie in a car and running her off a cliff to get rid of her? I mean, just because . . .”

 

Even drunk he must have realized that he was rambling on more than he should have. He stopped.

 

“Because what?” Ali prodded eventually.

 

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Not important.”

 

“It is important,” she insisted. “Tell me.”

 

Howie gave her an odd look. Finally he answered. “Reenie and I may have been having our little difficulties, but for them to think that I’d kill her . . . it’s utterly p re . . . pre . . . preposterous.” It took three tries before he managed to get his tongue around the word.

 

“What kind of difficulties?” Ali asked the question without really expecting an answer.

 

“Oh, you know,” he said, waggling his glass. “The usual thing—a bit of a rough patch. We might have got through it, or it could be we would have ended up in divorce court, but then, when the bombshell dropped about her health . . . You know about that—about the ALS?”

 

“Yes,” Ali said. “I know.”

 

“Godawful stuff, ALS,” he continued. “But what I can’t understand is why she did it now. She wasn’t that sick, at least not yet. She could still drive. She was probably just making a point.”

 

Ali was surprised to hear Howie voice his own doubts about the suddenness of Reenie’s departure.

 

“You thought she was going to stay to fight?”

 

“That’s what she said,” Howie replied.

 

“And what did you mean when you said she was making a point?”

 

“She was mad at me,” Howie continued. “Furious. We barely spoke the last two weeks, but I had no idea . . .”

 

“You quarreled?” Ali asked.

 

“She was talking about going to Mexico to try out some new treatment. Something with supplements that the FDA hasn’t approved yet and may not ever approve. It’s expensive as hell and not covered under our insurance. I told her it was too risky and probably a waste of time and money.”

 

“Risky?” Ali asked. “She was dying anyway. How risky could a treatment be, especially if there was even the smallest chance it would help?”

 

“Well, then, a rip-off maybe. I’ve heard of all kinds of quacks who’ve set up phony treatment centers. They take people’s money. When it’s gone, they put their patients either in a pine box or on a bus and ship them home.”

 

So we’re back to the money, Ali thought. Reenie wanted to try some new treatment, and Howie said no—solely to keep from having to spend the money.

 

“Do you know anything about this treatment center?” Ali asked. “Where it is? What it costs?”

 

“A one-time payment of eighty-thousand bucks,” Howie muttered, staring into his almost empty glass. “And you know what you get for all that dough? Not a cure, that’s for sure. Probably just the symptoms slowed down for a couple of months and a few extra months at the back end, but for part of that time she wouldn’t even be here. She’d have to be in the treatment center.”

 

“Where is it?”

 

“Down there someplace. In Mexico. Guayamas. Mazatlan. I don’t remember, really. It’s one of those little beach towns.”

 

“Do you remember the name of the facility?”

 

“She didn’t go there,” Howie said very slowly and carefully as if explaining a difficult concept Ali was too stupid to understand. “She wasn’t ever going to go there. I told her flat out that we couldn’t afford it, and that was the truth. Besides, the whole thing was a rip-off and a fraud. Why should I remember the name?”

 

He was starting to sound surly, and Ali decided it was time to try a different approach. “I talked to Andrea Rogers,” she said.

 

“I did, too,” Howie said. “She’s broken up about this, poor woman, completely broken up.”

 

“Andrea says she talked to Reenie after her doctor’s appointment on Thursday,” Ali said. “According to her Reenie said she was planning to stop by the bank on her way home. Do you have any idea which one?”

 

“B of A,” Howie managed. “The detective already asked me all about it. I tried to help. Called the bank to check, but there wasn’t any activity on Thursday afternoon—not on any of our accounts or on any of our credit cards, either. That’s not true. She was at a Hallmark store in Scottsdale, but that was before her appointment not after it. But as far as her doing something in a bank branch? Nada! Nothing! Zippo!”

 

He smiled wryly and poured himself another drink.

 

“Tell me about the note,” Ali said. “What was it like?”

 

“I already told you . . .”

 

“I mean what kind of paper was it on?”

