Glancing at caller ID, Ali saw a Cottonwood number in the window. “Hello?”
“Is this Alison Reynolds?” a strange woman’s voice asked.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Nelda Harris, Haley Marsh’s grandmother. I found your business card on a table in the living room last night. I believe you must have stopped by to see her sometime yesterday afternoon.”
Great, Ali thought. Now I’ll probably be caught in the cross fire on this as well. “Yes,” she admitted. “I did stop by.”
“May I ask why?” Nelda asked.
“Haley didn’t tell you?”
“No, she didn’t, and that’s why I’m calling-to find out. As her guardian, I need to know what’s going on with her.”
“I came to offer her the chance of a scholarship, Mrs. Harris. A scholarship she could have used to attend any college of her choice. She turned it down. She says she wants to go to work for Target.”
“An Askins scholarship?” Nelda Harris asked.
“That’s right. It would have paid her way to virtually any school in the country. I suggested she might want to talk this over with you. She seems to be under the impression that she’s a burden to you somehow. She wants to make her own way in the world, and she’s afraid that going to school will mean you’ll be stuck with her and her little boy for that much longer.”
“Whatever would give her that idea?” Nelda demanded. “I never said she was a burden to me, or little Liam, either. I wouldn’t.”
“And I’m sure you didn’t,” Ali agreed.
“Liam,” Nelda said, “stop that. Come away from there.” Speaking into the phone once more, she added, “Do you believe in good and evil?”
For a moment Ali thought the woman might be referring to her granddaughter’s cute little toddler. “I’m not sure-” Ali began.
“Not just good and bad,” Nelda interrupted. “I mean real good and evil.”
Earlier in her life, Ali might have been able to answer that question clearly in the negative-at least so far as evil was concerned. But now that she had met and unmasked Arabella Ashcroft, now that she had seen beyond the skin-deep physical beauty of April Gaddis, the young woman who had come within hours of marrying Ali’s former husband, real evil did have a presence in her life, and often a very human face.
“Yes,” Ali replied at last. “I suppose I do. Why?”
“Liam, please. Grandma’s on the phone. Come here and be still for a moment.” Nelda sounded exasperated, as though the toddler was taking advantage of her being on the phone to get into all kinds of mischief.
“Let me ask you another question, Ms. Reynolds…”
“Please call me Ali.”
“All right, Ali. I know you said Haley turned down your offer, but if I could convince her to change her mind-if we could convince her-would the scholarship still be available?”
“She doesn’t actually have the scholarship at the moment,” Ali corrected. “When she said she wasn’t interested, I took her at her word. It’ll most likely be awarded to someone else.”
“Please,” Nelda said as though she hadn’t heard. “I’d really like to discuss this with you, but not right now, when Liam’s driving me crazy. I need to put him down for a nap, but once he wakes up, we could drive up to Sedona to see you.”
Ali looked around her house. Aunt Evie’s very breakable knickknacks were still scattered here and there, well within reach of a toddler. And then there was Sam. A temperamental cat who didn’t do well with most adult strangers would probably have a complete meltdown if faced with a busy-bee little boy. And if this house wasn’t kid-proof, the construction site at Manzanita Hills Road was even less so.
“I’ll tell you what,” Ali said. “Do you know where the Sugarloaf Cafe is?”
“Of course,” Nelda said.
“Great,” Ali said. “Call me at this number when you head out. I’ll meet you there. We can have lunch. My treat.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Nelda said. “Liam and I can eat before we leave home.”
“Don’t be silly,” Ali told her. “You said we need to talk. Eating lunch will give Liam something to do in the meantime.”
“You must know something about little boys.”
Ali smiled into the phone. “I had one of those once myself,” she said, laughing. “It’s like riding a bicycle. Some things you never forget.”
Ali had fixed her hair and makeup and was in the process of changing into something more suitable for lunch when her cell phone rang.
“Mr. Forester just called,” Leland Brooks reported. “He’s on his way here and says he needs to speak with you. He says it’s urgent.”
“All right,” Ali said. “I’m on my way. Is Jacky still there?”
“Mr. Jackson evidently had another engagement,” Leland said.
“Good news,” Ali said. Relieved, she headed back to Manzanita Hills Road. She stepped out of her Cayenne and was delighted when she heard the familiar whine of drills working inside the house. That meant that no matter what else was going on, wallboard installation was still moving forward.
Bryan Forester arrived bare seconds later. When he stepped out of his pickup, she was startled by his gray pallor. “Come on,” he said grimly, gesturing toward the picnic table. “We need to talk.”
He settled down at the table, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. Sitting opposite him, Ali was surprised. She remembered that Billy had mentioned something about Bryan taking up smoking again, but in all the months they’d worked together, she had never seen him with a cigarette.
“They fired me,” he said at last, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.
“Who fired you?”
“The people at the other two remodel jobs I was doing,” Bryan said. “They’re using the missing cabinet order as cover. They’re claiming I was trying to defraud them by charging for materials that were never ordered.”
“What does that mean?” Ali asked.
“It means both those jobs are shut down. My workers have been ordered off the two properties. Immediately. That’s just an excuse, though. The real reason is what happened to Morgan. As far as the people in this town are concerned, she’s dead, and I’m the abusive murdering husband who did it.”
He sounded so beaten and discouraged, Ali had no idea what to say. “I’m sorry,” she began, but he plowed on.
“You know, I put up with Morgan’s crap for years because I didn’t have a choice,” Bryan continued. “The world may have changed in a lot of ways, but not when it comes to divorce. If there are kids involved, fathers don’t get custody. Period, not unless the mother happens to be a drug-dealing crackhead, and sometimes not even then. So I put up with Morgan’s stunts, with all her whoring around and game playing, because I wasn’t willing to lose Lindsay and Lacy. I kept my mouth shut and lived with it. But now that she’s dead, all of a sudden people have decided I’m the one who’s at fault-I’m the one who must have killed her. That I, someone who’s never killed anything-who’s never even shot a bird with a BB gun-would murder the mother of my children.”
“I’m sure they’re shocked by what happened to Morgan,” Ali interjected. “We all are. They’re looking for someone to blame.”
“They’re blaming me!” Bryan insisted, his voice trembling with outrage. “People I’ve known all my life are saying awful things about me. They don’t say them to my face, of course. No one has guts enough to do that, but I’m not stupid. I’m getting the message loud and clear.”
“What do you mean?” Ali asked.
“I went to the bank just now, and the teller there treated me like crap. The same thing happened to me at the hardware store with a clerk I’ve done business with for years. It seemed to me that with my wife dead, people would be nice to me and might even offer a little sympathy. What a laugh. Instead, they treat me like a leper. Why? What happened to that bit about innocent until proven guilty? And what about the deputy who’s been following me around all morning? I’d be willing to bet he’s parked at the bottom of your driveway right this minute. What do they think I’m going to do, try to take off somewhere? Take my girls and go live in another country?”
