CHAPTER 1
With her laptop asleep and perched virtually untouched on her crossed legs, Ali Reynolds stared into the flames of the burning gas log fireplace. She was supposed to be working on her blog, cutlooseblog.com, but on this chilly January morning she wasn’t. Or maybe she was. She was trying to think of what to say in today’s post, but her mind remained stubbornly blank-right along with her computer screen.
Ali had started cutloose in the aftermath of the sudden and almost simultaneous ends of both her television newscasting career and her marriage. Back then, fueled by anger, cutloose had been a tool for dealing with the unexpected bumps in her own life. To her surprise, what had happened to her was far more commonplace than she had known, and what she had written in cutloose had touched chords in the lives of countless other women.
Since the murder of Paul Grayson, Ali’s not quite, but nearly ex-husband, cutloose had morphed into something else entirely. For weeks now it had focused on grief and grieving-on the pit-falls and setbacks that lie in wait for those attempting to recover from the loss of a loved one or even a not-so-loved one. Ali had learned enough from her readers that she could almost have declared herself an expert on the subject if it hadn’t been for the inconvenient reality that she had zero perspective on the topic. She was still too deep in grief herself. As her mother, Edie Larson, would have said, drawing on her endless supply of platitudes: She couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
Because Ali was back in her hometown of Sedona, Arizona, grieving. She grieved for a phantom of a marriage that had evidently never been what she had thought it was and for a job she had loved but which had come with zero job security and no reciprocal loyalty.
Having people write to her and tell her that “someday you’ll be over it” or “it doesn’t matter how long it takes” wasn’t helping Ali Reynolds. She couldn’t yet tell what she was supposed to be over. Was she supposed to be over Paul’s death or over his many betrayals? How long would it take her to move beyond the shock of learning of the child-a little girl-her husband had fathered out of wedlock while he was still married to Ali? Ali hadn’t even known of Angelina Roja’s existence until after Paul’s death, and looking out for the financial welfare of the child and her mother had made tying up Paul’s estate that much more complicated.
There were times Ali felt downright resentful when she heard from widows-real widows whose husbands had been faithful, honorable men-who were struggling with their own overwhelming sense of loss. It was all she could do sometimes to keep from writing back to them and saying, “Hey, you, don’t you know how lucky you were? At least your dead husband’s not driving you nuts from beyond the grave.”
Sam, Ali’s one-eyed, one-eared sixteen-pound tabby cat, shifted uneasily on the back of the couch behind her and let one paw fall on Ali’s shoulder. Sam’s presence in Ali’s life was supposed to have been temporary. Sam had belonged to Matt and Julie Bernard, children of Ali’s murdered friend, Reenie Bernard. When the children had gone to live with their grandparents, Sam had been unable to join them and Ali had taken Sam in. Ali had never liked or particularly disliked cats. She had never thought about them much one way or the other-and Sam was anything but outgoing or sociable. But now, almost a year since Sam’s unexpected arrival, Ali had started thinking of the animal in terms of “my cat” rather than “their cat.”
Ali turned and scratched the seemingly permanent frown lines on Sam’s ugly forehead. “How about if you do the blog this morning?” she asked.
Sam simply yawned, closed her one good eye, and went back to sleep. When the doorbell rang, Sam leaped to life. Spooked by newcomers of any kind, the cat scrambled off the couch and disappeared from view. Ali knew from past experience that it would probably be several hours before she’d be able to coax the wary feline back out of hiding.
Putting the laptop on the coffee table, Ali hurried to the door. She was expecting Kip Hogan, her parents’ handyman, to drop off her refinished bird’s-eye maple credenza. That and the comfy leather sofa were the two pieces of furniture she had brought to her mountaintop mobile home with her from her former home digs in L.A. The top of the credenza had been damaged when someone had carelessly deposited a wet vase on it. Now, after careful sanding and varnishing, Ali’s father assured her that the wood had been restored to its former glory.
Except, when Ali looked out the peephole, Kip Hogan was nowhere in sight. The man on Ali’s front porch, a wizened but dapper-looking elderly gentleman in a suit and tie, was holding a small envelope. He looked somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. In the old days, growing up in small-town Arizona, Ali wouldn’t have hesitated at opening the door to a stranger, but times had changed in Sedona. More important, Ali had changed. She cautiously cracked the door open but only as far as the length of the security chain.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“Ms. Reynolds?” the man asked. He wore a brimmed leather cap, which he tipped respectfully in Ali’s direction.
“Yes.”
“A message for you, madam,” he said politely. Removing a soft leather driving glove, he proffered the envelope through the narrow opening. “From Miss Arabella Ashcroft.”
Ali recognized the name at once. “Thank you.” She took the envelope and started to close the door, but the man stopped her.
“If you’ll forgive me, madam, I was directed to wait for an answer.”
Using her finger, Ali tore open the creamy white envelope. It was made from expensive paper stock, as was the gold-bordered note card she found inside. Written across it, in spidery, old-fashioned script was the following: Dear Alison, Please join me for tea this afternoon if at all possible. 2:30. 113 Manzanita Hills Road. Miss Arabella Ashcroft.
A summons from Miss Arabella, one of Sedona’s more formidable dowagers, was not to be taken lightly or ignored.
“Of course,” Ali said at once. “Tell her I’ll be there.”
“Would you like me to come fetch you?” the messenger asked, gesturing over his shoulder at the venerable bright yellow Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud idling in Ali’s driveway.
“Oh, no,” Ali told him. “I can get there on my own. I know the way.”
And she did, too, despite the fact that it had been twenty-five years earlier when she had last had afternoon tea with Arabella Ashcroft and her equally daunting mother, Anna Lee, at the imposing Ashcroft home on Manzanita Hills Road.
Ali’s visitor bowed slightly from the waist and backed away from the door. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll tell Miss Arabella she can expect you.” He tipped his cap once again, turned on his heel, and marched away. Once he drove out of sight, Ali closed the door. Then, with both the note card and envelope in hand, she returned to the couch lost in a haze of memories.
On a Friday afternoon two weeks before Ali had been scheduled to graduate from Cottonwood’s Mingus Mountain High School, she had bounded into her parents’ diner, Sedona’s Sugarloaf Cafe, for her after-school shift. All through high school she had helped out by waiting tables after school and during Christmas and summer vacations. As she tied on her apron she spotted an envelope with her name on it propped up next to the cash register. There was no stamp or return address, so obviously it had been hand delivered.
“What’s this?” she had asked Aunt Evie, her mother’s twin sister and her parents’ full partner in the restaurant venture.
“It’s still sealed, isn’t it?” Aunt Evie had asked. “How about if you open it and find out?”
Ali had opened the envelope on the spot. Inside she had found a note card very similar to the one she had received just now: “Please join my daughter and me for tea, this coming Sunday, May 21, 2:30 P.M. at our home, 113 Manzanita Hills Road, Sedona, Arizona.” The note had been signed
“Tea!” Ali had exclaimed in disbelief. “I’ve been invited to tea?”
Taking the note from Ali’s hand, Aunt Evie examined it and then handed it back. “That’s the way it looks,” she said.
“I’ve never been invited to tea in my life,” Ali said. “And who all is going? Are you invited?”
Aunt Evie shook her head.
“Is anyone else I know invited, then?” Ali asked. “And why would someone my age want to go to tea with a bunch of old ladies in the first place?”
“You’ll want to go if you know what’s good for you,” Aunt Evie had said severely. “But this doesn’t give us