 

“Paper?” Howie asked with a scowl. “Regular computer paper.”

 

“So it was done on a computer?” Ali asked.

 

“Didn’t I just say that?” he asked irritably. “Yes, it was written on a computer and printed on ordinary computer paper. They found it folded up and stuck in a crack between the seat and the frame. How it kept from flying out, nobody knows. If it had fallen out into the snow it probably never would have been found because it was white, you see.” He paused and then looked at Ali. “Why do you want to know?”

 

How long had Reenie and Howie been married? Ali wondered. Ten years at least. So how was it possible that he knew so little about his wife? Reenie had been to a Hallmark store that day. She would have found a card, the perfect blank card, and used that to say her good-byes.

 

“So she must have gone back to the office after all,” Ali murmured. “After Andrea left for the day. Did they find the file on her computer?”

 

“No, Farris—that’s the detective—said she probably deleted it after she printed it. They’re sending the computer off somewhere. Phoenix, I think. He said something about scanning the hard drive for recently deleted files. But I’m sure that’s why she did it the way she did. To show me. All I can say, though, is, thank God she left the note. If it hadn’t been for that I’d probably be in jail tonight, instead of sitting here at home drinking scotch.”

 

Ali had never liked Howard Bernard much. She’d tried to get along with him, for Reenie’s sake. For friendship’s sake. But it was hard to endure this rambling and maudlin exercise in self-pity especially since he was clearly far more sorry for himself than he was for Reenie. Or the kids.

 

A pair of headlights turned into the driveway, an engine switched off, and a car door opened and closed.

 

“Hey,” Howie said, brightening suddenly. “Looks like somebody’s stopping by after all.”

 

Clearly pleased, he struggled to rise from the sofa, but before he had time to shamble across the room, a key turned in the lock and the overhead light switched on. To Ali’s amazement, a young dark-haired woman stepped into the room, closing the door behind her as if she owned the place.

 

“Howie,” she said, meeting him halfway across the room and giving him a kiss that was anything but neighborly. “Sorry I’m late.”

 

Over Howie’s shoulder, the woman must have caught sight of Ali. “Oh,” she said quickly, extricating herself from Howie’s drunken embrace. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you had company. I should probably go.”

 

“No problem,” Howie said. “No problemo! This is Ali Reynolds, an old friend of the family come by to pay a condolence visit and buck me up,” His slur was worse now. “And this is Jasmine, Ali. Jasmine Wright. She’s a student of mine—an excellent student, by the way—one of my doctoral candidates.”

 

Jasmine’s name registered in Ali’s hearing and heart on the exact same frequency as April and Charmaine’s had. And the look on Ali’s face was most likely something close to absolute fury.

 

A doctoral candidate with her own key to Reenie’s house! Ali thought. How very convenient!

 

Jasmine Wright—Jasmine Wrong as Ali chose to think of her—was fairly tall and willowy, but curvy in all the right places. She had olive skin, dark eyes, and very white teeth. Her skintight Spandex top ended a good six inches above her equally tight and low-cut jeans. She didn’t look like any history major Ali ever remembered meeting, and as a package she was way more than a balding, paunchy, and married history professor could have expected—or deserved.

 

“Ali Reynolds,” Ali said. Plastering a phony smile on her face, she stood and extended her hand in greeting. “Reenie and I were friends from high school on.”

 

Howie launched off into his own unnecessarily expansive explanation. “Ali was Reenie’s best friend,” he enthused. “Can you believe it? She came all the way over from California to help out. The kids are in Cottonwood with Reenie’s folks, and since I didn’t know for sure what was going to happen today—if they were going to let me go or not— Ali was kind enough to take the kids’ cat home with her. Sam, you know Sam, don’t you?”

 

Jasmine nodded.

 

Why the hell am I stuck with Sam? Ali wondered suddenly. Surely someone else—somebody with a key to the house, for instance—could easily have stopped by to feed and check on Samantha.

 

While an oblivious Howie droned on, the two women regarded one another with wary speculation.

