Sugarloaf again. Everything is clean as a whistle. You did a great job.”
“Now look what you’ve done,” Edie said, smiling at Ali. “You’ve turned your father into a cruise-loving monster. Who would have thought it?”
Certainly not Ali.
“Now sit,” her father ordered. “Let me show you the pictures. Edie already managed to download and print most of them.”
There were candid shots as well as a collection of standard cruise ship photos. One showed Bob and Edie coming on board and standing at the top of the gangplank. Another showed them dressed in formal attire. It was only the second time in her life that Ali had seen her father in a tux. A third showed them standing together on a sandy beach.
From the wide grins on their faces in the various photos, it was clear that Bob and Edie had been having a great time. They had some videos as well. Chris came in long enough to download those onto his iMac for all to see. Ali deemed the one of Bob attempting to dance the limbo and coming to grief in the sand as worthy of either YouTube or America’s Funniest Videos.
By the time Ali finally left Chris and Athena’s, it was later than it should have been. There was enough time to make the plane, but just barely.
Back at the house she found Leland pacing in the kitchen and checking his watch. Ali’s packed suitcase sat on the floor next to the door into the garage. “We don’t have much time,” he said, “but don’t forget. Both your Taser and your Glock need to be in your checked luggage.”
“Thanks,” Ali said. Without his timely reminder, she might well have forgotten.
When she had finished stowing both of those, Leland handed her a thick manila envelope. “Stuart Ramey from High Noon dropped this off a little while ago. I’m assuming you want to take it along as well.”
“Thanks,” Ali said, stuffing it in her purse. “Something to read along the way.”
But reading it along the way didn’t happen. She was beyond tired. The week’s hard work had taken a physical and mental toll. With Leland behind the wheel, she fell asleep almost as soon as she got in the car. She made it to Sky Harbor with just enough time to clear security before boarding her plane. Once the flight was airborne, she fell asleep again.
What Ali really wanted to do was collapse into her very own bed and sleep for twenty-four hours straight, but that wasn’t in the cards. She had told Velma Trimble and Camilla Gastellum that she was coming to see them, and she was. What kind of condition she’d be in by the time she got there was anybody’s guess.
Ali had made arrangements for a rental car to be waiting at LAX. Knowing she’d be arriving in the middle of the night, she had made a hotel reservation at the airport Hilton. By the time she collected her luggage and her car and staggered up to the hotel registration desk, she was just barely upright.
Ali fell into her unfamiliar hotel bed. Lying awake for a few short minutes, she was grateful that it was her mother who would be in charge of the Sugarloaf Cafe in a few short hours. Walking in Edie’s very capable shoes for just one week had left Ali exhausted.
She fell into a deep sleep. There may have been countless airplanes passing overhead and traffic streaming by outside, but Ali didn’t hear any of it. She was far too tired.
20
Salton City, California
At precisely 3:28 a.m. on Sunday morning, Florence Haywood smelled smoke. Flossie’s maternal grandmother had been a smoker, and she had died a gruesome death when she fell asleep while smoking in bed. Florence had been only six at the time, but that event had a lasting influence on her life. She was scared to death of house fires. Her husband, Jimmy, assured her that their motor home was completely safe, but Flossie remained unconvinced. She insisted that he replace the batteries in their smoke alarm every six months rather than once a year, just to be on the safe side.
For the past ten years, starting in November, she and Jim had driven their aging Pontiac down from Bismarck, North Dakota, so they could spend the worst five months of winter in their motor home near the Salton Sea. Their “affordable” RV lot was part of a mostly failed residential subdivision called Heron Ridge, where they had an electrical hookup, a concrete slab, and nothing else. Once a week they had to drive into town to empty the RV’s holding tanks.
The beach cabin closest to them belonged to Mark Blaylock. For several years, Mark had been the cabin’s sole sometime occupant. Up until a few months ago, Flossie and Jimmy had assumed he was single. In the past two months, however, his witch of a wife, a woman named Mina, had shown up. She had been living at the cabin more or less on a full-time basis ever since.
Flossie believed in being neighborly, and she had done her best, but Mina had rebuffed all of Flossie’s best efforts. She had taken over a plateful of freshly baked cookies. She had given cookies to Mark Blaylock on occasion, and she knew chocolate chip cookies were his particular favorite. Mina had accepted the plate but hadn’t bothered to invite Flossie inside.
She continued to be on good terms with Mark, but she had nothing further to do with his standoffish wife.
That Sunday morning, after pulling on her robe and ascertaining that there was no sign of fire inside their RV, Flossie went from window to window. Flossie’s recent cataract surgery had left her with something she had never had before-perfect 20/20 vision. Once she located the source of the flames, she could see quite clearly that Mina Blaylock was standing outside, wrapped in a coat, and tossing items into the already roaring fire burning in her husband’s trusty Weber grill.
Yes, there was definitely some wood smoke thrown into the mix. Mark Blaylock usually ordered a cord of mesquite each fall that was delivered to the far end of his lot. This year he hadn’t ordered new wood. Last year’s load was dwindling, but there was definitely a hint of mesquite in the smoke Flossie smelled.
But there was something else too. Flossie was old enough to remember how back in the old days before there were plastic trash containers at the end of every dirt road in America, people had been responsible for their own garbage. Many people, especially people living out of town, had maintained their own personal burning barrels. That’s exactly what this smoke smelled like-burning garbage.
The whole thing seemed odd. Flossie was tempted to go outside and ask Mina if everything was all right, just to see what she’d say, but then Jimmy woke up.
“Floss,” he called from the bedroom. “Are you coming back to bed or not?”
“Coming,” Flossie said. “I’ll be right there.”
21
Grass Valley, California
The call came into the Nevada County Emergency Communications Center at ten past eight on a cold but quiet Sunday morning. It was January in the foothills of the Sierras, but it was also unseasonably warm. It wasn’t snowing or raining, and the roads were relatively clear. The Saturday night drunks had all managed to make it home without killing themselves or anyone else.
Phyllis Williams was one of only three emergency operators working that shift, and she was the one who took the call. The enhanced caller ID system listed an out-of-state telephone number. There was no way for Phyllis to tell if the call was coming from a cell phone or a landline.
“Nine-one-one,” she said. “What are you reporting?”
The caller paused for a moment, as if uncertain what she should say. “It’s about my fiance,” she said finally. “He lives there in Grass Valley. I’m worried about him. I’m afraid something may have happened to him. He always calls me on Saturday night, but last night he didn’t. I’ve been calling and calling ever since last night. He doesn’t