 

“How very nice,” Jasmine said with a careful smile, but in a tone that clearly meant she didn’t think it was nice at all.

 

“Under the circumstances,” Ali said coolly, “it’s the least I could do.”

 

“The usual?” Howie asked, turning to Jasmine with an effusive smile. In return, Jasmine allowed him a curt nod. He headed for the kitchen, leaving the two women alone.

 

Entirely at home, Jasmine seated herself with casual grace on the hassock next to where Howie had been on the couch. The fact that she seemed totally comfortable and at ease in Reenie’s house—in Reenie’s living room, in a place whose every decoration Reenie had personally chosen and installed—sent Ali into a blazing fury.

 

“All of this has been very hard on him,” Jasmine said.

 

“It’s hard on everybody,” Ali said pointedly. “Most especially Reenie.”

 

Howie returned to the living room carrying a glass of white wine, which he handed to Jasmine, slopping the top third of it along the way. Then he sat back down heavily, picked up his own glass, and poured a little more scotch for himself. “There’s chicken in the kitchen,” he said. “Somebody must have brought it. Want some?”

 

Jasmine shook her head. Ali did a slow burn. Was Howie so drunk he didn’t even remember who had brought the KFC?

 

“Funeral’s Friday,” he said to Jasmine. “Did I tell you already?”

 

She nodded. “You told me,” she said.

 

“Oh,” he muttered. “Sorry. And the kids are in Cottonwood?”

 

Jasmine nodded again.

 

She already knew that, too, Ali thought. Long before she unlocked the door and came inside. That’s why she’s here, you dunce, for a quick roll in the hay while the kids are safely out of the way and so’s your wife.

 

Howie was drunk and repeating himself. If Jasmine wanted to hang around with someone that stewed, that was up to her, but Ali had reached the limit of her endurance. She rose to her feet. “Since you have someone here to keep you company,” Ali said, “I should probably go.”

 

“So soon?” Howie muttered, but he didn’t bother trying to get up. Considering his condition, Ali knew that was just as well. Jasmine made no pretense of objecting to Ali’s departure.

 

“I suppose I’ll see you on Friday?” Ali asked her.

 

“Yes,” Jasmine said. “I’ll be there.

 

Ali hustled herself out the door before she could say or do anything more—before she slugged Howie in the kisser and knocked Jasmine Wright onto her curvy little butt. Neither was an acceptable option.

 

As Ali drove away, she seethed with anger. While Reenie was busy dying, Howie had been screwing around. Do the cops know about this? she wondered. But more than that, more than anything, she wondered if Reenie had known.

 

It would have been tough enough dealing with a terminal illness, but if she had somehow discovered Howie’s betrayal as well . . . With all that going on, maybe committing suicide wasn’t such a stretch after all.

 

Ali remembered what Andrea Rogers had said. “Not that I could have done anything to help, but at least we could have talked. She wouldn’t have been so alone.”

 

“Reenie, Reenie, Reenie,” Ali whispered under her breath as she drove. “If you didn’t call Andrea, why didn’t you call me?”

 

Chapter 10

 

Back at the hospital, Ali learned that with Bob out of surgery and safely in the recovery room, her mother was ready to head back to Sedona. Ali offered to walk her out to the car.

 

“Are you all right?” Edie asked. “You look upset.”

 

“I am upset,” Ali said. “I just met Howie Bernard’s girlfriend.”

 

“Oh, that,” Edie said.

 

Ali was shocked. “You mean you knew about it?”

 

“There were rumors floating around,” Edie responded.

 

“How long?” Ali asked. “Since before Reenie was diagnosed?”

 

Edie nodded. “Long before that,” she said. “I think I heard about it sometime last fall. From Jody Sampson, one of the ladies in Garden Club. Jody claimed one of her friends had run into him at a hotel down in Phoenix when she went there for a flower show. Howie was there with one of his students. According to Jody, what the two of them were studying had nothing to do with history.”

 

“Did Reenie know about it?” Ali asked.

 

“Did you know about what Paul was doing?” Edie asked, effectively turning the question back on her daughter.

 

It was far too easy for Ali to put herself in Reenie’s place. Easy to see how, with two small children in the picture, Reenie might have chosen to turn a blind eye on her husband’s infidelity in order to protect Matt and Julie; in order to keep from rocking the boat. But once it was so blatant that she couldn’t ignore it any longer, she had gone looking for an attorney. And, according to Andrea, Reenie had canceled the appointment as soon as her diagnosis was confirmed.

 

“See you tomorrow,” Ali said without answering. “Drive carefully.”

 

With Chris there to look after his grandfather, Ali left the hospital shortly thereafter as well. All the way home she stewed about the fact that Edie had known more about what had been going on in Reenie’s life than Ali had.

 

What about the cops? Ali wondered. Did Detective Farris know about Jasmine Wright? Was that one of the reasons the interview with Howie had taken the better part of the day?

 

In the end, though, Farris must have accepted the supposed suicide note at face value. He had let Howie go; let him come home. Maybe Howie had some kind of airtight alibi. But does Jasmine? Ali wondered. And isn’t the female of the species deadlier than the male?

 

And now that Ali knew about Jasmine, what was she going to do about her? In the blog, Ali had openly discussed the various aspects of Reenie’s situation, but she couldn’t very well add Jasmine into the mix. Ali already knew that Matt had read the newspaper account of his mother’s death and had come up with the information that Reenie had most likely committed suicide. Wasn’t it possible that Matt was computer savvy enough that he might stumble upon Ali’s blog as well. That meant she had to avoid making any mention of what she had learned this evening, including the existence of Howie Bernard’s mistress. Ali was determined that, if Matt and Julie were ever to learn about their father’s infidelity, the information would have to come from someone other than Ali Reynolds.

 

She was still half mad about being unnecessarily stuck taking care of Sam when she let herself into the house and found the cat draped comfortably across the back of the sofa as if she owned the place. Same blinked her one eye, but she didn’t move from her perch, and Ali left her undisturbed.

 

Ali undressed and went to bed but not to sleep. She was still too wound up by everything she had learned. Besides, her body had spent decades living on the night shift. A sleepless hour and a half after going to bed, Ali finally gave up, crawled back out of bed, and busied herself at the computer, writing the next morning’s post.

 

cutlooseblog.com Wednesday, March 16, 2005

 

Yesterday’s Ides of March wasn’t a whole lot better for me, my family, and for my dead friend’s family than a long-ago Ides of March was for Julius Caesar. It started out with me visiting Reenie’s children. It ended with my father in the hospital undergoing multiple surgeries to set broken bones after a serious snowboarding accident. Dad’s going to be fine, but he’s also going to be off work for the foreseeable future.

 

My parents have owned and run the Sugarloaf Café in Sedona, Arizona, for as long as I can remember. My father is in charge of the kitchen. My mother does the baking before the restaurant opens, then she switches roles and waits tables. Since my mother is standing in for my dad, someone has to stand in for her.

 

When I was in high school and college I waited tables at the Sugarloaf. Since they’re in desperate need of a pinch hitter at the moment, I’ve volunteered. That means I’m going to have to rise and shine very early in the morning, and I don’t know how well I’m going to do. Check with me tomorrow afternoon. Make that THIS afternoon. And if I don’t have enough energy left over to log on to cutloose in the foreseeable future, don’t be surprised.

 

Posted 12:05 A.M. by AliR

 

She went back to bed after that and still couldn’t sleep. Lying there her mind mulled over all she had learned. From what Howie had said, it sounded as though the investigating police officers were more than happy to latch on to the suicide theory and be done with it. But Ali wasn’t.

 

The very fact that Reenie had been exploring the treatment program in Mexico—fraudulent or not; effective or not—only served to reinforce what Ali already believed: Reenie’s determined intention had been to fight ALS with everything she had and with every weapon at her disposal.

 

Regardless of whether or not Reenie had known about Jasmine Wright’s cozy relationship with Howie, it must have been galling for her to have Howie tell her that they simply couldn’t afford the proposed treatment.

 

Parsimonious   bastard!   Ali   thought.   Howard Bernard was looking out for Howard first and foremost. What was good for his bank account was good for him, regardless of what was good for Reenie. It would leave him that much more to spend on Jasmine later on.

 

And who the hell is Jasmine Wright anyway? Ali wondered. Where does she come from? And how much of a proprietary interest does she have in Howie Bernard’s future?

 

That brought Ali back to the note. The printed note. A note with no corresponding document file on Reenie’s computer. If it was printed, that meant it wasn’t signed. Anyone could have written it, printed it, and concealed it in Reenie’s car. Two people stood in the way of that note being automatically accepted as the gospel—Andrea Rogers and Ali Reynolds. But Andrea had already tried stating her objection only to be soundly ignored by Detective Farris. That means he probably won’t listen to me, either, Ali thought.

 

Eventually, Ali drifted off to sleep. But she didn’t sleep well. In her dreams Howie and Jasmine were getting married, and Ali was the matron of honor but the flower girl came down the aisle tossing out handfuls of bread-and-butter pickles instead of rose petals. That dream was still close to the surface of Ali’s consciousness when the alarm sounded less than three hours later. Even though it felt like the middle of the night and she was more tired now than when she went to bed, Ali couldn’t help laughing as she made her way into the shower. The last time she ever remembered dreaming about pickles, she had been pregnant with Chris.

 

Dressed, showered, and determined, Ali pulled into the Sugarloaf at six on the dot. Clearly Edie had made it up at four since the first thing Ali noticed as she stepped out of the Cayenne was the enticing aroma of freshly baked sweet rolls.

 

“You made it,” Edie said with a smile as her daughter entered through the back door. “Extra sweatshirts are in the locker in the employee rest room.”

 

Two minutes later, dressed in a sweatshirt two sizes too large for her, Ali picked up her order pad and a coffeepot and walked through the swinging door into her past—a past she had never expected to revisit.

 

By nine o’clock in the morning, her feet were killing her. That was about the time Detective Dave Holman slipped onto the end stool at the counter. “Heard about your dad,” he said, as Ali poured coffee into his cup. “Is he going to be all right?”

 

“Eventually,” Ali said. “But he’s got bones broken in one ankle and in the other leg, too. In other words, he’s going to be off work for some time.”

 

“And you’re pitching in?”

 

Ali nodded.

 

“Isn’t that a bit of a come-down for you?’ he asked.

 

Ali bit back a sharp remark. “No,” she said coolly. “I believe it’s called stepping up. What’ll you have?”

 

Ali had thought that she might mention what she had learned about Howie and Jasmine Wright to the detective the next time she saw him. Once he made that comment, however, she wasn’t about to tell him anything. If the cops didn’t already know Howie was screwing around on Reenie, too bad. As Dave had pointed out the previous day, he and Ali were on opposite sides of the fence and unlikely to be either friends or allies.

 

It turned out to be a very long day. By the time Ali got home at three in the afternoon, she was dead tired. She lay down on the bed, planning to put her feet up for a few minutes. She awakened to a ringing telephone two hours later. In order to answer the phone Ali had to reach across Samantha, who was cuddled up next to her.

 

“I’m headed up to Flag to see your father and to give Chris a break,” Edie said. “Want to ride along?”

 

Ali laughed. “Obviously you’re a whole lot tougher than I am,” she said. “My feet are killing me. I came home, dropped onto the bed, and fell sound asleep.”

 

“I’m used to it,” Edie told her. “That makes all the difference.”

 

“Do you need me to ride along?” Ali asked. “I’ll come with you if you want me to.”

 

“I’m perfectly capable of driving myself back and forth to Flagstaff,” Edie told her. “I’ve been doing it for years. Besides, you sound beat. You should probably stay home.”

 

Feeling guilty, Ali allowed herself to be convinced. Once off the phone, she forced herself off the bed and into the shower. Only then, did she go near her computer:

 

Today has been a day for going back to my roots and for remembering any number of things that I didn’t know I’d forgotten. There’s the light, fluffy texture of my mother’s award-winning sweet rolls and the aroma of bacon, eggs, and hash browns cooking on a hot grill. There’s the heady smell of coffee when the hot water first hits the grounds. There’s the feeling of relief when the last customer has finally walked out the door, the cash register has run off the day’s receipts, and the last bag of trash has been hauled out to the Dumpster.

 

But the main thing I had forgotten, was just how hard the work of running a restaurant can be. Waiting tables in even a small-town diner is hard on your feet and on your back. It’s also hard on your spirit. Doing it again after all this time has given me a whole new appreciation of what my parents and their former partner, my aunt Evie, have done all their adult lives, keeping alive the restaurant my grandmother started more than fifty years ago.

 

Working in the Sugarloaf today has also made me value anew the work done by countless people in the food service industry all over this country. They’re the men and women who every day, morning and evening, greet their customers cheerfully and courteously. In the process of serving whatever food has been ordered, they also serve up something else. Along with bacon and eggs and hash browns, they dish up human connections and spiritual sustenance.

 

Being in the restaurant today was going back to my roots in another way, too. I was there as Bob and Edie Larson’s daughter and not as some distant member of the media elite. Sedona is a small town. People who came in today gave me a break when I was slow to deliver their food. They understood and forgave the fact that my waitressing skills are more than a little rusty. Somehow they all knew that my father’s been hurt, my mother needs help, and I was there to give it. I think my mother thought I’d consider the work beneath me. I know at least one of my customers thought so as well. But I’m comfortable being “daughter” at the moment. It suits me, and I’m glad I can be here to help.

 

Posted: 5 P.M., by AliR

 

With Samantha beside her on the couch, Ali began reading through the e-mailed comments that had come in since she had last checked.

 

Dear Ali,

 

When I used to see you on the news, I always thought your life was perfect. Now I know it isn’t. Mine isn’t either. Take care.

 

NoName

 

Dear Ms. Reynolds,

 

I was five when my dad took off and left my mother with three kids to raise on her own. I remember her telling me, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” I never understood quite what that meant back then, but I do now. And she was right. We got along just fine. You’ll be fine, too. By the way, we have the same name except I have two Ls and you only have one.

 

Allison

 

Dear Mrs. Reynolds,

 

I married my husband in the Temple, for now and all eternity. He has a girlfriend, too. I cry myself to sleep every night. I don’t know what I did to cause it, but I won’t give him a divorce, not ever. And you shouldn’t either. What God has put together, let no man put asunder.

 

Rhonda

 

It’s not just men. My wife had an affair with her professor. When she told me about it, she was laughing like she thought it was funny. I got so mad I put my fist through the wall. She called the cops and told them I was going to hit her. I wasn’t, but she filed a restraining order against me. Now she has the house, and I can’t even see my kids. I’m back home and living with my parents.

 

Alan

 

Ali paused a long time over that one. Was it possible that Jasmine Wright was married and this was a message from her husband? No, Ali decided, finally. That would have been too much of a coincidence, but it was interesting to have Alan’s point of view and to realize that male victims of infidelity suffered just as much as their female counterparts did. The big difference for men was that they had fewer places to go to unload their troubles. They were expected to tough it out no matter what.

 

He gets to unload here, Ali thought, and shipped Alan’s comment to The Forum.

 

Dear AliR,

 

Once you’re unfortunate enough to step into the world of ALS you’ll find it’s a very small one. It’s like you get on a road that only runs in one direction. When you start out, you meet others who are following the same path. You ask them for directions and suggestions, so you’ll know what to expect along the way. Some people travel the road faster than others, so someone who started out late may leapfrog ahead of someone who was diagnosed earlier.

 

You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but my sister, Lisa Kingsley, knew your friend Reenie. They met in an ALS chat room. At the time Reenie’s diagnosis hadn’t been confirmed, but she was looking for options. She wanted to know about the treatment Lisa was taking. It was very expensive, but I believe it helped Lisa for a while and I think she was encouraging Reenie to try it.

 

Lisa is gone now. I know you’re grieving over your lost friend, but I can’t help but think that perhaps Reenie made the right choice—for her, anyway. Living with ALS is hell. So is dying of it.

 

You and Reenie’s family have all my best wishes and sympathy.

 

Louise Malkin Lubbock, Texas

 

Ali read through that one several times, blinking tears from her eyes as she read. Finally, rather than posting it, she simply wrote back.

 

Dear Louise,

 

Thanks for being in touch, and thanks for your kind wishes. And please accept my condolences on the loss of your sister.

 

I’m curious about the kind of treatment Lisa was receiving and where. Can you tell me anything about it? I asked Reenie’s husband but he wasn’t able to tell me much other than he thought it was based somewhere in Mexico.

 

Regards, Ali Reynolds

 

The next e-mail had no salutation and no subject line.

 

You are a bitch. Why would anyone want to hear what you think about anything? You want other women to be just like you and the one who threw her poor husband’s remotes into the water. You must think that was a cute trick even though her husband probably had to work a long time to earn that equipment and she wrecked it just like that. I wouldn’t let my two-year-old get away with that let alone my wife.

 

How dare you print such crap? How many women, with good, caring husbands, read your stupid blog and decide it’s time to take their children and run? If my wife ever did that, I would beat her within an inch of her life.

 

Speaking of my wife. I know she has been visiting your site and you are putting bad ideas in her head. If she tries to leave me, I swear I’ll come looking for you. Someone needs to pull the plug on you just like they did on your friend.

 

Watching

 

A chill passed over Ali’s body as she read the words, and the fear she felt must have communicated itself to Samantha. The cat stopped purring abruptly, raised her mangled head, and peered warily around the room.

 

Ali read through the message again. This wasn’t the first time she had received a written threat. You couldn’t be in the news business in this day and age without people sending threats filled with vulgar language and simmering hatred.

 

For years Ali had driven home late at night, traversing LA’s freeways at a time of day when there were plenty of nutcases on the road. She had taken the course work necessary to be given a license to carry, and she had her own slick little Glock 26 stowed in the bottom of her bright pink Coach handbag. It was there primarily because, at the time she and Chris were loading the Cayenne for the trip to Sedona, she hadn’t taken the time to sort out the contents of her purse. Right now, though, she was glad it was there, and she was grateful that she’d spent time at a shooting range learning how to use it.

 

Ali glanced around the room and wondered about the thickness of the walls in Aunt Evie’s manufactured home. Would they stop a bullet? she wondered. And what about the hollow core metal door? It had once seemed substantial enough, but now it looked lightweight and vulnerable. Would it be strong enough to withstand the charge of someone trying to push his way into the house?

 

It was one thing to receive that kind of threat when you were housed in a television station with security guards stationed all around and with cement bollards blocking the sidewalk entrances. And you didn’t worry that much when you lived behind the tall electronically controlled gates of Paul Grayson’s wall-enclosed mansion on Robert Lane, either. But when you and your son were staying alone in a mobile home parked at the very edge of town, high on an Arizona mountainside . . .

 

Ali understood that some of the people issuing those threats were nothing more than harmless kooks venting their spleens in a media world destined to ignore them. But others were definitely dangerous. Ali hadn’t the slightest doubt that Watching was one of the dangerous ones.

 

Her next thought was to delete Watching’s message and simply let it go, but after a moment of consideration, she didn’t do that, either. Somewhere in the blogosphere was a defenseless woman with a two-year-old baby who was living with a very dangerous man—a man who was busily tracking the websites she visited and the messages she sent and received in the presumed privacy of her personal computer.

 

Through the years Ali had done numerous special appearances for YWCA events and for organizations dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence. As a result she had learned far more about the subject than she wanted to. Ali knew, for example, that the most dangerous time for abuse victims is just before or just after they make the decision to leave. That’s the moment when, valid protection orders be damned, women are most likely to be slaughtered by their abusive mates.

 

And the mother of that two-year-old, deep in the misery of her awful marriage and desperately weighing her options, would have no clue that her husband knew exactly what she was doing, down to the last betraying keystroke.

 

That left Ali no real choice. She had no idea what the woman’s name was or where she lived. Ali had no way of knowing if the woman in question was one of the blog correspondents whose words she had posted on the Web. Even though Ali knew the woman’s e-mail address, writing to her directly would be far too risky. If Watching found something from Ali in his wife’s incoming mail, he’d probably go berserk. On the other hand, if she posted Watching’s e-mail to The Forum, there was a chance that perhaps the woman would read it and recognize it for what it was—a direct threat to her and to her child.

 

Ali shipped Watching’s e-mail to The Forum and posted her own accompanying comment:

 

On the day we take our wedding vows, most of us naively assume that our marriage really will last forever. We truly believe that whatever traps and problems that befall other couples and lead them to divorce courts won’t happen to us. Because we’re different. Because we REALLY love each other. Sometime later reality sets in and things go wrong. And what we thought didn’t matter to us—staying out late with the guys, keeping in touch with old flames, becoming surly and controlling—turns out to matter a great deal.

 

And once things do go wrong, bad marriages can be divided into two subcategories—survivable and deadly. Survivable bad marriages are where you come out with your kids, maybe some child support, and—hopefully—a shred of self-respect. The deadly ones are just exactly that—deadly. That’s because one of the partners isn’t prepared to let the other one go. One of these twisted individuals would rather see his (and yes, most of the people in this category are male) mate dead than see her living happily ever after with some other person.

 

That kind of possessiveness exists in a world where everything is “my way or the highway.” Men like that enforce their iron will with ugly words and iron fists or else with knives or loaded weapons.

 

There are places where women in marriages like that can turn for help. You can find them listed under social services in your local phone book or on the Internet or at your local library. If you suspect that your husband or partner is tracking your computer keystrokes (The way the guy in the previous post is doing!), use the telephone. If he checks your outgoing cell phone calls, use a pay phone. And then, leave. Don’t pack a bag. That might tell him in advance that you’re planning on going, because that’s the most dangerous time for you and your children. Once you make up your mind, he’ll do whatever he can to stop you—and I do mean the most appalling of whatevers!!!

 

You’ll be a refugee—a displaced person. In order to start over, you’ll need documents. Stuff your important papers (children’s birth certificates and shot records, marriage license, driver’s license, social security cards, and divorce decrees) into your purse and then get the hell out. Trust me. Nothing you leave behind will be worth coming back for— NOTHING!! Go and don’t look back. It’ll be better for you and far better for your children.

 

Posted 7:52 P.M. AliR

 

Ali Reynolds had been reporting murder and mayhem for years, but always from a distance. Always from behind the camera with no personal involvement. Now, in a matter of days, that distance had dissolved. Suddenly she was drowning in other people’s lives, and not just Reenie’s suicide, either. The malevolence in Watching’s message left her almost paralyzed with fear—and not just for herself, for the man’s unsuspecting wife and child as well.

 

Within minutes, she heard the familiar announcement, “You’ve got mail.” There were two new messages. The first one was harmless enough:

 

Dear Ali,

 

I’m sorry for your loss. You were lucky to have Reenie for a friend, and she was lucky to have you. Please take care.

 

barbaram

 

The second one was almost as chilling as Watching’s had been:

 

Dear Ali,

 

Your post made me so sad. It reminded me of my lost friend, only her husband killed her. She was trying to get a divorce and had a protection order and everything, but he busted down the front door and shot her in front of her two little kids before she could get away. He’s in prison now, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

 

Louise in Omaha

 

In Omaha, Ali thought. She had somehow envisioned that all the responses were coming from southern California and were a direct result of her having left TV news. That fact that someone from Omaha was reading her blog was surprising. And the message, such a striking counterpart to Watching’s threat, left Ali feeling cold, alone, and very much afraid.

 

Chapter 11